[UGAalum94]

SWTXBelle, I don't give anyone a free pass in terms of slavery and the Civil War, and I agree that many things that the South is demonized for in some ways were accelerated because of Northern policy. (For example, would Andersonville been as bad if prisoner exchanges had continued? Would it have been as bad if the south had more food in general?) And yes, if most of heroes of the Union expressed their thoughts about race today, well, let's just say that the NAACP wouldn't be pleased.

But when I contrast the experience of my parents who are only four years apart in age, the one who went to school in the south didn't experience an integrated public school until law school and the other from the west went to an integrated school from first grade on. Both went to school pre and post Brown vs. the Board of Education. One state's school system thought the supreme court decision meant what it said, and the other decided to wait and see.

I don't especially feel the weight of guilt about slavery on my "southern" shoulders (at least in part because I don't think any of my relatives, especially the southern ones had immigrated yet), but we're talking 1961 before UGA allowed black students to enroll and in some cases 1970s before some high schools in Georgia were integrated. (They had the idea of "phasing" integration in as opposed to the whole system all at once.) The sins of my forefathers, in my opinion, are a whole lot closer than the Civil War.

And yet, instead of trying to ensure decent education for all the kids in Georgia despite their parents or grandparents not getting one, we had probably a ten year fight about the state flag.

On the totally different note:

Occasionally, I'm shocked at the difference in where I categorize states regionally in terms of culture versus where they are geographically. Ohio always freaks me out. I want to think of it as Midwestern culturally, which is probably in error, but it's pretty darn far east for that. (Well not Far East, as in Asian, but you know what I mean.)