[a fool in paradise]

It's not Southern. It may be bigoted, it may be discriminatory, it may be segregated, but it isn't the South. Those qualities (even if the Illoids are sympathetic to the South because of them) are not exclusive to the South (or a requirement of being Southern).

If you want to say "Confederate sympathies" you are 100+ years too late (100 years being approx to the 1962 Illinois pool situation I referenced).

[hanamizu]

I don’t know if we are really disagreeing. While most of the country thinks of the KKK of the 20s as “Southern”, a big part of its membership was in the Ohio Valley—north of the river.

But I don’t think the South necessarily follows state lines. Natives of Charleston and Sikeston, Missouri have a definite southern accent, while Cape Girardeau, where I am, has the Midwest accent—and it’s only about 40 miles difference.