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
It's interesting you should say that. There are a number of sociologists who have commented on the similarity between Asian (and more specifically Confucian) cultures and Southern culture.
I have heard similar observations from one of my history professors, Dr. Lung-Kee Sun. He is also a fairly astute observer of the details of such things.
"Us Yankees can't wait to get home and watch the evening news when you clueless southerners get a dusting of snow."
So you can watch your clueless reporters stand outside in the snow everytime there's a dusting?
Thanks for the post and ping.
I used to live just south of New Port Richey.
What this guy says is true.
I now live in Oregon.
It's even more true out here.
I'll forgive them, though.
Those with that attitude are more ignorant than they can imagine. ;o)
"M-I-CROOKED LETTER-CROOKED LETTER-I-CROOKED LETTER-CROOKED LETTER-I-HUMP BACK-HUMP BACK-I-!!!!!!!!!!!.............."
And, it's pronounced, "Missippy". ;o)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that print looks like a depiction of the incident right after Shiloh, when Nathan Bedford Forrest, better known as the "Wizard of the Saddle," found himself surrounded by Yankee soldiers. The story goes that he picked one off the ground and used him as a shield to get back to the Confederate lines.
Clearly, you've never been in an Australian bar when the locals are making fun of the weird customs and accents of those from from South Australia [*Crow eaters*] or Melbourne/Victoria [*Mexicans*].
Clearly, you've never been in an Australian bar when the locals are making fun of the weird customs and accents of those from from South Australia [*Crow eaters*] or Melbourne/Victoria [*Mexicans*].
I notice your complimentary olive branch earlier about things you appreciate about Yankees has been warmly recieved with the usual good manners and grace...lol
I tend to agree. Probably something to do with the fact I was born in Dallas, but moved to Indiana when I was just 3 months old. That, and my family roots are extensive in the Kentucky and Tennessee areas.
I believe you're spot-on, though some sources refer to that fight as *The battle of Pittsburg Landing*. The print, entitled *Forrest Takes A Hostage*, is indeed a depiction of the events of 08 April, when Grant sent Sherman south along the Corinth Road in pursuit of the retreating Confederates. Meeting resistance from the cavalry screen under Nathan Bedford Forrest, Sherman abandoned the pursuit. There is a line of thought that Forrest's intent that day was to find Sherman away from his headquarters guards, and to personally dispatch him.
Shelby Foote describes the events as follows, from his work "The Civil War, volume 1:":
At a place called Fallen Timbers, covering the Confederate retreat to Corinth after the battle of Shiloh, Forrest's cavalry met up with an advance unit of Grant's army.The last shot fired that day, at that Battle of Shiloh, was fired at Forrest. Forrest's horse had been hit repeatedly and was severely wounded and, after getting Forrest back to safety, died. Forrest's charge stopped Sherman's advance and the Confederate army's retreat to Corinth was successful. Forrest was sent home to Memphis to recover from the rifle's minie ball lodged near his spine."Forrest saw his chance. 'Charge!' he shouted, and led his horsemen pounding down the slope. Most of the skirmishers had begun to run before he struck them, but those who stood were knocked sprawling by a blast from shotguns and revolvers. Beyond them, the Federal cavalry had panicked, firing their carbines wildly in the air. When they broke too, Forrest kept on after them, still brandishing his saber and crying 'Charge! Charge!' as he plowed into the solid ranks of the [infantry] brigade drawn up beyond.
The trouble was, he was charging by himself; the others, seeing the steady brigade front, had turned back and were already busy gathering up their 43 prisoners. Forrest was one gray uniform, high above a sea of blue.
'Kill him! Kill the goddam rebel! Knock him of his horse!' It was no easy thing to do; the horse was slashing and kicking and plunging and Forrest was hacking and slashing; but one of the soldiers did his best. Reaching far out, he shoved the muzzle of his rifle in to the colonel's side and pulled the trigger.
The force of the explosion lifted Forrest clear out of the saddle, but he regained his seat and sawed the horse around. As he came out the mass of dark blue uniforms and furious white faces, clearing a path with his saber, he reached down and grabbed one of the soldiers by the collar, swung him onto the rear of the horse, and galloped back to safety, using the Federal as a shield against the bullets fired after him. Once he was out of range, he flung the hapless fellow off and rode on up to the ridge where his men were waiting in open-mouthed amazement."
Forrest was no great proponent of the use of the saber, prefering revolvers for his own use and obtaining shotguns for his men where possible for use from the saddle, when not deploying his men as Dragoon infantry. But it should not be thought that he was unskilled or unwilling to kill with cold steel; over the course of his four years of service during the conflict, he had 29 horses shot out from under him and personally killed 30 Yankee soldiers. After it was over, he claimed to have finished the war "one horse ahead."
Thanks for the information. I have a copy of Shelby Foote's trilogy in my personal library, but have not read it in a while. You sound like a fellow Civil War scholar. And thank you for the photograph. It has been years since I stood at the statue and saluted the general.
I was about to write something very similar to what you have stated so elequently. I can be in mid-town Manhattan in 1.5 hours or I can be fishing in some of the best trout streams anywhere in the country in a matter of minutes by simply waking out my back-door, or driving 45 minutes east to the Housie or an hour west to the Esopus, Beaverkill, Willowemac, etc. And on the way, I will probably pass as many redneck homesteads (with outhouses and ornimental junk cars) as one would find in East TN or Alabama.
Getting a concealed carry permit is no big deal, and outside of NYC, I can probably carry a weapon into more places under New York Law than I can under Texas Law. And despite the restrictive gun laws in NYC or perhaps because of them, the crime rate is one of the lowest of any big city in the country. Indeed, I challenge anyone to name a big city south of the Mason-Dixon line, with a crime rate lower than NYC.
With the exception of New Orleans, I have yet to find a truely exceptional restaurant in the south. There are a lot of good restaurants and even pretty good restaurants, but not in the numbers you find in the northeast and nothing that rises to the level of exceptional or outstanding.
Although there are certainly places in the north where the summer starts on July 3rd and ends August 15th, in the Hudson Valley where I live, we generally have short sleave weather from mid-April until mid-October. And when we do have snow, we deal with it and keep going, unlike the people from the south who become "deer in a headlight" when they see that first flake (I have to laugh at the poster from Atlanta who doesn't know the difference between a dusting and a blizzard).
I don't know whether northerners or southerners are smarter or whether there is even a difference worthy of debate. I do know that when I went to college for a year down south, I didn't have to study all that hard to get A's and when I transferred to a real college in the north, I had to bust my butt to pull C's. I also note that most of the top colleges and universities, as ranked by various publications, are in the North and in California, not in the south, with a large number of the very best schools in NY, PA, MA, and ME.
And if southerners are so nice and friendly, why are there so many southern posts on this thread bashing northerners for no other reason than we talk funny?
Exactly. In terms of speaking funny, how may national newsmen do the news in a southern accent? :)
Even the local news people seem to have lost their twang.
In the first place, there's a good reason for that. It's called an egregious MSM double standard. Southern accents are widely parodied by Hollywood and the MSM. Having a pronounced Southern accent will doom your career on TV or in Hollywood. But, for some reason, having a pronounced Northern accent is no handicap at all (Rosie O'Donnell, QED).
And, besides there are several counterexamples to your statement about there being no national newsmen with Southern accents. Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers and Dan Rather all have muted variations of Southern/Texas accents.
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