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Shocking Habits Of The Antebellum South Thomas Sowell · Gil I Am

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  Speaker 1: What the Rednecks or Crackers brought with them across the
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  Speaker 1: ocean was a whole constellation of attitudes, values, and behavior
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  Speaker 1: patterns that might have made sense in the world in
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  Speaker 1: which they had lived for centuries, but which would prove
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  Speaker 1: to be counterproductive in the world to which they were going,
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  Speaker 1: and counterproductive to the Blacks who would live in their
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  Speaker 1: midst for centuries before emerging into freedom and migrating to
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  Speaker 1: the great urban centers of the United States, taking with
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  Speaker 1: them similar values. The cultural values and social patterns prevalent
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  Speaker 1: among Southern whites included an aversion to work, proneness to violence,
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  Speaker 1: neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship,
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  Speaker 1: reckless searches for excitement, lively music and dance, and a
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  Speaker 1: style of religious oratory marked by strife, tenant rhetoric, unbridled emotions,
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  Speaker 1: and flamboyant imagery. This oratorical style carried over into the
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  Speaker 1: political oratory of the region in both the Jim Crow
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  Speaker 1: era and the Civil Rights era, and has continued on
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  Speaker 1: into our own times among black politicians, preachers, and activists.
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  Speaker 1: Touchy pride, vanity, and boastful self dramatization were also part
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  Speaker 1: of this redneck culture among people from regions of Britain
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  Speaker 1: where the civilization was the least developed, they boast and
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  Speaker 1: lack self restraint, Olmsted said after observing their descendants in
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  Speaker 1: the American Antebellum South. While Professor Grady McWhiney's Cracker Culture
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  Speaker 1: is perhaps the most thorough historical study of the values
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  Speaker 1: and behavioral patterns of white Southerners, many other scholarly studies
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  Speaker 1: have turned up very similar patterns, even when they differed
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  Speaker 1: in some ways as to the causes. Professor David Hackett
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  Speaker 1: Fisher's Albion Seed, for example, challenges the Celtic connection thesis
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  Speaker 1: put forth by pf Ess McWhiney, but shows many of
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  Speaker 1: the same cultural patterns among the same people, both in
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  Speaker 1: Britain and in the American South. Popular writings of the
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth and twentieth centuries have likewise described similar behavior, including
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  Speaker 1: the Indianapolis Residence comments on white Southern migrants to that
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  Speaker 1: city which sound so much like what many have said
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  Speaker 1: about ghetto blacks. None of this is meant to claim
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  Speaker 1: that these patterns have remained rigidly unchanged over the centuries,
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  Speaker 1: or that there are literally no differences between whites and
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  Speaker 1: blacks in any aspects of this subculture. However, what is
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  Speaker 1: remarkable is how pervasive and how close the similarities have been.
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  Speaker 1: Centuries before black pride became a fashionable phrase, there was
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  Speaker 1: Cracker pride, and it was very much the same kind
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  Speaker 1: of pride. It was not pride in any particular achievement
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  Speaker 1: or set of behavioral standards or moral principles adhered to.
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  Speaker 1: It was instead of touchiness about anything that might be
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  Speaker 1: even remotely construed as a personal slight, much less an insult,
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  Speaker 1: combined with a willingness to erupt into violence over it.
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  Speaker 1: New Englanders were baffled about this kind of pride among Crackers.
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  Speaker 1: Observing such people, the Yankees could not understand what they
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  Speaker 1: had to feel proud about. However, this kind of pride
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  Speaker 1: is perhaps best illustrated by an episode reported in Professor
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  Speaker 1: McWhiney's Cracker Culture, when an Englishman, tired of waiting for
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  Speaker 1: a Southerner to start working on a house he had
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  Speaker 1: contracted to build, hired another man to do the job.
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  Speaker 1: The enraged Southerner, who considered himself dishonored, vowed tomorrow morn
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  Speaker 1: I will come with men and twenty rifles, and I
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  Speaker 1: will have your life or you shall have mine. In
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  Speaker 1: the vernacular of our later times, he had been dissed
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  Speaker 1: and he was not going to stand for it, regardless
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  Speaker 1: of the consequences for himself or others. The history of
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  Speaker 1: the antebellumself is full of episodes showing the same pattern,
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  Speaker 1: whether expressed in the highly formalized duels of the aristocracy
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  Speaker 1: or in the no holds barred style of fighting called
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  Speaker 1: rough and tumble among the common folk, a style that
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  Speaker 1: included biting off ears and gouging out eyes. It was
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  Speaker 1: not simply that particular isolated individuals did such things. Social
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  Speaker 1: approval was given to these practices, as illustrated by this
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  Speaker 1: episode in the Antebellum South, a crowd gathered and arranged
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  Speaker 1: itself in an impromptu ring. The contestants were asked if
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  Speaker 1: they wished to fight fair or rough and tumble. When
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  Speaker 1: they chose rough and tumble, a roar of approval rose
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  Speaker 1: from the multitude. This particular fight ended with the loser's
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  Speaker 1: nose bitten off, his ears torn off, and both his
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  Speaker 1: eyes gouged out, after which the victor himself maimed and
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  Speaker 1: bleeding was chaired round the grounds to the cheers of
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  Speaker 1: the crowd. This rough and tumble style of fighting was
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  Speaker 1: also popular in the southern Highlands of Scotland, where grabbing
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  Speaker 1: an opponent's testicles and attempting to castrate him by hand
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  Speaker 1: was also an accepted practice. Scottish Highlanders were, in centuries past,
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  Speaker 1: part of the Celtic Fringe, or North Britain's outside the
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  Speaker 1: orbit of English culture, not only as it existed in
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  Speaker 1: England but also in the Scottish Lowlands. The Highlanders lagged
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  Speaker 1: far behind the Lowlanders in education and economic progress, as
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  Speaker 1: well as in the speaking of the English language. For
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  Speaker 1: Gaelic was still widely spoken by Highlanders in the nineteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: not only in Scotland itself, but also in North Carolina
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  Speaker 1: and in Australia, where immigrants from the Scottish Highlands were
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  Speaker 1: unable to communicate with English speaking people, including Lowland Scots
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  Speaker 1: who had also emigrated in the Hebrides Islands off Scotland.
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  Speaker 1: Gaelic had still not completely died out in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. What is important in the pride
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  Speaker 1: in violence patterns among Rednecks and Crackers was not that
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  Speaker 1: particular people did particular things at particular times in places,
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  Speaker 1: Nor is it necessary to attempt to quantify such behavior.
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  Speaker 1: What is crucial is that violence growing out of such
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  Speaker 1: pride had social approval. As Professor McWhiney pointed out, men
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  Speaker 1: often killed and went free in the South, just as
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  Speaker 1: in earlier times they had in Ireland. In Scotland, as
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  Speaker 1: one observer in the South noted, enemies would meet, exchange insults,
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  Speaker 1: and one would shoot the other down, professing that he
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  Speaker 1: had acted in self defense because he believed the victim
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  Speaker 1: was armed. When such a story was told in court
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  Speaker 1: in a community where it is not a strange thing
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  Speaker 1: for men to carry about their person's deadly weapons, each
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  Speaker 1: member of the jury feels that he would have done
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  Speaker 1: the same thing under similar circumstances, so that in condemning him,
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  Speaker 1: they would but condemn themselves. The actions of Southern courts
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  Speaker 1: often amazed outsiders, Professor McWhiney said. But what may be
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  Speaker 1: even more revene feeling of widespread attitudes were the cases
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  Speaker 1: that never even went to trial. As another study of
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  Speaker 1: white Southerners put it, to many rural Southerners, rather than
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  Speaker 1: a set of legal statutes, justice remained a matter of
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  Speaker 1: societal norms, allowing for respect of property rights, individual honour,
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  Speaker 1: and a maximum of personal independence. Any violation of this
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  Speaker 1: pattern amounted to a breach of justice, requiring a specific
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  Speaker 1: response from the injured party. Upon learning that a youthful
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  Speaker 1: neighbor had approached his wife in an overly friendly manner,
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  Speaker 1: Robert Leard of Tanjapehoa, Louisiana promptly tracked the young man
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  Speaker 1: down and killed him under the Piney Woods Code of justice.
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  Speaker 1: Anything less would have invited shame and ridicule upon the
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  Speaker 1: Leared family. Intensity of personal pride was connected by Olmsted
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  Speaker 1: with the fiendlike street fights of the South. He mentioned
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  Speaker 1: an episode of public murder with impunity. A gentleman of veracity,
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  Speaker 1: now living in an in the South, told me that
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  Speaker 1: among his friends he had once numbered two young men,
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  Speaker 1: who were themselves intimate friends. To one of them, taking
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  Speaker 1: offense at some foolish words uttered by the other, challenges him.
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  Speaker 1: A large crowd assembled to see the duel, which took
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  Speaker 1: place on a piece of prairie ground. The combatants came
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  Speaker 1: armed with rifles, and at the first interchange of shots,
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  Speaker 1: the challenged man fell, disabled by a ball in the thigh.
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  Speaker 1: The other, throwing down his rifle, walked toward him, and,
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  Speaker 1: kneeling by his side, drew a bowie knife and deliberately
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  Speaker 1: butchered him. The crowd of bystanders not only permitted this,
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  Speaker 1: but the execrable assassin still lives in the community, has
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  Speaker 1: since married, and as far as my informant could judge,
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  Speaker 1: his social position has been rather advanced than otherwise from
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  Speaker 1: thus dealing with his enemy. Again, what is important here
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  Speaker 1: is not the isolated incident itself, but the set of
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  Speaker 1: social attitudes which allowed such incidents to take place publicly
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  Speaker 1: with impunity, the killer knowing in advance that what he
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  Speaker 1: was doing had community approval. Moreover, such attitudes went back
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  Speaker 1: for centuries on both sides of the Atlantic, at least
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  Speaker 1: among the particular people concerned. During the era when dueling
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  Speaker 1: became a pattern among upper class Americans between the Revolutionary
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  Speaker 1: War and the Civil War, it was particularly prevalent in
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  Speaker 1: the South. As a social history of the United States noted,
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  Speaker 1: of Southern statesmen who rose to prominence after seventeen ninety,
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  Speaker 1: hardly one can be mentioned who was not involved in
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  Speaker 1: a duel. Editors of Southern newspapers became involved in duels
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  Speaker 1: so often that cartoonists depicted them with a pen in
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  Speaker 1: one hand and a dueling pistol in the other. Most
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  Speaker 1: duels arose not over substantive issues, but over words considered
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  Speaker 1: insulting at lower social levels. Southern feuds, such as that
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  Speaker 1: between the hat Fields and the McCoys, which began in
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  Speaker 1: a dispute over a pig and ultimately claimed more than
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  Speaker 1: twenty lives, became legendary. It has been estimated that while
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  Speaker 1: at least three quarters of the settlers in colonial New
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  Speaker 1: England originated in the lowlands southeastern half of Britain, a
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  Speaker 1: similarly large proportion of the population of the South originated
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  Speaker 1: in the Scottish Highlands, Ireland, Wales, or the northern and
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  Speaker 1: western uplands of England. Those arriving from Ireland in colonial
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  Speaker 1: times would have been from Ulster County, where Scots and
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  Speaker 1: Englishmen settled. Since substantial immigration of the indigenous Irish did
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  Speaker 1: not begin until near the middle of the nineteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: radically different cultures could develop and persist during this era,
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  Speaker 1: before transportation and communication developed to the point of promoting
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  Speaker 1: widespread interactions among people in different regions. In colonial America,
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  Speaker 1: the people of the English borderlands and of the Celtic
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  Speaker 1: fringe were seen by contemporaries as culturally quite distinct and
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  Speaker 1: were socially unwelcome. Mob action prevented a shipload of Ulster
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  Speaker 1: Scott from landing in Boston in seventeen nineteen, and the
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  Speaker 1: Quaker leaders of Eastern Pennsylvania encouraged Ulster Scots to settle
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  Speaker 1: out in western Pennsylvania, where they acted as a buffer
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  Speaker 1: to the Indians, as well as being a constant source
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  Speaker 1: of friction and conflict with the Indians. It was not
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  Speaker 1: just in the North that crackers and Rednecks were considered
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  Speaker 1: to be undesirables. Southern plantation owners with poor whites living
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  Speaker 1: on adjoining land would often offer to buy their land
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  Speaker 1: for more than it was worth in order to be
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  Speaker 1: rid of such neighbors. Because there were no racial differences
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  Speaker 1: to form separate statistical categories for these North Britons and
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  Speaker 1: for other whites who settled in the South or in
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  Speaker 1: particular enclaves elsewhere, indirect indicators must serve as proxies for
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  Speaker 1: these cultural differences. Names are among these indicators. Edward, for example,
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  Speaker 1: was a popular name in Virginia and in Wessex, England,
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  Speaker 1: from which many Virginians had emigrated, But the first forty
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  Speaker 1: classes of undergraduates at Harvard College contained only one man
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  Speaker 1: named Edward. It would be nearly two centuries before Harvard
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  Speaker 1: enrolled anyone named Patrick, even though that was a common
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  Speaker 1: name in western Pennsylvania, where the Ulster Scots settled. This
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  Speaker 1: says something not only about the social and geographic differences
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  Speaker 1: of the times, but also about how regionalized the naming
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  Speaker 1: patterns were then, in contrast to the fact that no
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  Speaker 1: one today finds it particularly strange when an Asian American
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  Speaker 1: has such non Asian first names as Kevin or Michelle.
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  Speaker 1: Even where there was no conflict or hostility involved, Southerners
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  Speaker 1: often showed a reckless disregard for human life, including their own.
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  Speaker 1: For example, the racing of steamboats that happened to encounter
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  Speaker 1: each other on the rivers of the South often ended
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  Speaker 1: with exploding boilers, especially when the excited competition led to
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  Speaker 1: the tying down of safety valves in order to build
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  Speaker 1: up more pressure to generate more speed. An impromptu race
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  Speaker 1: between steamboats that encountered each other on the Mississippi illustrates
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  Speaker 1: the pattern. On board one boat was an old lady who,
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  Speaker 1: having bought a winter stock of bacon, pork, et cetera,
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  Speaker 1: was returning to her home on the banks of the Mississippi.
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  Speaker 1: Fun levers on board both boats insisted upon a race.
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  Speaker 1: Cheers and drawn pistols obliged the captains to co operate.
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  Speaker 1: As the boats struggled to outdistance each other, Excited passengers
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  Speaker 1: demanded more speed. Despite every effort, the boats raced evenly
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  Speaker 1: until the old lady directed her slaves to throw all
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  Speaker 1: her casks of bacon into the boilers. Her boat then
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  Speaker 1: moved ahead of the other vessel, which suddenly exploded. Clouds
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  Speaker 1: of splinters and human limbs darkened the sky. On the
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  Speaker 1: undamaged boat, passengers shouted their victory, but above their cheers
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  Speaker 1: could be heard the shrill voice of the old lady crying,
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  Speaker 1: I did it, I did it. It's all my bacon.
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  Speaker 1: On the Mississippi and other western rivers of the United
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  Speaker 1: States as it existed in the early nineteenth century, it
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  Speaker 1: has been estimated that thirty percent of all the steamboats
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  Speaker 1: were lost in accidents. Part of this may have been
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  Speaker 1: due to deficiencies in the early steamboats themselves. But much
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  Speaker 1: of it was due to the recklessness with which they
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  Speaker 1: were operated on Southern rivers. The comments of a fireman
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  Speaker 1: on a Mississippi steamboat of that era may suggest why
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  Speaker 1: a river voyage was considered more dangerous than crossing the
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  Speaker 1: Atlantic at a time when sinkings in the Atlantic were
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  Speaker 1: by no means rare talk about Northern steamers. The firemen
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  Speaker 1: of a Mississippi steamboat sneered to an Eastern traveler in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen forty four, you don't need no spunk to navigate
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  Speaker 1: them waters. You ain't bust a biler in five years.
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  Speaker 1: But I tell you, stranger, it takes a man to
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  Speaker 1: ride one of these half alligated boats head on a snag,
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  Speaker 1: high pressures, valve sided down, six hundred souls on board
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  Speaker 1: and in danger going to the devil. This was no
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  Speaker 1: mere idle talk. Among the steamboat explosions in the South.
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  Speaker 1: One on the Mississip in eighteen thirty eight killed well
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  Speaker 1: over one hundred people, and another near Baton Rouge in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine killed more than half of the four
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  Speaker 1: hundred people on board and badly injured more than half
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  Speaker 1: the survivors. Southerners were just as reckless on land, whether
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  Speaker 1: in escapades undertaken for the excitement of the moment, or
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  Speaker 1: in the many fights and deaths resulting from some insult
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  Speaker 1: or slight among people touchy about their honor and dignity. Again,
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  Speaker 1: all of this went back to a way of life
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  Speaker 1: in the turbulent regions of Britain from which white Southerners came.
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  Speaker 1: Nor is it hard to recognize in these attitudes clear
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  Speaker 1: parallels to the behavior and attitudes of ghetto gangs today,
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  Speaker 1: who kill over a look or a word, or any
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  Speaker 1: action that can be construed as dissing them. Passsssssssssssssssssssssss