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

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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

[stand watie]

actually, the last time we were "treated to a sample of damnyankee humor" was in a supposedly "fairly nice" (read: EXPENSIVE!)restaurant near the Empire State Building. i forget the name & WISH i could forget the incident!

one of the men (i must admit that they all were drinking "adult beverages" & thus NOT NECESSARILY "cold stone sober") at an adjoining table saw her gold STAR of DAVID (which was pinned-on & holding a scarf down to her blouse) & said," Well well, i thought i smelled a "stinkin' JEW ----".

another said, "aw, leave her alone. i bet she'd like to hear the one about a kike b*tch doing a pig." (insert RAUCOUS laughter by all & sundry, here).

i KNOW you damnyankees DISPISE me "outing" DAMNyankees for being RACISTS & ANTI-Semites, but the TRUTH is the TRUTH!

in 2005, the VAST MAJORITY of the WORST RACISTS & ANTI-Semites are in the NORTH. "all ya'll" should "clean your own house" before you comment on ANYTHING in dixie; then, you wouldn't look like such LIARS & HYPOCRYTES!

free dixie,sw

[M. Espinola]

During the winter Miami Beach & downtown along with Adventura & portions of the Gulf Coast of Florida are nice. Sarasota in particular. To live there year round one needs to be part lizard.

[Non-Sequitur]

i KNOW you damnyankees DISPISE me "outing" DAMNyankees for being RACISTS & ANTI-Semites, but the TRUTH is the TRUTH!

Naw, we got us a whole buncha other reasons to despise you.

[Heyworth]

What's really fun about your posts is that, once challenged, you feel compelled to keep upping the ante. Your story, simply, lacks credibility. Your "dialogue" reads like the usual product of your imagination.

See, your problem is that lots of us also have Jewish friends. My boss, in fact, is so orthodox he wears a yarmulke every day. And he's from New York. What he describes is so far from what you describe that the only rational solution is, frankly, what it always turns out to be with you...a figment of your addled brain, just like Dr. Lubar, just like the "eight-row, mule-drawn cotttonpicker", just like the U-Boat on display in Galveston, just like the existence of a book called "Yachts Against Subs."

[stand watie]

i'm not surprised.

a man is known by the enemies he has, if his cause is JUST.

mine are DAMNEDyankees. and 100% WRONG,imVho.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

don't you wish you were correct???

but go on back to sleep & one FINE day you'll awaken to find us G-O-N-E, gone.

i believe NOW (i didn't used to think so!) that i will, at nearly 60 years old, live to see the founding of a NEW & MUCH improved dixie REPUBLIC. (PLEASE, God, let me live so long!)

frankly, i don't know WHAT the spark will be that causes us to get our LIBERTY & FREEDOM FROM the arrogant, mean-spirited damnyankees, but it IS going to come & before long. (at one point i believed that it would be MURDERING the UNborn or continued pushing for ending our 2d Amendment rights. at least so far, that has NOT been the spark.)

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

#1079 is YET ANOTHER indication that you are a CRETIN of the 1st rank.

and you don't seem to care that essentially everyone on FR believes you're NOT smart enough to be on the forum.PITY.

free dixie,sw

[Heyworth]

but go on back to sleep & one FINE day you'll awaken to find us G-O-N-E, gone.

You're like one of those people who keeps saying goodbye but never leaves.

[stand watie]

well, since you're obviously only part-human in IQ, perhaps your other 1/2 IS lizard.

free dixie,sw

[Non-Sequitur]

a man is known by the enemies he has, if his cause is JUST.

You're more known by the statements you make.

[Modernman]

(at one point i believed that it would be MURDERING the UNborn

Pssstt.... Hate to tell you this, but people in the South abort their kids, too:

Abortion Rates By State

[M. Espinola]

More 'Standisms'

in front of the...

(Reprinted in the original 'Stand Rebellion Non-capitalization Text'.)

#I,"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."

#II, "in 2005, the VAST MAJORITY of the WORST RACISTS & ANTI-Semites are in the NORTH!"> "

#III, "i believe NOW (i didn't used to think so!) that i will, at nearly 60 years old, live to see the founding of a NEW & MUCH improved dixie REPUBLIC. (PLEASE, God, let me live so long!")

#IV, "i think "neo-confeds" are a FIGMENT of your fevered imagination and/OR a "perceived slam" against dixie's liberty-LOVING natives."

#V, ("btw. if there are any neo-confeds ANYPLACE in dixie, i've never met one!")

#VI, "but go on back to sleep & one FINE day you'll awaken to find us G-O-N-E, gone!"

FreeCups to the 88th caller to correctly guess how many neo-Confederates does it take to screw in a Yankee made light bulb in the old rebel outhouse?

Stay tune to this station for your favourite dose of 'Daily Standisms'!

(A collection of Stand's best 'Standisms' soon to be published by 'Exposed Publications LTD' - Hicksville, N.Y.)

[x]

whenever i go NORTH with my imaginary jewish BUSINESS PARTNER or my make-believe HALF BLACK half navaho childhood FREIND people STARE at us in RESTAURANTS and make COMMENTS

They LOOK at me FUNNY when I TALK to my imaginary NAVAHO-BLACK childhood freind or MY make-believe JEWISH business PARTNER on the STREET

i can HEAR their SNEERING, ugly DAMNYANKEE whispering

its because they dont like JEWS and BLACKS and SOUTHERNERS and they found out somehow that i am a SOUTHerner and (even worse) that i am a pretend INDIAN

it makes MY pretend indian blood BOIL

i have to REMEMBER to wear the TINFOIL hat and have the CAPITALS removed from my TYPEWRTER so they cant read my THOUGHTS

free dixie

squattie®

______________________

stand watie® and squattie® are registered trademarks for a collective of progressive Bay Area performance artists. Their East Coast tour includes stops in Burlington, Cambridge, Provincetown and New Haven.

[A Jovial Cad]

It's not nice talk about someone with including them in the ping

One of your old running buddies--who departed this forum with a preening, self-inflicted ZOT--used to brag whenever I'd call him on talking about me to another poster without the courtesy of a *ping that he had no intention whatsoever of observing that basic FR courtesy & protocol.

You were pretty thin on the ground whenever your dear, departed pal used to routinely engage in that exact same practice back then, and brag openly about it, so your weepy protestations about it now, in a different context, don't carry much weight with me.

[WKB]

Would you be so kind as to elaborate on just who in the he++
and what you are talking about???

[A Jovial Cad]

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?

And how utterly "proud" you must be to drag a man's wife into a debate you're having with him. Sounds like a real "chivalrous" scummy way for a man to conduct himself in a debate with another man...but maybe that's just me.

[WKB]

I see you are still posting and I
am STILL waiting!!

[A Jovial Cad]

Still waiting for what? Please explain.

[WKB]

Post 1115

Would you be so kind as to elaborate on just who in the he++
and what you are talking about???

[A Jovial Cad]

Ah, I got it now. Saw your last post before your first one to me.

There was a poster, a darling of the Lost Cause Squad, whom departed here voluntarily a few months ago. In our interactions in threads, I'd often scroll through the comments and see where repeatedly I was being discussed without the courtesy of a *ping. That is what I'm talking about, and you are free to search past threads if it's all soooo confusing to you, or FReepmail me. I'm not going to mention his name in thread because he's not around any longer to publicly defend himself, and that's a point of honor with me.