South Florida vs South Texas: Which region deviates further from the South? (metro, state)

[Gunion Powder]

Originally Posted by JKAddict

That's mostly due to recent immigration and the tendency to identify as catholic among Tejanos. Heck, I didn't even know my grandfather was catholic until he died. Him, and a lot of other people in that region, are sometimes only catholic in name, not practice.

That's true of many Protestants as well.

As Mutiny pointed out, the city's name certainly suggests the presence of a Catholic culture, and the stats also support this.

[MrKnight]

It's apples to oranges.. South Florida has a SIGNFICANTLY different vibe from culturally Southern areas, South Florida has its own culture and identity which tends to heavily lean towards a more cosmopolitan, Latin-influenced, Caribbean-influenced, and internationally diverse feel.. IMHO I prefer the feel and culture of South Florida..

[Southern Soul Bro]

Originally Posted by murksiderock

What exactly isn't southern about South Florida?

One of my best friends for six years running is from West Palm, went to FAU. Her entire family lives in West Palm/Boca/Miami--they are Southern...

Every native Miami black I've ever seen DEFINITELY sounded Southern. That includes all black celebrities from there--some of which have Carribean roots--and the Miamians I've known personally. I knew two when I lived in Georgia, one of which was a Trinidadian native, and yes, she was Southern...

I knew a Latina from Miami, she was southern. Pitbull even has a southern-inspired accent. Not that I think a few speak for the majority, but come on. There are tons of celebrities FROM Miami, and they all sound southern...

I knew a white woman from Miami. Same thing...

Personally, I don't see where Miami, and South Florida on the whole, have this dissociation from the South. Having an eclectic mix of cultures means that it isn't as southern as places that don't have the same degree of culture mixes. These different cultures definitely contribute to the region's culture, but come on. Southern culture is alive and evident in South Florida--whether it's the predominant culture isn't the question; South Florida isn't really "deviant" from the South. It's just a different type of Southern....

Have really never met anyone from nor been to South Texas, unless San Antonio counts--I've met people from there (blacks, whites, and Latinos). Again the blacks were incredibly southern. The Latinos definitely had southern influences in speech, accent, and personality...

The rapper Trick Daddy especially. He sounds like a middle age uncle from Alabama or somewhere around here in Middle GA, and he definitely self-identifies himself as southern.

[Southern Soul Bro]

Originally Posted by Happiness-is-close

Carribean blacks and southern blacks don't like each other. Southern blacks are often jealous of carribeans second generation success while their economic standing stagnates. Often southern blacks will call Carribean blacks derogatory names for coming from poorer countries, etc.

Don't play ignorance. You know this, all black people know this. Even a lot of young white people who grew up with the two groups know this.

Originally Posted by _OT

That little Haitian vs. African American, back and forth thing was in the past, and is no longer an issue anymore, stop it. Black is Black, no matter the nationality, there's no division between us, and will never again be one.

Is South Florida Southern? no, especially if you include the whole region. But is South Florida oblivious to Urban Southern culture? no; that includes Cubans, Haitians, Jamaicans, African Americans, etc.

_OT is right. I know Haitians and Black Americans had conflict when Haitians started moving into South Florida decades ago, but I dont think that's the case now. I can tell you that with a younger crowd and in the hip hop community, Haitians are seen as a very proud people and many young black americans are fascinated with them.

i.e. We dont have many Caribbean blacks here in Middle Georgia, but these 2 brothers started going to Fort Valley State University. I believe they're on the soccer team. They started doing promotions and hosting parties, now we even have people around here PRETENDING to be Haitian lol. A Haitian Gang called "Zoe Pound" formed many years ago, but now people just call any Haitian a "Zoe." In an attempt to sound "cool" they named their promotion team "Zoe Nation Gang" but they just promote parties and have no affiliation to "Zoe Pound" other than being Haitian. Now all these people around here are suddenly "Zoes" waving Haitian flags, knowing they are black americans lmao. Call it kids being corny and trying to be "trendy" but they definitely arent hated.


Maybe 2 people in this pic are actually haitian




They even have some white kids wearing "Zoe Nation" gear.

Seriously,



There's a Haitian kid from Broward County named "Kodak Black" who raps and it gaining a following through social media. Famous rappers like Fetty Wap, Future, and Young Thug CLAIM to be Haitian. It's "cool" to be Haitian now.

As for the professional community, I see no resentment among black americans, caribbean blacks, and africans around here. The same "brotherly/sisterly" convo that comes up between 2 black americans happens between a black american and a caribbean black or african as far as I've noticed.

[gmfitter]

Originally Posted by Spade

Please re-read what I said. I said many Caribbean black people act and are Southern not that the Caribbean is Southern. And where do you get the notion that most southern blacks aren't embracive of Caribbean Blacks?

I am sorry to say this, but my experience as a Black man is that American, African and Caribbean Black people tend to gravitate to their own. But that may be true of all peoples. I could go on, but I think I am heading into another topic.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by gmfitter

I am sorry to say this, but my experience as a Black man is that American, African and Caribbean Black people tend to gravitate to their own. But that may be true of all peoples. I could go on, but I think I am heading into another topic.

That's more true of first generation African and Caribbean immigrants. Second generation individuals are pretty much absorbed into larger Black American culture while still being proud of their African/Caribbean roots.

[AT9]

Probably S. Florida bc of the presence of Miami, but much of Texas isn't really "southern" in the sense of Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, etc. East Texas is the only region that looks and feels truly southern.

Texas has its own culture and geography that, IMO, is a blend of Western/Great Plains + Southern. It's more cowboy-like. Sure, there are still lots of white republicans and big trucks, but those aren't the only things that define the south.

[fezzador]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

That's more true of first generation African and Caribbean immigrants. Second generation individuals are pretty much absorbed into larger Black American culture while still being proud of their African/Caribbean roots.

I'm inclined to agree with this. It's similar to how Native American culture changed. 150+ years ago, a Cherokee wouldn't have associated with an Apache for instance. These days this is no longer the case. Though I'm sure it predated the American Indian Movement of the 70s and 80s, many nations found that despite linguistic and cultural differences, they still had a lot more in common with each other than any other culture. To paraphrase an AIM mantra, it didn't matter if one was Lakota, Micmac, Choctaw - they were just Indian.

[BajanYankee]

Originally Posted by polo89

I'm a Haitian who's lived in South Florida, and I can attest that South Florida is more Southern than South Texas. Even West Indian Blacks who have been raised in South Florida have taken on Black-American Southern accents and vernacular. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to take a trip to any predominantly Black and or West-Indian neighborhood from Riviera Beach, all the way down to Florida City.

I asked this question in the Miami forum before because this assertion sounded non-sensical to me.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/miami...t-indians.html

West Indians in South Florida have less exposure to native born Blacks than any other Black immigrant community in the U.S. In New York, for example, Caribbean-born Blacks have an exposure index of 42.6 (the higher the number, the more exposure to American-born Blacks). In Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, those numbers are 28.6 and 22.6, respectively.

As was the case for black natives, West Indians’ exposure to whites has diminished. But so has exposure to African Americans in urban areas with the largest West Indian populations, namely New York and Miami. Geographic concentration of blacks of Caribbean descent is remarkably reflected in their isolation (exposure to own group) index, as shown in figure 2.

Consequently, a fundamental difference with the South Floridian context lies in the absence of West Indian residential areas easily identifiable by the predominance of one single national ancestry. Another one is the large coexistence of foreign-born blacks with native blacks. In Central Brooklyn, Caribbean people share almost three-quarter of their residential area with Black American neighbors. In contrast, West Indian residential patterns are notably different in South Florida.

http://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/view...anarchitecture

This jibes with my experience on the ground there. Caribbean immigrants to the Northeast were more of a steady trickle from 1910 to 1960 and then a deluge from 1970 onwards. So you've had decades of mixing between American born and Caribbean born-blacks. In South Florida, you had one huge wave of Black immigrants who tended to be more skilled and better educated and headed mostly to self-segregated communities in the suburbs.

[BajanYankee]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

That's more true of first generation African and Caribbean immigrants. Second generation individuals are pretty much absorbed into larger Black American culture while still being proud of their African/Caribbean roots.

Miami's West Indian population is more "hyper" ethnic than New York's. They are a newer community, for one, and they are far more residentially concentrated. Whereas New York and the Northeast have had a sizable West Indian population for some time (Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Harry Belafonte, Constance Baker Motley, Louis Farrakhan, Eric Holder, Bill Thompson, etc.), you would be hard-pressed to find any person of West Indian ancestry in S. Florida whose parents were born in the U.S. Also, West Indians in the Northeast started out as a small population relative to the whole Black population, and integrated themselves into the larger Black community over time. West Indians in South Florida, on the other hand, sort of exploded on the scene in large numbers and suburbanized rapidly. Their experience is not the same as the West Indian experience in NYC, Boston, Philly, etc.

The end result, imo, is a West Indian community in S. Florida that sees itself as more distinct from the rest of Black America than the W.I. community in, say, Boston. If you could poll all people with some West Indian ancestry in the NYC and Miami metro areas on whether they are comfortable with the label "African American" being applied to them, I suspect there would be considerably more discomfort with that association among West Indians in Miami.