My guess is that it isn't really about slavery or the actual Confederacy - it's just a proxy for "we want to be rich and for our region to be important again". Basically the same reason here in Poland people are digging through history, and probably why every place ever brings up their own things from the past.
Totally agree. At age 14 I moved from Michigan to small town southern Virginia, where I lived on and off for the next 20 years. So I have some sense of the contrast between north and south.
I think most Southerners don't reminisce for the "good old plantation days" as much for a sense of identity and a reason to be proud of who they are and respect for their heritage. It's not the Confederacy (per se) that they identify with; it's "being a southerner", and hailing from a specific state (though I suspect few could describe how their state's history is distinct from other southern states any more).
Tradition has long been much bigger in the South than the North. Southerner are less likely to move away from the South than Northerners move from the North. And I think social status is also more important there; honorific titles have long held more sway (e.g. Colonel Sanders), as has the tradition of serving in the military and hailing from a long military lineage.
IMHO, the Confederacy is mostly just a a "high water mark" for southern identity and independent spirit, but not especially meaningful in defining their values today.
I just watched Gone with the wind, and I realized real life is much more nuanced than just 'slavery being legal.' Planning to read the book whenever I have time.
Originally I am from the South but I have lived throughout the US and overseas - New Mexico, Idaho, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Turkey and I have traveled through Europe (western/eastern), Asia and the Middle East etc...
Southern Pride is about heritage where both black and white people are fond of their Southern roots. Southern culture is distinctive, containing certain mannerisms, language and traditions, distinct from the rest of the US. Cultural nuances occur regardless of place, though they are more noticeable in the South.
Now is the south racist? Yes, but every person everywhere carries a certain level of racism or a level of prejudice. It is human nature, biological I would argue, a mechanism to protect ourselves. Eastern Europe was noticeably prejudice of anyone they didn't know. I took their distrust based from living under the Iron Curtain for many years. Attempting conversation in their language broke many barriers but not always, which I understood so I went on with my business.
Yeah the old pre-civil war government who's main ideological difference was that slavery should be legal. People are just nutcases in general.