Inconvenient truth bomb: You cannot get your panties in a wad every time Southerners talk about the destruction of Southern culture and the erasure of Southern history, then turn around and demand that everybody stand up and fight for American culture and American history. Why? Because they are one and the same. America isn’t one big, homogenous blob of people who all talk alike, eat alike, think alike, and come from the same place. We’re a nation made up of distinct regions, each with its own history, traditions, accents, music, food, and way of life. All of those regional cultures come together under one American flag. Yankeedom has its Masshole accents, New York attitudes, bagels, Italian food, old money, and prep schools. Appalachia has its hillbillies, moonshine, bluegrass, clogging, and fierce self-sufficiency. The West has cowboys, tech culture, valley girls, Hispanic and Chinese influences, Hollywood, tofu, and cattle ranches. The Midwest has its endless fields of grain, Motown, steel towns, German influences, and the Windy City. And the South? We’ve got our drawls, African influences, mamas who raise their hands up high, country music, Southern rock, Gothic writers, Cajun and Lowcountry, and a rebellious spirit. ALL OF IT IS AMERICAN. ALL OF IT MATTERS. You cannot pick and choose which pieces of America’s cultural heritage deserve to survive based on whether you happen to belong to one of them. You don’t get to demand respect for your region’s history while dismissing ours as backward, embarrassing, or something the country needs to outgrow. You don’t get to wave the American flag with one hand while helping erase the very regional cultures that made this country what it is with the other. If you want me to stand up and fight for what’s yours, then quit rolling your eyes when we fight for what’s ours. You cannot preserve American culture by erasing Southern culture. You cannot protect American history by pretending Southern history doesn’t matter. And you sure as hell cannot ask Southerners to defend a heritage you refuse to respect.