Posted on 06/20/2014 8:53:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I don’t believe it’s a stretch to say that the South is the most misunderstood region in the United States. Everywhere I go (even sometimes here in the South!) I run into misconceptions about this area. I’m proud of the region I call home, and I wish everybody could know the South that I’ve experienced my whole life. So I’m glad to get the chance to clear up some of the stereotypes and generalizations. Here are the ten things that everybody gets wrong about the South.
There’s a notion that we Southerners still carry a grudge over having lost the Civil War. It’s a fascinating historical era and a huge part of our heritage (like it or not), but we’re not all sitting on our porch swings with sour grapes lamenting that it didn’t go our way.
We do tend to lionize our Robert E. Lees and Stonewall Jacksons – let’s face it, there’s a certain romanticism about that gallant and gentrified culture, the ugliness of slavery notwithstanding. And yes, you’ll see folks flying the Stars & Bars from time to time down here, along with the “heritage not hate” arguments that go along with that emblem, but those people are increasingly in the minority.
Even though we’ll never forget the Civil War — and Reconstruction — we Southerners have moved on. The South truly has risen again, and modern Southerners are vastly more interested in improving the present and creating a better future for our beloved region.
Some people outside the South seem to have the impression that after the Civil War, we freed the slaves and haven’t grown technologically since. I don’t know why people view the South as a technological backwater, but somehow that perception sticks.
It’s true that we have our areas that lack modern conveniences, but most of the South has moved past the agrarian era. Massive amounts of commerce and innovation flow through large cities like Miami and Atlanta. North Carolina and Texas host large technological sectors, and the aerospace industry has a huge foothold in Dixie as well. The entertainment industry has also made the South a home. We’re clearly more than just backwards little farm towns down here.
Another common misconception about the South is that our people engage solely in redneck pastimes — things like hunting, NASCAR, and strange events celebrating possums and kudzu. While these ideas are pretty much true, they’re not the only ways we like to spend our time.
Lots of men, women, and children throughout the South hunt and fish every chance they get, but today’s hunters and fishers tend to do so responsibly, rather than wantonly killing animals for the thrill of it. Besides, hunting and fishing are just a couple of the many great ways to get outside and enjoy God’s creation – Southerners also love rafting, hiking, and camping!
And sure, we have plenty of oddly named festivals dedicated to various forms of wildlife, but for every Deer Festival or Rattlesnake Roundup, there’s an AthFest (a music and arts festival that takes over downtown Athens, GA, every summer) and a Twilight Criterium (a bicycle race through the downtown streets of Athens in the spring). All over the South you’ll find arts events, historic homes tours, music festivals, and tons of other cultural celebrations that aren’t redneck in the least. And we’re more than just NASCAR fans – don’t forget that the South is where college football reigns supreme.
Southerners love to get outside, and we love any excuse to hang out together in our communities –- there’s nothing redneck about either of those.
Southern cuisine has had a bad reputation for a long time. The prevailing stereotype is that of a bunch of overfed yokels slobbering over fatty, greasy fried chicken. Though Southern food hasn’t always been the most nutritious and our obesity rates are high, those rates aren’t that much different from those of our northern neighbors. And our food has undergone some changes over the years.
Chefs like Nathalie Dupree and Alton Brown have developed elegant Southern recipes for many years. Cities like Atlanta, New Orleans, and Birmingham play host to cutting edge restaurants. Even the Butter Queen herself, Paula Deen, has spent time developing healthier, modern twists on Southern classic cuisine, as have her sons Jamie and Bobby Deen. Though we haven’t always eaten the healthiest of foods, our cuisine is far from monolithic and is more sophisticated than outsiders would credit us.
This is one that we Southerners get wrong most of the time too. We all tend to think of Florida as one big Yankee enclave, largely because of the snowbirds all over the beach towns, as well as the population growth due to the tourism and aerospace industries. While it’s tough to find a Southern accent in the bigger cities like Orlando and Miami, the smaller towns and rural areas have more of a Southern feel.
Rural Florida has its share of charming small towns and quaint family farms. Some of the smaller tourist attractions (with apologies to my friend Lisa De Pasquale, who suggested this myth to debunk) play into the biggest Southern stereotypes – just look for your local alligator wrestler next time you’re down there.
I’m proud to claim Florida for the South – well, except for Gainesville. I’ll never claim the Gators.
For many people outside the South, Southern culture begins with Green Acres and ends with Honey Boo-Boo. Viewing Southern culture through the lens of lowest-common-denominator sitcoms and variety shows fits the narrative that Southerners are uncultured hicks. My aunt, who moved to Seattle from Atlanta in her mid-twenties, tells the story of a neighbor in the early ’80s who was surprised to hear that we have museums in Georgia!
Such ignorant views of Southern culture (whether intentional or not) overlook the South’s immense contributions to high culture and pop culture alike. The Southern literary tradition spans from Flannery O’Connor to William Faulkner to Alice Walker to Pat Conroy to Lee Smith and includes playwrights like Tennessee Williams. Southern music ranges from Elvis Presley to Al Green to Hank Williams (Sr., Jr., and III) to R.E.M. to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra — not to mention a thriving film and television industry based in the South.
Southern culture is so much more than the lowest common denominator, and thankfully plenty of us down here are working hard to prove it.
For some reason, there’s a prevailing belief that Southerners are hostile toward outsiders. I imagine that this particular misconception probably originated during Reconstruction, when “carpetbaggers” and other Northern busybodies saw fit to punish the defeated South for the sins of slavery.
The well-worn phrase “Southern hospitality” doesn’t merely apply to our neighbors. Throughout the South we’ve grown accustomed to making the most of the tourism business, from high profile destinations in and around bigger cities to smaller niche tours specializing in show business, historical homes, or the haunted South. Many areas around the South also actively court bigger businesses from all over the world.
Come visit us down here in the South. We’d love to see y’all!
Remember the idiotic Euro-techno hit song (and video) “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex? I was in college when that piece of trash came out, and I was appalled by the portrayal of hillbillies in overalls and straw hats spitting tobacco juice all over the place. I remember thinking, “Is this what they really think of us?”
Sadly, there’s a certain misperception of Southerners, especially those in rural areas, that’s not too far from that these days. Bill Maher referred to the 2012 presidential primaries in Alabama and Mississippi as “Toothless Tuesday.”
So it’s true that we have our hillbillies down here – and they all seem to have reality shows – but the South is a vibrant region full of professionals, artists, entrepreneurs, and hipsters – boy, do we have a lot of hipsters. Those who look down on us as a bunch of hicks don’t know what they’re talking about.
I could write so much on this subject — in fact, I already have. We can place the blame for Hollywood Southern accents at the feet of lazy casting directors and clueless dialect coaches. The fact of the matter is that there are more than one or two Southern accents, and they’re as varied as the people who speak them.
Interestingly enough, many linguists argue that the accents in the South most closely resemble the accents of their ancestral homelands — English, Celtic, and even Canadian French, in the case of the Cajun accents — than any other American dialects. Check out the video above featuring professor and former dialect coach David Stern (Hollywood must have fired him because his accents were too good), and listen to the audio clip at this link to get an idea of the origins of our beautiful Southern accents.
Oh, and brace yourself, because — to paraphrase the late, great Southern treasure Lewis Grizzard: “God talks like we do.”
We Southerners have traveled a long, difficult road when it comes to race relations, and we’ve had to atone for a multitude of sins when it comes to the specter of racism. But the truth is, the acts of racism that occur in the South these days are isolated and rare.
In many ways, much of the South has grown to fit the melting pot ideal the Founding Fathers set. As Glen Browder wrote in 2012, “…the southern people generally live their lives without constant, dominating thoughts about white supremacy.” It says a lot about how far the South has come since the days of segregation that the Supreme Court struck down the sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that stood to punish the South the most.
Don’t get me wrong – race is still a touchy subject all over the country, but I’m proud to say that we’re not a region of backward, racist hicks.
In NYC, they move money around and publish books. Pretty good food as I remember.
In the ignorant South we:
Put men on the moon
Shoot probes beyond the limits of our solar system.
Drill for oil in one mile of seawater and we can send down our robots to repair breaks in the drill string.
We have food to die for.
The former is AAU ball, the latter is the pro league.
Five big NASA centers are in the South. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Michoud in Loisiana, Marshall and Stennis in Mississippi, and Johnson Spaceflight Center in Texas. Not bad for a bunch of redneck states, eh?
My huge error. Marshall SFC is in Alabama. How stupid of me.
When I played golf I used to joke that other golfers should pay my greens fees. That way when someone muffed a shot badly he could point to me and say, “Well, at least I don’t suck like him!”
The stereotype of the South (no shoes, inbreeding, lynch mobs, etc.) exists for much the same reason. Despite being the home of Mitchell, Faulkner, Welty and MANY other notable authors, despite the racially motivated violence in L.A., Detroit, Watts, Howard Beach, Crown Heights, the busing riots in Boston and all the blood on the collective hands of the rest of this country, some people have to have someone else they can feel superior to. The South is homophobic, but where was Matthew Shepard pistol-whipped to death? The South is anti-Semitic, but where was Yankel Rosenbaum stabbed to death? The South is a cultural desert, but the International Ballet Competition is being held in Jackson, Ms. this week.
I could go on, but why bother? We in the South have long realized the rest of our countrymen have been indoctrinated to this pap, and nothing will change their low-information mentality. Yes, we’re evil, we shoot Bambi, we eat mudbugs, we all drive pick-up trucks, we juggle cats, whatever. You should stay away from us and move somewhere you’ll be happier. Try Detroit, I hear it’s a buyer’s market for retirees right now...
P.S. And despite Cleveland’s overblown fatuous claim, the South is the REAL home of rock ‘n roll!
You're right there.The first time I tried grits was at Ft Knox in '69.I didn't make *that* mistake again.I thought I was gonna die!
All you need to to do to find the South in Florida is get away From I75 & I95 south of I4. There is is still plenty of old Florida outside of those areas.
I agree. There seems to be an underlying attitude of "Don't hate us...we are more liberal and enlightened now!"
In an interview, the English actor Andrew Lincoln, who plays a deep Southerner in "The Walking Dead", said that he was surprised at not really having to work at a Southern accent. He said he slipped easily into it & it seems very close to his own dialect.
I've noted that British actors almost always do a much better job with Southern accents than American actors.
I bet if Texas and Oklahoma shut off all gas and oil lines at their borders, the technology people would be begging for more energy.
I am not real fond of grits either. I think it is an acquired taste.
“The South is a cultural desert”
Houston has five Opera companies. A great city for lovers of opera.
I find very few Southerners who are obsessed with the Civil War. They are small in number, but still very noisy. Most Southerners are very happy that things went as they did.
All's well that ends well.
Not quite. The answer to a question often heard here in Miami: “What is the longest bridge in the world?”
Is: “The bridge (causeway) between Miami Beach and Pequena Habana... because it connects Tel Aviv and Havana.”
(We live in Little Havana, and we are neighbors with many who fled the communist regimes in places like Nicaragua. We have quite a few Cuban neighbors (mostly older and not particularly well off) who voted for Obamacare because they got sucked in... they now seem to be regretting their vote.)
The counter-examples of the fried food “myth” are truly the exception that proves the rule. How many restaurants do Natalie Dupree and Alton Brown run? What are the prices there? High and higher, like the handful of “cutting edge restaurants” which are supposed to balance out hundreds (or thousands, if I can similarly draw from four or five states) family places where every appetizer and every entree is deep-fried.
Most true Southerners can spot a “Four Flusher”, like the pResident, in a New York Minute”!
I have lived the majority of my life in the South. I am having a hard time thinking of any restaurants that have all fried appetizers and entrees. Even the meat and 3 restaurants offer grilled and baked items. But maybe all of the places we have lived have cheap mom and pop restaurant exceptions.
It's a lot like the Chainsaw Massacre Effect, the not-so-subtle underlying message broadcast by so many Hollywood B movies, i.e., 'stay on the Interstate,' or Leatherface will get you!
There are many of us who benefit from that propaganda, who prefer the STD's and crowds clustered around the federal highways remain mostly in that vicinity.
I’ve had folks from “up North” mention my accent, I tell them when I’m in New York, I have an accent, when you’re in Mississippi, you have an accent.
Ditto. When visiting Red Hampshire relatives (in-laws, of course) while living in Tennessee some few years back, politics came up. I was supporting Alan Keyes at the time, and asked if anyone else was considering the same. My wife's father said two words in response: "Wrong color."
NEVER heard that in Tennessee, or anywhere else, for that matter.
I grew up in East Texas (think Old South) during segregation. There were some rednecks who hated blacks with a passion, but most middle and upper class whites had friendly relationships with blacks. There was always the socially mandated distinction of not dining together or social separation by race, but many had close personal friendships that transcended that to the point of being almost family. (This may have dated from slavery and the paternalistic relationships of owner and servant.) Nevertheless, there was no widespread animosity in my part of the country.
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