I guess I was liberal before the nametag and they've been trying to kill us for a long time now.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

We moved South in 61. I was 7. First question I remember from a neighborhood kid was "are you a yankee or a rebel?" I had to go ask my Mom because I had never heard either words before. She told me that we were from Missouri which was a neutral state. She also went on about the only differences between ourselves and the Black people was melanin.

Shortly after the news reported Dr. King had been shot. Then JFK, then Bobby...Then so many others that never made the National news. And Nam, Kent State...

Fuck. They even killed John Lennon.



The racists are rabid.
And have been for a long time.

Trump has stoked their fires again and they are crawling out of the holes they were once driven in to.

[werdna]

1. In case some are skeptical of your claim . . .

. . . I will confirm it with my own experience. My Air Force family moved to Bossier City LA in 1965; I was 7 y.o.. The first black children I ever saw were at a hotel we lived at while my parents bought a house. They were AF brats as well. The first recess from classes at school I was also queried as to my Yankee/Rebel status. Having no idea what was being asked, since I was born in Florida and had just moved from Virginia, both slave states before and during the Civil War, I was permitted to be a Rebel, although I still had know idea what that meant. The purpose for the query was to determine which side of a game I would play for. The game played as follows: the Yanks lined up on one side of the field, the Rebs the other. At an agreed upon signal both teams charged toward the middle and commenced to drag each other to their home side, taking them prisoner. Also, teammates could free those captured by invading the opponents base and escorting the prisoner through the battlefield across the midpoint. This event was reenacted everyday at recess, weather permitting. If the "game" became too violent, the recess monitors would intercede and break it up. In 1968 we moved to the heart of Yankeeland, Chicopee, Massachusetts where whiffle ball was the favored pastime.

The point being, southerners are indoctrinated into Rebel culture from an early age. It is one of the primary aspects of Southern culture and despite any laws, social movements or amendments to the Constitution, it prevails to this day.

[ananda]

2. I remember the sixties clearly.

The south was rife with hate.

Johnson had to send Fed troops to Alabama
because George Wallace refused to abide
by the Civil Rights Act.