I was born and raised in the deep South and I am proud of my region of this great nation

[Abu Pepe]

I am as culturally southern as they come, except for my politics. I could bore you all day with what I like about the South. What I dislike about the South is the identification with and emotional investment of some in our most disgraceful period. My 3rd great grandfather never owned a slave but the horrible hardship he endured at Vicksburg was on behalf of the slave owning aristocracy. He didn't think so sure just like Gulf War vets didn't own oil well or felt they were fighting for oil companies.

The US Government should have embarked on a de-confederatization program like what we did in Germany after WWII with the Nazis. Confederate leaders went back and became governor's and senators again. They should have been hung and their property seized. Southerners today should look at those years the way Germans do the 30s and 40s - with shame.

[Hoyt]

1. But too many of them don't look at that period with shame. That's why I'm a Southerner who has no

problem with anyone bashing ignorant white wingers, even if it taints those of us who aren't like that.

[Abu Pepe]

2. Me neither. But so many were brainwashed in Southern

Public schools that taught them slavery was just a side bar to the whole thing. They think the Dixie Swastika (as I call it) stands for sweet tea, cornbread and good manners as opposed to human misery. The are fucking wrong and I have never fail to point it out.

[Hoyt]

6. You have a point. I've told all I know that the American version of the Swastika id a symbol of hate

They know, they just don't care because they are white wing bigots.

Love your sweet tea . . . . . . phrase.

[JI7]

3. There is a lot about southern culture to be proud of. Much of it is also african american culture

[Abu Pepe]

10. Hell yeah. Jazz, blues, Gospel.

African American contributions to Southern (and broader American culture) are much of what I love about the South.

No doubt.

I'm from East Texas but I travel to the Miss. Delta every so often to listen to the music and even play a little gtr with the locals.

[greeny2323]

4. Southern problem

The southern problem didn't start with the Civil War. The slavery problem almost prevented the formation of the Constitution in the first place. Then of course the slavery population boomed. Then the Civil War. Then the Jim Crow era. Then southern fighting against civil rights. Then the need for the voting rights act. All of the way up to the ongoing problems today. It never ends with the south.

[Abu Pepe]

7. No but it could have been nipped in the bud after the US victory

Jim Crow was established by former Confederates who were allowed back into government as opposed to prison or the gallows. If we had done in the South what we did in Germany there likely would have been no Jim Crow or even a need to fight for civil rights because the white population would have been conditioned to curse that era of their history.

It's not like Hitler invented anti semetism either.

[adigal]

5. I rescued dogs and puppies from the south for the last 10 years

I understand loving where you come from, but the south is 50 years behind the northeast in most ways. And happy to stay there. I could never do as you do, and live there w those politics. It is just too hateful. Reminds of rural NY state in a lot of ways, where I live now.

[Abu Pepe]

8. And see for me. I think "Yankees" have better politics

But my time above the Mason Dixon line I found hectic and stressful.

I lived in Mexico for several years and found the culture much easier to acclimate to than New Jersey.

[kcr]

11. My Midwestern dad felt the same way when he came out to the NE to visit me

Thought it was too fast-paced for him and could never live here. I think New England is a little slower paced but winter there can be pretty harsh.

[Abu Pepe]

13. Truthfully my favorite places are liberal enclaves in the South

Best of both worlds. Southern hospitality and charm without reactionary ideology.

Austin, Charlottesville, etc

[adigal]

14. Well, we are hectic and stressful, and also VERY materialistic!! True!!! nt

[bluepen]

18. "50 years behind."

Our biggest problem is keeping up with the massive influx of people who can't wait to get the hell out of the Northeast. (I had the misfortune of having to move to the northeast for three years. Wouldn't even go back for a visit now.)

I'm lucky to live in a beautiful city by the ocean. One of my neighbors says she came here to "live my dream rather than stay in the nightmare of New York." Her entire family has moved here over the last ten years.

We're happy to have them and glad they found a nice place to live their lives. Much like we are (most of*) the other people who, according to the last Census, make up a net "emigration" of 286,696 for the Northeast and net "immigration" of 365,289 for the Southeast. Ouch. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest.html

I hate this source but they seem to have nailed it: http://nypost.com/2017/07/26/why-americans-are-getting-the-hell-out-of-the-northeast/

*I say "most of" because every so often we'll run across somebody who insists that things are done better up north. But, oddly enough, they never go back. Hmmm.

[roamer65]

9. Reconstruction was a "de-confederatization" program.

Problem was the broken election of 1876 put a halt to it with the "Corrupt Bargain of 1877". The Republicans sold out to southern Democrats to get Hayes into the WH over Tilden...the price for this "deal" was the end of Reconstruction.

[Abu Pepe]

12. And along came the Redeemers to restore white supremacy

The Redeemers being the Confederates leaders who should have been long since hung.

[Major Nikon]

15. Which underscores how the challenge was much different than Nazi Germany

It wasn't as if German citizens were ever going to get to vote on a US President.

[Abu Pepe]

16. Yes. But the leaders of the Confederacy, below Davis and the cabinet

not only faced no justice for their treason , they went back to running the place and introducing Jim Crow. Those elites of the South, the backbone of the rebellion, the military officers who betrayed their oaths to the United States should have at least been barred like felons from political participation, and in many cases hung like the traitors they were. The slaveholding aristocracy should have been stripped not only of there hostages but of all their property.

The South would be a much more equal society today. And it wouldn't have the simultaneous chip on it's shoulder and sense of entitlement.

[Major Nikon]

17. Most German and Japanese war criminals escaped prosecution as well

There's plenty of things that could have been done, but we can't really know what those outcomes would be as lots of things have unintended consequences. The basic problem with democracy is eventually the people were going to elect their own leaders and it wasn't as if the former confederates couldn't be replaced with those of the same mindset. Regardless, political forces are ultimately going to prevail and those were the realities we were faced with. It's not an easy task to replace hundreds of years of past practices overnight.

[TheBlackAdder]

19. Religion was just a tool of the greedy, power-hungry and abusive--fueling Southern Paternalism.

.

A professorial overview: As Barry Hankins points out, a Christian researcher, some of the strongest elements of the abolitionist movement, the movement to end slavery in the 1800’s came out of Charles Finney’s preaching and the revival which was called the Second Great Awakening. So, there were Revivalists/Evangelicals who were condemning slavery as wrong and incompatible with Christianity.

Nevertheless, other Christians, including Evangelicals could point to the Bible to justify the institution. In a previous unit we saw that both Ephesians and Colossians in the New Testament ordered slaves to “obey their masters.” Hankins mentions Leviticus 25:44-46, where the people of Israel (who had been delivered from slavery in Egypt!) are told they can buy slaves from the nations around them.

However, slavery, in the Bible was not about one race or another being slaves. Unlike Southern slavery, when it came to the issue of racism there was simply nothing in the biblical text to support such attitudes. To a great extent, deep at heart, many Evangelicals knew this. This is why Hankins notes the frequent occurrences of racial unity in the revivals.


===


I did a research paper last year on Southern Paternalism, and I won't paste it here for identity reasons.

I'll try and give a quick memory summation, without writing it in a too revealing manner:


1) 1800s-10s: Christian Revivalist tours shook down Southern Slaveholders for thousands to get their blessings. The majority of Southerns despised the slaveholders. Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians are the ones who mainly will end up promoting slavery in the coming decades and onward.

==

2) 1820s-30s: Northern abolitionists tried to use the Bible as justification that slavery was immoral. This backfired, as the Bible is rife with verses that Southern clergy perverted to their own gain. Northern clergy were invited to tour southern plantations and were either offered property or marriage to daughters and part of estates if they relocated and formed churches. They were showcased plantation areas that portrayed the slaveholder in a good light. Many of these church pastors had slaves of their own. Slave riots occurred, which panicked the whole community. The idea of Southern Paternalism is hatched, saying that slaveholders are rescuing those held by slave merchants and offer the slaves an opportunity to be exposed to Christianity, and eternal salvation.

A partnership between slaveholders and clergy forms. Slaveholders want to control the slaves, the clergy wants to expand their church, their tithings, and spread the gospel. The clergy become wealthy members of the community. However, there are two variations of this:

White church services: Promote the Christian tenets of slavery, how the slaveholders are effectively doing God's work by saving the captives of the slave traders. The slaveholders gain legitimacy.

Slave church services: They are told to be good Christians, they must be good servants to their masters. That, no matter what happens to them in life, they will reap rewards in the afterlife.

==

3) 1840s-50s: Southern Paternalism, with the help of the churches expands rank of congregants, this generation is the one who now embraces slavery as an institutional norm, feeding into the Civil War.

==

It only took one generation to convert the Southerners over to accepting slavery. While the elders had to be swayed or convinced, the young adults just sold on the idea, the youngsters would grow up in this new institution and view it as a societal normalcy.

I'm a bit older, and I witnessed the conversion of many Reagan Republicans and even the Sarah Palin types of just a couple of years ago. They were against Putin, they were against Russia and any foreign interference of our government. They were saying how Putin would make Obama his bitch. Now, in less than a decade, we are seeing the complete reversal of those positions and acceptance of them, just to get some political and short-term hopes of financial gains. The protection of country is no longer paramount--it is just a talking point to them. I worry, that if this is not addressed quick, fast, and in a hurry--this might become an institutional norm and it will be difficult to ensure national security, on a wide range of topics, in the future.

.