We have not yet faced the fundamental question today:
"How do we non-Rednecks help the Rednecks overcome their Redneckedness?"
This is the key question. We must approach the White Protestant Southerner not as our enemy, but as a fellow traveler on the road to prosperity and enlightenment who has lost his way in a drunken fog of self-deluding moralism.
First of all, let's be clear, the white, protestant Southerner is not a bad sort.
He will pull off the road and change your tire and not even think it's a big deal.
He will rarely bring up controversial issues in public -- and if he does -- he's more apt to laugh at himself than the urban dweller of the coasts.
Despite the dogs and firehoses, the white, protestant Southerner actually likes black people and probably knows more black people by name than the vast majority of urban coastal dwellers...a common misconception is that Southern racism is hate-based...it's grounded not in hatred, but in a need to feel superior to someone else, anyone else. The Southerner's racial antipathy is grounded in a nagging sense of inferiority.
White Protestant Southerners know very well that they are not that smart, They also know that they have not been economically successful. And they know that they have done many nasty things over the course of the last 200 years.
So, there's a lot of guilt in the Red States about the treatment of Native Americans and Blacks. However, the White Protestant Southerner is never sure how to deal with this guilt. He can't deny it, but he can't ever entirely face up to it.
As it happens, he has discovered a kind of mental moonshine which consistently deadens the guilt and makes the painful memories of injustice go away.
We call it religious fundamentalism, but he calls it "finding Jesus." Or phrased differently: when a white protestant Southerner "finds Jesus," he also "finds absolution" from the South's past failings.
For the White Protestant Southerner, evangelical Christianity is a heady tonic because it allows him to assuage his guilt, while simultaneously affirming a newfound moral superiority over the godless urban coastal dweller.
But don't believe his outward professions of ethical self-confidence and moral rectitude. He's ideologically drunk, and deep down he knows it.
He will inevitably begin to sober up.
This is where we come in.
We can sit there yelling at him, making him feel rotten, ashamed and defensive, or we can put a consoling hand on his shoulder and lead him away from the bar without further chastisement.
Right now, the white protestant southerner is on an all night drunk, an all-time, flaming jamboree of self-righteous-self-delusion, and it is our duty to get the thermos of secular coffee ready.
We must sit patiently and wait for the hang over to set in. And when it does...as it will...let us not be too proud as we lift him off the floor once more, as we did in 1865 and 1965...