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originally posted by: FyreByrd
originally posted by: Vasa Croe
originally posted by: FyreByrd
originally posted by: DEANORULES24
YET, Another thread on the "CONFEDERATE FLAG"
Let it go !!!!
I really want to know what is special about southern culture.
A lot of things...we still open doors for people here. My kids say please, thank you, yes ma'am, yes sir, and are always respectful of others as long as they receive respect in return. Southern family values, true southern family values, are not seen anywhere else.
I am proud to be a southerner, but like I said earlier....it's a flag.....
I guess on the flip side of your question you could ask why people hold on to the belief that southerners are racist haters since that all started when the flag was around....and is FAR removed from my generation and even farther from my kids.
When you say 'true southern family values' I don't know what you mean.
I was taught to say please and thank you, sir and ma'am too and far from the South. Taught to respect and help my elders and protect youn'uns by both my southern mother and northern father.
originally posted by: ItCameFromOuterSpace
Basically, without the south there would be no discernable American Culture. One example is music.. there would be no blues, jazz, rock and roll, country, folk music and all of the other musical offshoots of those genres.. we'd still be listening to tin pan alley, European drinking songs and minuets. Things would be boring.
Most people who hate on the south have never been there and have been indoctrinated by the typical fallacies. It's one of the most culturally and geographically diverse places I have ever been. Like most marginalized populations, you will only hear bad things about it in the media, because that is all they want you to know about it.
originally posted by: eriktheawful
The flag itself is just a piece of cloth. It becomes a symbol when people make it into one, and the power of that symbol depends on how many people give it that power. The meaning of the symbol can vary depending on those who view, use or take that symbol as their own.
People all around the world have different symbols that they use, or think of when it comes to their own culture. For many, world wide, the flag of their country can come to mind. For most Americans, the US flag is a symbol of their country and culture. This is true all over the world.
However, within a country, you can have several different cultures. Take Great Britain, you have English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish cultures. Each have symbols that they identify with as part of their culture. This holds true for those who live outside their cultures.
But it's a very personal thing too. For me, living outside of the UK, when I think of Tea or Big Ben, I think of those who are English. Clovers remind me of the Irish. Kelts, bagpipes and the world "Laddie" makes me think of my ancestors, the Scots. And for the Welsh?
That would be Torchwood. heh. Sorry, but Doctor Who and Torchwood makes me think of the Welsh....
Here in America, we have the same thing. We have cultures based on where people live. Cultures on HOW people live, and even cultures based on people's historical origins (Chinatown in San Fran, CA. Little Italy in New York City).
We have plenty of symbols here in the US also that people identify with depending on where one is from. Not everyone does, but many do.
The thing is: a culture can have many symbols, but sometimes a single symbol maybe one that people feel identifies them all. Just as the US Flag does for all Americans, A Cowboy hat, A longhorn steer, or the Alamo might be a symbol that many people from Texas feel is a symbol that represents them.
Here in the south where I live, we have many, many different things that can be symbols of our culture down here:
Fried Chicken.
Moonshine.
Watermelon.
Blackeyed Peas
Butter Beans
Mustard based BBQ sauce
Collard Greens
Banana Pudding
Sweet Ice Tea
Burbon
Jack Daniels Whiskey
And those are just a few of the FOOD things.
Tobacco leaf, cotton plants, pecans, sasafrass, hickory, every damn type of Oak you can think of, muscadines, poke weed (poke weed salad, mmm mmm!), are just some of the plants.
Muscle cars, guns, hunting wild boar / deer / morning dove / squirrel to name a few animals, fishing big mouth Bass and Catfish (especially Catfish).
Lifestyles: having two first names that you're called by, like Billy-Bob, or like my oldest son, his name is John Raymond, I call him Ray, but everyone here in the south calls him John-Ray.
The big cities down here are not a good representation of the South as a whole. For that, you need to get out in the country, especially to the small towns and cities were people tend to know a lot of other people. We even look at our big city folk with narrow eyes, heh, mainly because their is a world of difference between those of us like me that live out in the country, and those folks that live in the big cities. You've seen other posters talk about family values, saying "Please", "Thank you.", holding a door open for a lady, and just being friendly (did that today, held a door open for a lady that I'd never met, she said thank you, I told her welcome, and then we chatted about the weather while standing in line to pay for our gas. Have no idea what her name was. Don't need to.
The Rebel Battle Jack. It's the most famous of all the flags from the Civil War. Yes, many here in the South identify with it as a symbol of the South.
For many, it's just a symbol that says: The South. or Southerners. and the meaning doesn't go beyond that.
For some, it's a symbol that represents Southern heritage.
For some, it's a symbol that represents slavery and, unfortunately, hate.
How you view it will depend on many things: where you lived, how you were brought up, what you were taught and what you come to believe it means.
No mater what each person thinks: it's still just a piece of cloth. It has no power on it's own. A child raised with it hanging on their wall in their room, who is never told anything about it, will never come to think of it as more than something that is hanging on their wall that has shapes and colors.
On the other hand, if that child is taught that the flag hanging there means everything about hate, and that people with certain skin color should be slaves, then yes, most certainly that is what that child will grow up believing and thinking about that flag.
Same goes if that child is simply taught that it represents Southern culture and nothing more, they won't identify it as a symbol of hate and slavery.
But in the end, it's still just a piece of cloth. It can be part of Southern culture, or it can be whatever one wants to make of it.
It's purely up to the individual and what they want to think of it.
Or what they get pounded into their heads.
originally posted by: ItCameFromOuterSpace
Basically, without the south there would be no discernable American Culture. One example is music.. there would be no blues, jazz, rock and roll, country, folk music and all of the other musical offshoots of those genres.. we'd still be listening to tin pan alley, European drinking songs and minuets. Things would be boring.
Most people who hate on the south have never been there and have been indoctrinated by the typical fallacies. It's one of the most culturally and geographically diverse places I have ever been. Like most marginalized populations, you will only hear bad things about it in the media, because that is all they want you to know about it.
originally posted by: ManBehindTheMask
How these people in SC responded is a shining example of Southern Culture
originally posted by: DarkStormCrow
When speaking of southerners, its good to keep in mind that they are the only people in the nation that have been defeated and occupied, their homes and farms destroyed and their properties and families pillaged. Southerners are the only subset of America that knows true loss and the full effects of total war.
originally posted by: Vasa Croe
If I had to live without Mississippi blues and jazz....I may not want to live.
And yes...media tends to always find the white trash examples of the south to put on camera....
originally posted by: DarkStormCrow
a reply to: Annee
Did I not say that slavery was morally wrong?
Americans fought on the side of the Confederates and also owned Black Slaves.
If you do not understand the damage done in the south during and after the Civil War maybe you are the one who needs to widen your scope. The south was treated worse than any other external enemy the US has ever fought.