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Why do people love to tell me "You're the one who says" or "You're the one who believes..." and then not quote me. I'm not arguing with strawmen today (or ever).
I'm not sure what you seem to be worked up about, but I did quote you. It's interesting you feel people "love to tell you" things. Anyhow, I generally don't find posts with others telling me "You're the one who says" or "You're the one who believes..." . If you do, it might be better to look inward and see if the reason for that is you, not other people. Jus saying'
As for a straw man, I'm not buying it. You posted statements inferring that slavery is an important factor in defining certain states are southern. I raised a few questions to gain insight into your thinking. (I mean really: is 1 slave too many? 10? 100? 1000? Which states abolished slavery when? And for which reasons?). If you are unwilling to answer them, so be it. We'll take slavery all by itself off the table for this thread. Bring in the states that belonged to the Confederacy and I might be willing to listen. I find it puts a more complete picture of slavery into context for me.
As for this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
And I never said anything about school segregation . . .
Really?
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Originally Posted by BajanYankee
And its public schools weren't desegregated until Brown in 1954.
But let's cut to the chase. Without going point-by-point, I find here the most salient point in your post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
I mean, there's a reason why the Mason-Dixon line holds special relevance for many African Americans. To white people, it probably seems arbitrary, but for Blacks that wasn't the case at all.
OK. Here we have the views of one black (man, I presume) who seems to feel in his heart that an historical survey done in the 1760s defines for all blacks a hard and firm boundary between north and south. And further, this defines for every single American which states are northern and which are southern. OK.
I'm going to repeat a post I made too many pages back that I never got a response to:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pine to Vine
I get that you feel this way. If you can get that I don't, then we're done here.
So . . . response?
BTW: You have a very good knowledge of history and have presented a lot of interesting information. While I don't agree with all the conclusions you've drawn from them, I've appreciated several of your posts.
When I vacation in Rehobeth, I see more PA/NJ/NY plates than I do MD/VA/NC ones (not by much but still around a 60/40 divide).
You will observe the same thing in Ocean City, Maryland. It appears to me that post Sandy, a large number of people from those states have been coming down to these beaches for vacations.
I'm not sure what you seem to be worked up about, but I did quote you. It's interesting you feel people "love to tell you" things. Anyhow, I generally don't find posts with others telling me "You're the one who says" or "You're the one who believes..." . If you do, it might be better to look inward and see if the reason for that is you, not other people. Jus saying'
No, the reason is you force feeding words into my mouth. I never said that slavery was the "end all, be all" (those were your words). I said that it was a major factor in distinguishing between north and south. The other major factor is everything else that happened from 1965 onward, which includes Jim Crow, joining the Southern Legislative Council and the Southern Governors Association. It's hard to look at those things in totality and say, "Well, just because Maryland was a large slave-holding state, a Jim Crow State, and a founding member of the SLC and SGA doesn't mean that it was a southern state. Those facts are irrelevant!"
If my argument were simply that "Maryland is southern because it had slaves," then you'd have a point, but that's not my argument at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pine to Vine
As for a straw man, I'm not buying it. You posted statements inferring that slavery is an important factor in defining certain states are southern. I raised a few questions to gain insight into your thinking. (I mean really: is 1 slave too many? 10? 100? 1000? Which states abolished slavery when? And for which reasons?). If you are unwilling to answer them, so be it.
And I answered your question. I said that there was no specific number, but that the institution of slavery was sufficiently strong to compel the state as a whole to support the slavery/secession candidate. And the election of 1860 was in many ways the ultimate manifestation of the sectionalism that had been brewing in America since the early 1800s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pine to Vine
We'll take slavery all by itself off the table for this thread. Bring in the states that belonged to the Confederacy and I might be willing to listen. I find it puts a more complete picture of slavery into context for me.
Kentucy did not secede from the Union and it's unquestionably a southern state. Maryland arguably would have seceded if left to its own devices. There's a whole book, A Southern Star for Maryland, that outlines all of this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pine to Vine
OK. Here we have the views of one black (man, I presume) who seems to feel in his heart that an historical survey done in the 1760s defines forall blacks a hard and firm boundary between north and south.
Where did I say "all blacks." I said "many blacks." Again, another strawman.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pine to Vine
And further, this defines for every single American which states are northern and which are southern. OK.
Another strawman.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pine to Vine
BTW: You have a very good knowledge of history and have presented a lot of interesting information. While I don't agree with all the conclusions you've drawn from them, I've appreciated several of your posts.
What have you presented other than counterarguments? Here's all you've really said.
-Northern states had tobacco. Therefore, they might be southern.
-Northern states had segregation. Therefore, they might be southern.
-Maryland has rich, liberal white people. Therefore, it might be northern.
-Maryland didn't secede. Therefore, it is northern.
Or something very basic along those lines leaving out all of the nuance and historical detail from the conversation.
The states in debate in this thread, as in similar threads in the past, are Maryland and to a lesser extent Delaware. While here's been a lot of heat, there are only 1 or 2 posters who are making the most fervent arguments that these states are southern (I'm not counting "dollar sign"). These posters are located in NY and above. Conversely, those who feel these states trend northeastern are those who live in them or near them (this includes most of the Philly posters, interestingly enough). As I see things, it seems these people know these two states best. Finally, I'm not sure I recall any poster in this thread who hails from the Deep South stepping up and posting their opinion that MD and DE are southern and have no business being lumped in with the northeast.
I just find this some interesting data to take into consideration. To me, it adds further credence to a premsie I floated earlier in this thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pine to Vine
I believe that much of what each of us consider to be regional is judged from were we sit. For example, I see folks from places such as Jersey and CT forcefully arguing in this thread that DE and MD are southern. I guess to them, they are - this demonstrates to me a binary mindset. But they should also realize that when the year-round residents of Down East Maine talk about all the summer visitors from "down south," they are referring to folks from Massachusetts. More food for thought: I can assure you that my friends from Texas and my in-laws from SC do not consider DE to be "way down south in the land of cotton." Further, I note that other than that fellow with the dollar sings in his username, I rarely see posters from the deep south proclaiming MD's southern nature.
I remember an African American woman also mentioned the same thing to me about 20 years ago.
Do you think that the DC metro area is more racist today than NYC?
Let's be real here. For a lot of white people--particularly liberal white people--"North" means "not racist" and tolerant whereas "South" means racist. As a Black person, I don't evaluate "northerness" or "southerness" based on how kind-hearted whites are to Blacks. Or how many vote for gay marriage. I thought Boston was hostile to Black people notwithstanding a reputation for tolerance it earned more than 150 years ago (or even the state's election of a Black governor).
The North is and has been racist, but it's a different type of racism. Historically, it was the WASPs putting down the Catholics and Jews, the "whiter" Catholics putting down the darker ones, the darker Catholics putting down the Blacks, West Indians putting down Blacks. That's pretty much been the story here. Not sure how everyone else sees it.
This book describes this phenomenon.
Quote:
These new identities were shaped by a number of forces, including mass culture, the more conformist, "100 percent American" nationalism ushered in by the war, the war-related migration of thousands of black Southerners to Philadelphia, and the rise of a racialized nativism that pitted allegedly superior northwest Europeans against southern and eastern European newcomers. Chapter 11 explores how some middle-class and Lutheran Philadelphians of German descent shaped their American identities in opposition to Italians, Poles, and other southern and eastern European immigrants.
That's why, imo, ethnic lines tend to be so much harder than they are everywhere else. That's a big part of New York City (and Boston and Philly) culture for better or worse.
I see the western Boundry of the NE as the line between textile and Steel mills so between Syracuse and Rochester NY, and south to the Mason-Dixon Line then it is the South.
I see the western Boundry of the NE as the line between textile and Steel mills so between Syracuse and Rochester NY, and south to the Mason-Dixon Line then it is the South.
follows roughly the pop/soda boundary. I'd agree that's a cultural boundary, too. Though not a sharp one. West of it has more in common with Ohio and other parts of the Great Lakes IMO. Maybe less clear in PA.
So, Bajan, in your impassioned reply to my recent post, I still never got a response to this:
I have no idea what there is to respond to in that quoted post.
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