I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had been to the South many times and I thought I knew what the South was, but not until you live with people and live through their lives do you know what it's really about.
Being a son of the South puts you in a different position when it comes to the Confederate flag. It means something entirely different to the people who have ancestors who fought in the Civil War on the south side of the Mason-Dixon line.
While I've said that there are plenty of things I dislike about the South, I can be clear that there are things I love about the South.
Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races, a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.
If you care to define the South as a poor, rural region with lousy race relations, that South survives only in geographical shreds and patches and most Southerners don't live there any more.
The thing about the South is we accept our history. We don't push it under the rug.
If it is a crime to love the South, its cause and its President, then I am a criminal. I would rather lie down in this prison and die than leave it owing allegiance to a government such as yours.
There's a grace about the South and a toughness about it, too.
Anything to do with the South resonates with me, because I'm Southern.
There's no such thing as being too Southern.