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What I Like About the South
North Miami Beach, Florida 10-3-2000 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE SOUTH
We now live in SOUTH FLORIDA. That distinction is made on every televised
news or weather broadcast. And there is that hurricane thing, too.
Everyone here is energized by the swirling masses of clouds coming at us
from Africa across the Atlantic. The water jugs offered for sale at Publix
go first and everyone stocks up on canned goods and dry foods in case the
electricity is knocked out. But that is what I like about the south.
Everybody is made equal by the forces of nature. It has been raining
furiously all day today.
Southern Poverty Law Center materials are published by a remarkable man,
Morris Dees. The last issue of the SPLC magazine about "Neo Confederate
Hate Groups" contained a map of the U.S. with symbols of two groups that
operate in many of the states. There is a group called THE LEAGUE OF THE
SOUTH. There is also the COUNCIL OF CONSERVATIVE CITIZENS. The highest
concentration of "League" cells (42), is in FLORIDA. Most are clustered
above South Florida. One "Council" is just to the north of us. The people
belonging to these groups believe in strange things. I must note that the
KKK is not mentioned but its membership is thought to have moved to these
groups. Both of these groups specialize in glorifying the CONFEDERATE FLAG.
Where we live there is a very high concentration of Black Americans; it
also has a very high concentration of New Americans or those whose first
language is not English. There is, of course, a high concentration of Jews
(a lot like us from up North) and a mingling of all these groups. In our
part of SOUTH Florida there seems to be a dearth of the kind of WHITE person
who might belong to the League of the South. I like that about the South.
What I don't like is the possibility that the person who waits on me or
supplies a needed service OR, is an official elected in the enclaves where I
do not live might think like the members of these groups. These people
believe in very strange ideas. They also spout their beliefs on web sites.
Hiding under the need to preserve a "Southern" way of life that is imagined
to really have existed before the Civil War, the REBEL yell is still
practiced and the need to even the score remains. What do you think? Carol'
s Evaluation: 9 out of 10.
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