Poll: Why do some southerners try to pretend TX is the South?

[doctorjef]

I don't know what the majority of Southerners outside Texas think, but I would imagine if they include Texas as a Southern state they do so because TX was part of the Confederacy, is geographically contiguous to Southern states on its eastern border, and likely they recognise the Southern aspects within Texas culture. Particularly, crossing the state lines between Ark and La into TX doesn't suddenly teleport one from the culturally and geographically Southern into the Southwestern or Western.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

I don't know what the majority of Southerners outside Texas think, but I would imagine if they include Texas as a Southern state they do so because TX was part of the Confederacy, is geographically contiguous to Southern states on its eastern border, and likely they recognise the Southern aspects within Texas culture. Particularly, crossing the state lines between Ark and La into TX doesn't suddenly teleport one from the culturally and geographically Southern into the Southwestern or Western.

Funny, that's not how I experienced it (in particular with regards to Louisiana) when I was a child and young woman growing up in East Texas and even since then. The difference was and is VERY clear to me.

Now, if you'd said something similar about the state line between West Texas and New Mexico, I'd be more likely to agree with you.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

I don't know what the majority of Southerners outside Texas think, but I would imagine if they include Texas as a Southern state they do so because TX was part of the Confederacy, is geographically contiguous to Southern states on its eastern border, and likely they recognise the Southern aspects within Texas culture. Particularly, crossing the state lines between Ark and La into TX doesn't suddenly teleport one from the culturally and geographically Southern into the Southwestern or Western.

DocJ? The most extreme examples of this particular phenomenon I have ever seen are by way of movies which, when the action crosses the Sabine River, that the landscape instantaneously transforms from pine forest to barren desert. LOL

So far as the rest of it goes? It is a study unto itself...and as a layman of Southern studies, my own insignificant thesis is that it ranges from the serious to the ludicruous. That is, how "The South" is definied by locale within the various Southern states. I have said it before and will repeat: I know some "Deep South purists" who actually exclude Louisiana from the "true South". With some, believe it or not, they consider South Carolina on the border! Think I am joking? I promise you I am not.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Funny, that's not how I experienced it (in particular with regards to Louisiana) when I was a child and young woman growing up in East Texas and even since then. The difference was and is VERY clear to me.

Now, if you'd said something similar about the state line between West Texas and New Mexico, I'd be more likely to agree with you.

Let's don't ignore one another THL. I know this is and always will be a sore spot with us, but if the subject (damn it all! LOL) is going to come up, then let's hit it head on.

So to ask, what IS the difference you experienced? Would it be any different than that of a young person growing up in the eastern Tennessee mountains vis a vis Savannah, Georgia, in terms of what is Southern and what isn't?

I have always gotten the impression that your reasons for denying Texas is essentially a Southern state is because you, personally, do not think it fits into the Gone With The Wind moonlight and magnolias and cavaliers type thing. Which, I agree, it really doesn't. The issue comes into play when, IMHO, you set that as the standard of being "Southern"! I feel safe in saying that large parts of East Texas are more "Deep South Southern" than the mountain areas of the Upper South ever were.

There is something to be said about the New Mexico/Texas border crossing. And what is it? It is that the latter is a sorta continuation of TEXAS and the South. Unlike the rest of New Mexico, the Southern Baptist Church is still influential and "Southern American English" a presense in that slice of the state. It is even called "Little Texas" (or at least used to be), and is an anomoly.

Now, please tell what distinguished Louisiana from East Texas that is so noteably different in your experience?

[TexasHorseLady]

Interesting, TexasReb, my perception is that you insist that Texas is the South because YOU want it to be (note your screen name). And that you will cherry pick evidence to prove your point and then deluge with said cherry-picked evidence, while ignoring or pooh-poohing evidence presented to the contrary. (I learned that early on in our discussions when I, and others, come to that, DID present evidence that Texas is not the South, to no avail, and you have repeatedly since then said that I won't present any.)

Having dealt with that kind of attitude (oddly enough, common in academia) often over my lifetime, and since I don't HAVE to engage online, unlike in business or family settings, as you know I have decided that I will leave one of these threads when you appear, so as to avoid aggravation.

It's not pretending you don't exist, it's simply knowing when true discussion is not possible and declining to play the game.

Bye.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Interesting, TexasReb, my perception is that you insist that Texas is the South because YOU want it to be (note your screen name). And that you will cherry pick evidence to prove your point and then deluge with said cherry-picked evidence, while ignoring or pooh-poohing evidence presented to the contrary. (I learned that early on in our discussions when I, and others, come to that, DID present evidence that Texas is not the South, to no avail, and you have repeatedly since then said that I won't present any.)

Having dealt with that kind of attitude (oddly enough, common in academia) often over my lifetime, and since I don't HAVE to engage online, unlike in business or family settings, as you know I have decided that I will leave one of these threads when you appear, so as to avoid aggravation.

It's not pretending you don't exist, it's simply knowing when true discussion is not possible and declining to play the game. Bye.

Oh geez. If anyone is cherry picking, it is you...and I am really getting a bit tired of all this. And I am perfectly content to let others judge it all.

I don't even know where to begin. But since you forced my hand and called me out, I am going to do so.

Not once, not EVER, that I know of, have you ever provided any data/evidence of your own as to why Texas is not essentially a Southern state. You don't even provide any as to why -- apparently in your opinion -- it is a Southwestern state; and in which way it is and should be thus considered.

What "cherry- picked" evidence are you even talking about? Your posts are starting to take on a tone of defensiveness and almost insulting and accusatory with no basis to do so...

Tell me, please, what have I cherry-picked as to why I believe Texas is essentially a Southern state? Are you talking about some Wiki articles? Yes, I have contributed to them. But? Show me just one I wrote and directed any one to which was not backed up by reliable sources? Naturally, you (or anyone else) is/are free to disupte the said sources...but at least they were provided. You have never done it at all...and then accuse me of plucking grapes.

Please furnish something. Can you do that? Or are you just whistling Dixie?

I am not trying to be a smarta$$, and in some ways I hate to say it, THL, but what I really think is that you are used to being treated with kid gloves and not disagreement; that on some level you have a default notion that your being from East Texas and a preachers daughter bestows credentials that -- other than such -- you feel no need to back up your opinions much beyond it.

I don't like to -- but since you already did bring up "others" into the subject? Well, there are several that might even actually generally agree with you...but at least they back up their cases with facts as they see them. I have no problem with that. I can actually discuss and debate and talk with them (such as Doc and Cathy), but your approach is, sadly, not much more than it is so because I say it is so. So please dont attempt the ploy, as you did, by turning it around on me when everyone really knows different.

Texas is not a a Southern state, you say? Ok, fair enough as to that opinion. So tell me, factually, what makes it more akin to the interior SW states of New Mexico and Arizona than to, say, Louisiana and Arkansas? (noting, of course, that some in the Deep South don't think of THEM as truly Southern! LOL).

Is it politics? Church patterns? Accent? History? And while you are at it, what is different with, say, eastern Tennessee than western Texas as compared to south Mississippi in terms of "Southern"? WHAT fer gosh sakes and back it up is all I ask..

[HtownLove]

TexasReb I agree with you when you said this thread should just be left to die.

stop posting in it.

Texas was settled by Southerners as a culturally southern region. It entered the union as a southern state. It stood with the south during the war between the states.

It was, is and forever will be a southern state.

End of Story.

RIP Thread

[TexasReb]

It's not pretending you don't exist, it's simply knowing when true discussion is not possible and declining to play the game.

Bye.

One last thing, since you really called me out and accuse me of playing a game when (again, let others judge as to who has tried to be polite and civil and courteous), I am going to follow up just a bit.

Play WHAT game? I am not playing a game. I am not even trying to "one-up". I am simply countering your own unfounded accusations with a legitimate reply of my own.

Be fair. Have I ever ONCE asked you a question and/or been antagonistic toward you on this subject? All I have ever done is just ask that you provide SOME sort of backup for what you say. For instance, if you don't think that the general dialect spoken in Texas is "Southern American English", then just say so and what backs it up to say so. As it is? I think so and provided the said source. And that is just one of many other aspects...

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by HtownLove

TexasReb I agree with you when you said this thread should just be left to die.

stop posting in it.

Texas was settled by Southerners as a culturally southern region. It entered the union as a southern state. It stood with the south during the war between the states.

It was, is and forever will be a southern state.

End of Story.

RIP Thread

I agree, HtLove. Thanks.

CAN it just be shut down...? I am certainly all for it!

[Bo]

I agree with the posts above and the folks who contacted me privately to suggest that this negative-premise thread from 3 years ago has run its course. Thread closed.