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I am from Tennessee, and while I have a lot of problems with the state, the national press seems to paint the South with a broad bush as a bunch of completely bigoted, behind the times buffoons that are sort of cross between Archie Bunker and George Wallace.
The situation in Charleston is deplorable, but the press has seized on the actions of a lone wolf killer and made him the poster boy of "Southern hate," from the pulling of the Dukes of Hazard to Memphis activists wanting to dig up the remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest. The things that are going on are clearly knee-jerk and provided the media with an excuse to vilify Southerners and they've run miles with it. It's little more than a feeding frenzy at this point.
It also clearly doesn't address the problem at hand, an already mentally suspect kid gets hold of racist websites, makes a bunch of virtual acquaintances, is wigged out on God knows what substances, and then goes on a rampage. To me, this is far, far less about the South, than it is about lone-wolf, drugged out, angsty youth on society's margins.
Do you see the press as having an extreme anti-Southern bias?
You have to remember...most people in the media aren't very bright, and go there in order to shape public opinion instead of reporting news. Particularly the US MSM. Pretty sad when the media gets less respect than lawyers.
I don't think the press has a particularly anti-Southern bias. They have a bias against anything that isn't NYC, DC or LA.
The problem is that what passes for Southern culture these days. Do you think Duck Dynasty, Blue Collar Comedy, Honey Boo Boo and Bro-Country are truly representative of Southern Culture? It may not be, but it's the aspects of it that have been popularized through mass media to the rest of the country.
And frankly there are some very negative parts to southern culture that we have spent the past 150 years ignoring or whitewashing. The reframing of the war as a great lost cause against the tyranny of the federal government instead of an effort by a landed gentry to co continue a system that enslaved other human beings is the biggest. Venerating a false past while embracing a cartoonish version of our "culture" is something we've done to ourselves.
Most people go into Journalism because they have a mission to change the world into their world view. Most of the media is controlled by very liberal people, with a view of the world that's been influenced by the past including slavery and the Holocaust. To these people, you are the enemy and they see you as akin to the Nazis or tied to slavery in the South. So their goal is to shut you up and make you impotent. With the latest round of Political Correctness Nazis actions, they are obviously confident they can do so at minimal cost. You either get on board, fight or leave...that's your choices.
If you're being honest about it, the South didn't do much historically to help their image relative to how they're portrayed in the media. And those images are burned into the psyche of people that have never seen or can even imagine such hateful behavior by man to his fellow man.
And the documentaries and movies just keep coming....which doesn't help. Watching movies like The Help, Mississippi Burning, Selma, or documentaries that come around every Black History Month aren't helpful either. It's also a fact that Southerners have a tremendous persecution complex and are indoctrinated in victimology politics.
All that aside, i don't see any real anti-southern predisposition in the media as it pertains to news stories. The flag and shooting in S.C. is simply the news du jour.
It'll all be forgotten by next year when the next American obsession takes flight.
Do you see the press as having an extreme anti-Southern bias?
Just disingenuous and intellectually lazy.
And this bias isn't specific to media. It's prevalent here on CD as well.
Just a little too cute to think problems are unique to the SE corner of the US. As if hate & ignorance were conveniently quarantined to an entire area.
Many on the left are outspoken anti-Southern white bigots, as we have seen demonstrated here on this board and in a number of cases in the news media over the last few weeks. What you are talking about stems from that.
Many of these same people are bigoted towards Christians, at least the observant, Bible believing sort. So, this is all part of that unfortunate tendency.
And this bias isn't specific to media. It's prevalent here on CD as well.
Just a little too cute to think problems are unique to the SE corner of the US. As if hate & ignorance were conveniently quarantined to an entire area.
Do you see the press as having an extreme anti-Southern bias?
I see them reporting actual events that put the South in an unfavorable light. The press isn't staging those events but they have a tendency to sensationalize stories to maximize viewers/listeners/readers. They don't limit sensationalism to stories about the South, though. So no, they don't have an extreme anti-Southern bias. The reality is that the South still cultivates a fair number of violent, ignorant racists who tend to behave in ways that make headlines.
I don't think the press has a particularly anti-Southern bias. They have a bias against anything that isn't NYC, DC or LA.
The problem is that what passes for Southern culture these days. Do you think Duck Dynasty, Blue Collar Comedy, Honey Boo Boo and Bro-Country are truly representative of Southern Culture? It may not be, but it's the aspects of it that have been popularized through mass media to the rest of the country.
And frankly there are some very negative parts to southern culture that we have spent the past 150 years ignoring or whitewashing. The reframing of the war as a great lost cause against the tyranny of the federal government instead of an effort by a landed gentry to co continue a system that enslaved other human beings is the biggest. Venerating a false past while embracing a cartoonish version of our "culture" is something we've done to ourselves.
I think most people from the more cosmopolitan areas of the South are horrified by the way their region is portrayed by "reality" television.
Still, the area's past adds an extra layer of negativity. My region gets tarred for being full of surfer bums, and while that isn't the most flattering stereotype in the world, at least there's no assumption that we're bad people just because we're from California and we like to surf. We're almost charmingly lazy, at least in the media.
Most Southern stereotypes bring with them the idea that every Southerner is a racist hillbilly or redneck (the difference between the two isn't really important), and therefore it's okay to hate them. People who have lived there for a while might know better, but people who have only visited might end up just remembering the bad parts they saw, and that can reinforce stereotypes.
For instance, Houston really does have a popular rodeo. It attracts a lot of people who wear traditional Texan clothing, including funny hats and oversized boots. That's not everyday clothing, but a lot of people outside the state will see big, visible events like the rodeo and then decide that the city must be some sort of cowtown. Cowtown imagery leads to associations with the Old West and racism. Quick, easy, lazy mental connection.
Sometimes it doesn't even take big events. A lot of the local media takes advantage of old school Texas imagery. Texans on television speak with strange accents that you never hear in the city. Billboards depict cowboy hats and beer. And so on.
The gulf between the reality of an area and the visible icons we use as mental shortcuts for characterizing an area is so large that it's easy to forget what's real. It's easy to forget that the average person is just an average person. It's easy to forget that, even in areas with larger-than-average regressive redneck populations (e.g., rural anywhere) are still filled with normal, everyday people who don't harbor hate or regressive views.
Heck, it's easy to forget that even if the area is mostly blue, like most big cities. How many people in New York think that the major of Houstonians are Republican?
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I'm from Texas
