Bias against Southerners misses the mark

Pasco Times ^ | July 11, 2005 | RICHARD COX

[robowombat]

Bias against Southerners misses the mark By RICHARD COX Published July 11, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does prejudice exist in Pasco County, an area with a very diverse population and seemingly very progressive?

I am certain that African-Americans, Hispanics and people from other countries, the poor and homeless, as well as members of certain religious faiths, experience treatment different from the mainstream populace. However, I am a member of a minority who has experienced attitudes and reactions from many individuals who assume that I am intellectually and socially challenged.

A very large percentage of the population of New Port Richey in particular is from the Northeast. I personally like the outspokenness, mince-no-words attitude, the ability to criticize as well as accept criticism without being offended, that seems to represent the culture in which Northerners grew up.

My family members seem to have the disadvantage of being born and living most of our lives in the South, in our case, Tennessee. I grew up in Knoxville, a city that many people seem to associate only with the fanatical behavior of our college football fans, and my wife is from a small city near Chattanooga.

There still seems to be a stereotype that some people associate with Tennesseans. When those individuals heard the distinct accent of my wife, my stepdaughter, and myself, it seemed to conjure up that redneck image one might associate with the humor of Jeff Foxworthy and other Southern comedians. That image is of a culture of ignorant hillbillies (certainly due to inbreeding!), barefoot, living in a shack with no indoor plumbing (but certainly an outhouse in back), having a dog living under the front porch, and owning an overgrown lawn populated with broken-down, dilapidated automobiles. And, yes, we all chew tobacco and sit on the front porch swing playing the banjo. Everyone also flies a Confederate flag and reminisces about the War Between the States.

I first noticed this attitude when my stepdaughter, an honor student, came home from middle school several days in tears because several other students harassed her daily, calling her an ignorant redneck and hillbilly among other derogatory terms. My wife and I have experienced the sudden change in facial expressions from many when they hear our accent. They seem to associate our accent with ignorance, and speak in simpler terms so that we can understand what they are saying. Telephone conversations often produce the same reaction.

I beg to differ. Tennessee is the home of several major universities, four major metropolitan areas with all the drug and gang problems associated with other large cities, and the most visited national park in the United States. Oak Ridge, in the Knoxville area, probably has as high a percentage of residents with doctorate degrees as any city in the United States. Tennessee has a musical heritage equal to none, and it is not exclusively country or bluegrass genres. Many nationally prominent politicians are from my home state, including three former presidents.

Tennessee has produced many famous musicians, actors, scientists and other intellectual and talented natives.

Well, to set the story straight, rural areas of most states have their own populace and dwellings that approach this stereotype.

My wife and I grew up in your average suburban neighborhoods, we both graduated from major universities and had successful professional careers, and, to risk seeming boastful, are probably as intelligent and knowledgeable, if not more so, than the average American. Believe it or not, East Tennessee, the section of the state we are from, fervently supported the Union during the Civil War.

I have noticed in the Pasco Times notices of meetings for various groups from areas of the Northeast and from other countries. Perhaps Southerners in our area should form a similar group. With apologies to an African-American group with a similar title, we could call our group the NAASF, the National Association for the Advancement of Southern Folks, Pasco County Branch. I hope there are enough local Southern residents available to attract to our organization.

--Richard Cox, a retired middle school science teacher and department head, lives in New Port Richey

[Wampus SC]

"Your comments "The effete, wimpy, clueless, semi-transvestic yuppie collectors" is that description equally applicable to anyone not speaking in the manner you do?"

Of course not. The term only applies to effete, wimpy, clueless semi-transvestic yuppies. It really is that simple! So, if you try real hard, you might get it.

"I hope you realize the vast majority of Americans & the rest of the English speaking world might have difficulties trying to comprehend your spoken lingo."

So far it's just you.

"If those yuppie schlubs go for that stuff then they it serves them right getting royally japed for being dumb greedy pushovers. They have to be total chumps, and I really doubt you have had many 'junk takers' from the Tri-State area, (greater NY), nor Providence or Boston. These are real morons, as in first class mooks & schlemiels."

Exactly! Only morons would fall for that. You've analyzed them correctly again. Since you're not in the swamp junk truck business, you wouldn't know this - but the best customers are from New York, Boston, and, of course, Washington, DC. I'm just practicing free market capitalism. Got a problem with that?

I'm also illustrating a principle you might not have picked up on. As long as you act like a character from "Deliverance", they'll believe everything you say. Act like the stereotypical insults you and modernman mechanically parrot here are true - and you can string 'em along for as long as you like, about anything. Not only will they believe it all, the higher you shovel it, the more eagerly they'll lap it up. Just like now.

"What you have tagged "beltway dwelling types", nothing wrong with living uptown, what's wrong with that?"

Nothing at all - unless you intentionally become totally dependent for every need, and consider that a virtue and mark of superiority. Anyway, that was merely an oblique personal attack on modernman. Not relevant to you. Is it?

"I hope you're not going to tell me if you won a penthouse with an incredible view overlooking an entire city you would trade in for a mosquito infested swamp at 105 degrees?"

Don't be afraid. It won't hurt for long. But first, you need to have your ignorance corrected. That picture is not of a swamp. That's a pond. I'd sure like to see an actual swamp hit 105 with the water and trees tempering the temperature extremes. OK, that was basic 7th grade earth science stuff you don't need to learn from a book - provided you're able to observe anything at all, and comprehend anything you see. Yes, I'd trade that penthouse in a New York minute. In a real swamp (as opposed to a picture of a pond) someone with minimal resourcefulness and ability at self reliance can meet basic needs quite easily, without even working hard. In that penthouse you are totally dependent on the efforts - and goodwill - of hundreds of "dirty" people for everything in your life. Consider then, who is ultimately free, and who is ultimately the slave.

[M. Espinola]

"Setting: Expensive Boston restaurant."

"Enter, stage right, stand watie, wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts and a Confederate flag t-shirt."

Forgot the worn out baseball cap with the printing "Dixie Will Win!!"

"SW: DaMnyanKee! you ARE DIScriMinaTinG aGaiNst ME bEcaUse i'm a SOUTHRON, InDian, WHITE CHRISTian. i BET youR aNcestORs KiLLed over 9,000 of mY faMIly in Lincoln's elMirA "dEaTh CamP."

That's the image.. lol ...sick!

[Wampus SC]

The only rural compounds with bunkers that I'm aware of are in Virginia. (I'm not even talking about the survival bunkers in DC itself, such as the one three blocks from you.) They're evacuation centers for US Govt. employees in DC in case of a disaster. Mt. Weather, Mt. Pony, etc. Public knowledge, no big secret. A contingency plan drawn up by planners working in DC, inside the beltway. Yet you call that kind of thinking "fantasy" and "tinfoil". Think their plans include taking you with them? Wonder why not?

[Modernman]

A contingency plan drawn up by planners working in DC, inside the beltway.

Good for them. If terrorists set off a nuke a couple of blocks from the White House, you think anyone will make it to those bunkers?

The sad truth is, this isn't that Cold War anymore. Those of us living in places like DC or NYC won't even get the 45 minutes or so of warning we would have received if the Soviets had decided to launch their missiles.

Such is life. I'm not going to move to some godforsaken swamp in the wilds of South Carolina because of a fear of a nuclear attack.

Think their plans include taking you with them? Wonder why not?

Of course their plans don't include me. So what?

You seem to be afraid of a lot of things. Sad, really.

[M. Espinola]

"Since capital and lower case letters were on the same typewriter arm, or in the case of the IBM selectic a single ball, I have this mental image of stand waite hovering over a maintenance man's shoulder as he files and scrapers the capital letters away."

If Stand paid for that goof-ball request he could purchased a brand new typewriter! If the unsuspecting maintenance man did not suffer from chronic migraines, he surely had his first attack after the poor fellow's ludicrous encounter with old Stand.

This is only one of many samples of Stand's escapades while existing in the half-baked, bizarre world of being an arch neo-confederate kook.

[Wampus SC]

Your continued "creative editing" of what appear to be quotes is amazing. Nah - it's not that amazing that you'd have to resort to it. But unless you have a way of editing other people's original posts, your tactic has already failed.

"Too bad there's nothing that people like you can do to change the status quo. I bet that drives you crazy. "

Holy handjive, Batman! A complete Marie Antoinette think alike! History.

"Those dirty people are so much less than you because they can be self reliant, unlike you, who are helpless to actually do any work to fend for yourself

"When you say "fend for yourself" you're talking about some Grizzly Adams fantasy you might have. Most people in this country have gotten past such a quaint notion. "

So far, nobody but you thinks that being prepared to meet your basic needs in a disaster is the same as a "Grizzly Adams fantasy". Nor does anyone else take the inability to do so as a sign of superiority. Jamestown. But no big deal. I'm not responsible for how your brain is wired to intentionally misconstrue, and then believe its own confabulations.

"So, keep living in your compound, dreaming of the apocalypse. Make sure to stock up on tin foil, though."

Again, you are the only one who calls a temporary interruption of supplies and services to be the same thing as "the apocalypse". (You can lie about that as much as you like, but the record of what you have said here does not lie.) And again, I can't help it if your mind does this to you, out of a deep down knowledge that for you, it *would* be an apocalypse. But just a little blip for the rest of us. How proud is your wife that you couldn't, and refuse to be, able to do anything to help her in a natural disaster? Does she think that's something to look up to you for?

[M. Espinola]

"Such is life. I'm not going to move to some godforsaken swamp in the wilds of South Carolina because of a fear of a nuclear attack."

Agreed. Those at ground zero will at least go in a flash, and in style, not acting like a pack of radiating, rabid rednecks, more crazed then ever as they are scavenging for rotted swamp plants, while being bitten by vicious attacking ants, half nuked alligators & various venomous snakes.

[Modernman]

So far, nobody but you thinks that being prepared to meet your basic needs in a disaster is the same as a "Grizzly Adams fantasy".

There is a high level of paranoia in your fears of some sort of disaster that would disrupt civilization as we know it.

Again, you are the only one who calls a temporary interruption of supplies and services to be the same thing as "the apocalypse".

No, but you and your kind seem to obsess about the possibility of some societal breakdown. Like I said, stock up on tin foil.

How proud is your wife that you couldn't, and refuse to be, able to do anything to help her in a natural disaster?

My wife lives in the real world, like I do, where fears of some sort of terrible natural disaster are the province of paranoids.

[Wampus SC]

Isabel, though that was a tropical storm by the time it hit us. " Which you called a hurricane originally, just so you could say you'd been through a hurricane in DC. Sheesh. Was that deception or confusion? Take your pick. But yeah, like I said, it was nothing in DC. Give it time.

"He said hurricane, not nuke. Right? Well, this figures. Anyone who's so big a doofus that they can't tell a "supply line disruption" from the apocalypse couldn't tell the difference between a hurricane and a nuke either."

"No, it's just that the poster in question is pretty unhinged. You can never be exactly sure what he is talking about."

Yep, we already know that you can't be sure. You've well established that. There's nobody but you who who read the word "hurricane" and thought it might really mean nuke. Then used your own confusion between hurricanes and nukes as evidence that someone else is unhinged. Uh-huh.

[M. Espinola]

"Exactly! Only morons would fall for that. You've analyzed them correctly again. Since you're not in the swamp junk truck business, you wouldn't know this - but the best customers are from New York, Boston, and, of course, Washington, DC. I'm just practicing free market capitalism. Got a problem with that?

The only problem is the dummies falling into a pre-set trap. You do realize once they figure out you sold them a pile of junk, the geographic location & the ones who lied to them only serves to reinforce the existing image of the deceitful redneck types?

How can you then squawk when labeled such?

"I'm also illustrating a principle you might not have picked up on. As long as you act like a character from "Deliverance", they'll believe everything you say. Act like the stereotypical insults you and modernman mechanically parrot here are true - and you can string 'em along for as long as you like, about anything"

I would not even speak with anyone acting or speaking like some debauched character from "Deliverance" I also doubt 'moderman' or most normal people would. Forget-about it! lol You must be taking total dimwits just off the boat. Give me a break.

"Not only will they believe it all, the higher you shovel it, the more eagerly they'll lap it up. Just like now."

Even if I may not like someone I do not believe being a deliberately deceitful and dishonest. Those rats are on the corner with their five card Monty cons. What one dishes out someday is dished right back.

"Nothing at all - unless you intentionally become totally dependent for every need, and consider that a virtue and mark of superiority.

"totally dependent for every need.." in terms of what food, clothing, transportation, medical? How is a "mark of superiority" - I am not following you at this point.

"Yes, I'd trade that penthouse in a New York minute.

That's pretty quick on those closing costs! You have to be kidding? For a swamp? I am not buying it.

"In a real swamp (as opposed to a picture of a pond) someone with minimal resourcefulness and ability at self reliance can meet basic needs quite easily, without even working hard.

It looked like a creepy looking swamp to me, not a pond. Ponds are for swimming, maybe fishing, canoing, boating, picnics, kids playing - not being eating by prehistoric monsters! One's "basic needs" may not be the same as another man's.

"In that penthouse you are totally dependent on the efforts - and goodwill - of hundreds of "dirty" people for everything in your life."

What 'dirty' people? What "efforts", whose "goodwill"? That's crazy talk. The hicks way up in Upstate or Maine, N.H. etc, some of them do look on the dirty side, but most likely they are in farming or tradesmen. There is a crabby old bag now that you mention it, she is a 'dirty' *&^%% lol

Seriously, I do not comprehend the line of thinking presented as in this comment and the stuff about dumping the penthouse for what?

"Consider then, who is ultimately free, and who is ultimately the slave." Whom? Which people, where?

[Wampus SC]

"are you also a RACIST like him/her/it too? (perhaps you can get him to REPOST his/her/its RACIST comment #645 for you, so that you can see for yourself what he/she/it is.)"

Well, he does post stuff like this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1442661/posts?page=94#94

---

To: TexConfederate1861

If you think the South is so bad, then please explain why all of your Yankee brothers are fighting each other to move down HERE!?

It's sort of like the White Man's Burden: We feel the need to civilize the savages.

That process started when we whupped you in the Civil War and its coming along nicely now.

94 posted on 07/14/2005 3:12:55 PM EDT by Modernman ("Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." -Bismarck)

[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

---

[Modernman]

If you think the South is so bad, then please explain why all of your Yankee brothers are fighting each other to move down HERE!?

It's sort of like the White Man's Burden: We feel the need to civilize the savages.

That process started when we whupped you in the Civil War and its coming along nicely now.

[Wampus SC]

"It says a lot about somebody that they would do something like this to a neighbor."

He was no neigbor. He was someone just like you, so he was grateful for it. It also means he got off easy. Deal with it.

[Wampus SC]

Here's a courtesy ping in case we can't stop laughing at you, and using you (without your knowledge). :)

[M. Espinola]

The typewriter 'Standism' stunt signifies a disturbing, hardcore entrenched rebellion even directed toward machines, not just entire regions of the country and everyone living in them, simply because the overwhelming majority either would not or do not agree with his brand of hyper neo-confederate nuttiness.

The severity of this particular case might mystify the best medical minds in the world today.

[Ciexyz]

btt

[Modernman]

He was no neigbor. He was someone just like you, so he was grateful for it.

He bought a house in your town or nearby. He asked you local guys for advice about what to plant as ground cover. Rather than helping the new guy out, you decided to mess with him. Very neighborly. I guess those are the Southern values and friendliness you neo-Confeds are always harping about.

It also means he got off easy. Deal with it.

Yeah. I guess he's lucky you and your redneck buddies didn't gang-rape him or something.

[Wampus SC]

"i didn't know you are as big a fool as "m.eSPINola"."

I expected Spinny to fall over quickly, and he did. But like all serpents, it'll take him a while to realize his head's been cut off. Mondernman, on the other hand, suprised me. I expected him to last a little bit longer before getting pinned to the wall and being reduced to nothing more than throwing buzzwords around. "Tinfoil" "fantasy" "paranoid" and the like. Yet for the last few posts today, he'll quote something, but instead of responding to it, will just toss out the buzzwords with a few connectors to string them together in a facsimile of a sentence. But you know, it works - because saying words like "tinfoil" and "paranoid" over and over again - and being the first to say them - is MAGIC! Yes, simply by saying those magic words one can prove and or refute anything! It's the modern replacement for reason, and is much more efficient. That's how it works in the world of Modern Men, as opposed to us backward types. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Gee. I guess choosing the type of evil he has chosen to become brings a burden of its own special type of stupidity.

I knew he'd play the jealousy card, but was surprised that he's already had to resort to it. As if being totally dependent on everyone for everything is enviable. Of course, in his world, it is.

And then there's the racial red herring card, complete with the mandatory picture of a lynched African-American. And he's already posted it. Any of y'all notice that his kind - like zarf and others - always have a ready supply of pictures of hanged African-Americans? A regular gallery, a collection. I have to wonder what strange desires drive them to scour the net looking for that kind of picture to add to their collections. I already knew that metrosexualism a la modernman breeds some strange fetishes, but I'm shocked to learn that it breeds that fetish.

[Heyworth]

The typewriter 'Standism' stunt signifies a disturbing, hardcore entrenched rebellion even directed toward machines, not just entire regions of the country and everyone living in them, simply because the overwhelming majority either would not or do not agree with his brand of hyper neo-confederate nuttiness.

No, it all makes perfect sense. Upper case letters are called "Capital letters" Lincoln lived in the Capitol. Well, in the White House, but he visited the Capitol. And you can see the Lincoln Memorial from the Capitol. Therefore, capital letters are symbolic of the persecution of the south.

That, or capital letters killed all his ancestors.

[Heyworth]

Any of y'all notice that his kind - like zarf and others - always have a ready supply of pictures of hanged African-Americans? A regular gallery, a collection. I have to wonder what strange desires drive them to scour the net looking for that kind of picture to add to their collections.

The ability to use Google Images search gets you all you need in about 15 seconds.

[Wampus SC]

"("A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy." -Disraeli) "

Nice tagline. Fits you even better than it did Ben. Comapatible with everything you've ever said on FR, and explains you perfectly. Thanks.