A curiosity about the South, for people who live here

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

And to be fair, the vast majority of my experience in the south comes from tidewater Virginia, which seems to have done a better job of ditching the rampant racism than other places in the south I've been. But none of that changes my point, which is that simply falling back on the "southerners are racist rednecks" trope does nothing to advance the racial and cultural dialogue and, in a large-scale application, makes it a mortal-lock cinch that southerners are gonna cling even harder to their cultural cues (both good and bad) in the face of regional bigotry.

Nobody's saying "all southerners". I was born in Houston, FFS. Squiddy's in Florida of all places, Emo Howard mentioned being a southerner, there's a lot of us.
There's individuals and little pockets or enclaves or what have you, areas where it's better or worse. Austin strikes me as being better, generally, than a lot of places up north. But as a whole, yes, the south is worse.

I'd argue that neither Texas nor Florida are part of "The South". But that's beside the point. The point is that statements like "as a whole, the south is worse" are exactly what I'm talking about. Worse than what?

Worse than say, Massachusetts, where there's at least an effort or a veneer of tolerance.
Like I said earlier, there's at least some public outrage over racial incidents up there. I've seen it make the evening news when some kid painted a swastika, FFS. Down here, it's "STFU". Doing something about this stuff usually means you'd better move away from the place where it took place first.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I was right and EOT was wrong.  I need to stay out of this conversation.

It is going that way, isn't it?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I was right and EOT was wrong.  I need to stay out of this conversation.

It is going that way, isn't it?

GA states that the Klan is just a social group, and the fact that all-White juries never convicted them (after 1975, convictions have in fact occurred) proves both the fact that is only a social club, and that anyone who disagrees hates due process.

This is apparenly reasonable, and right on the mark.

I state that "based on my experience", my opinion is that a great number of people in the South walk around with a meme strapped to their forehead.

This "implies" that I am a bigot. 

In fact, anyone taking the side I have taken is "implied" to be a bigot, no matter what.  That being the case, there is precisely zero reason to talk about the subject, as absolutely nothing positive can occur.

[Freeky]

No it's the opposite.

Frustration: I see what everyone is arguing and can't explain suitably the difference withoutfeeling like I'm putting words in mouths.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I was right and EOT was wrong.  I need to stay out of this conversation.

It is going that way, isn't it?

GA states that the Klan is just a social group, and the fact that all-White juries never convicted them (after 1975, convictions have in fact occurred) proves both the fact that is only a social club, and that anyone who disagrees hates due process.

This is apparenly reasonable, and right on the mark.

I state that "based on my experience", my opinion is that a great number of people in the South walk around with a meme strapped to their forehead.

This "implies" that I am a bigot. 

In fact, anyone taking the side I have taken is "implied" to be a bigot, no matter what.  That being the case, there is precisely zero reason to talk about the subject, as absolutely nothing positive can occur.

But wouldn't that make them "implied" bigots for "implying" that we're "implying" that the inbred ignorant hillbilly stereotype applies to all southerners without exception?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I was right and EOT was wrong.  I need to stay out of this conversation.

It is going that way, isn't it?

GA states that the Klan is just a social group, and the fact that all-White juries never convicted them (after 1975, convictions have in fact occurred) proves both the fact that is only a social club, and that anyone who disagrees hates due process.

This is apparenly reasonable, and right on the mark.

I state that "based on my experience", my opinion is that a great number of people in the South walk around with a meme strapped to their forehead.

This "implies" that I am a bigot. 

In fact, anyone taking the side I have taken is "implied" to be a bigot, no matter what.  That being the case, there is precisely zero reason to talk about the subject, as absolutely nothing positive can occur.

Your response is perfectly reasonable. If GA is not trolling, I'm going to switch sides in this argument.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I was right and EOT was wrong.  I need to stay out of this conversation.

It is going that way, isn't it?

GA states that the Klan is just a social group, and the fact that all-White juries never convicted them (after 1975, convictions have in fact occurred) proves both the fact that is only a social club, and that anyone who disagrees hates due process.

This is apparenly reasonable, and right on the mark.

I state that "based on my experience", my opinion is that a great number of people in the South walk around with a meme strapped to their forehead.

This "implies" that I am a bigot. 

In fact, anyone taking the side I have taken is "implied" to be a bigot, no matter what.  That being the case, there is precisely zero reason to talk about the subject, as absolutely nothing positive can occur.

Your response is perfectly reasonable. If GA is not trolling, I'm going to switch sides in this argument.

If it is a troll, it's a seriously fucked up troll, which amounts to the same thing in my estimation.

[East Coast Hustle]

And to be fair, the vast majority of my experience in the south comes from tidewater Virginia, which seems to have done a better job of ditching the rampant racism than other places in the south I've been. But none of that changes my point, which is that simply falling back on the "southerners are racist rednecks" trope does nothing to advance the racial and cultural dialogue and, in a large-scale application, makes it a mortal-lock cinch that southerners are gonna cling even harder to their cultural cues (both good and bad) in the face of regional bigotry.

Nobody's saying "all southerners". I was born in Houston, FFS. Squiddy's in Florida of all places, Emo Howard mentioned being a southerner, there's a lot of us.
There's individuals and little pockets or enclaves or what have you, areas where it's better or worse. Austin strikes me as being better, generally, than a lot of places up north. But as a whole, yes, the south is worse.

I'd argue that neither Texas nor Florida are part of "The South". But that's beside the point. The point is that statements like "as a whole, the south is worse" are exactly what I'm talking about. Worse than what?

Texas fought for the Confederacy.

After the Republic, Sam Houston had sense enough to want Texas to join the Union but the yahoos pretty much said "fuck off". The rebels marched right past Sam's house in Huntsville on their way to fight and called him a traitor.

Bet old Sam had the last laugh, though. 

Fair enough. I always think of them as being a completely separate cultural entity from either the southeast, southwest, or midwest, but in the context of this conversation you're right, they should be considered part of the confederate south.

[East Coast Hustle]

And if GA is trolling, it's brilliant. But everyone seems to be latching onto the KKK comment (which was a total red herring) and letting that obscure the discussion about the several valid points that were raised. I'm much more interested in the political and cultural implications of secession and/or conquest & occupation of a failed secessionist state by the state it attempted to secede from than I am in making sure we all agree that the KKK were dicks.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

And if GA is trolling, it's brilliant. But everyone seems to be latching onto the KKK comment (which was a total red herring) and letting that obscure the discussion about the several valid points that were raised. I'm much more interested in the political and cultural implications of secession and/or conquest & occupation of a failed secessionist state by the state it attempted to secede from than I am in making sure we all agree that the KKK were dicks.

I'm missing the brilliance, it reminded me of Benacalypse more than anything.

But as far as Reconstruction affected the southern states, I think people are so prone to forget history (the US today in a lot of ways resembles Germany in the 1930's) or just tune it out and not bother to learn, that any lingering effects are likely sublimninal...the effects are there, but they're not consciously recognized.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I think a lot of the political turmoil we're in now is a direct descendant of the Civil War. Until the 1960s, the South was more or less viewed as retaining its own distinct culture (and it still does now, to a lesser extent). The North, the Midwest, and the West were more or less on the same page politically, with the South remaining a remnant of an older era. Racism of course existed throughout the country regardless of region (and don't let anyone tell you any different, because they'll be wrong), but the South alone was the home of its unique, brooding kind of ignorance.

Two things changed that. The Civil Rights movement, which more or less led to "Reconstruction Part II," reopened old wounds (festering and gangrenous though they were) and set the South off again. At first this was internal to the South (the Civil Rights Act mentions Southern states by name, where new voter legislation must be approved by the Department of Justice), and the rest of the country was more or less "well the South hates these rules, so they must be good ideas!" And they were, for the most part.

The other factor was Nixon's "Southern Strategy," where he won his bid for the Presidency by stealing large swaths of conservative Southern Democrats for the Republican Party by identifying with their sense of "family values." Ever since then, the Republicans have had to pay lip service to the very boisterous part of their political power base -- namely, Confederates. This maneuver not only poisoned the GOP with the same exact people (well, 20th-Century carbon copies of them, anyway) that the GOP fought to DEFEAT in the Civil War, but legitimized their ignorance, and scattered it all over America, where of course it took root and grew, because people everywhere are idiots and seem to think the only things that keeps them alive are beer, NASCAR, and bullshit.

Anyway, although the Democratic and Republican parties have switched sides, America today is still composed of the same two factions who fought the Civil War, and American political discourse is dominated by the same philosophical arguments that have provided the subtext for our politics since the time of the Articles of Confederation. We are still bickering with each other about what degree of influence the Government in general, and in particular the Federal Government, should have over our individual lives.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm much more interested in the political and cultural implications of secession and/or conquest & occupation of a failed secessionist state by the state it attempted to secede from than I am in making sure we all agree that the KKK were dicks.

I was talking about the effects felt by the occupying state.  Nobody invades anyone without being somehow influenced by the occupied state.  The response I received was a "poisoned well" argument...IE, that the implied argument was bigoted, therefore the argument as stated is invalid, regardless of what was stated and how.

I fail to see how this is different from the normal forms of political correctness.  If we are to have a discussion, then all points of view must be considered in broad daylight.  If, on the other hand, GA gets to make strawman cracks about my supposed disgust for due process, but legitimate observations are "automatically" bigoted, then there is no discussion.  It is instead preaching...Get in the choirbox or get out of the church, so to speak.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Also, I don't believe that GA was trolling.  I'm pretty sure GA has found a not-so-shiny, not-so-new cause; "Southern Pride™", aka, "Southern Partisanship".

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The Confederacy's victory in the Civil War merely masqueraded as defeat for 150 years. What the USA is today, is exactly what the CSA wanted to become.

If anyone should have seceded, it was the North. In 1972.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm much more interested in the political and cultural implications of secession and/or conquest & occupation of a failed secessionist state by the state it attempted to secede from than I am in making sure we all agree that the KKK were dicks.

I was talking about the effects felt by the occupying state.  Nobody invades anyone without being somehow influenced by the occupied state.  The response I received was a "poisoned well" argument...IE, that the implied argument was bigoted, therefore the argument as stated is invalid, regardless of what was stated and how.

I fail to see how this is different from the normal forms of political correctness.  If we are to have a discussion, then all points of view must be considered in broad daylight.  If, on the other hand, GA gets to make strawman cracks about my supposed disgust for due process, but legitimate observations are "automatically" bigoted, then there is no discussion.  It is instead preaching...Get in the choirbox or get out of the church, so to speak.

OK, I gotcha. I missed that part of it because the noise to signal ration ITT was getting a little squirrely. And yeah, I agree that that influence runs both ways. So essentially what we ended up with was a South that was so resentful that they took the one facet of their defeat that they could still exert any measure of control over (slavery/race issues) and took it to extremes, and a North that ended up absorbing too much of the bad meme that they created with their military victory.