Southern Resentment, Human Bondage and this Freedom Thing

And some basketball, too?

I kind of feel like maybe I am going to exorcise some demons here.

Or not.

Perhaps I am simply trying to open up a can of worms. And perhaps if enough people read this, maybe it might. Jason Whitlock I am not. But I have some cultural or racial or societal questions to grind as well.

Let's see if any of this makes sense to anyone else.

So here goes.

I grew up in southern Indiana, an hour south of Indianapolis, mere blocks from Indiana University. My parents are "Northerners" from the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

They are typical Massites in the sense that they are good at being color blind. Or should I say, they both base their estimations of others on the merits of their character rather than the color of their skin or other ethnic characteristics.

They lived in West Africa in the 1960s and always conveyed a love and appreciation for the people that they knew there, regardless of tribal differences, religious variants or economic disparites.

People are people world wide and we are "Born Free", like the sentimental film about the lions.

I honor them both for that example that they have left for me and mine. I honor all humanity everywhere, based on their honorable merits.

Growing up where I did, a mere 2 hour drive from former slave state Kentucky, and also surrounded by many southern Hoosiers who talked and often acted "southern", I did develop a prejudice against what had been the Southern United States, and briefly the Confederacy. 1861 to 1865.

A notion that "southerness" was negative.

I apologize. I was a kid. I know a lot more about the honor of the American South now, but it took me a while.

So, what got me thinking about the South lately?

The NBA. The league that I love.

Don't you?

Anyway, I was reading my fantastic book, "The Official NBA Encyclopedia". In the jacket of the front cover, it breaks down the years of ALL the NBA teams since 1946 until the year 2000.

One- year short stint teams were mentioned like the Indianapolis Jets in 1948, the Anderson Packers in 1949 as well as the Indianapolis Olympians the same year, or the Sheboygan Redskins, etc.

There were at least a dozen teams that came and went, some of them even more memorable, like Fort Wayne and Syracuse and Buffalo.

And then it hit me: a common thread ran through all of them.

They were all Northern. None in the south. OK, Baltimore, Louisville, DC and even St. Louis come close to being southern.

But much closer to the north. Especially when it comes to the American Civil War.

And yes, the American north was always more industrial and populated, one of the distinctions of the disjuncture between the two massive regions, a grand part of their differences leading up to their internecine conflict.

Cultural, economic and demographic differences, not to  mention climatological.

And I always resented the south for most of these differences.

I was born in 1970, at the beginning of the boom of the south we know today.

Now there are NBA and NHL teams across the south.

And industry, for that matter. Urbanity and cosmipolitanity.

Good sign.

We are one strong nation, under God.

And Garnett, product of the great state of South Carolina, represents the Boston Celtics.

The colonial town where Crispus Attacks was an American and black martyr of our land.

I call that irony.

I call this freedom, sweet freedom.

My mind is now unencumbered of most of the resentment I once held for my neighbors to the south.

I live in Northern Virginia. I am a southerner! Sort of.

And I love my freedom to love all my brothers and sisters, no matter how they talk or where they live.

Kobe is from the City of Brotherly Love (Philly), and even though I root against him, I am not slave to antipathy for him or the Lakers.

That would be sad. Wrong. Immature.

But I still want the Celtics...

Why? There is a ring involved, it symbolizes victory and liberty, freedom from bondage and defeat. Ray "Jesus Shuttleworth" Allen, Paul Piece et al...

Free KG! And I mean that on all levels.

Peace. Clinch.