<p>My son lived in Richmond at one time and we visited him. He told us stories of an older neighbor who hangs a Confederate flag outside his home and would go into rants against the North when drunk. Does this still happen?</p>
<p>I feel so bad for the South and what it endured during and after the Civil War.</p>
<p>I grew up in Georgia, and I’ve never seen it. There are a bunch of confederate flags, but that’s less about being anti-Northern than it is about being pro-Southern. There was the controversy in Georgia a few years ago about the racial implications of the Confederate flag’s design’s being incorporated into the Georgia flag (and I don’t believe it had any place on the flag, but that’s besides the point). From what I’ve seen, the confederate flag, nowadays, has almost nothing to do with being against the North (unless you count Southern pride as being anti-Northern). The South these days is booming so much that many people aren’t from the South to begin with. In the Metro Atlanta area (I can only really speak to Georgia from personal experience), a huge percentage is from the NE or the Midwest anyway. Further South and in more rural areas, this is less the case, but I believe that the man who screamed around your son is most definitely the exception rather than the rule.</p>
<p>Only when you try to tell them how to live.</p>
<p>I don’t know. The statue of Robert E. Lee in New Orleans still faces north. Rumor has it, he won’t turn his back on the Yankees.</p>
<p>Kidding aside, BHG, I think that’s drastically changed over the last 25 years or so. No one I know in the South seems to bring up North vs. South issues much at all.</p>
<p>No - unless you’re a redneck. Then you just don’t know any better.</p>
<p>Hanging the Stars and Bars these days is bad form. It offends some of our friends and neighbors. It’s more important to be polite. ;)</p>
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<p>Now that’s an aspect of Southern culture and heritage that everyone should take pride in. It certainly isn’t celebrated by flying that flag. (Which makes the occasional appearance in the North and West as well…generally not among polite people.)</p>
<p>I very much wanted one of our sons to try a Southern college. Our daug. went to a Southern college. Does Florida count? I will always remember the Southern girls and their sorieties, such sweet kids! Something I will always remember when I think of my daughter’s college years.I thought for my boys it would be a very good experience. As it turned out sons did not. But I remember having just a bit of intrepidation at the thought maybe sons would not be accepted. I mean, they would most likely be accepted by the college but what if their room mate or someone else started insulting us! That would be so exciting! And don’t you think maybe they have a right to some hostility? It’s been 150 yrs but the North absolutely ruined the South. Still, I’m sorry my boys did not try a Southern college.Maybe grad school.</p>
<p>Hey, Conyat; How are you making out down there? Are you folks recovered?</p>
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<p>Oh rednecks know better all right…they just want to start something. I guess people like that are everywhere, but we sure seem to have an abundance.</p>
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<p>There is definitely truth in that statement. The small southern town I live in has problems with industry people moving in from “other parts of the country” telling us everything that is wrong with our town, schools, government, etc. They get things all stirred up and then transfer out to the next assignment. It does get tiresome.</p>
<p>abbybabby: You know what ? N.C. is hot. Many older folks from other parts of the country are moving there to take advantage of the climate and low taxes and peace and quiet. Before you know it you are going to have problems like Florida. That is, higher taxes, more nicer schools, too many out of towners. Do you see this now?</p>
<p>It is a “true fact” that many residents of Mississippi don’t celebrate the Fourth of July, which happens to coincide with the fall of Vicksburg, the siege of which was an awful catastrophe, by anyone’s standards. July 4, 1863. People do remember that, generations later. Their experience was medieval, even biblical in its awfulness. “Confederates in the Attic” is a great book, if you’re interested in the historical southern mindset.</p>
<p>BHG, thanks for asking. I hope you REALLY wanted to know, 'cause here it comes. I’m OK, but the area still has a long way to go. There are still huge sections where everything looks not much different than it did when I first returned to N.O. for a look-and-leave a month, maybe six weeks or so, after the storm. </p>
<p>We’re calling the Crescent City now “The Sliver by the River” and it’s pretty apt. Whole neighborhoods have next to no one back. You might seen an occasional trailer, but that’s it; the rest is wreckage. Just recently, in the Lake Catherine I even saw a refrigerator still in a tree. You’d think it would have fallen by now. No houses left standing nearby, so no telling how close or far it once stood. </p>
<p>Of the folks I know well who lost their homes or had to have them gutted, about 25%, the work is done; another 50% or so are in various stages, and about 25% can’t rebuild for one reason or another.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.habitat-nola.org/projects/musicians_village.php[/url]”>http://www.habitat-nola.org/projects/musicians_village.php</a> is where I’ll be this weekend.</p>
<p>BHG, my daughter is at a Southern School and is not from the Deep South. My H and I grew up in New England and our family has been stationed around the world due to H’s military assignments. She is having a wonderful time, both academically and socially. I think it’s great to get kids to apply to colleges beyond their region. </p>
<p>BTW, I don’t think most Southerners think Florida is in the “South” even if it’s in the south.</p>
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<p>For what? The War of Yankee Aggression?</p>
<p>I think it’s quite reasonable to expect any people in the world to harbor some resentment when their aspirations for independence and self-determination are crushed militarily. I reckon that we here in the colonies would harbor some mistrust of Britain if we had lost our war of independence, don’t you?</p>
<p>The whole issue of states’ rights and limitation of federal power that is still a strain in US politics is a continuation of philosophical issues that have divided the south and the north since our country was founded. In fact, those issues play out every day around the globe as rural, agrarian regions find themselves in conflict with industrialized urban centers (see China and India). I think those feelings have largely played out in the US, but there are still pockets.</p>
<p>Do some Southerners still harbor mistrust of the Northern states? </p>
<p>I don’t know how significant this is but I do find it worth noting. Look at Presidential election voting patterns in the south. How well did Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry do in the South compared to Carter, Clinton, and even Gore?</p>
<p>I also think it is interesting to reverse the question. Do some Northerners still harbor mistrust of the Southern states?</p>
<p>I dont mistrust them in 2006, but i do resent their grossly innaccurate portrayal of what happened during the Civil War, and their enshrining of Abraham Lincoln as a brilliant civil rights hero.</p>
<p>Of course they still harbor mistrust. They wouldn’t vote Republican for about a 100 years after the Civil War. I think SOME of them have a right to be angry, but I largely fear its for the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>No matter how “purple” people claim the US really is, it is still quite divided ideologically between north and south, and I think the distrust goes both ways.</p>
<p>We know kids who have gone to southern schools and been very happy, and others who have transferred back to the northeast because they didn’t feel comfortable with the southern way of thinking. I suspect the same would be true for southerners coming up north. </p>
<p>It is culturally, politically and socially, very different in different regions of the country, and while I think some progress has been made in bridging gaps, there is still much misunderstanding and distrust of people with different backgrounds and views.</p>
<p>I agree with abbybabby. I think most distrust comes from previous experiences where people who move to southern states immediately start telling us how wrong things are here and how it would be better if it were done like they did “back home”. You can’t help but mistrust something that you feel is always looking down it’s nose at you as if you’re not quite up to their standard. It is also insulting for people from another region to move here and make fun of our speech (this has happened to me many times).</p>
<p>BHG, My son goes to school in VA. He has not had any issues with acceptance. He is from the New Jersey. He has plenty of friends from Southern part of VA. There are cultural differences, and some of them find those differences intriguing, but his friends have all been very warm and accepting of him. </p>
<p>I have heard some stories of a friend who attended U of Richmond and he is also from NJ. He attended about 25 years ago, and there were larger cultural differences at that time, at that school. Part of the differences were also economic because he met southern students from very wealthy families, and he was raised in a northern middle class family.</p>
<p>Interesting.
Interestedad: What I am referring to goes beyond the philosophical differences between North and South. I am referring to the devastation. There was absolute devastation of towns during Sherman’s March and the destruction of the economy and the horrors of Reconstruction. We all know slavery is wrong. But back then, less people were educated, there was no news media to account to and it was a wilder time. The North didn’t just win, it beat down the South. It must have been horrible.</p>
<p>Thanks for the book reference.</p>