Poll: Why do some southerners try to pretend TX is the South? (West: appliances, house)

[solytaire]

Hey everybody listen to me: California has a horrible economy...So does Mississippi so that means Mississippi isnt Southern (must be western aye?): Hooray TxGuy logic!

A) Why is a poor economy/poor dental hygiene a criterion for any measure of a states REGIONAL categorization.

B) What then is the qualifying variable (percentile) from which a state must deviate for a statistic like Health in order for it to be considered Southern? And if that percentage is the benchmark, then how is that variable relevant when explaining how states like Nevada have poor health as well?

[David Alleyne]

TxGuy I'll concede because I have no argument on this subject anymore because you'll just end up shutting my points down. I'm sorry that I've been so critical of you and your reasoning in the other post that you've created. I've come to realize that TX is basically a twin of the Northeast with a Spanish flair to it (it was under Spanish rule at a time). I don't even know why I even stepped to you wrong like that because it's so clear that TX is awesome and the south's a dump, keep teaching brotha. Later.

[BobTex]

Dumbest poll I ever saw I think. Very narrow choices with no range on the points! Kinda like "Do you still beat your wife"?

[TiltShift]

East Texas is Southern. West Texas is not. Texas, split up, is many things. It's the South, it's the Southwest, it's North Mexico, it's the Great Plains. But, Texas as a whole is a whole 'nother thing. Aren't we united in our differences? Above all, aren't we are all Texans?

We're (almost but not really, ha!) the Switzerland of the US. Our regions and cultures can be very different at times, but ultimately, it's the "Texas" thing that unites us.

(Sorry, maybe I'm a bit overboard.)

[catman]

This poll is very poorly worded. Texas east of Dallas is part of the South. Since there are no hard and fast lines, I haven't decided whether Dallas is part of the South. Maybe East Dallas is. Fort Worth isn't. It's all a matter of where the dominant influences end, which is necessarily vague. I agree with TiltShift.

[TexasReb]

East Texas is Southern. West Texas is not. Texas, split up, is many things. It's the South, it's the Southwest, it's North Mexico, it's the Great Plains. But, Texas as a whole is a whole 'nother thing. Aren't we united in our differences? Above all, aren't we are all Texans?

Texas east of Dallas is part of the South. Since there are no hard and fast lines, I haven't decided whether Dallas is part of the South. Maybe East Dallas is. Fort Worth isn't. It's all a matter of where the dominant influences end, which is necessarily vague. I agree with TiltShift.

Regarding the West Texas thing, in terms of physical features it for sure does fit the common image of the forested South. However, having been settled primarily by folks from the Southeast, it is still essentially Southern (or at the least, more Southern than not) in its history, political outlook, speech patterns, religious life (Southern Baptist church easily the largest protestant denomination), etc. Sure, again, its physicial landscape is very atypical of the rest of the South, but the culture -- reflecting settlement patterns -- is still basically Southern when compared to states of the true West, Interior Soutwest, and Plains. As Raymond Gastil in his definitive work on the subject "Cultural Regions of the United States" placed it, it is the "Western South"...a somewhat unique subregion of the larger region.

It is also interesting to note that when cultural surveys have been done on the topic (Southern Focus Poll is one), that even most West Texans consider themselves to live in the South and be Southerners (the El Paso area is an expected exception though). Not nearly to the degree that those east of the 100th parallel do (the eastern boundary of the Texas panhandle), but a definite plurality Southern, nonetheless.

For sure Texas is -- as the once touted tourist bureau slogan stated --"Where the South Meets the West." However, this doesn't mean it isn't still in the general American South. It is really just the "South's West"...kinda like, say, Kansas, is the "Midwest's west."

Fort Worth has been mentioned, and IMHO I think a lot of the misconceptions that one was entering a whole seperate region of the country when getting into West Texas is traceable to that old famous Fort Worth slogan "Where the West Begins." Fair enough...but over the years it (the city moniker) has been taken out of context in many ways. For one, it never even originated with Fort Worth. Actually, it sprang from a poem written in 1911, which itself was in reply to an ongoing national debate as to exactly, where indeed, the "West" did begin. Some argued the Mississippi River, others the Allegheny Mountains, and etc.

Here is a link to it: Texas, The Lone Star State: “Where the West Begins” (Fort Worth slogan)

However, to put it all into perspective? The natural and long-standing rivalry between Ft. Worth and Dallas prompted some Dallasites to begin calling themselves "Where the East Ends." Here is the link to that "twin."

Texas, The Lone Star State: “Where the East Ends” (Dallas slogan)

Anyway, the point to be made is that 'Where the West Begins" (MANY cities made the same claim...particularly St. Louis with its "Gateway To the West" arch) was never intended to mean -- and no one took it that way -- particularly those early Texas settlers who were likely to have been Confederate veterans -- that "The South Stops Here." Any more than the St. Louis arch meant one was leaving the Midwest. This is evidenced - I would think -- by the Dallas response itself. It didn't say "Where the South Ends", but "Where the East Ends."

This is an important distinction. The "West" was not thought of -- at that time -- as a coherent cultural region per se. Rather, a largely unsettled half of the country (postbellum settlement, frontier drama, etc) different from the "East". When the West did become just that (a region in the proper sense), it almost always referred to the Rocky Mountain and desert Southwest states, not Texas. In the same contrasting general way that the "East" did not include Georgia, but rather referred to the Northeast. The West as a coherent region was/is very much different from the "West" as an era.

West Texas was certainly part of the latter...which is why that sub-regional term "western South" seems so apt. A place where Southern history, culture, speech, etc, are heavily flavored with many aspects of the post-bellum western frontier and its legacies (cowboy, cattle ranching, etc). (One might add that El Paso is a very real exception to West Texas as intended to be defined above. The trans-pecos is very much a part of the true Interior Southwest).

Oh well, this subject is one that will never get settled to everyone's satisfaction, anyway. Just as the larger question of which states are "Southern" will too be endlessly debated. However, we all agree that Texas is Texas. And that is the most important thing.

Whatever else it is is just going to be a matter of personal opinion and personal experience. There is no scientifically proveable "right" answer, anyway.

[guestposter24]

Originally Posted by TexasReb

LOL My own family roots are deep in Mississippi and Alabama...and I have distant cousins and good friends there. One of them is what I consider a "Deep South Purist". That is, she considers "the South" to consist of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia! Anything else is either sorta or kinda or wannabe. That includes Louisiana and South Carolina.

"Deep South Elitist", maybe? Most definitions of the Deep South include South Carolina and usually Louisiana as well.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by guestposter24

"Deep South Elitist", maybe? Most definitions of the Deep South include South Carolina and usually Louisiana as well.

LOL That might be an equally good application, GP! Deep South Elitist! I like that! (Now let me first say for the record that I consider the Deep South to stretch -- in terms of whole states -- from Louisiana to South Carolina).

But -- I've got a great friend who is from Alabama and now lives in Mississippi and ....great and close a friend as she is -- I could never figure out her rationale and logic. And sometimes I even thought I was the victim of a monumental grand April Fools Joke when this subject came up. Except that she never wavered a bit when it came to her basic premise.

THIS is what she maintained. That the "True South" was only Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. South Carolina was VERY close....but too "colonial and with its own certain brand of independence" to be totally Southern (by her definition). Louisiana was west of the Mississippi River and therefore didn't really count. Texas was its own country. Southern qualities to be sure, but not truly "Southern"

Tennesee came close, she said, but too "mountain" ...and Arkansas was somewhere between Tennesee and Texas. Kentucky was about the same. North Carolina was to far north and Virginia was even further

Florida? Forget it. She was at least willing to listen to my arguments when it came to any other state but Florida...

Ok...THAT is the mindset of a totally Deep South Purist/Elitist!

[Cathy4017]

I'd have to agree with her that MS is definitely the deep south...and I can't imagine why anybody would want to live there.

I lived southeast of Jackson for 6 months on a temporary work assignment, and I kissed the ground when I got back to West Texas. That was one horrible place!! Heat, humidity, fireants (they hadn't yet made their way to WT at that time), bugs, constant rain, mud, jungle greenery, smothering trees that line the side of the roads in claustrophobic fashion...heavy southern accents, yucky food....I had NO positive experiences in the state, which had the worst educational system in the USA, with no compulsory attendance in effect at that time.

Heck, I was glad just to cross the Texas state line from Shreveport, LA.

But as you already know, I am not a fan of the South, LOL!!!

I'd have told her that she can take her "deep south" and keep it. Butterbeans, greasy fried starch for everything (meat and veggies alike), greens buried in fatback grease...yuuuuuuuck!!!

[solytaire]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

I'd have to agree with her that MS is definitely the deep south...and I can't imagine why anybody would want to live there.

I lived southeast of Jackson for 6 months on a temporary work assignment, and I kissed the ground when I got back to West Texas. That was one horrible place!! Heat, humidity, fireants (they hadn't yet made their way to WT at that time), bugs, constant rain, mud, jungle greenery, smothering trees that line the side of the roads in claustrophobic fashion...heavy southern accents, yucky food....I had NO positive experiences in the state, which had the worst educational system in the USA, with no compulsory attendance in effect at that time.

Heck, I was glad just to cross the Texas state line from Shreveport, LA.

But as you already know, I am not a fan of the South, LOL!!!

I'd have told her that she can take her "deep south" and keep it. Butterbeans, greasy fried starch for everything (meat and veggies alike), greens buried in fatback grease...yuuuuuuuck!!!

No offense, and this is irrelevant to whether Texas is Southern or whatnot.. but between this post and txguy's post I am starting to see why outsiders dislike so many Texans...

Initially I didnt understand what people meant when they said that Texans have an outlandish arrogance about them...but Im starting to see that there actually are a lot of Texans who cant express their love for their own state without berating other states...unfortunate really.