Do Southerners Have the Right to be Described as "Native Americans"?

10-7-2010 | comtedemaistre

[ComtedeMaistre]

Southerners who celebrate their cultural heritage, are among the most misunderstood people in America. Italians who celebrate Colombus Day, and Irishmen who celebrate St. Patricks Day, never have to suffer the grief that Southerners who want to celebrate Robert E. Lee's Birthday have to endure.

Southern identity is partly about celebrating the Anglo-Celtic culture, which is the core culture that existed in America at the time of the founding of America in 1776. It is the culture that gave us the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and others. Most Southerners, both white and black, are descended from people who were in America before the Civil War in 1860.

It is often said that America is a nation of immigrants. Southerners are not immigrants to America. When the first Southerners came to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, America did not exist as a nation. Southerners were the pioneers who built America. Southerners created colonial America in 1607, before the Mayflower folks arrived in 1620. Two sons of the South, the Virginians, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, led America to independence as a Constitutional Republic in 1776. Why shouldn't Southerners be proud of such a great heritage?

Many of the Northerners who love to mock and insult the South, are people whose ancestors came to America as immigrants, after the statue of liberty was put up in 1886. They love to mock the people who created and built the America that their ancestors immigrated to. If someone could create a time machine, and we could go back to the 1890s, we would tell our Southern ancestors to stop those European immigrants from getting off their boats at Ellis Island. It is time that the Southerners who created American culture and the American nation, are shown a little appreciation by the Ellis Island Yankees, who just got off the boat the other day. If you are a pro-Southern Yankee, this complaint does not apply to you, of course.

[ComtedeMaistre]

Because Southerners are pioneers and not immigrants, they deserve to be described as "Native Americans". Southern culture and heritage, deserves as much respect as the Cherokee, Navajo, Comanche, Apache, and the Sioux cultures.

[WAW]

I know Texans do.

[coloradan]

I was born in America, therefore, I am a Native American. End of story.

[GeronL]

If you and your parents were born here, that makes you a native American. Maybe they meant aboriginal Americans?

[SeekAndFind]

Since we’re into Southerners vs Northerners, we might want to ask again -— was the civil war between the American North and South about slavery as the standard talking heads want us to believe, or was it about state rights and the right to self-determination?

[SoldierDad]

Hmmm. My family first landed on these shores sometime in the middle 1600’s. The first member of my family born here was born in 1653. Does this mean I am a Native American too??

[wmileo]

"If you and your parents were born here, that makes you a native American"

If it's good enough for Barry(THE ONE), it's good enough for me!!!

[wilco200]

I was born here. I am a native American.

[cripplecreek]

Yup, I’m a native American. Myself, my parents, and grandparents were born here and that’s enough.

[elhombrelibre]

I think Nativist Americans would be a good title to describe these types of Southerners.

[Red6]

Whatever you do, make sure you're a protected class so that you can be an “extra special - American.” You know, anything with a hyphen in-front of the American to qualify what you are first and foremost.

You don't want to be “just” an American.

[The Sons of Liberty]

“Wish I was in the land of cotton ....”

[stylecouncilor]

ping

[rhombus]

If you were born on a piece of land that was once colonized by Spain, does it make you a Hispanic? A Latino? How vague is that?

[stainlessbanner]

Ping!

[wilco200]

I was born here. I am a native American.

America wasn’t America during the time of the Indians. Those folks went by their tribal names.

Indians alive today, if born in the US can also be called native American’s though they still cling to their tribal heritage and for the most part shun American culture/nationhood.

It’s all very confusing

[wilco200]

I was born here. I am a native American.

America wasn’t America during the time of the Indians. Those folks went by their tribal names.

Indians alive today, if born in the US can also be called native American’s though they still cling to their tribal heritage and for the most part shun American culture/nationhood.

It’s all very confusing

[ontap]

There you’ve started it!!!

[rhombus]

Since we’re into Southerners vs Northerners, we might want to ask again -— was the civil war between the American North and South about slavery as the standard talking heads want us to believe, or was it about state rights and the right to self-determination?

No bites yet? No one wants to do the same old dance?

[SnakeDoctor]

This “indigenous” fetishization is nothing but left-wing aryanism (these people are more deserving because of their race and ancestry).

My ancestors landed here well before the United States existed. They fought in the French & Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Texas Revolution (including one that fell at the Alamo).

I am as native as a white man can be, and am Texan from a time before Texas existed.

I am no more American than a close friend of mine who was born in Bolivia, immigrated illegally with his mother when he was very young, and worked to obtain his U.S. Citizenship after Reagan’s amnesty.

If he and I are equally American, as we are, I refuse to acknowledge that a certain race of people is more deserving, or more “native”.

SnakeDoc