Southern Culture And Mockery

[thea_447]

Discussions of Southern culture seems to be one part
mockery, one ...
Asheville Citizen-Times - NC,CSA
... bumpy! Okay, let's unfurl the Confederate flag
issue right out of the starting gate: I don't know why
anybody else flies the St. Andrew's Cross, but I fly
it to remind everyone what a bunch of ungracious
winners the Federals are.
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051210/OPINION03/51209010/1006

[Wild_Rose]

I loved the article. I love hearing my thoughts put into words by someone else, particularly when they put it so well. It confirms that if I am, indeed, crazy, then at least one other person shares my state of mind. I have often pondered why it is perpetually open season on Southerners. This politically correct phase that has swept the nation to extend consideration, respect and tolerance for all, seems to have stopped just short of the Mason Dixon line. As the man said, Southern jokes are hillariously funny, but change the word "Southern" for African American, Muslim, Polish, etc., and it isn't funny anymore...not even a little bit.

And...why is a Southern accent considered to be comical? Surely, it's no more odd sounding to Northern ears than a Brooklyn accent is to Southern ears.

Bottom line, it makes me ashamed of Southerners that are ashamed of their "Southerness".

"You have no reason to be ashamed of your ancestors. Make sure that they have no reason to be ashamed of you."- Charlie Reese

[olerebel]

I take off my old gray Stetson and bow most heartily to ya'll. I'll relate an incident that happened to me a couple of years ago. It reflects the northern city attitude to a high degree. I feel at home with most Northern rural folks that I have met.

:Spring 2003, Providence, RI area. As I opened the door of a convienence store to enter, I observed what I took to be a lady, with her hands full, preparing to exit the store. I stepped back, holding the door for her to exit. "Mornin' ma'am." I said. She looked at me with her lips compressed, withering me with her gaze. Then she said,"I open my own doors. I'm not one of your Southern ladies that you have to pamper." I replied with a big smile,"I opened the door because I consider myself a Southern gentleman, I saw at a glance that you weren't a lady. I was just going to ask what parking lot you were working tonight." She came through the door with a confused look on her face. I tipped my hat to her,"Have a good day."
Poor thing, she stared at me from the parking lot until I found and payed for a Mt. Dew and chips.

[tarheel]

That article printed in the Asheville Citizen Times would have never been printed in my home town paper, just 23 miles away from Asheville. My home town paper is owned you see by the New York Times.

[rbenne]

The thing I like best about the article is how it whines about other “cultures of victimization “ and then goes on to cry victim.

Southern jokes ok but ethnic not? Perhaps because being southern is not an ethnicity, it’s a region. Tell that crowd who balks at ethnic jokes a New Yorker joke and they laugh at those two. Believe me I understand regional jokes; I’m from Cleveland……

As to the language thing, yes there is a “standard English” and ya’ll don’t speak it, maybe it would be smart to learn it when you move up here. Just like people from Brooklyn should. What you speak down there is ya’lls business, I best learn it if I move down there.

The reason is that southern heritage is threat??? Puuleeeese….. that’s right up there with “they are just jealous” and “rich people aren’t really happy” kinda stuff. If we make jokes about the south it is not out of fear, it’s because you talk funny. Same reason we make jokes about new yawkers and people from minn a soota a.

And the reconstruction was a 100 year poverty plan?? Well ok, you got me on that one…it was.

Be proud of who you are, but don’t whine about it, I tell my black students my family never owned slaves, get over it, and I will tell southerners my family never participated in reconstruction, get over that too. Don’t become part of the victim culture, stand tall and be proud of who you are

Now anyone up for some Cleveland jokes? I know LOTS of em

[johan_steele]

I do believe Raymond just put it better than I ever could have... though I don't see Reconstruction as a 100 year poverty plan.

[sgtcsa]

Thea,
The article was well said, and I see that it generated the typical northern responces. Fear?, jealousy?, perhaps even a combination of the two, who knows. But, it doesn't really surprise me of the actions of some schools to try and surpress, if you will, the Southern accent, I mean, heaven forbid if we should offend someone with it. Perhaps there are those who believe that if you speak with a Southern accent, you're a proponent of the slavery thing, which would be too bad, because it just shows the lack of education for anything that is Southern. However, this is something that Southerners have come to expect from those of different opinions anyway. I'm afraid we won't change, and neither will they, so what we have here, is just a plain old case of,..................a failure to communicate. We'll stay down South, and let them stay up north, end of conversation.........................but I think we all know that, that will never happen, and so the 'debate' continues.

So, I suppose we'll continue to 'bash' each other, with neither gaining a whole lot of anything. But, just as the days of the 1860's, we will still fight for those ideals that have been a part of our culture for so long. Find fault if you will, but that's the way it is, for as long as the Southern legends live, through the stories passed down through each generation, they will never die, nor will their ideals. We're proud of our past, our ancestors, and our ideals, and no one, can demean them, or make us believe that they were wrong. To put it more bluntly.......you think the way you want, and we'll think the way we want.

Respectfully,
SgtCSA

[nbforrest]

I agree with the article to a large extent, but many Southerners, to my horror, have embraced the redneck image as if it were something cool to emulate. Kids running around in camo hats and waving around flags that they don't understand and shouting git r done. Just stupid. Maybe there would be fewer Southern jokes if people would shape up and not try to emulate some low class thing they think is cool. Same could be said of any ethnicity/culture/race/region.


Respectfully

[samgrant]

Just wondering, then .... Where TV shows and/ or films like "Dukes of Hazzard', 'Beverly Hilbillies', more popular in the North or in the South?

[matthew mckeon]

I'm from New England, and I definitely think Southerners get a bum rap. The image isn't necessarily bad all the time, straight talkin', but courteous, close to the land, etc.,that's all good, but it leaves a lot out.

Shelby Foote's favorite author was Proust, yet when he was on the Ken Burns CW series, somebody snarked he sounded like a rube on a country store porch chewing tobacco. Education and sounding Southern not going together, apparently.

In "Prince of Tides" by Pat Conway(book, not movie), there are a couple of classic scenes of the two South Carolina brothers in New York City.

Grin and bear it. Eliza Doolittle had to change her accent too.