[I'm ALL Right!]

Oklahomans get the same response. My husband and I often muse at the fact that every tornado victim ever interviewed for news broadcasts seems to be (1) missing teeth (2) in dire need of a hairdresser and (3)lacking a basic understanding of English grammar.

Honestly, we do not personally know anyone who suffers from such afflictions, and we have both lived in Oklahoma most of our lives. According to the news, everyone in OK drives a beat-up truck, uses double negatives, and lives out in the middle of nowhere. Yee-haw.

Just another way the leftist journalists seek to make the mostly conservative South look like a bunch of morons. They find the most ignorant southerner they can...interview him, and replay the clip over and over and over...

[TennMountains]

Well my experience is that the non-Southerners are catching on. When I travel on business out West or up North and they hear my accent I get this puzzled look. I can actually see the wheels in their brains spinning while they attempt to size me up. It's obvious to me that at some point they've either been taken by someone with a southern accent, or heard stories thereof. It's fun to play their prejudices off against their intellect. Make a joke about being a hillbilly and they'll check to be sure their wallet is still in their pocket. The idea that someone can be genuinely friendly, and get the best of them is usually more than they can comprehend. The smarter ones never start out by "misunderestimating" someone with a southern accent. The ones that do are learning.

[TypeZoNegative]

I've found this to be the case with anybody who doesn't either have an Eastern accent or a Californian accent, you get discriminated against.

I have an upper Midwest twang and every time I go down to Florida (AKA Southern Brooklyn) I get discriminated against because of my accent.

[lonestar]

Believe it or not, East Tennessee, the section of the state we are from, fervently supported the Union during the Civil War.

Sounds to me you are biased yourself if you're proud of being from an area that supported the Union during the Civil War.

[Young Scholar]

Oak Ridge, in the Knoxville area, probably has as high a percentage of residents with doctorate degrees as any city in the United States.

According to city-data.com, 17.9% of the residents of Oak Ridge have advanced degrees and 37.9% have bachelor degrees, not even close to enough to put the city on the Top 100 list. In Stanford, CA, which leads the list, 96.4% have bachelor degrees and 64.9% have advanced degrees.

Sorry, Mr. Cox. I'm sure Tennessee is still a good state, but this column is hardly impressive.

[shag377]

I feel your pain.

I left rural S. Georgia for Tallahassee, FL when my dad died. Accent and all.

Most people took me for a complete and utter moron because of the way I spoke, never mind both my parents were college educated (my dad was an Industrial Engineer from Georgia Tech) and I was an honor student.

Even today when I meet people they hear me speak and think I am a moron until I tell them what I do, when that enevitable question arises.

I am a philologist.

Now, who is the moron?

[deaconjim]

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

O.K., I know I'm late to this thread, and I haven't takne the time to read all 650+ comments, but this statement made me lose all sympathy with this guy. I know all about bias against southerners from personal experience, and I have found many creative ways to have fun with those who practice said bias.

It would appear that Mr. Cox has a similar bias against his "country cousins". I hate to tell him this, but if he would travel into parts of the cities that he is so proud of, he would find many of those stereotypical rednecks of which he is so ashamed.

Personnally, I believe that the more intelligent people live in rural areas. I can't believe that people with good sense would want to live in the congestion and noise of a city.

[Quick1]

"Isn't America great? Except for the South."

-Peter Griffin

[Jim Hill]

Simple . . . . come back to Knoxville.

[longtermmemmory]

I miss the days when progressive meant you supported business, reducing taxes and assimilation into the great american melting pot.


Not this modern quota manure.

[Ciexyz]

btt

[MinuteGal]

Meanwhile, getting back to the article.......

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

[JABBERBONK]

You missed the mark, you should have settled 4 miles north of New Port Richey, I.E. "Hudson" Florida. I came to live in New Port Richey from N.Y in 1972, then when you called up to order Pizza, and asked for extra "mozzarella" the reply was "mozza-whut"? and when I attended Gulf Comprehensive H.S 1972-75, I had to deal with all the "New Yawk", and "Lownga Island" cracks from my fellow students. Someone needs to toughen up "yer" kid.

[MississippiMan]

As I've discussed at length in another thread, I'm interviewing with and talking to some NY firms about a job, and relocation to NY.

And in my experience on related trips to NY, I've found that the anti-Southern bias is thankfully and dramatically waning. BUT, is it still there? You bet. I did encounter the (thankfully rare) person whose face twisted into a condescending look as soon as I spoke. Here's how I look at it: When someone reveals themself to be of such limited intellect as to think they're smarter because they form their vowels differently, they're not people I care to associate with anyway.

I also think the Internet is playing a great role in steadily eliminating such banal thinking. The ability to communicate instantly via the written word, regardless of location, has stamped out a lot of bias like this, by forcing us to communicate without the bias-inducing elements of appearance, accent, etc.

MM

[185JHP]

"I hope Neil Young will remember..."

[Paved Paradise]

I think it has far more to do with (1) the slowness of speach many southerners display and the (2) choice of grammer vs. the actual accent/inflection.

[JarheadFromFlorida]

[[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.]

You are absolutely right. These same people that think it's perfectly OK to refer to southerners as "hillbillies" and "rednecks" and make fun of they way that southerners talk would NEVER dream of making fun of a black person for the way that they talk and they would NEVER dream of calling them anything but the politically correct title of "African American". Slow speech and slang words by white southerners are laughed at, ridiculed, and called stupid yet when a black person says "let me axe you a question", "where do da bafroom be", or "i hafa go take a tess", it is accepted as the norm, nobody laughs or makes fun of them and it is even pawned off as some type of phony english known as "ebonics", instead of the "lazy english" that it really is, which is my opinion sound ten times as worse than any white southerner. In other words, it is still perfectly acceptable to make fun of white southerners but all other racial groups are exempt. This is the hypocrisy of modern day liberalism.