Why is it we allow people to fly the Confedrerate Flag?

[Adsos Letter]

116. Not exactly a stereotype, in my recent experience.

My wife and I just returned from a two-week road trip through Virginia, North and South Carolina, and a corner of eastern Tennessee. We met many wonderful people...until we got to Fredericksburg, Virginia, on this past Memorial Day weekend.

The National Park Service had helped set up a display of luminaries at the national cemetery in the Fredericksburg National Battlefield Park; my wife and I went to experience this event, as this battlefield was one I had wanted to visit for many years, and the luminary display promised to be quite impressive.

We got there early evening, shortly before the ceremony was to start. We drove a rental car with Tennessee plates, and the gathering crowd absorbed us as one of their own...until I started talking to my wife (saying things like "Wow, how cool is this?" or "Let me get your picture in front of this wall," etc.); nothing in the least bit political or aimed at anything about the South, other than the beauty we saw there. In fact, pretty much the kind of comments I noticed others making.

Apparently my non-Southern accent was enough to damn me in the eyes of several people within earshot. Lots of smiles turned to subtle and not-so-subtle glares, and comments about "yankees." One older guy walked over with his dog (on a leash) an told my wife, to her face, that his "dog didn't like Yankees," and that we should "watch out" because "he bites." He said this to her twice, and in no joking fashion. After the second time, I asked him to leave us alone.

Oh my! Ask some bigoted jerk to leave my wife alone and the glares, comments, etc. REALLY started. God forbid a "yankee' should defend his wife on southern soil. We finally left, having been made to feel entirely unwelcome; not by everyone, but by entirely too many.

Until that experience at Fredericksburg last weekend I had come to believe that overt hatred for Yankees really was a stereotype. I no longer think that. It may not apply to you personally, but it is certainly more accurate than I would have previously believed.

EDITED TO ADD: Having thought about it since posting...I believe my protest regarding stereotyping is inaccurate; certainly, the majority of people we met on our trip were delightful folks. If they held any negative thoughts about people from outside the South, it certainly wasn't evinced by their words or actions toward us. I also know several people on this board who live in the South, and seem to be great people. I was, however, surprised to see the level of dislike evinced by several people at the Fredericksburg gathering. It is certainly wrong to stereotype all southerners as yankee-hating bigots, but there appeared to be several in that crowd.