Posted on 12/12/2003 7:36:44 AM PST by stainlessbanner
YOU'RE READING this newspaper in Virginia, which, by most accounts, means you're in the South.
If you drive about an hour down Interstate 95, you hit Richmond, once the capital of the Confederacy. So you would think that living in Virginia, being a Virginian, would make you a Southerner.
Not so, it seems. At least, not for everyone. A recent study by Vanderbilt University professor Larry Griffin and graduate student Ashley Thompson found that an average of only 64 percent of survey respondents in the years 1991 to 2001 said they considered themselves Southerners.
The Vanderbilt researchers analyzed data from telephone polls with folks in the former Confederate states plus Kentucky and Oklahoma. Virginia ranked third-lowest in percentage of people who claimed Southern status. Second-lowest was Oklahoma at 53 percent. Florida had the smallest percentage: 51 percent. But who really thinks of Florida as "the South" anyway? It's full of retirees from all over the place.
So what's the deal with Old Dominion dwellers? You might blame the low figure partly on Northern Virginians.
This is not the time to squabble over whether Fredericksburg is in Northern Virginia. I'm talking about D.C.'s near suburbs: Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington. Many of those folks probably consider themselves Washingtonians and pay no attention to where they get their mail, or to which state they pay their taxes.
Case in point: I went to college in Virginia, at William & Mary, and the only person I can remember making fun of my Southwest Virginia accent hailed from Burke. Not from Long Island, Detroit, or Boston. Not from somewhere where I think the natives sound funny. From Burke.
Regardless of the cause, the notion of the "disappearing Southerner," as the Vanderbilt folks termed it, is sad.
It's sad because it means a way of life is slowly eroding.
Now, don't get me wrong. There are things about the South that receive criticism that I would just as soon have nothing to do with. Chief among them is our historical attachment to slavery.
But despite this horrible institution of the past, and its kin, like Jim Crow laws, blacks in the South actually embrace the term "Southerner," Griffin told me.
He found that blacks surveyed were at least as likely as whites to identify themselves as Southerners.
"They have made a claim that the South is truly theirs," Griffin said.
And, as Ben "Cooter" Jones noted in this space recently, hoisting the Confederate flag at certain ceremonial times doesn't make a white person a racist. A friend of mine manages to simultaneously be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and one of the most open-minded people I know.
So we're not all bigots in the South. And, don't necessarily judge by me, but we're not all stupid--another common misconception that probably would lead some to disavow their surroundings. Though I don't mean to defend their politics or personal lives, the last two presidents from the South--Carter and Clinton--were two of our most intelligent chief executives in modern times.
The decline of believing in Southern traditions means a decline in association with the past. We live here because we were taught to be proud of our heritage. In fact, the place outside the South to which I'd be most likely to move is Baltimore, which has been called the "northernmost Southern city."
Tom Moncure, who works for Attorney General Jerry Kilgore in Richmond, put it well in a Free Lance-Star column in 1998.
"It would simply not occur to us to live anywhere else because a life separated from place is no life worth leading," wrote Moncure, a former state delegate and circuit-court clerk from Stafford County.
I'm not one of these people who bandies about talk of the South "rising again." But if you move to Virginia, you really ought to be prepared. Southern hospitality is usually extended to all but those who say, "I can't believe I'm in 'the South,'" as if they're modern-day Columbuses surprised by the fact that the world doesn't drop off at the Mason-Dixon.
This is not an admonishment against griping. As Moncure told me this week, just try to learn something before you bellyache. Complain insightfully.
You never know: We just could be right about some things.
For example: I ordered one of the swanky "low carb" meals at a restaurant the other night. Guess what the side order was: pork rinds.
A food I normally associate with those small-town craft shows my mother says have nothing but "painted-up wood" is now trendy.
Maybe I should call Jeff Foxworthy and suggest he add this to his comedy show:
"If you go to a semi-fancy restaurant and order pork rinds with your meal, you just might be a Redneck"
Since when is Texas not part of the South? If memory serves, our current President (God bless him!) happens to be from there...
Everytime it snows and someone says "people from here don't know how to drive in the snow" I tell them to ask around and see how many people are from "here". Not very many usually.
A New York teenager (in New York) asked one of my daughter's friends if she rode a horse to school.
Her reply?
"My daddy don't believe in no book larnin', y'hear?"
Misconceptions about the South are legion.
I got news for you, people from the North can't drive in snow either...
The truth is actually much simpler, as I've learned after driving in, around, and through many, many parts of this country - the truth is, most people just don't know drive. Period. Doesn't matter where you are - North, South, East or West. Doesn't matter if it's day or night. Doesn't matter what the weather is - rain, snow, fog, or sunny, clear and 80 degrees. The real problem is that no matter where you are, you're going to be sharing the road with a pack of a-holes who just don't know how to drive in a reasonable or safe manner. It's really not a regional thing, as far as I can tell ;)
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