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Old 05-14-2018, 06:07 PM
 
37,795 posts, read 41,491,884 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Craziaskowboi View Post
Exceptions to the rule don't disprove the rule. Just because Virginia doesn't get blown to pieces by tornadoes doesn't mean that "Dixie Alley" doesn't exist. Just because Tennessee is too far inland to bear the brunt of hurricanes doesn't mean that anyplace within 200 miles of the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico is safe. Just because the summer heat is neither as persistent nor as extreme on top of the mountains doesn't mean that it can't get dangerously hot for extended periods of time literally everywhere else in the South. For that matter, as cold as the average morning low temperature is in Atlanta in January, it's even colder in Charlotte, Nashville and Little Rock, among other Southern cities.
Thank you for proving my point, namely, that the entirety of the South doesn't suffer from ALL of those weather events. Much appreciated.
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Old 05-14-2018, 09:04 PM
 
Location: South Padre Island, TX
2,452 posts, read 2,274,623 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Craziaskowboi View Post
The Northeast, for one. How often do you hear about wildfires and water shortages in New York or Pennsylvania?
The drier, western portions of Texas and Oklahoma are the only areas of the South that actually have sufficient aridity to produce water shortages not related to mismanagement and policy.

As far as wildfires, these aren't tinderboxes bursting into flames from the wind, like out West. Instead, most fires in the South are either lightning generated (as per greater thunderstorm activity in the South vs the Northeast), or human-induced prescribed burns.
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Old 05-14-2018, 09:25 PM
 
Location: OKIE-Ville
5,542 posts, read 9,437,854 times
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That everybody in the South speaks like somebody from Gone With The Wind. Okies, Texans, and most Arkies have perfected the twang.
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Old 05-14-2018, 09:32 PM
 
Location: Nashville TN, Cincinnati, OH
1,795 posts, read 1,858,432 times
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When I tell people I live in Nashville Tennessee when I visit other US cities they always ask about things which are mostly stereotypes about the South even thou I am originally from Sweden like do you drink a truck, do you like country music and fishing. Americans almost always assume if you live in a state or city you are originally from that place it kinda annoying.
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Old 05-15-2018, 12:42 PM
 
Location: Willowbend/Houston
13,384 posts, read 25,594,168 times
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If there is one thing about Americans its that we are the WORST at stereotyping each other. Americans stereotype more than any other culture worldwide. Its one of our worst flaws.

Thats a huge reason people across this great land seem to have low opinions of other regions.
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Old 05-17-2018, 10:43 AM
 
10,494 posts, read 6,927,813 times
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Just unbelievable stuff. It's almost as if these people camped out in front of a Dukes of Hazzard marathon on Nick at Nite.

1) My brother was a screenwriter, one who actually earned his money writing screenplays as opposed to parking cars and waiting tables. He marries a girl out in LA and we all come to the wedding on a beautiful bluff in Malibu. Mind you, my family is made up of college-educated professionals who speak the King's English, read voraciously, have good manners, and dress well. But these people kept speaking to us as if they half-expected us to pull out the jug of corn squeezings and shotguns. Towards the end of the night, one person asked where I was from. I responded, to which he said, "Oh. Alabama. Were you excited to get on a plane and come allllllll the way out here?" To which I shot back. "That was pretty cool. But what really excites me is that these are only the second pair of shoes I've ever owned."

2) I went to a conference in Monterey the weekend prior to the 2016 presidential elections. Everyone in my group kept trying to convince me how terrible it was that I was going to vote for Donald Trump. The problem with that? I wasn't voting for Donald Trump. The very fact that I was from the South made them assume as much.

3) At another conference, I was reading a book in some downtime, one by the literary critic Northrup Frye. One guy walked up to me to discuss Frye's work. When he learned where I was from, he said, "Oh, wow. I didn't realize people from Alabama had heard of him."

4) And, of course, there are the obligatory, well-meaning questions about if we've dealt with the race questions in the South. Mind you, it's not Kumbaya, and there's certainly work to be done. But it's not as if we have Friday night Klan meetings in the village square or anything. Just to give you a little perspective, I heard the N word more times at my wife's cousin's wedding in the Chicago suburb than I've heard in the past twenty-five years in Alabama. It was really jarring to hear.

Trust me. I could give you a zillion examples of how Southerners are really the last acceptable prejudice in American life.
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Old 05-17-2018, 10:47 AM
 
4,357 posts, read 4,195,139 times
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I feel like this is obvious but............. "That it's nothing but a bunch of confederate flag wielding, gun owning, Trump supporting, huge truck loving, gay hating, god fearing rednecks" There was that good enough?
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Old 05-17-2018, 10:52 AM
 
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,486,139 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJones17 View Post
I love when my friends in good old upstate NY ask if the south is up to date in terms of technology. Always makes me laugh. Upstate NY was the last place in the country to get Uber and they seriously wonder if where I live is some remote land of non-advancement.
I've encountered this same frustration with some of my family.

Upstate NY can be as white trash, backwards, and rusty as any state (sometimes moreso) and yet so many people from here seem to be in deep, DEEP denial about this. Further, they live under this delusion that NY is tops at all times in all categories.

Not all of us though, there are a lot of people here. Those idiots are just the loudest.

My uncle, who shall remain nameless, was born and raised dirt poor in a very run down, rotting farm house on the side of a hill in the southern tier. Same one I had the honor of living in when I was a kid. I have photos of it in my profile.

For some reason he just fancies himself as having been from high end stock and a sunny background. Noooooooooooooope! He gets a bit upset when you call him on it.

I think it's just denial, plain and simple. Something I do not suffer. I'm pretty open about my trashy roots and country blood. For better or worse. Don't put yourself above people, is one of my personal motto's.
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Old 05-17-2018, 11:00 AM
 
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,486,139 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Turnerbro View Post
I feel like this is obvious but............. "That it's nothing but a bunch of confederate flag wielding, gun owning, Trump supporting, huge truck loving, gay hating, god fearing rednecks" There was that good enough?
Hilariously, that describes a lot of the rural north. Probably moreso than the modern south, honestly. At least in my experience, I've met more northerners who take that stuff to its logical extreme than I have southerners.

I often say that people who make assumptions about others are usually projecting their own problems and personality quirks.

Pretty much validates the thread.
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Old 05-17-2018, 11:03 AM
 
10,494 posts, read 6,927,813 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Turnerbro View Post
I feel like this is obvious but............. "That it's nothing but a bunch of confederate flag wielding, gun owning, Trump supporting, huge truck loving, gay hating, god fearing rednecks" There was that good enough?
Yep. I travel a lot around the country on business. People seem to be mildly surprised at the following:

1) I don't own a gun or a fishing rod.
2) I don't wax nostalgic on the Civil War, which was basically a lemminglike crusade to preserve a moral evil. Ruined the South for generations afterwards. Mind you, I know its history backwards and forwards, but am glad the Union won.
3) I don't vote straight ticket Republican or Democrat. Like any right-thinking individual, I basically hold both parties in equal contempt.
4) My father's last mortal words before slipping into a coma were, "That goddamned George Wallace."
5) I read a lot. So do all my friends.
6) I like living here. A lot.
7) While I enjoy a good plate of ribs, I have a standing monthly reservation at a restaurant the James Beard Awards recently named the best in the nation.
8) I attend church, but I'm not a fundamentalist. That fire-and-brimstone nonsense annoys me no end.
9) I have ongoing friendships and business relationships with people from all walks of life. White, black, straight, gay, whatever. I just don't give a damn what you are. I'm more interested in who you are.
10) I have never attended a NASCAR race. Absent a gun to my head, I can't imagine an instance where I would.
11) While I love college football (Auburn Tigers, baby), I stop thinking about it the day after football season ends.
12) I do not collapse into an orgiastic swoon at the very mention of the Masters. Hey, I wouldn't mind going one day to see what all the fuss is about. But, having grown up in a family of golfers and having had a five iron in my hand at an early age, I gave up golf in my twenties and never regretted it.
13) I have not heard the N-word in conversation in Alabama in years. In fact, I remember when it happened. Michael Jordan was playing with the local AA baseball team and some knuckle-dragging halfwit used that word. He was shouted down by everyone else in the section and then escorted from the grounds by the usher to applause. As I said in an earlier post, the only time I seem to hear it is when I venture up north to places like Chicago for events in my wife's extended family.
14) I own nothing that is even remotely akin to seersucker.
15) I don't particularly like grits, unless served with shrimp.
16) I detest iced tea.
17) I detest Faulkner even more than I detest iced tea.
18) I hate almost all country music with intensity of a thousand suns. Johnny Cash? Good. Some other old standards? Sure. But when you get into the bleached, corporate Luke Bryan, Belk Whitburp, Toyotathon Whitley, or whatever other line beard-having truckgirlbeer enthusiast of the moment bubbles up from Nashville’s bottomless sh*tspring of neo-country doltjapes, I pray for Kim Jong Un to develop that ICBM and lay waste to the Grand Old Opry posthaste during the Country Music Awards. It's our only hope.

Now, in the interest of fairness, here are the stereotypes I live up to:

1) I like bluegrass. It's really beautiful, soulful music. There's actually been a bluegrass revival over the past few years, putting new energy and exploration into the genre.
2) Every once in a while, I enjoy a nip of moonshine.
3) I have a Southern accent that is almost gluey. I also salt my language with color expressions. In fact, the further I get from home, the more pronounced it becomes. It's useful in meetings.
4) I say "Please," "Thank you," "You're welcome," "Ma'am," and "Sir." This is the language of respect, not submissiveness. I also stand when a lady enters or leave the room, opens the door for others, and write a thank-you note to the host the day after we go to a party. I take my hat off inside and don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. I view manners not as some abstract social construct, but rather a way to ensure that everyone is comfortable and welcome in any given social situation.
5) We have a housekeeper named Mildred. We hired her twenty years ago to take care of our youngest while my wife and I worked. The kids grew up and went to college, but Mildred has stayed. She's 84 and we basically pay her to come in, do three loads of laundry and watch soap operas every Wednesday. Because I work out of the house, she and I eat lunch together and compare our weeks. I know who all has died in her family, had kids, and whatever else. And she knows all about ours. We attend each others family events, the way we've done for twenty years. Can't imagine not doing that.

Last edited by MinivanDriver; 05-17-2018 at 11:42 AM..
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