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« on: December 11, 2008, 08:48:12 PM »
alot of good points made here.
I am Irish and still harbor a general resentment of England, even though I personally never suffered at British hands, I did know many people who did, some were family as well. I have also lived in a great many parts of the Northeast rural and urban areas, and I can tell you, I have seen and heard the word "rebel" used towards those with a southern bent, in the same manner they use Yankee, just a term used, not a put down.
Also, the "Southern" lifestyle (redneck, some might call it) is really a farmland lifestyle and mannerism. If you visit farmland anywhere from Pennsylvania to Vermont, people talk and act the same way as those from Mississippi or Texas in alot of way. The accent might be a bit different, but the speech patterns are the same, and the "slowness" is the same. Also, in some northeastern areas, Civil War thought processes are still in place. This is especially true in Pennsylania and upstate New York, and even in southern New Jersey and Delaware. Maryland is an oddball because peopel there STILL fight over which side they should have been on. Maryland, back then, was kind of a swing state, as was Virginia.
But largely, these mannerisms, from both top and bottom of the east coast, are largely kept among people who can trace their roots back through the civil war. Those of us that have US roots which begin later, have different outlooks. My latent-dislike for the British comes from my grandfather, who started his US life as a young boy watching British soldiers beat Irish expatriots as they were forced to board a ship bound for America. And from a great-grandmother, who starved as a child during teh Potato famine while the british blockaded Irish ports from recieving food.
But I dont REALLY hate the British, it is just a passed on cultural habit. Hard to break, really, this uber-Irish patriotism, even though I have never been to Ireland.
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