Practical Symbolic Interactions in the Shrine of the South

Download or read book Practical Symbolic Interactions in the Shrine of the South written by John F. Cataldi and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-11-28 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Practical Symbolic Interactions in the Shrine of the South: Conversations with a Damn Yankee finds that Lexington-Rockbridge, VA, community sentiments toward Southern symbols such as the Confederate Battle Flag and Robert E. Lee are not necessarily reducible to a racial divide. John F. Cataldi uses data to demonstrate that most black and white respondents navigate a social balance between the extremes of conservation and progress as a way to productively coexist and unify as a community rather than maintain an insular posture or cause division based solely on symbolic ideology. These findings challenge conventional sociological and media-provided paradigms and broaden the discussion of what tolerance and situational context mean for a large spectrum of community members who live in the milieu of Confederate symbols every day.