RufusAtticus

And that is your major problem. Requiring history to be simple will only set you up for intellectual failure. But if your so inclined let's look at some simple history.

• Evil Atheist Stalin killed millions of people because he rejected God.
• Hitler killed Jews because his relgion of evolutionism told him to.
• America was founded as a Christian nation.
• Using nuclear weapons was the only way to end WWII.

Ohh, that was enlightening. . . .

So the South was "evil" for slavery, but the US had no responsbility for it. Likewise, it wasn't "evil" to break our treaties and send a entire nations on death marches. The point is that no matter what problems you have with the South and CSA, those same problems exist for the rest of the country. If we should ban Confederate Symbols because they flew over slavery, then US symobls should be banned too. If it's as simple, why aren't you calling the US Flag and the nation it represents evil too?

We can't because there was no "the" cause. There were many issues and much history behind the regional polarization that lead up to the civil war. Sure the fuse was lit by slavery, but more complicated things put the fuse there in the first place.

Who knows what would have lit the fuse? What we do know is that the South wasn't the first to attempt seccession. New England states tried it in the early 1800s. Ever hear of the Hartford Convention? England had a civil war on much the same conflict as USA: aristocratic landholders versus merchant industralists. Yet that didn't involve slavery.

~~RvFvS~~

RufusAtticus

No need to deny it since you haven't provided any support for it. The only black confederate regiments that I am aware of were made of volenteers who fought because they were offered freedom.

wildernesse

ybnormal,

What do you think about my earlier question?

--tibac

ybnormal

wildernesse

Sorry, that I appear to be ignoring your questions, but I have this weird urge to resist sharing my feelings at the moment. I'll get over it soon tho. Thanks.

Puck

ybnormal,

Gosh, I don't even know how to reply to you without worrying that whatever I say will piss you off. I mean no harm in anything I say. I would only like to understand how others perceive things. I've taken the chance of talking about how things look from where I sit, hoping for other opinions that may give me more insight. I am well aware that I could be in error in some things. How can you change my way of seeing things if don't know where it's coming from and why? If you are a white woman from up north then I would understand that is how a white woman from up north might see things. If you are a black woman from down south, then I would understand how a black southern woman might see things.

I am not trying to convince you to believe how I do, I'm trying to ask for other perspectives by sharing mine. However, please don't mistake what I put on the table for discussion as putting my head on the chopping block.

You wrote:
What can that possibly have to do with this, other than to give you reason to ignore facts and aid your assumptions of "Why" I must be saying what I'm saying?

I have no fucking assumtions.

You wrote:
You're kidding, right? Are you certain exactly who is pissed off here? You Sir, are in error.

Assumptions, huh? I am a middle aged white woman. I found what I thought was a opportunity to learn some insight into how someone 'different' might look at something. Yeah, I'm pissed now. Pissed off at another opportunity lost.

southernhybrid

Since I started this thread for a far different purpose, I was surprised to see what it has become and would like to give my opinion. I'm not interested in debating here. This is just the way I see things.

I am a woman who was raised in the New York metro area but on the Jersey side. I've lived in the South for over thirty years and consider it my adopted home. I don't give a rat's ass about the history of the South except perhaps that it makes interesting reading material, and it demonstrates just how many obstacles the area has overcome. I'm much more interested in what the South has become. I feel that in many ways, the South is much more progressive and has done a much better job of dealing with racism than the North has. I continue to visit the North where all of my family resides and find attitudes there are often much more racist than the attitudes here. The main difference is that racist Northeners tend to keep their racist attitudes behind closed doors while doing everything in their power to keep their neighborhoods, schools and social institutions segregated. Naturally this varies from place to place. Large metro areas are usually more diverse than small towns and rural areas, just like in the South. I just don't see that there's been that much positive change in the North since I left it in 1971.

Interestingly enough, many African Americans are now moving back to the South, to their roots, because they have found that Blacks in the South have more economic opportunities and empowerment than Blacks in the North. 60 minutes did a piece on this very issue just two or three weeks ago.

Are all areas of the South more progressive? Of course not. In most rural areas, where educational levels are lower, and poverty and unemployment are higher, racism is alive and well, although even there things have changed significantly when you consider what these areas were like less than fifty years ago.

I travel the rural highways of South Georgia at least once a month. It's a beautiful place, with many gentle people. It's also a place of widespread poverty where many of the natives still suffer from the remnants of slavery. Of course there are many places in the US where poverty and ignorance prevail and the population is mostly White so there are many factors to consider when reviewing which conditions of the past have led to the social problems of the present. Regardless of the reasons, I think the important thing now is to look forward while continuing to find ways to improve the quality of living throughout the regions that share the dark history of slavery.

Quite frankly, I feel that people that bash the South, suffer from an insidious form of bigotry. They don't see what we've become but only where we've been. Two Southern cities that I have lived in, Raleigh, NC and Atlanta, Ga are among the most diverse places in the world. In both of these places I had neighbors of every race, and many ethnic backgrounds. To this day all of my Northern relatives live in typically white neighborhoods. They still believe in the delusion that minorities will lower their property values. I currently live in a small city at the Southen most edge of metro-Atlanta. In the past two years, we have had several minorites move into my previously all white, very conservative neighborhood. While not all of my neighbors found this quite the celebration of joy that I did, for the most part it hardly raised an eyebrow. We've come a long way from our distant past, and it's about time the rest of the country catches up with us.

Uzzah

Southernhybrid:

While I'll agree with you mostly on your points of larger cities in the south, I have to respectfully disagree with you on the more rural areas. My paternal grandfather lives in a small "town" called Pelham TN, in the valley of Monteagle Mtn. I am actually related to everyone that lives in Pelham as is the tradition in the south. And I have never seen a more racist place. The only way those people know how to call African Americans is by the "N" word. And is it suprising that not a single one lives anywhere near there?

Yes, the larger cities and the surrounding communities are not as racist, because they have a larger population of different races. With more exposure, comes more learning. However, when a black family is given the choice between living in Pelham TN, and living an hour away in Nashville, which do you think they'll pick?

I guess my point is that the large cities in the south has a large population of minorities because the rural areas have close to nil. Thus making racism all the more rampant.

Hell, I was in high school only 5-6 years ago and even then our schools were still "segregated".

Uzzah

frostymama

I have to agree about rural areas. When I lived in SW Virginia it was quite possibly the most racist area imaginable. They actually recruited for the Klan on the school buses. I got called all kinds of nasty names because I refused to agree with all ofthe ignorant crap that they spewed. There wasn't a single minority in my highschool the entire 4 years that I went there.

When I went to college I met a man who recounted a story about how he rode on his bike through this particular community where I had lived. He said it was like being in some bad horror movie. Everyone came out of their houses and glared at him. A couple of teenagers even started throwing rocks and kept screaming "N***** go home!"

Where I live now (city) seems to be a much less racist area that where I went to high school.

southernhybrid

Actually, the rural areas in most of Georgia have a population of about 30% Black. I know we have a long way to go but I don't think the South is all that much different from the rest of the country. That's really all the point I was making. It gets old hearing people from distant places tell us all the things wrong with us.

Last week I was in Dothan, Alabama, which is not exactly the center of the universe. We were eating lunch and next to us was a large table of young men. About half of them were White and half were Black. They were talking, laughing and obviously enjoying each other's companionship. I looked over and smiled to myself. That scene would have never taken place in the 50s or 60s when I was growing up. So, we have come a long way just in my lifetime. I think that's pretty amazing.

RufusAtticus

Frostymama & Uzzah,

Rural Appalachia is fundamentally different from the rest of the rural south. That is because there were never high slave concentrations there and thus there aren't many African Americans there now. That is why your experiences differ from Southernhybrid's.