You are so right!
I have the dubious pleasure of interacting daily with our corporate group
in Ohio and y'all would be amazed at some of the assumptions those folks make!
Hummbee, did you see what I wrote about my boss in Savannah?
Don't these folks know that slow speach means you are thinking what you are saying. that denotes REAL intelligents.
Oh, what laughter this brings!
Although my husband was reared in Dayton, he 'escaped' early in adulthood, and at heart became a happy Southerner. Not so most of his family, although nearly all left Ohio and settled in Florida, carying with them their prejudices. (One was "anyone from below the south edge of Ohio is a 'hillbilly,'" spoken with contempt.)
Distance for us lends enchantment.
What you stated was highlighted graphically when in 1977 he was sent to a small town in Ohio to manage a jewelry store.
One of his salespersons was in her 30's, and asked rather bluntly, "Where do you live?"
Since he was there for just a year's contract so he could turn around a mismanaged store and then go back to the South, instead of buying a house, we rented an apartment in one of the very few complexes available - one on the Southeast edge of town.
When he gave her our location, she exhaled with a sigh of relief,
"Oh! You live on The Right Side of Town!"
Curious, he asked her to explain, and she elaborated, naming a street in town that was regarded as "The Great Divide."
She added in all seriousness, I live (very literally on THAT street) on the north side of it, and more than anything I want to one day move across the street for my children's sake." believing then they would automatically be accepted socially!
She fully believed she and her husband then would have 'made it' in life, finally.
Mind you, most of the town had the typical miniscule yard, elbow to elbow row of very old houses - most with cheap siding and tired wood.
Most of the town were union factory folks, perpetually either planning or executing a strike.
He inquired about her husband's work, and she replied, "He's a toilet bowl inspector with the "X" Company ---"
Yep - you've really, really "made it in life" if you aspire to Greater Things and simply can move plumb across the street; even to a house falling apart and shabbier than the one you had...
Relating all this to me, he remarked, "Now I remember why I left Ohio decades ago!"
Go figure -- ..:))