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Maryland has a few Belk's (2 in fact to Missouri's 1 -- 1 is in the Baltimore area, the other in Southern Maryland, while the one in MO is in the far south), and Waffle Houses aren't really indicative of Southerness, and neither are Dillard's since they're located throughout the entire country. There's even a Piggly Wiggly in Minnesota. In addition, Maryland is still part of the Southern Governor's Association.
Additionally, this notion that Maryland's large black population is due in large part to a recent influx of Southern Blacks is incorrect. Maryland has always had a substantial and established Black population. There are people from further South who make their home in Maryland and the DC area, but I don't know where you got the idea that Maryland's black population is so large due to recent Southern emigres. In fact, there's many blacks from NY who make their home in MD and the DC area. Plus, I've never heard of Maryland as a whole having a sizeable Italian population large enough to be a defining characteristic of the state.
Sometimes, I think people get so caught up on their view of "Southerness" that they exclude everything that doesn't fit their narrow definition. You don't have to display stereotypically "blatant Southern heritage" to be Southern, considering that many Southerners don't. You can live in the South without eating, doing, thinking, believing, or saying stereotypically "Southern" things, just like any other region.
Maryland's "Southerness" is more like Colonial/Chesapeake/Tidewater Southern (where the whole "Southern" thing started, for those who don't know), which is more "refined" and "historical", and due to its location and the amount of transplants in the region, doesn't seem to be very "Southern" compared to Missouri's "Southerness", which is Ozark/Lower Mississippi Valley Southern, in which that kind of "Southerness" is more akin to what people think of when it comes to the South. They're different kinds of Southern, but they're both still Southern. I'm wondering if anyone would disagree with this map in defining cultural boundaries of the present day US, since it seems quite accurate to me.
How is Maryland way too far up north when it's right in the middle of the Atlantic seaboard? Besides, one could make the argument that St. Louis is a large, industrial Midwestern city, on par with being similar to the cities of the Northeast. Parts of Maryland have climatic and plant life like the Northeast (generally in the Western half of the state), but it also has climatic and plant life like the Southeast, too (generally in the Eastern half of the state). Here's a climate map:
In addition, Maryland's architecture ranges from "industrial Northeast" in the big cities to "Tidewater Southern" in smaller cities and along the Chesapeake to "old style and modern/normal" in the suburbs. Hardly very northern, and hardly any state has one distinct architectural style. I'm wondering if anyone has ever stepped off the I-95 corridor of Central Maryland and explored a bit when they've been to the state, rather than going off the perception of what they think it's like.
Keyser, you're nuts. Missouri is not a Southern state. Neither is Maryland. For the most part demographically, politically, and lingustically, these states are not part of the South. So quit your ridiculous babbling.
Ohio actually has a much higher Italian concentration than Maryland. The Cleveland MSA, for example, is 10.1% Italian. The Baltimore MSA is 6.5% Italian. The Charleston MSA is 3.4% Italian. So the Baltimore MSA, which is Maryland's Italian "stronghold" is actually a little closer to Charleston on a percentage basis than it is to Cleveland.
On a statewide level, Ohio and Maryland aren't that far apart. But the difference is that Ohio is a big state and Maryland is a very little state. If you could draw a line north of Columbus and make that a separate state, Ohio's Italian percentage would be way higher than Maryland's. And if you expanded "Maryland" down to Fredericksburg, it's Italian percentage would drop like a rock. The thing about Maryland is that, because it's small, there aren't that many counties that don't fall within the Baltimore-Washington CSA. Ohio, on the other hand, has plenty of rural counties.
That was called sarcasm. I thought someone would actually run the numbers and call me on it (but that clearly didn't happen). One of the arguments for Baltimore (and thus Maryland) being northern is "HUGE" numbers of white ethnics, but I wouldn't call its numbers "huge" by any stretch. They are considerably lower than any major NE city.
Talk about cherrypicking. That's all you do. You slice things up to suit your view. Just go home.
That's pretty southern, imo. The most southern tradition I could think of in Maryland is crabbing (plus the crab boils complete with Old Bay, fried chicken and a cold beer). While I consider these to be southern-influenced traditions, "noodlin" just takes it to a whole new level.
Your opinion is meaningless. You've never been to Missouri. Noodlin' for catfish...so what? Catfish are all over the Midwest. Get out and actually visit here before you try to make such broad generalizations. Last time I talked to you, you were adamant Missouri isn't southern. Now your opinion has changed. Quit flip-flopping and be consistent, because you have zero credibility right now. And you hack states into pieces to try to make Maryland seem more Southern. You must be getting desperate. I love it.
I'm wondering if anyone would disagree with this map in defining cultural boundaries of the present day US, since it seems quite accurate to me.
Mr. Woodard's work is pretty interesting. It's not without it's flaws, but it's mostly well-researched and for the most part accurate. I wouldn't say it's perfect, though, so look up criticisms of American Nations to see where he misses his mark. That said, go read it. It's entertaining and educating.
Anyway, I did the work for Baltimore Diocese and here is what I came up with. Source for figures. These numbers don't square with everything I have, but City-Data didn't have Catholics in Baltimore County, so this will have to do. I used 63% of Hispanics identifying as Catholic, which is the national average, to calculate the # of Hispanic Catholics.
Population: 2.66 million
Hispanic: 4.89%
Catholic %: 15.62 (37.28% of the religious)
Hispanic % of Catholics: 19.71%
Non-Hispanic Catholic %: 12.54% (29.93% of religious)
If Bajan's numbers of Black Catholics are accurate, then we can say roughly 7.36% of Maryland's Black population is Catholic. I'm not sure if it's fair to extrapolate and say it's consistent, but I'm going to do it anyway. So, the end result is that roughly 2/3s of Baltimore Diocese's Catholics are non-Hispanic White. Or 10.4% of the total population or about a quarter of the religious population.
Hmmm.... It seems you are right. Although Googling the map gives me the figure that 63% of Hispanics identify with the Catholic church. I'll use that as my multiplier and see if I can't get some estimates.
You mean nationally? As far as national numbers, I see the following numbers in these sources:
So that gives us a total of 490,064 Hispanic, African American and Filipino Catholics on the more conservative end and 515,672 on the less conservative end (which is still rather conservative, imo). Either way, you're looking at roughly 50% of the total Catholic population in the state being composed of minorities.
Now let's assume that everyone not included in that population is a non-Hispanic white Catholic. Maryland has a non-Hispanic white population of 3,171,779. That means that 15.26% of non-Hispanic whites in the state are Catholic. In Pennsylvania, it's 31.7%. In New Jersey, 48 percent of non-Hispanics whites are Catholic. Keep in mind that Pennsylvania is a huge state. If we concentrated on just the eastern portion of the state, then its non-Hispanic white Catholic percentage would be a lot closer to New Jersey's.
Last edited by BajanYankee; 01-02-2014 at 12:29 PM..
Mr. Woodard's work is pretty interesting. It's not without it's flaws, but it's mostly well-researched and for the most part accurate. I wouldn't say it's perfect, though, so look up criticisms of American Nations to see where he misses his mark. That said, go read it. It's entertaining and educating.
Anyway, I did the work for Baltimore Diocese and here is what I came up with. Source for figures. These numbers don't square with everything I have, but City-Data didn't have Catholics in Baltimore County, so this will have to do. I used 63% of Hispanics identifying as Catholic, which is the national average, to calculate the # of Hispanic Catholics.
Population: 2.66 million
Hispanic: 4.89%
Catholic %: 15.62 (37.28% of the religious)
Hispanic % of Catholics: 19.71%
Non-Hispanic Catholic %: 12.54% (29.93% of religious)
If Bajan's numbers of Black Catholics are accurate, then we can say roughly 7.36% of Maryland's Black population is Catholic. I'm not sure if it's fair to extrapolate and say it's consistent, but I'm going to do it anyway. So, the end result is that roughly 2/3s of Baltimore Diocese's Catholics are non-Hispanic White. Or 10.4% of the total population or about a quarter of the religious population.
Let's run with that. That ratio would mean that only 20.2% of the non-Hispanic whites in the Baltimore MSA would be Catholics. That's 11 points lower than the entire of state of Pennsylvania (which has more than 12 million people within 46,000 sq. miles). When I say that Baltimore doesn't really feel that Catholic, that's what I mean. It's not like Boston or New York where the majority of whites you meet are non-Protestant.
I don't consider either Missouri or Maryland to be part of today's South geographically, but both have Southern influences in parts. I have visited both states but don't have enough experience to decide which one is more Southern, but I have enough experience all over the country to tell you that Northerners, Southerners, and Westerners are more alike than they are different.
There is one thing that all southern states share. People from outside the South generally have something negative to say when talking about Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, etc. Duck Dynasty is a perfect example of that. The media has been bashing them so much that the Louisiana governor decided to defend them. I guess he felt like they were attacking the state of Louisiana.
I've never heard that same negativity towards Maryland. I've never heard anybody describe them as backward inbread country folk. Always heard talk about how progressive they are.
Missouri is probably closer to being more of a southern state in 2014. And yes I've been to both Maryland and Missouri.
Let's run with that. That ratio would mean that only 20.2% of the non-Hispanic whites in the Baltimore MSA would be Catholics. That's 11 points lower than the entire of state of Pennsylvania (which has more than 12 million people within 46,000 sq. miles). When I say that Baltimore doesn't really feel that Catholic, that's what I mean. It's not like Boston or New York where the majority of whites you meet are non-Protestant.
Oh, yeah. I agree with that. It probably has more in common with the middle of Pennsylvania (OK, maybe a bit more Catholic than that, so let's go with Southern Delaware).
63% was one figure I saw. I believe 68% is slightly outdated, but we can plug in 68% since that's probably from the 2010 census like most of the rest of my data. Also, I was apparently lumping in Asians with Non-Hispanic Whites. I don't think there's anything I can do to avoid that one, though. Anyway, Baltimore changes to 65% of Catholics are White with this figure.
The Washington Diocese is less Catholic. Sometimes the estimates end up ridiculous. For example, if you take 68% of the Hispanic population of PG county as Catholic, you end up with more Hispanic Catholics than Catholics. If I still have 7% of the Black population as Catholic, I end up with a large negative White Catholic population. Still, there are surprises. In St. Mary's County, 82.5% of the Catholics are Non-Hispanic White. In Charles, it's 64.59% (about the same as Baltimore). On the other hand, Montgomery and PG have essentially zero White Catholics (I'm sure there are some, but not enough). So the Washington Diocese ends up about 15% White. Quite a change from Baltimore. (I hope I didn't screw up somewhere).
Anyway, perhaps this map is of some use?
It's interesting to look at, though it doesn't really show regional identity.
Maryland has a few Belk's (2 in fact to Missouri's 1 -- 1 is in the Baltimore area, the other in Southern Maryland, while the one in MO is in the far south), and Waffle Houses aren't really indicative of Southerness, and neither are Dillard's since they're located throughout the entire country. There's even a Piggly Wiggly in Minnesota. In addition, Maryland is still part of the Southern Governor's Association.
And Missouri is in both the Southern Legislative Conference and the Southern Governor's Association. So doesn't that still make Missouri more southern?
Quote:
Originally Posted by KeyserSoze
Additionally, this notion that Maryland's large black population is due in large part to a recent influx of Southern Blacks is incorrect. Maryland has always had a substantial and established Black population. There are people from further South who make their home in Maryland and the DC area, but I don't know where you got the idea that Maryland's black population is so large due to recent Southern emigres.
I'm not the one who brought that up. Though I did say that many blacks continue to migrate from the South to the DC area, which is true. Unlike most northern cities, the DC Metro's black population continued to grow after the Second Great Migration. In 1970, the last year of the Second Great Migration, Maryland's black population was 699,479. By 1990, that number was 1,189,899. By 2010, that number had grown to 1,700,298. Did some of those blacks come from New York, New Jersey and Philly? Sure. But even if you assumed that every single Northeasterner that moved to Maryland between 1970 and 2010 was Black, you still wouldn't get anywhere close to 1,000,000 blacks. Between 1985 and 2010, 345,203 people moved from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit to the DC Metro area of any race. This is basically a long-winded way of saying that a whole lot of the blacks that have moved to Maryland since 1970 were from the South.
You can just look at local politics to see this. Rushern Baker, the new CEO of PG County, is from Valdosta, Georgia. Jack Johnson (now serving time in prison), his predecessor, is from Charleston, SC. You don't have to poke around the DC area that hard to find a black person from down around that way that moved there within the past decade or so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KeyserSoze
Sometimes, I think people get so caught up on their view of "Southerness" that they exclude everything that doesn't fit their narrow definition. You don't have to display stereotypically "blatant Southern heritage" to be Southern, considering that many Southerners don't. You can live in the South without eating, doing, thinking, believing, or saying stereotypically "Southern" things, just like any other region.
That I agree with. I think most places are becoming rather homogenized. If you dig deep enough, though, those old cultural roots aren't hard to find.
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Besides, one could make the argument that St. Louis is a large, industrial Midwestern city, on par with being similar to the cities of the Northeast. Parts of Maryland have climatic and plant life like the Northeast (generally in the Western half of the state), but it also has climatic and plant life like the Southeast, too (generally in the Eastern half of the state). Here's a climate map:
