Going Back Home

I hope I’m not making this blog too personal, but if I must, so be it.

It seems like a pretty high proportion of my readers are Southerners, and I’ve made it clear that while I’ve spent a good share of my life in the South, I suppose I set the bar rather high for what makes a person Southern. My whole family having originated in the Northeast, I consider myself a Yankee Puritan in exile, so to say. I suppose that’s partly because most of my family has never identified as Southern, although I’ve never had a conversation about it with any of my cousins who were born in the South. Since for the most part they live in suburbs with mainly other Northern transplants, I doubt they even feel Southern. To be Southern and have the rest of my blood relatives remain Northern would be highly uncomfortable.

All this means I feel a bit unnerved when people who are unquestionably Southern tell me that I could become a Southerner in good standing as long as I identify with the South’s history and values. Quite the contrary, most Southerners who have actually met me know that I am not of the region, possibly just from hearing my accent. Even since I have become more conservative and thus more fond of the South’s traditions, I know I’m not a native. I know where home is, and it’s defined by where my family has a history. Southern people are born, not made. People may find it ironic, but the more respect I have for what the South is, the more I feel like an intruder. If Americans, North and South, had been true to our traditions, I think, my parents would not have come to the South in the first place. I felt good when Terry Morris told the non-native Oklahomans to go back where they came from — even though the same attitude, if present throughout the South, would have meant Southerners telling my parents not to come.

Beyond that, I think I ought to honor the part of my family that stuck with their home territory through thick and thin. We have suffered greatly, I’m convinced, from being a geographically dispersed family, unlike most Southern families. As I said both here and at Vanishing American, I think every family should gather on its home turf, as much as possible, and make the idea of a kinship-based community seem as real as it can. There are a few areas where whites have already lost even the possibility of control of their local governments. But there are still areas from coast to coast that whites ought not concede. Vermont is one of the most liberal states in the nation, yet it has its own secessionist movement — even some white nationalists! – and some strong traditions of localism. Socialism is relatively popular there only because of the high degree of social and ethnic homogeneity.

Conversely, the South considers itself very traditionalist, but often shares a neoconservative, “New South” concept of what is traditional. Traditions of racial inequality and parochialism are not only rejected, but practically forgotten by many. There are plenty of Southerners more concerned with aping the North socially and economically than carrying on any Southern traditions. Many Southern schoolchildren probably could not name any reason to be proud of the South.

It seems that a considerable number of Southerners have relatives who are personally involved in the business of increasing immigration, too. For more traditionalist Southerners, having such relatives may lead to loss of confidence in the idea of loyalty to one’s kin. They begin to think they’d as soon have Yankee neighbors who share their goals, as born Southerners who don’t.

It may sound quixotic, but I don’t think we should willingly surrender any of the areas where whites are still the majority. The Mexican border states and Florida are probably Hispanic permanently, and I would agree that whites younger than retirement age in those states ought to move somewhere else. I would draw the line there, however. If I have my way, we will not try to be the cultural and demographic majority only in the South, or the Northwest, or any other limited region. There are traditional Americans in all regions, and traditional ideas tend to prevail in the rural regions of almost every state.

The reasons to go back to my traditional homeland are many. I feel like if I am to pattern myself after my late grandfather, the last direct ancestor to have been a farmer, I ought to live in the same area. (Although perhaps he had less attachment to the land than I imagine, since he did retire to Florida.) The status-seeking liberals lampooned on Stuff White People Like are likely to stay away on account of the isolation and cold weather, if for no other reason. The area is very far from Mexico and the preferred West-Coast destinations for Asian immigrants. One thing I do wish I understood was whether there is any discernible legacy of Puritanism — other than in its mutant form of anti-white leftism — in the area. Back when my parents were growing up there, my mother’s family honored the Sabbath very devoutly, and they weren’t alone in doing so. But sometimes it seems like the only churches left there now are liberal Protestant or very lax Catholic.

I appreciate the hospitality of those Southerners who would like me to stay, but if you really mean it, know that you are trying to talk me into a decision that doesn’t feel natural. Staying in the South presently strikes me as at worst treason to my ancestors, and at best a pragmatic calculation that I have little choice but to turn my back on my homeland forever. Meanwhile, I would like to hear some encouraging words from Northeastern readers who think the Northeast is worth saving.