Letters to the Editor
Ché Pasa
Published Letters: 865 Editor's Choice: 2
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Re: The Chicks and the South
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like Lady Broder, the South is America's Problem Child, has been since the Founding. It is, in my estimation, not getting better. It is getting demonstrably worse, much like the deterioration of David Broder. It's sad to witness, and yes I have more than a little empathy with the many Good People in the South who have long been trying to make a difference.
What happened to the Dixie Chicks is emblematic of what's wrong, though, and as shameful as it was, you won't find many (white) Southerners expressing remorse; if anything, they will happily redouble their hatred and contempt for the Chicks and spit in your eye to boot. It's just the way they are. And it isn't cute. Or charming.
On the other hand, I think Howard Dean's strategy of building a Democratic infrastructure in the South from the ground up (what a concept) and actually fielding candidates (what a concept) and tromping the shit out of the Racist Reactionaries (yay!) is the only way for "reform" to ever take root in the Land of Dixie. By offering an alternative (wha?), there can be some surprising results. For example, Tom DeLay's district is represented by a Dem today. Oh my!
Doing something about the Politics is one thing, and over the long term I have no doubt that the South is politically salavageable by the Democrats, so long as Dean's program isn't continually sabotaged. That's one thing.
The other, however, is the white racist reactionary culture. Which can be partially masked. But that's about all. Pretending it isn't there, or that it can be fixed, doesn't really work, short term or long. Racism is only part of it, of course. There's a whole constellation of reactionary, destructive, hate-filled cultural norms that have a tight grip on too many Southerners.
If there were a way to make progress against it, I'd be all in favor, but I don't see it yet.
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The South has been the nation's problem child and its heartbreak since the Founding,
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]not just since the Civil War and the disastrous Reconstruction and its equally disastrous aftermath.
And because it is such a problem child -- such a brat, indeed juvenile delinquent, if you will -- the nation suffers constantly. And the world suffers, too.
Trying to accommodate the sensibilities of the South is a fools game that way too many people feel obligated to do. Because, after all, the South feels it was wronged. But it's felt that way from the beginning. There has never been a time when the South wasn't put upon by the rest of us meanines and wasn't trying to put one over on the rest of the country and force its own peculiarites and offenses on to the rest of us. And the South has (or at least Southerners have) way too often succeeded.
Enough.
But what about all those Southern progressives who get so ticked off (and feel so hopeless) whenever their Happy Land is dissed by Us Yankees?
As a side note, my own people originate in the South, more or less, starting in Maryland thence to Virginia (what's now West Virginia) then on to the West, first Iowa, then to California. Perhaps one reason for my passion on the topic is that they all left the South, not so much for a better life (in Maryland they were among what passes for the aristocracy and had been pretty prominent in the Revolution) as it was for a less oppressive and backwards life. Couldn't they have stayed and changed things?
Sure. In how many generations? Some did stay for a while and did make such changes as they could while they were there, but it was a losing battle. Oh but surely change is possible! Yes, I know it is. Ireland might one day be a model for Real Change in the South. But it has to be change that Southerners take on themselves for their own sake and not something imposed on them by Yankees or anyone else. Not something they are told to do, but something they themselves come to see as necessary and proper. And so far, very little of that dawning has come.
We should keep some of the Southern urban centers and let the rest go their own way.