I cringe every time I hear a Southerner say these words, and it makes me wanna just bitch-slap the ignorant redneck who said them so hard it spins his head around on his neck like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist."
Let me get a few things straight before I go any further. As my profile here says, I'm a Virginian by birth which makes me a Southerner, and I'm also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I'm very proud of my Southern heritage and will defend it at the drop of a hat. I've taken the time to get to know the real reasons for the War for Southern Independence and will not hesitate to share my knowledge with anyone, no matter what side of the Mason-Dixon Line they live on. I spend a great deal of my time re-educating folks and correcting their misconceptions about the South, the War for Southern Independence, the facts and fiction about slavery in America, and things like that.
One of the things I find myself continually fighting is the image and misconception that all Southerners are inbred, knuckle-dragging hicks who are only one or two DNA strands away from that kid playing the banjo in "Deliverance." And every time a Southerner utters that phrase about the South rising again, all they do is prove the misconception to be true.
That, friends and neighbors, is why I absolutely despise that phrase!
I recently had a chance to ask a serious question about that phrase to someone who said it in a public forum. One of the members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans group on Facebook, a guy named John Hatfield from Kentucky, said those ominous words in a status update, so I asked him about it. Here's my ver batim question:
"Just for the sake of argument - and I know I'm poking a hornet's nest here, but oh well, it's been a long time since I did something foolish - exactly how will the South "rise again," John? And what makes you think it hasn't already?"
I got a reply from someone else before him, and it went like this:
"through rebellion Ray. i dont support violent secession, i think we should try to make it peaceful, but i realize America wont allow that, will invade us, and people like me and John will pick up our guns and fight, even if its unfruitful, we can say we fought for what we believed in."
I had already had a discussion with this poster about rebellion and secession before, so I told him that we'd already discussed it and wanted to hear John's answer. The next post came from John Hatfield, and went like this:
"all I see from you on here is starting a fuss over the flag that we all love all the time. Why join a group If you don't support our causes. Go to the Yankee side If you don't like what you read. I will fight my southern ways...I will join the fight when they are a civil war again which, they will be soon (with all my southern brothers... See More). An by god I will fight for my flag which is the stars and bars!!! I will fight any yankee's that don't like our ways. I think your a damn yankee under deguise!" (Grammatical and spelling mistakes are as per the original, since all I did was 'cut and paste.')
I guess I was supposed to be insulted by being called a "damn yankee," but to be honest with you, I've been called much worse. John seems to be one of those folks who think that this is The Ultimate Insult. But anyway, I told him that he didn't answer my question and asked him why not. I also asked him, since he claims to be an SCV member, if he was aware of The Charge and the mission of the SCV. Lastly, I asked him if he was going to answer the question or stoop to more insults which only made him look foolish. Here's the reply I received, ver batim:
"I don't have to answer to nobody If I don't want to. Go raise hell some where else. The only fool here is you!"
I get the feeling that he didn't answer the question because he couldn't, being that he didn't know what he was talking about. My experience in life and many discussions on many forums has shown me that whenever you corn-hole people on things that they don't know anything about, their only response is to stoop to insults and name-calling, and Mr. Hatfield seems to be one of those.
He's also a living embodiment of the misconception that people have about Southerners. He does nothing but reinforce the image of some fat-assed redneck in bib overalls, wearing a trucker's hat and driving around in his pickup truck waving a Battle Flag while shouting either "Yee-haw!" or "The South's gonna rise agin!" This image is just as offensive to me as the image of a thick-lipped, barefoot black man in tattered overalls playing a banjo is to a black man. It does nothing but draw scorn and ridicule towards Southerners and the South, and makes it all that much harder for people to take Southerners seriously.
Aside from all that, it's just a stupid statement. There is NO REASON for the South to secede from the United States, and it would accomplish NOTHING. The only thing it accomplished in 1861 was to cause the ultimate financial and structural ruination of the South which took more than 50 years for the South to recover from, and only an idiot would think that things would change in this day and age. Sure, I'm just as disgusted with what's going on in Washington with our elected leaders as the next guy is, but I'll be the last one to suggest that secession is the solution.
And Southerners running around shouting, "The South's gonna rise agin!" isn't helping any. All it does is make them and other Southerners look stupid.
But of course, they'll be the last ones to ever realize or, God save us, admit it.
IHC
3 comments:
I have had many a good laugh at people from up north who come to visit us on the South Coast. So many of them are astounded when they discover we don't live in Dogpatch, USA, that we wear shoes, can read, and even speak intelligently on a myriad of assorted subjects. I also, in my many travels throughout this fine country, discovered taht the prejudices and stereotypes associated with the South are predominently located up north which is where they seem to have gotten the models to mock those of us fortunate enough to live where it seldom snows.
Yeah, I ran into the same thing when I lived in New Jersey for 8 years. But like I said, we've got more than enough Southerners doing their damnedest to prove the stereotype correct!
Yeah, well, I've still met a plethora of them who fit those stereotypes.
Nearly all of them are racist, too.
-Black Northeasterner.
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