I am Southerner and proud of it.
That is why is disturbs me to see people misconstrue what that means and view it as a negative. Many people in the North or out West tend to think of southerners as being uneducated, slack-jawed, lazy racist (I will only fess up to being lazy; and that is just me personally, not the whole south). And I will admit that there are some uneducated, slack-jawed, lazy racist in the South, but I have met people like that everywhere. I will admit that there is a contingent of uneducated, slack-jawed, lazy racist that tend to pick up screen-printed Northern Virginia Battle flags (Stars and Bars
), some bumper-stickers
about loving-it-or-leaving-it, and a stars and bars hat
at a truck stop and act like it is cool to be a racist and swear that "The South shal rise again(oddly, all the biggest Rebel Flag-Waving red-necks I have ever met were from PA). But there is a whole baby/bathwater issue we need to be careful about.A common misconception is the the Civil War was about slavery.* The truth is the plantation owners were not the majority of the people in the Rebel trenches. Many were small time farmers, tradesmen, merchants, teachers, or other middle to low class jobs. Their lively-hood was effected by plantations b/c they were in the region with them, but they were not the biggest factor in their daily lives, as the plantations were mostly self-sufficient and shipped most of their harvest over-seas or to the North for processing.
* I have taken a number of upper division college histories that touch on the causes of the Civil War, and an interesting thing to do is listen to the professor's view of the cause of the Civil War and figuring where they went to school. Without fail, every Prof from the North will put a bigger emphasis on slavery then states rights or economics, and profs from the South will give the states rights argument. feel free to disagree with my argument, but I looked at the evidence and it is clear to me.
So if the common soldier's income was not dependent on plantations' nearly-free labor staying nearly-free, why would they risk their lives fighting to keep the rich guys rich? (Its like me attacking Apple's headquarters to make Microsofts' market share increase, and I don't own stock). The reason was not that the North was forcing the South to free their slaves before the war, as they did not. Though the North had a history of trying to contain the expansion of slavery into the new territories and states, they made no attempts to end slavery until the Emancipation Proclamation, and that was more of a strategic move on the North's part with the aim of causing slave up-risings in the South.
The South felt that the North was using its majority political power in Washington to pass laws that were unfair economicly to the more sparsely populated South. The main complaint of the South was that the North put artificially high tariffs on raw materials grown in the South and shipped to Europe. By doing this the North made it more profitable for the South to sell their cotton and other crops to the them at a much lower price, rather then paying the excessive export tax to ship it to a raw material hungry Europe. This coupled with the dropping price of cotton was devastating to the South's economy and put many farmers into great debt to Northern money lenders. This was an abuse of power in the Souths eyes, and was the reason the Southern states decided to leave the Union (Thomas Jefferson's view on this- "Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. ").
The South felt that since each state joined the United States freely, they were allowed to leave the Union freely. The North did not want to see their personal cash-cow walk away from the herd, so they objected to this. The early events of the "War of Northern Aggression" were acted out in a series of calculated and logical maneuvers that lead to almost inevitable start of fighting in NC. There were a lot of tiny factors at play here, but I will not get into them here for the sake of the reader. The end result of this struggle was chaotic, horrible, and tragically unnecessary.
The Rebels fought valiantly, and often gave their lives fighting for a cause they felt was important- living free of oppressive government rule (why not? they did it once before and kicked England's ass). But the South's lack of supplies (North Blockaded the Southern ports and the South did not have a lot of factories to produce needed goods), much smaller population, and untested/newly formed government proved to be no match against the Northern forces. Since the North won the war, they got to write the history (a long standing tradition that is being stomped dead by the internet in modern times); and clearly they would not choose to write that the South's complaint was that it was being unfairly treated by the North controlled government. The North pinned the war on the pre-war "elephant in the room"- slavery... And so it is viewed today by all the children educated in the North. So it is only a short logic step to assume that anyone who wants to do anything as wrong owning another human# , must be at least one step closer to being a cave-dwelling troglodyte. So that is were the modern view of Southerners being stupid, inbreed (thats West Virginia if your looking), racist probably came from. "The South is so backward that they don't know any better. We should really pity them." This stigma is strongly seen in the media to this day (look at Family Guy for example).
#Not that I am defending this practice, but things like this being view out of their historical/social context are hard to rationalize in ones mind. Look at the Spartans, they had sex with little boys and everyone was ok with it. Different time, different place, different expectable activities.
===>an interesting side note: Plantations were not as profitable right before the Civil War as the once were. Maintaining the huge complex of buildings, laborers (free and slave), and overseers- was not efficient any more. Some plantations had already started to stop large scale agriculture in-favor of "share cropping" their land out to small poor farmers. When you merely collect a portion of the harvest from the people using your land, you are not responsible for their personal well being like you would be for slaves, which were expensive and belonged to the plantation (you treat your property nicer then others. Don't believe me? loan your neighbor/roommate something you like and watch how they treat it when they think your not watching). This system allowed the share-cropper to fall into a debt spiral with the owner, fueled by giving a large portion of the crops to the owner and buying farming supplies from the owner on credit. A system like this was later used through out the north in "company towns" built around factories and mines (I think these systems, though commonly viewed as better, are much more abusive then slavery. You make sure you keep your investment of a slave well fed and alive so they can work, you can just get another immigrant to replace one when you break him for no cost). Since this system was much more profitable and easier for the former plantation owners, it flourished through out the South after the Civil War. Given time, the South would have probably slowly converted to primarily share-cropping and abolition of slavery would have come on its own (though I am not sure how long that would have realistically taken)
And sure we have our share of uneducated, slack-jawed, lazy, racist Red-Necks; but New York has a lot of uneducated, slack-jawed, lazy, racist, Wanna-be-Gangsters; Texas has a lot of uneducated, slack-jawed, lazy, racist in cowboy hats; and California has a lot of uneducated, slack-jawed, lazy, racist who try to pretend they are not. Same assholes, different flavor.
So when I wear my "CS" belt buckle
, fly a Bonnie Blue flag
(both of which only a small portion of the population can identify and I have never had anyone get offended b/c of it), or admit that I am from the South- I don't want you to think I am sub-human and I think black people are property; I just want you to realize it is part of my family's history and I am proud of it. Their is much more shameful things to have in your family's history then willingness to die for freedom from oppression.
On a lighter note: We, the South, really do love our sweet-tea. Yankee
's don't really seem to get it, but it is kinda like the equivalent to pizza in New York Cit
y, beer in Chicago
, tacos in New Mexico
, or Sister dating in West Virginia
. It is a basic part of life and when it is done wrong you are going to have to bitch about it to someone.Here is a song sung by a middle aged white woman, who is loved by other middle aged white women, about the brown water the South loves so much. (get a load of her audience, there is not a single man, or a woman under the age of 35 in it)
***Update: get a load of this thing i found will looking for pics. Thought it was interesting.
