It’s interesting that the Scots-Irish who populate the South told the Census Bureau that their ethnic heritage is “American.” I don’t think of them that way. Now, I don’t pull rank on anyone. I am related to three passengers on the Mayflower, but I don’t exactly celebrate my Puritan heritage if you know what I mean. I have never met anyone in my extended family who self-identified as Congregationalist. They interbred with Italians and Germans and Hungarians and who knows who else.
So, I’m not here to tell you that I’m a real American and anyone else is not. But I do recall that a huge part of this country tried to secede from the Union, causing my ancestors to risk their lives fighting the rebels. And I know that for a full century, a big part of this country both operated as a shameful Apartheid state and, defaulting on Jefferson’s promissory note, resisted all efforts to live up to the meaning of our creed that all men are created equal. My America runs through Plymouth Rock, but also through Ellis Island where one Italian great-grandfather of mine signed his name with an ‘X.’ My America doesn’t look alike, it doesn’t believe alike. My America flies the Stars and Stripes, not the Stars and Bars. I find Southern Whites as culturally alien as Afrikaners.
I am not saying all this because I want to go off on the South. I just want to point out that the most un-American thing in the world is to secede from the Union. And slavery and Jim Crow are stains on this country, not a heritage to celebrate. If we’re as good as we aspire to be, the people who claim to be ‘American’ on the census have no special claim to this country. They are part of it, just like the latest naturalized citizen from Uzbekistan. But, that’s it.
I am tired of these articles that try to make me feel sorry for the poor oppressed white Southerner who is losing all his privileges. Guess what? My heroes are Nelson Mandela and John Lewis, not Stonewall Jackson or Robert E. Lee. My ancestors didn’t oppress the immigrants that followed them to these shores; they fell in love with them. Complainers in the South should try it. Maybe they’ll like it.
