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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
NYC is the only place I have ever been served a glass of water with a dead roach in it. I'll take refried mosquitoes on grits over that any day. I do like some of the NYC delis though.
Sounds like the author, Richard Cox, needs to move on back here to Tennessee with us tobacco chewing, banjo playing, bare-footed ridge runners (I really do chew tobacco anyway).
On another note, getting ready to go on vacation up into Wisconsin. Alot of people ask "Don't you just hate that drive back home?" Hey, that's the best part, returning!
In Air Force basic when we began training on the M-16, the instructor asked how many of us were from the South...many of us raised our hands and he smiled and said that this was going to be one of his easier taught classes.
"American by birth and southern by the grace of God"...how sweet the sound!
Some idiot Yankee counterfeiters really screwed up and printed off a large batch of bogus $18 bills. They thought and thought about what to do with them and eventually decided to take them down south and pass them off to the local hicks. They drove down south and stopped at the first convenience store they came upon after crossing the Mason-Dixon line. One of the counterfeiters went in and made some smalltalk about directions for a few minutes, he then asked the cashier if he could make change for an $18 dollar bill. The casier replied saying, "Sure mister, how do you want that, 3 $6 bills or 2 $9 bills?"
Of rednecks, I know of at least 2 varieties. The bad kind, also known locally as "effing rednecks" who are just mean for means sake, and the good kind a.k.a. "good ole boys". Effing rednecks are miserable b@st@rds and want the rest of the world to be just as miserable as they are. Good ole boys on the other hand are quite a bit different. They like God, guns, and guts, though not necessarily in that order. They like huntin', fishin', Nascar, and football, again not necessarily in that order. Most good ole boys have a live and let live philosophy. They do like the sport of redneckin' though. Redneckin' is good natured teasing with no malicious intent.
True story. I was once at a night club in Bulls Gap, TN. years ago and a band called Joe Loftis and the Pinks were playing. This was in the early 80's and to set up the foundation for this story, you have to know that this was during the period when cable was just becoming established in east TN.. And a staple of cable tv was Slim Whitamn commercials (Slim sold more records in Europe than Elvis donchaknow). Joe Loftis was a heck of a guitarist, and the band did a lot of late 50's & 60's RnR cover material. They were there for a 2 night gig, Fri-Sat, and after Friday's show they hung around with some of us locals. By the time Sat's show was partly over, Joe figured he would mess with us a little and said that the next song was going to be from Slim Whitman. My table, roughly 20 of us, spontaneously broke into a chorus of "Rose Marie". Joe and the Pinks froze not knowing if they had crossed over into some Twilight Zone rock club where folks actually listened to Slim Whitman. It was so quiet for about 10 seconds you could have heard a pin drop. Then, everyone at my table burst out laughing, for we, like Joe, were aware of Slim and we were all so in synch with one another that we all just knew we had to rattle Joe's cage just a little. After the show, Joe admitted to us that he was afraid for his safety for those few seconds. Now, that's good redneckin' I'll tell ya.
I too believe that I am "American by birth, southern by the grace of God", but on 09/11/01, I was a New Yorker, a D.C.er, and Pennsylvanian (youse guys) and on 07/07/05, I was a Londoner (eh wot). One last thing, I like my southern accent. Peace
READ YOUR POST !
Not any more, supposedly. If you ask for a Coke and they serve Pepsi, they're supposed to ask "Is Pepsi okay?" Apparently, someone asked for a Coke and got a Pepsi, and sued.
Seriously, it was Coca-Cola that sued. If you allow your trademark to be used as a generic term, you risk losing the trademark. But lawsuits notwithstanding, in casual usage in Atlanta, any carbonated beverage is a "coke."
This strikes me as a good place to insert this link.
At the risk of introducing thread drift, sweet tea is another distinct regional phenomenon. I like my tea unsweetened, and order it that way by habit; when I'm traveling in the North, people look at me funny.
My favorite description is that a Southerner will never insult you accidentally. We're acutely aware of manners, so if a Yankee insult is a bludgeon, a Southern insult is a stiletto. By the time you figure out you've been insulted, we're already on the way home.
As an example, my grandmother recently told me a story about her grandmother, one of the Athens Howards, who was quite acid-tongued by Southern standards.
She had a party, or afternoon tea or some such. One local young lady, who was quite homely and not too bright but fancied herself a beauty, coquettishly piped up, "Who'll walk me home? It's geting so a pretty girl isn't safe walking home alone these days." I can only imagine that she was batting her lashes and flipping her hair as she said it. Home was about a couple hundred yards down the road. There were no immediate takers.
My great-great grandmother said, "You don't need to worry about that, dear. The Lord has placed his protective arm around you, and I'm sure you're in no danger." I don't think the young lady ever figured out she'd been, in the modern vernacular, dissed in front of everyone.
My grandmother has told me about one time she got a bag of licorice candies and referred to them as n-babies -- local slang at the time -- and was chided by her mother. This would have been in the late '20s or early '30s. It wasn't a question of civil rights or political correctness -- it was just a crass, ugly word, not suitable for a young lady.
When I was in elementary school, in the mid-'70s, n-jokes still popped up occasionally. But always in hushed tones, as if the teller knew it was a shameful thing, as if the joke-teller would rather be caught using the f-word than the n-word.
I'm tempted to agree with you that usage of the n-word will fade, but I'm not so sure. There are always pockets of hard-core bigots -- everywhere, and not in the South any more than anywhere else -- who throw it out and revel in its shock value. It will disappear from casual usage, and survive only as an intentional obscenity thrown by white racists and black gangsta rappers.
Maybe I unfairly misread the cultural comments you have made over the months on the FR, but Espinola, in your constant ignorant stereotypical slurs against southern people in general, you suggest that you have the typical backward provincial hick-town mentality that distrusts and denigrates anything and anybody unfamiliar. The redneck mindset lives everywhere.
Overlooking the unfortunate number of people holding the defective leftist worldview in certain blue state regions, my thesis is that Americans are generally the same in substance everywhere. In the United States, the differences between North and South are superficial compared to the differences between us and the outside enemies of the nation. The great Lincoln did not save the Union so that narrow-minded Northeasterners could look down on the South and the superficials of its culture.
It's time to stop eating out in Carnarse & stick to the numerous, fine kosher delis, with those mean waitresses:)
The threats to the country & the Western World you speak of are very real,and must be dealt with swiftly, prior to further outbreaks of multiple 9-11 style mass murders by the Jihadist enemy.
I believe you understand there are those determined to continue the fight for their 'lost cause' and seek every opportunity to attack anyone from the 'north', coupled with those not in total accord with somehow reversing the outcome of the Civil War. My comments were geared to that element, since I am well aware not everyone born or living in the South shares such views.
But I'm afraid that some people defending the South think that they have to defend EVERYTHING about the South, including the rebellion. I'll defend the South's general culture (excepting the segregationist past which has parallels in the North). I'll even defend the motives of the typical Confederate soldier and honor such noble Southern Civil War figures like Lee and Cleburne. But I'll never hold with the views of those who glorify the secession of 1861 nor those who wish for a repeat.
The South rose again-in 1865.
Nashville's crime rate is signifcantly higher than NYC and just about any other place in the north. See Post No. 212 and follow the link.
('The first Confederate conscription law also applied to men between 18 and 35, providing for substitution (repealed Dec. 1863) and exemptions. A revision, approved 27 Sept. 1862, raised the age to 45; 5 days later the legislators passed the expanded Exemption Act. The Conscription Act of Feb. 1864 called all men between 1 7 and 50. Conscripts accounted for one-fourth to one-third of the Confederate armies east of the Mississippi between Apr. 1864 and early 1865.' Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" Edited by Patricia L. Faust)
Union conscription for the purpose of crushing the rebellion began during July of 1863. The U.S. draft was not in the least fair either since anyone could pay their way out, which many did. Riots broke out in various locations due to 'buyout' option. Not helping matters, some the rioting was instigated by those with Confederate sympathies. On both sides troops also willingly fought for their determined causes, maybe even more so after Gettysburg.
Just think if you lived in the same city with the battle ax, Hillary being around & her horde of horrible femanazis. It's no picnic.
Why play their games? Call it what it was, and what it was know as until early in the last century. The War of Southern Rebellion.
No that was Bob Newhart. Foxworthy is a ramblin' wreck from Georgia Tech and worked for IBM for 5 years before breaking into standup.
I agree, and would take it a step further by terming it "The War of Confederate Aggression"
To each their own. I tried to popularize "Jeff Davis's War" but that never took off.
Old Jeff & his Confederate comrades :)
I am not sure about Jersey in particular, but there are many from the overall Tri-State area.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.