What is Southern Heritage?

[Uncle Joe]

This OP was inspired by CTyankee's question.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026961256

If the Confederate battle flag is not about slavery but about Southern "heritage"

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can anyone tell us what that is? Is it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?

Is there such a thing as "Northern heritage"? Would that be Lincoln, the Adams', Paul Revere, etc?

We hear so much about Southern heritage as if it is something distinct from slavery so is it related but yet not related to slavery?

The short answer is Southern Heritage is about shared suffering.

No region in the nation has experienced trauma to the extent laid upon the South, not just from the Civil War but for at least 70 years after that conflict, as it continuously trailed the rest of the nation from an economic standpoint living with major poverty, while also dealing with the largest percentage in the nation of having more than one race.

To experience what the South went through, only taking into account the deaths attributed to the Civil War
the modern day United States, would have to experience a war whereupon 30% of all males between the ages of 18 and 40 were to die, using the 2010 census and we're talking approximately 30 million men dying as a result. Towns and counties across the South were wiped out for at least a generation.

Now to be sure the North suffered from that conflict as well, they did have 10% of their 20-45 age male population dying as a result, however the vast majority of the battles took place in the South, and for the most part its already mediocre at best infrastructure was devastated as a result.

Another intangible is the psychological difference between "winning a war" and "losing it," we as a nation had some of our most tumultuous, societal divisions and upheavals while losing the relatively minor war in Vietnam.

Also while many in the South felt as an unwanted step-child to the nation from continuous slurs, put downs, innuendos, across the less than 1%'s corporate media's programming even to late night comedians, this only served to further magnify or solidify their common Southern Identity, in more than a few cases this has even crossed racial lines. Not only has this mass programming fed "Southern Heritage" but it also programmed far too many people in other regions of the nation in reinforcing their misconceptions on what the South is. In many ways we've become a nation of Pavlov Dogs.

To many Southerners, U.S. History as written by the victor and (it is) tends to whitewash the sins of the nation by passing it all on to the South's for its' major transgressions and of course they're very real as well. But how many people in school read that U.S. Grant owned a slave for two years, or that (heroic march to the sea) Sherman was pro-slavery and sympathized with the South prior to the Civil War, or even read about Lincoln's racists views? Perhaps things have changed in schools' history as of late but back in my day that was never mentioned.

Most people love to focus on Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg's Address but I couldn't buy a rec here at D.U. by posting Honest Abe's Second Inaugural Address when he surmised that both sides were to blame for that conflict as punishment from an almighty God for tolerating slavery for hundreds of years.

I have no doubt it's because most people like to view their world as black and white, good versus evil with no shades of gray and simple answers to complex problems or questions and it's far easier to remove the mote from someone's eye other than your own.

I'm believe in two things for sure regionalism is racism's sibling and the former can and will aggravate or magnify the latter, to actually judge a person by the "content of their character," means looking past the color of their skin and their flag; to the very heart or motivation for them doing such a thing whether you agree with their motives or not. But to simply cast a person as being ignorant or racist for flying the Confederate Flag doesn't honor the spirit of MLK.



This scares the piss out of the less than 1%

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth115055.html#sr0lV1D5ejIfEIv0.99

And this is their American Utopia

No one is more enslaved than a slave who doesn't think they're enslaved.

Kate Beckinsale