The South Sucks: Dumb, Dirty, & they need to learn to use toilet paper!

[roymeo]

I've noticed quite a lot of what I see as Southern defensiveness on this board recently.

I make a post that somehow gets turned into suhmwun getn dehfensive cuz I'm pahstin frawm New York (upstate, anyway) that I didn't think had anything to do with the North vs. the South. (i mean in modern times, not the Wa-whah Of Northern Aggression.)


Now, ya'll listen here, I'm all for looking at subtext. I'm more than willing to look at cigars on a case by case basis and consider when they are so much more than cigars.

I also know that there are times when I certainly do have a bias against the culture of the (mythical) """South""" which I picked up, growing up in one of the states that was (barely) part of the North during the Civil War.

I also picked up a lot of things that I really don't like about the real, lived in and experienced South, when I lived in Atlanta. Of course a lot of those things that I didn't like about Atlanta have to do with some of the shadier parts of it being the Black Mecca, and the Gay Mecca of the South. (Or combine them into the club that is exclusively for black gay men, and even black queer women are made to feel uncomfortable in.) Being refused service because I was a white guy with a black woman (and we were just friends) at a restaurant was something I don't care to experience a lot.

There are also quite a lot of things that I liked about living there....some of them even were Southern, not just imports.



Some people apparently want a place to defend the South. Maybe some people want to trash the South.
Here's a topic where it's topical!


I'll start:
I really, really think that someone ought to go around to the various Boiled Peanut stands in the north GA mountains and do some pro bono graphic design. I mean come on. Those signs are atrocious. Found plywood, using a sows ear for a brush, some black substance halfway between tar and paint. and learn to fricken spell when you are making a sign. "BOILD P-nuts 4 SALE" Maybe they know something I don't, maybe the Deliverance boys don't read so well and don't buy your P-nuts when you put too many letters up there, but from the way the Finger Lakes wineries work upstate, the classier the sign, the more customers there seem to be in the parking lot. Spend $20 on some fresh lumber and paint and 1 hour of whittling time actually putting all the letters with clean edges on your sign.

No, I'm still not going to stop. Your weathered shanty scares me.

[phoenixx]

Win ah by bald paynuts ah ain't fixin' ter stop t'nother playce jes' caws deyr singz beydder. dang. getownouddaheyah wid yo' self.

Layessleee (Leslie) <- from the oddball state of South Carolina orginaly

[mshawpyle]

Originally posted by roymeo
I've noticed quite a lot of what I see as Southern defensiveness on this board recently.

There is no need to defend the South in that sense: res ipsa loquitur. Occasionally, misapprehensions of fact on the part of non-Southerners need correcting, that's all.

And I shall always be on hand to correct those errors, as needed.

[MrsNormanMaine[$]]

Everytime I fly home, the flight attendant comes on the PA and announces 'Welcome to Birmingham, please remember to set your watches back thirty years'.

MNM

[Counsel]

Posted by MrsNormanMaine
Everytime I fly home, the flight attendant comes on the PA and announces 'Welcome to Birmingham, please remember to set your watches back thirty years'.

The question, of course, is whether that's a bad thing. Some things have improved, some things have worsened; I'll leave it to the historians to decide what's done what.

[poseidon]

Originally posted by Counsel


The question, of course, is whether that's a bad thing. Some things have improved, some things have worsened; I'll leave it to the historians to decide what's done what.

Not always a bad thing -- you've got that right.

[frazzledspice]

Yes, living in the South has been a difficult experience for me.

I also lived in South Dakota for two years, and when I say that it's been more difficult living here than it has been living in South Dakota, that's saying a lot.

I am happy here, but it took a lot of work. Where I am living detracted from rather than contributing to my happiness, but I choose to look for the good and enjoy what there is to be enjoyed rather than feel sorry for myself.

It was the same in South Dakota. South Dakota was a horrendous place to live, but we picked the one place we thought we could survive happily, a university town, and we did.

I don't think of myself as a Southerner in any way, shape, or form. My rear license plate says "Arkansas" but my front license plate says "NY--Carnegie Hall."

One of my obsessions while living here is making this town a better place. What a worthwhile challenge! After all, I'm living here, so I might as well do something constructive while I'm here.

My efforts to do something constructive while I'm here have put me in touch with the great people who were so hard to find.

The Youth Arts Coalition, the Women's Life to Work Foundation....there are so many people who are interested in making this city a better place, and, amazingly, some of them were even born here!

[mshawpyle]

Originally posted by frazzledspice
Yes, living in the South has been a difficult experience for me.

*** I am happy here, but it took a lot of work. Where I am living detracted from rather than contributing to my happiness, but I choose to look for the good and enjoy what there is to be enjoyed rather than feel sorry for myself.

I don't think of myself as a Southerner in any way, shape, or form.

*** One of my obsessions while living here is making this town a better place. What a worthwhile challenge! After all, I'm living here, so I might as well do something constructive while I'm here.

My efforts to do something constructive while I'm here have put me in touch with the great people who were so hard to find.

The Youth Arts Coalition, the Women's Life to Work Foundation....there are so many people who are interested in making this city a better place, and, amazingly, some of them were even born here!

Amazing!

I trust the peasantry are properly grateful for m'lady's bounty and kind condescension. They ought at the very least doff their caps and tug at their forelocks as your carriage sweeps past.

Jesus.

[hadassahchana[$]]

I don't think of myself as a Southerner in any way, shape, or form

Funny, because I not only cherish my family's southern roots, I'd lay claim to being a Southerner in a heartbeat if I thought I could get away with it.

Frazz, if you are saying that you dislike uneducated or racist people, I doubt you'll get an argument from anyone , but the south doesn't have a monopoly on closed-minded folks.

Take for example the wonderful writers from the south. Just start a list like this, and then tell me that the south has no intellectual or literary tradition. In fact, I would almost argue that those writers we consider to be southern are really the best that the U.S. has produced.

Sorry, but even the title of this thread is making me prickly, and listening to some of the ideas offered in it quite honestly I find offensive. If you disagree, just substitute ' Native American' for 'southerner' in your statements. Then get back to me.

Cindy

[erik_kosberg]

I grew up in New Jersey and met more than a few folks there who were dumb as a pile of bricks, mouth-breathing Neanderthalish, bigoted, uncouth, and just plain rude. The South has no monopoly on suckiness.

[Counsel]

Quoth roymeo:
Your weathered shanty scares me.

You just pass on by those weathered shantys, oh romantic one. I don't know about the peanuts, but feel free to ignore the little shacks in the south central area that say "B-B-Q" (it's more likely you'll see red or brown paint, and a lot of smoke stains, than the tar stuff you mentioned).

Just that much more for me.

[phoenixx]

*sigh of anticipation*

Y'all have inspired me to shirk my healthy, regimented diet and indulge my fantastic Southern cooking skills tonight as I make home made Pulled Pork Barbeque* with spicy homemade barbeque marinade, homemade angel bisquits, fried okra and dirty rice... mm mm good.

Leslie

*Pulled Pork Barbecue: everywhere outside the south you have things that are barbecued, ie "covered in sticky fake bbq sauce and grilled" - chicken, ribs, etc. That is NOT real "barbecue". Any true southerner knows real barbecue is a lot more involved than that and usually involved various marinated, slightly sweet and spicy, slow cooked then shredded beef, chicken or pork. Barbecue is a lot more than sauce, bay-bee!

[drmomentum[$]]

Originally posted by phoenixx
Any true southerner knows real barbecue is a lot more involved than that and usually involved various marinated, slightly sweet and spicy, slow cooked then shredded beef, chicken or pork. Barbecue is a lot more than sauce, bay-bee!

The term for someone who doesn't know that is: "woefully ignorant." We New Englanders have tastebuds, too. Sadly, the stuff is not as widely available here, but quality food can be found. "Redbones" in Somerville is reportedly the best around.

-JP (Definitely some sort of yankee, though some of my formative years found me living and receiving schooling in Virginia)

[slick4591[$]]

"BOILD P-nuts 4 SALE"

Dang them rednecks! They made ya look.