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I've lived in SE Minnesota and it isn't that different culturally from the south.
Just less places to find fried chicken and a more college football fans, but thats about it.
Well, considering that the rural SE is the craziest region in the country when it comes to college football (have you never heard of the SEC?), I'm just going to call into question all of your assertions here.
The Driftless (which is SE MN) votes blue; the rural south is the reddest area of the country. Accents are completely different; weather is completely different. The racial make-up is completely different. The history is very different - they waged war against each other (Civil). The local food is completely different. Etc on down the line, very different regions.
Also what about some pop culture quirks? I hear the southern states are football crazy, and play baseball in the summer because the humidity does not permit football. The midwest has football, but they also have a greater variety. They will play hockey, and basketball, and wrestling is pretty big in high school.
they are nothing alike. I was raised in the rural southeast an now live in the rural Midwest.
however rural Midwesterners sure do love to play pretend southern an try hard to act like southern steriotypes, especially the men. Confederate flags are more common up here than down there, its wiered. Also alot of guys here like to call themselves hillbillies. When they grew up on the plains farming corn, not in the mountains making shine an growing weed.
they are nothing alike. I was raised in the rural southeast an now live in the rural Midwest.
however rural Midwesterners sure do love to play pretend southern an try hard to act like southern steriotypes, especially the men. Confederate flags are more common up here than down there, its wiered. Also alot of guys here like to call themselves hillbillies. When they grew up on the plains farming corn, not in the mountains making shine an growing weed.
Hillbillies? I've lived in the rural Upper Midwest my entire life and I've never heard anyone here refer to themselves as a hillbilly. "Redneck" is a term that I hear often here, but does someone have to be southern to be a redneck?
I agree about the Confederate flags, but then I live in an area where there are many, many families with roots in the South who moved north to work in the automotive industry, so many of them do still identify with the South in some way. I used to be a home hospice nurse in cities like Ypsilanti, MI and Monroe, MI that are closely tied to the automotive industry, and I would say that at least half of the elderly people that I met doing that job were transplanted southerners, mainly from states like KY and TN, who were also retirees from Ford and GM or other manufacturing plants tied to the automotive industry.
Last edited by canudigit; 06-27-2014 at 06:00 AM..
In the Upper Midwest, at least, there are tons of people growing weed and making liquor in the woods. But culturally it's very different, regardless of some folks who tag themselves as "redneck" (have never, ever heard "hillybilly").
they are nothing alike. I was raised in the rural southeast an now live in the rural Midwest.
however rural Midwesterners sure do love to play pretend southern an try hard to act like southern steriotypes, especially the men. Confederate flags are more common up here than down there, its wiered. Also alot of guys here like to call themselves hillbillies. When they grew up on the plains farming corn, not in the mountains making shine an growing weed.
I don't know what part of the "rural midwest" you are from; but this sounds nothing like the rural midwest I know. (SE Michigan and Southern Indiana)
People in the rural Southeast are much more vocal about their religion and wear it on their sleeves, so to speak, whereas people in the rural Midwest are also deeply religious much of the time but tend to be less vocal about it. There are religious billboards all across the Southeast that you see much less of in the rural Midwest, but the people still largely vote conservatively and are pro-life, pro-marriage between one man and one woman, etc. While there are Southern Baptist churches seemingly on every corner in the rural Southeast, the rural Midwest has more mainstream denominations such as Lutheran, Methodist, and Roman Catholic.
There are very, very few blacks living in the rural Midwest, because blacks have never traditionally farmed or lived in rural areas in these states. The vast majority of blacks in the Midwest live in the larger cities because they migrated there during the Great Migration to find factory work. The rural Southeast has many blacks, and many small towns in the Southeast are majority black, while you would be hard pressed to find one black familiy in many small towns in the Midwest, particularly the Upper Midwest.
I think there are a lot of similarities between the two regions, such as strong family ties, deep religious convictions, and social activities often centered around church functions.
Both areas are big on college sports, particularly football, but each region has its own distinct rivalries, such as Ohio State vs. Michigan in the Midwest and Auburn vs. Alabama in the Southeast.
This post has been criticized on this thread but I agree with most of it. I have experience living in both the rural Midwest and the rural southeast, so I think my opinion should count for something on this topic. The only thing here to clarify with this post is about black people living in the rural south. Canudigit is right that in much of the south black people live in rural areas, but this is mostly true in the deep south. It is less true in the upper south. The Appalachian south is very white, as is the Ozarks, and these two areas make up a lot of real estate in what is considered "the south". Other than that clarification I think the post does an excellent job at listing the similarities between the rural south and the rural Midwest. Now Canudigits post did not go into the differences between the two regions, so ill add what I think they are. First the economic differences are present. There is a very diverse economy in much of the south, so the crash of 08 did not cause the crushing economic pain it did in some states in the Midwest. Ohio, Indiana and Michigan were devastated by the crash, as industries like the auto industry in MI and OH, and the RV industry in Indiana were struck hard by the crises and those states relied very heavily on them. Southern states are not quite as dependent on one or two large industries like that. Now there is a lot of poverty here, but it tends to be in extremely rural areas where commuting is not possible to large job centers. Most people though do live within an hour of a large job market, so we are talking about only a fraction of the population. Another economic difference is attitudes toward unions. In the south unions have far less popularity than they do in the midwest, and they are largely seen as a destructive force. People tend to cite what happened to Detroit when anyone suggest a union should be brought in to a workplace. The specter of Detroit was used to deter workers for voting for unionization at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga TN earlier this year. Midwesterners see unions much differently, they tend to believe unions make the middle class possible, and they have been raised for generations to believe in this. This is especially true in the industrial Midwest states (OH, MI, IN, ILL, WI)
Also there are some significant cultural differences. Obviously the accent is a major difference, but that goes without saying. Also food is quite different. In the Midwest the food is largely beef, potato, corn etc. Lots of roasted meat, grilled steaks, and lots of cheese. Regional foods like coney dogs, pasties, cheese curds are very popular in the Midwest but unknown outside the Midwest. Here in the south BBQ is very popular, fried food is very popular, and food like grits and okra are widely eaten. Southern food is better known outside our region, but still most Midwesterners don't know what real BBQ really is. Also we drink "coke" in the south, in the Midwest they drink "pop". Southerners also put more emphasis on politeness and manners. It is still very common to hear "yes sir and yes mam" here. Men hold doors open for ladies more often than in the Midwest. THat is not saying Midwesterners are not friendly and polite, because they are. They just don't observe as many rituals as people do in the south. One thing both regions have in common is a strong rural culture, they just happen to be a bit different.
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