Being from Sand Mountain ( and proud of it), I couldn’t agree more. I love my accent. Sand Mountain has a very thick accent. It makes me unique. My wife even laughs at me. I love all accents. What an amazing country to have so many dialects. Yes, Southerners are ridiculed in films, ads, etc. Who cares. As I told a New Yorker once on a conference call “We don’t give a damn what you think. We laugh at ourselves more than you do.” That is the difference. We don’t take anything, except our heritage, too seriously.