Jul 24, 2004
Those Rascal Celts Were Everywhere!
In reading David Beito & Charles Nuckolls, "Wrong Song of the South: The Dangers of Confederate Multiculturalism," at Reason Online, I couldn’t help but examine the two links to the League of the South’s website, one on “flags,” the other on the “Celtic background” of “Southern Culture.”
Between them, these two links mention “Anglo-Celtic civilization” no less than five times as forming the basis of Southern culture. I was reminded of my own Celtic background, albeit somewhat different than that envisaged by the League.
At some point in the evening, after a few glasses of wine at dinner during a Liberty Fund seminar in Houston some years ago, the historian Forrest McDonald of the University of Alabama asked me if anyone had ever mentioned to me that I had a purely “Celtic” face? I replied, “Well, yes, but the Celticness was probably more from my Spanish ancestors than from those who had matriculated to Florida from southern Alabama.” He looked very puzzled by my answer.
He had apparently not realized the heavy Celtic background of Asturias and other areas in northern Spain, where even today, on a Sunday afternoon one might find the natives dancing in kilts to the music of bagpipes. I doubt, although the League may inform me otherwise, that there is any such Celtic “kultur” around in towns in today’s American South.
The Anglo-Celts in my family were not exactly big on multi-cultural diversity. When my Father proposed to my Mother in 1936, her brothers, all members of the Klan beat up my Father, dumping him on the edge of the Everglades, with the threat that they would not stand for their sister being married to some “Spanish-Nigger.” Well, my Mother had other ideas!
Their ignorance was exceeded perhaps only by the anti-nativist Klan members in North Carolina, who in the early 1960s staged a rally in the county that had the largest Indian population east of the Mississippi. The Klanners were chased into the woods by hundreds of Indian-American war veterans.
So, League of the Southers, what is the real cultural basis of this “Anglo” version of the Celtic heritage, other than a propensity to try to bully others? As McDonald learned, much of what Anglo-Celts think of as “theirs,” is common to Celtics around other parts of Europe.
Between them, these two links mention “Anglo-Celtic civilization” no less than five times as forming the basis of Southern culture. I was reminded of my own Celtic background, albeit somewhat different than that envisaged by the League.
At some point in the evening, after a few glasses of wine at dinner during a Liberty Fund seminar in Houston some years ago, the historian Forrest McDonald of the University of Alabama asked me if anyone had ever mentioned to me that I had a purely “Celtic” face? I replied, “Well, yes, but the Celticness was probably more from my Spanish ancestors than from those who had matriculated to Florida from southern Alabama.” He looked very puzzled by my answer.
He had apparently not realized the heavy Celtic background of Asturias and other areas in northern Spain, where even today, on a Sunday afternoon one might find the natives dancing in kilts to the music of bagpipes. I doubt, although the League may inform me otherwise, that there is any such Celtic “kultur” around in towns in today’s American South.
The Anglo-Celts in my family were not exactly big on multi-cultural diversity. When my Father proposed to my Mother in 1936, her brothers, all members of the Klan beat up my Father, dumping him on the edge of the Everglades, with the threat that they would not stand for their sister being married to some “Spanish-Nigger.” Well, my Mother had other ideas!
Their ignorance was exceeded perhaps only by the anti-nativist Klan members in North Carolina, who in the early 1960s staged a rally in the county that had the largest Indian population east of the Mississippi. The Klanners were chased into the woods by hundreds of Indian-American war veterans.
So, League of the Southers, what is the real cultural basis of this “Anglo” version of the Celtic heritage, other than a propensity to try to bully others? As McDonald learned, much of what Anglo-Celts think of as “theirs,” is common to Celtics around other parts of Europe.