Posted on 07/14/2005 6:10:21 AM PDT by robowombat
Bias against Southerners misses the mark By RICHARD COX Published July 11, 2005
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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
I live in New Port Richey. It's a laid-back little town on the beautiful sun coast of Florida. Almost everyone is from somewhere else. Friendly, intelligent folks who get along remarkably well. The most exciting thing that ever happens here is the almost daily accidents on US Hwy 19, the tourist route along the Gulf.
The "Pasco Times" is one of the specialized county inserts tucked into the St. Petersburg Times, commonly known for decades as "Pravda West".
So it stands to reason the Slimes would salivate to print this article contributed by a local disgruntled teacher/school administrator whose daughter came home in tears because she was taunted for her southerness.
Because of this life-threatening calamity befallen his offspring, he asks the larger and more momentous question about whether her experience makes the citizens of New Port Richey/Pasco County "prejudiced", "hostile to minorities", blah, blah.
He then goes on rather pompously to answer his own question, which, of course, is a resounding "yes".
I live in New Port Richey. The people are the usual mix as anywhere else....lovely, friendly people, a few not so lovely, friendly people........and the usual percentage of liberal jerks like this local contributer to the Slimes stable of communists...oops, pardon me.....columnists.
Leni
Because it helps to know the person participating in the flaming. The fact that you publicly expressed regret in not going into it is also a factor when viewing your flaming. Don't feel bad, I have many flaws myself.
Brain-damaged neo-Confederates are hardly the core of the GOP.
Perhaps not - and I don't see any here. Southern Americans ARE the core. Limp - wristed liberal lawyers are not.
Of course he was. Forgive me if I don't believe you. More likely, from day one, you and your buddies treated him like dirt, if your behavior on this thread is any indication.
I'm sure even you can figure out Google image search. Just run a regular search and then click on the "image" button over the search window. Even a swamp-dweller can probably figure that out.
Do ALL of the racist, clueless, south hating bigots have a fetish for that kind of picture?
Not a fetish. We just like to remind the world what you neo-confeds would like to start doing again, if given half a chance.
The world "locals" is patronizing? And you claim to be thick-skinned?
OK, I understand how being an admitted "proud metrosexual" would have precluded your having any meaningful interaction with women.
I might not have had many intimate interactions with gap-toothed white trash girls and/or women related to me (I'm not saying you have either, of course, but I wonder what other type of women you can find in that swamp of yours) but I've done okay with women in my time.
They like men.
How would you know what women want?
That you *still* can't come up with the word to call that kind of store is yet another example of how your clulessness extends to the simplest, smallest of things
I came up with a word- I called it a "Beer Store." For your sake, next time I'll endeavour to use smaller words to describe such a shop.
You THINK you know the name of the town? Aren't you CERTAIN?
Nope, not really. I just followed the owner's directions there.
OK, so what body of water was this alleged marina on?
Don't know the name of the lake. This is important why, exactly?
No. I just don't believe you, is all.
So that's how you see black people - you see them as people who lie about their own lives.
No, I just don't believe anything you and your fellow neo-confeds say, unless I get independent confirmation.
Nope. That only applies for diagnoses for the purposes of treatment. I can call people "paranoid" and "narcissistic" all day long and I have broken no laws.
Now you say you're not sorry.
I assume you've heard of the term "mixed feelings," right?
You're so intent that everyone except you is wrong about everything, all the time,
Not at all.
That's only been shown in your mind.
And ending up contradicting everything you say, every single time you say anything at all?
Again, only in your mind.
And examined it will be, by those who will see what kind of person -you- occupies a (probably imaginary) position of influence inside the beltway
I never claimed to occupy any sort of position of influence within the beltway. All I said was that I worked a couple of blocks from the White House. To you, that immediately means "evil neo-con lawyer politico." Heck, I don't even work in a job that has anything to do with government. Any such conclusions are of your own making.
and why that kind of person is responsible for so many problems.
This is a common tactic for your type of person- trying to blame all of your personal problems on some far-away people you don't even know. How sad.
When, over the course of several days, several times a day, on multiple threads - most of which having nothing to do with nukes an such - you post again and again about your proximity to the White House / Capitol, it's name dropping.
No, it isn't. It's a simple geographical description. It would be like you saying that you live a mile past the inbred family, next to the house with the 4 cars on blocks in front.
Well, to be fair, Hilton Head is pretty nice. Good golfing.
fwiw, i wish i was wrong too.
living in such a hateFILLED, RACIST society does NOT fill me with glee.
UNfortunately, the FACTS are precisely what i said they were/ARE.
free dixie,sw
FACTS are FACTS.
MOST of what i see posted by the damnyankee coven of lunatics, cretins, RACISTS & TWITS on FR is either "wishful thinking", evasions,HATEfulness, STUPIDITY or KNOWING lies.
PITY.
free dixie,sw
frankly, i find him and his attitudes to "others who are UNlike him", PITIFUL.
as i find MOST of the damnyankee coven of fools, haters & idiots, PITIFUL.
free dixie,sw
I said nothing about not trusting Southerners in general.
Stay out of biker bars and strip joints and you'll no doubt be exposed to a better level of humor.
Having had the true disadvantage of growing up and working most of my career in the San Francisco Bay Area of Californis and having relocated to Alabama, I know it is paradise. I only wish they had classes at the local school so us outsiders could learn to blend in better with our local friends. (Many more than CA ever produced.)
i would presume that the ONLY person, who could legitimately claim to be a "Neo-Confederate", is a transplant from the north & who figures out that the Southland was RIGHT all along & should be FREE from the damnyankees.
what we do have are HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of descendants of the "old rebel families", who have not & WILL NOT forget how sweet it was to breathe FREE dixie air, in our own FREE southron REPUBLIC.
you may call us "PALEO-Confederates" & we'll happily agree.
i think "neo-confeds" are a FIGMENT of your fevered imagination and/OR a "perceived slam" against dixie's liberty-LOVING natives.
free dixie,sw
That's because it's a civilized area :)
Well, since the vast majority of Southerners oppose your "Dixie freedom movement" I guess that means that very few Southerners are neo-confeds, doesn't it?
(btw. if there are any neo-confeds ANYPLACE in dixie, i've never met one!)
You want the Confederacy back. Since you weren't around at the time of the Civil War, that makes you a new (or neo-) Confederate.
what we do have are HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of descendants of the "old rebel families", who have not & WILL NOT forget how sweet it was to breathe FREE dixie air, in our own FREE southron REPUBLIC.
Dream on.
I'll add these other places in the South to the list of nice places to visit (and maybe even live):
New Orleans, Savannah, the Gulf Coast of Florida, Miami, the Florida Keys, Austin, San Antonio.
Much of the rest of the South is too rural for my taste or too much of a "McCity" (Atlanta, Charlotte, Jacksonville etc.)
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