US Authoritarianism

We were not taught this speech or exposed to this in our desegregated (as of 1965) classrooms in my public schools (70s and 80s). I was in "honors" history in the 80s and stuff like this would be skipped over or minimized.

The actual teaching of events is covered quickly and on easily tested facts/dates. There were no in depth ethical debates about why any of it happened. If a student tried, this would last at most a few minutes of of the school year on that subject.

Sometimes that's enough to get someone into the library or asking questions outside of school. But most students during this time have and had no idea who the Confederate VP was, let alone what he said.

BUT - there are people (white supremacists) who are proud of the Stephens heritage. Nowadays they say quiet parts out loud (Internet helped with that) when they used to save that for special occasions.

The one I met in the early 90s claimed the klan was like the NAACP for white people. I shit you not he claimed they were not against Other People having rights, just making sure white folk didn't lose rights in the process. This scared me a lot because it was, excuse the pun, whitewashing their murderous history to make it easier to recruit.

Tl;dr; My point is that you are correct, but also somewhat wrong in that for 80% of us that wasn't what we learned - we barely were taught anything. It was mostly treated in real life like rival football teams. (At least, if you were white and not getting a daily dose of racism) The ones that were taught this stuff, it was coming from specific groups not public classrooms.

Even shorter tl;dr; - there's a lot of cognitive dissonance and not a lot of actual education.

I'll take oof for 800 Alex.

“Heritage” lmao

It's even funnier when I hear that in my neck of the woods - it's like these idiots don't understand why there's a West Virginia or why a new state right on the Mason-Dixon line might have been formed in the middle of the country in 1863. Like for fucks sake, we literally became a state to avoid joining the Confederacy, how the fuck is a Confederate flag part of our heritage?

Pogs were a thing for longer than the confederacy

why are you mocking them?

can’t you see their proud heritage of land stealing, white supremacy and genocide? /s

Don't do that. Part of the reason white America is whinging out at the moment is they feel tribe-less. Every human is as ancient a culture as the next, it's simple math! Imma just assume you're some euro trash. Go suck on a macaroon!

Now obviously we should find something better to celebrate than some asshole slavers who lost a war they started... Devils always in the details.

Atlanta, you’re cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_City

Atlanta is actually the opposite of cool, it’s not called hotlanta for no reason!

It’s so fucking hot there, all the time

Collard greens are the best greens!

I like this recipe, but I use bacon instead of turkey (though I'm sure a turkey leg would be fantastic too).

White guy from the South here. FYI, pretty much all the good Southern food was basically slave cuisine. White Southerners just appropriated it.

TL;DR: Some folks still don't know that it's hateful due to being told and taught garbage, but more people know and understand every day.

Not always true, although it's probably more true today than it was back when I was growing up and someone outside of the southern bubble flying it definitely knows better.

The insane amount of misinformation given to kids in the southern US is pretty crazy. We learned "states rights" in school (before the internet). The iconography is everywhere. We had schools either named after Confederate generals (Robert E. Lee) or with Confederate iconography as part of their identity (the Rebels, which used to be complete with a Confederate soldier mascot). One of the shows that everyone watched featured a car named after the aforementioned general and was painted up with the stars and bars.

A lot of these folks have never been more than two hours from their house and are in little bubbles that tell them the crazy leftists are coming to take away their weiners. They absolutely do not know better because they grew up with it being glorified.

I got really lucky. I learned a lot when I got out of that hellhole. I understand how my actions affect others and know why that's a hateful symbol. But I can say with certainty that some of those folks absolutely do not know and really think it's just about the rebellious spirit of the South fighting against an incompetent and corrupt government. That doesn't excuse it, but I hope it does explain it.

Luckily, as I mentioned at the beginning, that's changing. People who are younger than me grew up with a more digital life and a lot of them never adopted the "rebel" lifestyle. They understand that it's wrong and, more importantly, WHY it's wrong. That tide is still turning and I'm here for it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(term)#Etymology

So Jimmy really did crack corn?