February 08, 2005
The LeTourneau Amateur Yankee Historian Society
If you don't like rants or the venting of steam, keep on scrolling. I'm just talkin', don't nobody have to listen.
If you live in any one of the 37 continental states that is not in the south, I just might have a bone to pick with you. I have decided to declare today, February 8th, to be my own personal "I Hate Arrogant Damnyankees" Day.
I have taken this step because it has come to my attention that I truly despise non-Southern Americans who wander about complacently with their noses in the air and speak in shocked, superior tones about how scandalizing and difficult to comprehend they find the historical treatment of the African American race in our region of the country. They speak as though their lily-white ancestors, those indian-slaughtering, slavery-tolerating, immigrant-exploiting men of young America, didn't accrue a single ugly skeleton in their pristine historical closets from the moment they set foot on this continent . . . to say nothing of exploits in Europe, Asia, Africa . . .
Now I should probably clarify a few things. To begin with, yes, slavery and racism are really really really bad. I am painfully aware that we are smack in the middle of Black History Month (don't get me started) and even if we were in some distant portion of what is apparently "White History Rest-of-the-Year" I wouldn't think of making light of the plight of minorities in American history. There is almost nothing I hate worse than mindless prejudice. Which is probably why I'm so irritated at the stupidity of a certain two people in my lit class this morning.
We're studying Huck Finn right now, so of course the topic of racism reared its ugly head. And a certain non-southern type announced that he had been driving by a local high school with his Texan girlfriend, and she had pointed it out as a school that had been segregated. And he saw fit to inform us that he was stunned, not only that such a thing had taken place, but that anyone would actually admit to it.
Ummm . . .? Yes. And I'll also be pleading the fifth on the subjects of Auschwitz, the Inquisition, and the Trail of Tears. What's that look for? No one in history has ever done anything evil or wrong!
Then the guy who thinks everything literary is either allegorical or satirical spoke up, speculating that Twain was indulging in a little satire on slaves. "I mean, things weren't really this bad were they? And those people weren't really that superstitious, right?"
Seriously, this guy once asked (during a discussion of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat") whether it was allegorical since the name of the town is Poker Flat and the main character of the story is a professional gambler.
And don't even get me started on the religion of "don't steal massuh's chickens." I can't handle it right now.
Posted by Jared at February 8, 2005 11:21 AM | TrackBack