White supremacists make a basic mistake about history. They imagine we live in the same world our ancestors did. They’re just wrong. Our ancestors in America had to learn how to live on the Frontier. The Indians knew how to live here, but the settlers didn’t. In the process of adapting the settlers created a…
Category: Culture
2020 Census
I wrote a little piece called “American Identity” back in 2008, looking to the 2010 Census. Now here it is, almost the 2020 Census. If I hadn’t written it then, I’d want to write it now. Not changing a thing.
Think About Culture Changes
Let’s take some time to think about how culture changes over time. Justin King talks a bit here toward the beginning about White American Southerners who tried to save their culture by moving to Brazil. It didn’t work. They assimilated. And that’s exactly what happens to people in the European diaspora. Our ancestors might have…
Faerie Lore Among the Scots-Irish
More from Barry McCain on faeries. I look forward his posts, and I like the way he introduces the idea of faeries and faerie lore: After talking about the immigration of Ulster Scots to America in the 18th century, he says, “Some of the Faeries from Ireland followed these people to the Colonies. From the…
Romanticizing Cowboys
In the 1880s, “America was no more impressed by a cowboy than by a railroad employee or a shopkeeper,” according to Lynn Jacobs. That will come as a surprise to almost everyone I know, because cowboys are the embodiment of our regional heritage and culture. But that all comes from Teddy Roosevelt’s deep-seated insecurity about…