Sometimes words are used as smokescreens to hide the real issues, other times the proper words can clarify a topic so that it is crystal clear. It has been said that if you tell a lie often enough, for long enough it will become the truth. People may take the lie as fact, but just because that is all you’ve ever heard doesn’t mean it is the truth. With time, the truth will resurface.
The fight that Dixie is in today is not fought with guns, but with words. Unfortunately this battle could prove to be more deadly to Southerners than the physical battles fought from 1861 to 1865. The attacks against the South, her people and her culture are couched in negative stereotypes and "objective observations." The written word is very powerful because the natural tendency of people is to accept what they see in print as the truth. In an argument over issues, someone will point to the newspaper and say, "It’s says "this" right here." Therefore it is accepted as fact. If the flow of words against the South is not stopped, we will cease to exist as a separate people.
I recently was in Kansas City on business and found myself having breakfast with individuals that worked for the same company that I do. These "gentlemen" were from the Northeast. It didn’t take five minutes for the comments to start flowing from them on the fact I was a Southerner eating grits and biscuits and gravy for breakfast and how backwards Southerners are and the food they eat is disgusting. I politely parried their comments pointing out the habit of eating scrapple (don’t ask) in Pennsylvania and other Northern bad habits. I had to be polite since I’m a manager and they happened to be VPs with the company. Besides I preferred to act like a gentleman, which they obviously were not or they never would have mentioned their negative comments unprovoked like they did.
The tide is turning however, because there are more and more outlets for Southerners through which we can be heard. More Southerners are saying, "We’ve had enough and we won’t take it anymore!" We must wage a war that is fought with not just our emotions, but with logical arguments and facts. The TRUE facts of our glorious Southern history. There is such a thing as righteous indignation, and we have been pushed to the point where we have to respond or literally die as a people. What I experienced in Kansas City would not happen to an officially recognized minority without serious repercussions for the perpetrators. We are on our own to defend ourselves. But as any good Southerner knows, one Southerner is worth ten Yankees any day.
The battle for the hearts and minds of our children and our fellow Southerners who have been lead astray will be won in the newspapers and books that are published. The fight for our just cause will succeed as we flood the media outlets with the facts of what really took place in American history. As the information is examined and acknowledged as the truth, more and more people will take pride in being Southern and those that aren’t will wish they were (some already do).
Jeff Adams
April 30, 1999