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I am in favor of the South keeping it's "Poor Stereotypical Image" if it keeps people who care about such things out. Live here because you like it, not because you care what other people think.
I don't hear too many stereotypes regarding North Carolina, to be completely honest. Not much regarding a dark history of racism, looking at Mississippi and Alabama. Not much regarding a hillbilly/backwoods/marrying your cousin image, looking at West Virginia. When I DO hear people stereotype North Carolina in person, it's actually people from the Deep South! The people who think the Deep South is the ONLY South, and an Upper South state like North Carolina that happens to be a bit more progressive than the Deep South doesn't belong in the South as a whole. Apparently the WHOLE state of North Carolina is overrun with Yankees, too. Yeah, I know, but I'm serious. The Yankees who move to North Carolina (or Raleigh/Durham to be more specific), I don't hear too many stereotypes coming from them. They don't poke fun of North Carolina or the South, and they don't attempt NC/southern accents to poke fun. Many of them don't even acknowledge they're living in the South, and I don't think they necessarily care to be honest. They know where they are, why make fun of it? Granted, these are just the Yankees I grew up around. Maybe others have different stories. But I'm serious. One of my best friends moved down from Long Island, and he LOVED North Carolina and the South. He loved the Appalachian Mountains in NC and hiking them, and he loved watching Deliverance. He was a Southernphile haha. You never heard him complain about North Carolina or the South as a whole.
Let me ask you this. Do southern natives that live in larger urban areas experience some degree of culture shock when visiting a rural area of the South?
Let me ask you this. Do southern natives that live in larger urban areas experience some degree of culture shock when visiting a rural area of the South?
Not like that. I'm native from a small city with family that lives in the country. I live in a rural area now and experience a little culture shock every time I go to ATL to visit family.
The South is my favorite region -- and I'm a Californian born liberal. I like the climate, the landscapes, many aspects of its culture, the COL and its cities. I try to sell the South whenever I can, but it's a hard sale most of the time. I don't think the South will ever shed it's image. 500 years in the future the rest of the US will still look down on the South, I bet.
Chatting with someone at work the other day we got on the topic of where I had worked prior to hear, I mentioned spending 4 years living and working in Mississippi. The guy I was talking to later discounted Mississippi as a "hillbilly" state as well as a coworker who had spent some time in Georgia. This guy is an Illinois native I believe, but his views are largely synonymous with that of most northern born Americans, that the south is full of racists and hillbillies.
From the 4 years I spent in Mississippi, I can tell you it's quite a bit different from the north, but it's not all hillbillies there. Aesthetically many southern cities look very much the same as northern cities. The south has really rebounded from being the dirt poor trailer park image that people envisioned it as, especially in the middle 20th century. Not saying the South is an extremely wealthy area by any means, but just like the rest of the country it has its shining beacons.
My main question is when will Americans in general begin to stop looking at the south as a bigoted, backwards, racist, and hillbilly area? If ever?
When this region stops automatically being deep RED every election year, supporting policies, laws, and beliefs that bigoted, backwards, racist, and hillbilly people embrace. This is a clear signal that the region is still fighting the Civil War, still supporting Dixie, still favoring Jim Crow, and still having more in common with the Klan than not. Sure, there are some extraordinary people there, fine, magnificent people. But there still exists enough of the racist, supremely ignorant, bigoted, backwards contingent in that region to keep it tipped in the wrong direction. Until this changes, I don't care how beautiful it looks in parts. People will change their opinion of the region when the region itself undergoes a true change in its core and foundation. This certainly won't occur during my lifetime. It likely will not happen for centuries, if ever.
When this region stops automatically being deep RED every election year, supporting policies, laws, and beliefs that bigoted, backwards, racist, and hillbilly people embrace. This is a clear signal that the region is still fighting the Civil War, still supporting Dixie, still favoring Jim Crow, and still having more in common with the Klan than not. Sure, there are some extraordinary people there, fine, magnificent people. But there still exists enough of the racist, supremely ignorant, bigoted, backwards contingent in that region to keep it tipped in the wrong direction. Until this changes, I don't care how beautiful it looks in parts. People will change their opinion of the region when the region itself undergoes a true change in its core and foundation. This certainly won't occur during my lifetime. It likely will not happen for centuries, if ever.
Jim Crow? Civil War? Cali got its own style of racism perfected. Fix that ...then come holla.
When this region stops automatically being deep RED every election year, supporting policies, laws, and beliefs that bigoted, backwards, racist, and hillbilly people embrace. This is a clear signal that the region is still fighting the Civil War, still supporting Dixie, still favoring Jim Crow, and still having more in common with the Klan than not. Sure, there are some extraordinary people there, fine, magnificent people. But there still exists enough of the racist, supremely ignorant, bigoted, backwards contingent in that region to keep it tipped in the wrong direction. Until this changes, I don't care how beautiful it looks in parts. People will change their opinion of the region when the region itself undergoes a true change in its core and foundation. This certainly won't occur during my lifetime. It likely will not happen for centuries, if ever.
I love how voting for the party that you don't support equates to being bigoted, backwards, and racist. Jim Crow? The Klan? Where exactly do those issues appear in the Republican National platform? Or are YOU actually the one still living the Civil War?
Personally, I think that most true ignorance exists in the Blue State world of secular humanism and moral relativism, where people have a strange sense of intellectual superiority yet fail to see that the increasingly godless, secular world that we live in is breeding an increase in broken families, violent crimes, drug dependence, and apathy towards others. it isn't exactly people who live by the teachings of Jesus who are beating each other senseless over cheap TVs at Walmart, is it?
It is by the grace of God and the strength of the grass roots populace in this country that you will never see your dream of a vast Blue State culture that embraces your earnestly held but misguided, secular values spread across this country. In case you don't look at political maps, the South is hardly the only region that is "deep RED" every election year. There are still plenty of other people in this great country of ours who possess some common sense and traditional values.
Let me ask you this. Do southern natives that live in larger urban areas experience some degree of culture shock when visiting a rural area of the South?
Yes they do. Just take someone from metro Atlanta and drop them off in a town like Claxton, GA. They wouldn't know what to do with themselves.
I watched the Madea Christmas movie (Tyler Perry) yesterday, and as everyone knows, it's always based in Atlanta. Part of that movie was set in Alabama and they acted like it was supposed to be nothing but farms, KKK meetings, and one room schools with only 15 students, despite that fact that AL is only a 1.5 hour drive from Atlanta. All I could do was shake my head and think "I know they didn't" .
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Cali got its own style of racism perfected. Fix that ...then come holla.
When will the south shed its poor stereotypical image?
