Heritage

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150629/PC16/150629298/kkk-to-rally-for-confederate-flag-july-18-at-statehouse

Should those that believe the flag doesn't represent racism condemn and address the actions of those that do and are using it to represent their beliefs?

Lovely ....

The Ku Klux Klan has been approved to hold a protest rally at the Statehouse next month against removing the Confederate battle flag, with the group calling accused mass murderer Dylann Roof a “young warrior.”

At least there is honesty in this rally......no need for a dog whistle.

Southern states having slave owners was not the only American soil to host such.

Still no excuse for it. Slavery is wrong. But it's been around forever yet somehow the South is the "whipping post" for all things connected to slavery.

The founding fathers pushed the slave issue to the back burner. And we see where it got us.

SheWrites wrote:Southern states having slave owners was not the only American soil to host such.

Still no excuse for it.  Slavery is wrong.  But it's been around forever yet somehow the South is the "whipping post" for all things connected to slavery.  

The founding fathers pushed the slave issue to the back burner.  And we see where it got us.

At the time of the Civil War the northern states had virtually done away with slavery so they weren't fighting while holding slaves.

After the Revolutionary War, many northern states rapidly passed laws to abolish slavery, but New Jersey did not abolish it until 1804, and then in a process of gradual emancipation similar to that of New York.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_New_Jersey

Yes, "somehow" the South is the "whipping post" for all things connected to slavery." I don't think there is any space between the dots representing the South and those representing slavery. They were the last states to give it up so they have earned their place in our history.

Nobody is confused about Slavery being the core issue for the American Taliban.......Vice President Stephens outlined the political agenda.....General Lee was going to defend the state of Virginia after the politicians declared that blacks were naturally subordinate.....context T....context.

On March 21, 1861, Stephens gave his famous Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia. In it he declared that slavery was the natural condition of blacks and the foundation of the Confederacy. He declared, "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.

In "The Lowest Animal," Mark Twain wrote: "Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man's slave for wages, and does that man's work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living."

Can we move on to the true heritage of the South? How about immigrants from Ireland and England who moved to Mississippi to farm. Man meets woman, loves woman, has 9 children. Two children die. Man dies. Leaves 7 children for one woman to raise. This woman took care of her family and others during the post depression years. She gave food to any man/woman who came to her door regardless of color. She worked in a WPA sewing room. She managed workers in a garment factory. All on her own. When she passed away, 1979, I was hugged on by both white and black men and women who told me to be proud of the heritage my grandmother left our family.

That's only a bit of my heritage. Just honest work and someone who loved her neighbor as herself, regardless of color, in Mississippi...before, during, and after the mention of civil rights.

Our universities in the South educate some of the finest doctors, engineers, artists, writers, businessmen and woman, nurses, dentists...the list goes on and on.

Research in the South - Vanderbilt and Emory, just to name a couple, are making amazing advances in the medical field.

The list goes on of the great things that can be attributed to the South.

A flag...a lost war...not my heritage.

Hate groups...not my heritage.

Mosey on down the road and find a better place to live. Stop blaming all the wrong acts of a few idiots on one geographic location.

The mindset of the South is not the way it is portrayed in quick soundbites or really bad movie where one syllable words are made into more than I can say with my original Southern drawl.

Maybe poor decisions of some mark the history forever for the South. Take that advantage if you choose, too. Southern heritage is about people. Good people and some bad. That's society at large.

But there are far too many good decisions, inventions, and possibilities in the South to have it labeled as recent events have it labeled.

One thing I do hate as a Southerner...stereotypes and labels. They abound at times like this mostly for the sake of debate.

All because one idiot took the lives of Christians meeting in a church for Bible study on a Wednesday evening. Men and women who were contributors to their community. Men and women who have merits that have not been give their due attention.

In the South, we honor those who pass on but in this case all we've done is shine the light on the killer, a flag, and racial issues that do not portray the hearts and minds of most living in the South.

Too easy just to spew the hate and take a situation to make the best out of it for politics sake.

That is truly sick...probably as sick as the idiot that took the lives of those Christians in the Charleston church.

So, yes, it is time for the "whipping post" to be burned in bonfire.

It's time for people to speak up for the right thing. And I think the families of the Charleston church members did just that...they showed the most beautiful gift of forgiveness. To me, what I've seen portrayed in my heritage in the South - they captured it.

In "The Lowest Animal," Mark Twain wrote: "Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man's slave for wages, and does that man's work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living."


As a freshman in college in 1970 I wrote an essay on the racism of Mark Twain and the female professor was angry that I did not know that Indians were dirty inferior people and quotes like this mean nothing:

he speaks irritably of Syrians and their sore-eyed children, who remind him of Indians: "These people about us had other peculiarities which I had noticed in the noble red man, too: they were infested with vermin, and the dirt had caked on them till it amounted to bark." He calls the Bedouins "Digger Indians," a mythical tribe invented by Americans to give full expression to their contempt.

and far from any habitation of white men, except the stage stations, that we came across the wretchedest type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this writing. I refer to the Goshoot Indians. From what we could see and all we could learn, they are very considerably inferior to even the despised Digger Indians of California; inferior to all races of savages on our continent; inferior to even the Tierra del Fuegans; inferior to the Hottentots, and actually inferior in some respects to the Kytches of Africa. Indeed, I have been obliged to look the bulky volumes of Wood's Uncivilized Races of Men clear through in order to find a savage tribe degraded enough to take rank with the Coshoots. I find but one people fairly open to that shameful verdict. It is the Bosjesmans (Bushmen) of South Africa. Such of the Goshoots as we saw, along the road and hanging about the stations, were small, lean, "scrawny" creatures; in complexion a dull black like the ordinary American negro; their faces and hands bearing dirt which they had been hoarding and accumulating for months, years, and even generations, according to the age of the proprietor; a silent, sneaking, treacherous looking race; taking note of everything, covertly, like all the other "Noble Red Men" that we (do not) read about, and betraying no sign in their countenances; indolent, everlastingly patient and tireless, like all other Indians; priceless beggars-for if the beggar instinct were left out of an Indian he would not "go," any more than a clock without a pendulum; hungry, always hungry, and yet never refusing anything that a hog would eat, though often eating what a hog would decline; hunters, but having no higher ambition than to kill and eat jackass rabbits, crickets and grasshoppers, and embezzle carrion from the buzzards and cayotes; savages who, when asked if they have the common Indian belief in a Great Spirit show a something which almost amounts to emotion, thinking whisky is referred to; a thin, scattering race of almost naked black children, these Goshoots are, who produce nothing at all, and have no villages, and no gatherings together into strictly defined tribal communities�a people whose only shelter is a rag cast on a bush to keep off a portion of the snow, and yet who inhabit one of the most rocky, wintry, repulsive wastes that our country or any other can exhibit.

She ended up inviting me over to her house a couple times......I got the last laugh....I was this long haired bad boy who dared to challenge her...... Political correctness......there was none in 1970, but there was intelligence.......made her boyfriend history teacher very jealous......he thought bury my heart at wounded knee by Dee Brown was an appropriate response to vermin. Yep, Mark twain telling us about slavery...very fitting....love the writer, but he was a man of his times.

One thing I do hate as a Southerner...stereotypes and labels. They abound at times like this mostly for the sake of debate.

I love being around Southern people....they are family, but it is a joke that in 2015 the culture of 1950 South remains.....it is a hybrid of intelligent educated folks with knuckle dragging ignorance flying a flag of hate and reliving a war that was lost 150 years ago. The smartest people I have met in my life are mostly southerners, but I have met my share of cretins also.

The flag belongs in a museum. The war is over and Taliban terrorism was defeated. Hate and degrading other human beings in America is wrong.

In 1926, Sanger spoke at a meeting hosted by the women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey. Following the invitation, Sanger describes her elation after receiving multiple speaking requests from white supremacy groups. She writes of the experience on page 366 of her book, An Autobiography:

"I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan … I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses … I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak … In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered."

SheWrites wrote:Southern states having slave owners was not the only American soil to host such.

Still no excuse for it.  Slavery is wrong.  But it's been around forever yet somehow the South is the "whipping post" for all things connected to slavery.  

The founding fathers pushed the slave issue to the back burner.  And we see where it got us.

There was already indentured servitude...straight from Europe, which had a feudal society. The South was agrarian; the North industrial. The issues were economic, or there would not have been a problem...but underneath the whole mess is the need to feel better than other people...and the slaves were considered property. I just read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for the umpteenth time. I suggest everyone read it to refresh their knowledge and understanding of the subject.

othershoe1030 wrote:Can we move on to the true heritage of the South? How about immigrants from Ireland and England who moved to Mississippi to farm. Man meets woman, loves woman, has 9 children. Two children die. Man dies. Leaves 7 children for one woman to raise. This woman took care of her family and others during the post depression years. She gave food to any man/woman who came to her door regardless of color. She worked in a WPA sewing room. She managed workers in a garment factory. All on her own. When she passed away, 1979, I was hugged on by both white and black men and women who told me to be proud of the heritage my grandmother left our family

This is a very inspiring story and one you are rightly proud of. I too have met many wonderful people in the South, some of them relatives by marriage. Surely, over time these good and compassionate and educated people will come to represent the image most people have of the South but that time has not arrived yet.

There is still an ugly undercurrent of hate and white racism that needs to be rooted out. It is discouraging to me to see young people still stuck in the hate of the early 20th century. It has to be outgrown.

The compassion and forgiveness we saw by the victims in the church shooting are sterling examples of living a Christian life. I don't think I could be so forgiving so soon after my family member was shot dead. The white haters would be very well served to follow in the footsteps of these black Southerners who clearly have risen above the past.

Yes, and not only in the South. Hate and white racism is not regional. My parents had neighbors from a state in the North who would say, aloud, "I hate ______," and pointed to another neighbors house where a black family lived, using the N word. My mother is good friends with this woman so the Northern neighbor no longer talks to my mother. Loss? Oh no. The gain is in the lovely relationship between my mother and her neighbor.

My father born and raised and lived all his life in the north, my mother raised in eastern Tennessee. My father would sit in the window and when a black person would walk by yell out the window N_____ get off my street.

I brought a close friend home at about 10 years old, he was black and he ate dinner with us and we were both joking around and I called him an N, because that's what he called himself and no more had I gotten it out of my mouth my mother hit me so hard across the face I still have marks. He asked what was wrong and she said my son doesn't use that word and you should not either and went on to tell us the history.

Anyway it doesn't taken a southerner to be prejudice, their are pockets up North you just don't go in if you're black.