Why are southerners so obsessed with being southern?
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Anonymous
Amazing that you make such a generalization about so many states and people. Sad way to live. |
Anonymous
I live in the United States. Our President is from New York. Does he represent all New Yorkers? |
Anonymous
I'm a southerner and called it the War of Northern Aggression once, ironically, to my boss. He looked at me kindly and said "oh, is that what they called it where you grew up?" I learned that I couldn't make a joke about the south without people around here assuming it's true. |
Anonymous
True. My ancestor arrived from northern England as a British soldier in 1684 to protect British interests in the colonies - especially against the Dutch in DE and NY. He was from a long line of British subjects who could trace their lineage back to Charlemagne and early kings of England. Ancestors/decedents lived in DE for 100 yrs then migrated down to Virginia, Carolinas and what is now TN. The ancestors can be traced all the way back to year 1085 (medieval period) to a castle in Northumbria England. |
Anonymous
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The south is so much more complicated and varied than most want to acknowledge. There were plenty of northerners who considered black people to be sub-human, or at least saw no reason to outlaw slavery. And there were lots of southerners opposed to the war for a variety of reasons, whether they were anti-slavery, anti-secession, anti-violence, or anti-don't-want-my-sons -killed.
In the case of my 4th great grandfather, he was pro-Union because his own father had fought in the revolutionary war. He considered himself a patriot. Yes, the math works. My fifth great grandfather was young in the revolutionary war and had his son late in life; my 4th great grandfather was older by the time of the Civil War and forbade his adult sons (unsuccessfully) from fighting for the Confederates. To complicate it further, he enslaved 15 people, including a woman he had children with. How could he be pro-union and an enslaver? Because he "hated Jeff Davis and all democrats," and he thought that an economic solution would be reached that would free his slaves but compensate him so that he could continue to run his farm. I'm not saying that his pro-Union stance made him a good human. Other groups opposed to the war were mountain people who didn't want to send their sons to die for rich farmers. And enclaves of recent immigrants, such as German populations that abhorred the institution of slavery and spoke out against it. It's no wonder that northerners don't know these facts about the south. The south itself suppressed knowledge of this diversity of views. History not only sides with the winning side. On the losing side, the narrative is controlled by those with economic power. |
Anonymous
English Aristocrats didn’t immigrate to USA. People who oppose them did. |
Anonymous
People from New England can be INSUFFERABLE about their heritage. It's almost a reason not to live there. |
Anonymous
It's true that there was a lot of disagreement at the time of the Civil War, but as you say it was suppressed and the result is that most modern Southerners with roots that far back see the Confederacy as "their side." That Faulkner line about how "for every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863" was my experience growing up and I'm not that old. Whatever anyone's ancestors were doing (mine fought for the Confederacy) if you were from the South, that was how you saw it. |
Anonymous
This is true. |
Anonymous
This. And they are desperately hanging in to any sense of aristocracy. Clinging to old family names as first names in hopes that everyone will know how important they are because 200 years ago someone they’re were related to was rich. |
Anonymous
I've got Southern family and Yankee in-laws and they both do that. |
Anonymous
You can't be serious. LMAO Good lord if you are, then life must be confusing to you. Landed gentry were a big thing in the colonies. Much land bestowed by the crown. Same in Spanish countries, grants from the crown. |
Anonymous
Noticed that also. Little State syndrome? Not as bad as those from RI though perhaps. 
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Anonymous
A lot of second and third sons who had to strike out on their own because of primogeniture laws. |
Anonymous
Second sons usually had some options. The church or the military, or just even hanging around in case the first son had a death by misadventure. I agree, third and up sons really had it hard. The thing was to get a land grant using the family name in the colonies and attempt to strike it rich. |