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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2010 9:33:58 GMT
Mention was made on another thread about special qualities of the American South, which make it quite different from the rest of the country. Some people really like the difference, and others absolutely cannot stand them.
Having grown up in the South, I will mention that, as a child, I really appreciated the laid-back atmosphere, with nobody in a hurry and always able to take the time to chat about nothing.
I'm not sure that I would appreciate it he same as an adult.
And of course I really like quite a bit of the food, but I was subjected to many things I despised at the school cafeteria. Memories of 'Salisbury steak' (and more precisely the 'gravy' on top) make me want to puke.
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Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 28, 2010 11:20:34 GMT
You can get a laid back atmosphere in the Maritimes... without the ... errr... well, I dunno. See, I would now love to visit the American South. Mostly for the food. Also the culture shock. But up here in Canada many of us have a funny idea of what goes on down there. So I guess I kinda want to see for myself. Someone told me once, that the most hospitable, friendly people live down there.... as long as you're white.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2010 11:40:11 GMT
Things have changed a lot on that front, but there are of course regional variations. The black middle class (and above) seems to have no trouble mixing in places where there is a white majority. The "underclasses" are another problem, but they don't come in only one color. Frankly, the place where I felt the most uncomfortable during my recent trip was in the Walmart in Crossville, Tennessee which was filled with all of the worst stereotypes of inbred yokels that Hollywood has served up to us over the years -- the men and teenage boys were outfitted in dirty camouflage fashion with fishing caps, lots of missing teeth and not-at-all-fashionable mangy beards. And of course they had the spider tattoos creeping up their necks. There was a huge gun section with a big special on ammunition. The young women were both overweight and pregnant with two-tone dyed hair (dyed their hair 2 months ago and it's growing out) and the matrons were blubbery types in old jogging suits but with heavy cheap makeup. To top it off, there was an old, old woman with stringy long white hair wearing a completely shapeless whitish dress that looked more like a nightgown. She had a completely blank face as though she had wandered out of an institution. The first thing that came to my mind was that in the movies, she was the one who was going to pull out a big butcher knife from the folds of her dress and jab it into my heart as I walked by. And that is exactly how a lot of the rest of the continent imagines parts of the South to be. I wonder why.
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Post by bjd on Jan 28, 2010 12:50:20 GMT
I'd hate to imagine what the customers looked like then.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2010 14:16:18 GMT
I very much enjoy southern accents. I had a trace of one as a little boy, which I discovered when we sent tapes back and forth to France and I heard one of them years later. However, I lost that accent very quickly when I left the area. But southern drawls still sound friendly and pleasant to me, contrary to what a lot of people think about them.
Meanwhile, my stepfather from North Carolina had a very strong accent his entire life (in addition to some very strange expressions). During the time my parents lived in California and then for several years in France, people often had trouble understanding him at first. What was really funny was that when my parents left France, they moved to North Carolina for a few years, and my father couldn't understand a word that those people were saying. Luckily my mother was usually with him to fill him in on the parts of the conversation he had missed.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 28, 2010 16:55:44 GMT
I think I have a special perspective here, being a native-born southerner who has lived all over the United States. Also, since my dad was in the Air Force, no matter where we lived, the Air Force people there came from all over.
Some of the most blandly presumptive or viciously unkind racist comments I've heard have come out of northern or even Canadian mouths, so the south hardly holds the patent on racial prejudice. I can hardly deny that during my childhood that prejudice was allowed to run rampant in the south, even sanctioned in many cases by the powers-that-be. But if we're going to hold every country or geographical area to account for shameful periods in their histories, few will be left innocently standing.
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but the popular depiction of different parts of the US comes to us from the television industry. We could simply accept that every single person in the upper midwest works in a factory and has no cultural or intellectual aspirations, for instance, based on what's beamed from the boobtube.
It's impossible to judge any place or people by what one has "heard". If you go to a place consciously or unconsciously looking for something to fulfill the stereotype, you will find it. And it's certainly true that all over the US there are geographical pockets that have Balkanized themselves during the 400 years of European occupation of that country. I lived in a town that I was positive had been picked up whole from some place in Germany a hundred or so years earlier (judging by the last names), plopped down in Kansas, and the people allowed to interbreed unchecked until they'd achieved an amorphous dullness. In fairness, I also lived someplace in North Carolina where I believe a contingent of sub-standard English people landed a couple of hundred years earlier, then never proceeded one inch westward, interbreeding until they all looked alike.
Mindless acceptance of negative stereotypes about the south -- or any place or group -- speaks volumes about the person who holds those stereotypes. Thinking that large geographical areas are all one way, or that an entire population thinks and acts in lockstep is akin to believing the earth is flat.
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Post by traveler63 on Jan 28, 2010 19:50:13 GMT
K2, I read the post you did about how uncomfortable you felt in Tennessee and your comments about the people in Walmart. Here are some pictures that Mr. T63's son sent. These are honest to gosh real and are (sorry) indicative of what you will see. Yes, this is a guy. It's a wonder this guy didn't kick the you know what out of the picture taker! Oh, Please! DO NOT TURN AROUND! Is that really a trash bag?? Words Escape me. OMG!!!!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2010 20:07:39 GMT
Some of those had me laughing out loud! (sorry)
What the heck could that woman be thinking showing off her ass like that? Not a pretty sight!
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Post by traveler63 on Jan 28, 2010 20:11:52 GMT
Deyana, you are a hoot!!!! You said exactly what I was thinking. I only posted some of them too.
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Post by traveler63 on Jan 28, 2010 20:28:57 GMT
Bixa, I read your post and you are correct in what you are saying. There are many people who stereotype people by where they live,are of a a certain religion, ethnic background etc. Of course this is wrong, and I believe that it is also a part and parcel of their education and upbringing. We do not come out of the womb with preconceived ideas, we acquire them from our environment. So, having said that the pictures that I have posted previous to this one, is only to reinforce what K2 has observed. Obviously not everyone who shops at Walmart looks like these pictures, however, it is a fact that some of the people do.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2010 20:51:13 GMT
And I'm sure that not all of those Walmarts are in the south. I was indeed looking at the "People of Walmart" site the other day, and it definitely had me gasping.
But when you suddenly find yourself in a condensed expo of real people, it is far worse than just snickering at pictures.
I understand Bixa's opposition to stereotypes, but there is a thin line on the road to archetypes.
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Post by fumobici on Jan 28, 2010 22:05:25 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 28, 2010 23:28:58 GMT
So obviously no one has anything intelligent to add to this thread.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2010 23:51:29 GMT
It's very difficult to respond to what is more a deprecation of a region of the U.S. that represents so many different people. To pigeonhole a region in such a hostile fashion is frankly demoralizing. I really regret suggesting that we have a discussion of this topic. The hostility is overwhelming. I promoted this forum to a number of people recently,yes,from the South. I am embarrassed now, should they come and look, and see this.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 29, 2010 2:06:20 GMT
I've seen people here and in many other countries who look just as "lumpen", though not exactly the same style. None of the camo stuff for example - more black leather, and black pleather if they are really poor. I've also seen very dispirited, half-drunken people (usually white people) in working-class suburbs near Paris (just as an example, not a stereotype). And "Kerls" in Germany. (hwinpp will know that stereotype).
Odd, when I think of the Southern US I think of gentility and rather formal manners as much as overt racism (though there is plenty of the latter against Aboriginal people up here, yes even in Québec where most people have Native blood - that has never been an impediment).
I do confess I laughed at the WalMart photos but those are really the expression of great cultural and in some cases material poverty. I'd hate to think of the story of the lady wearing a garbage bag as a skirt.
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Post by imec on Jan 29, 2010 2:24:21 GMT
Can someone please educate me on why the term "the south" is still used to classify a whole lot of states that don't seem (to me) to have an awful lot in common today? I do understand the original "political" or "cultural" relationship, but it seems to me that the differences among these states today are much more relevant than anything they share today. I haven't traveled extensively in the "region" but, I must say, of the places I have been (Raleigh, Atlanta, Miami, Birmingham, New Orleans, DC area, Dallas) I don't see a whole lot of similarity. As I said, I'm looking for education here - I'm completely ignorant on the subject.
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Post by Kimby on Jan 29, 2010 3:15:25 GMT
Obviously not everyone who shops at Walmart looks like these pictures, however, it is a fact that some of the people do. I am never quite so dismayed with humanity as when I venture into a Walmart store...and mine is definitely not in the South.
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Post by cristina on Jan 29, 2010 3:56:16 GMT
Most of the south is used to describe not just the geographical location but also what side of the Civil War the state in question was on. As in other countries, some memories don't fade as quickly one might hope. So imec, in many ways, you are correct that there are differences in the cities that you visited, but there really is a "below the radar" historical influence in all of those cities. An example I'm familiar with from about 20 years ago (recent history in the scheme of things), occurred in historic Old Town Alexandria, a very close suburb of DC in Virginia. In the middle of the main intersection of Old Town, there was a large statue of a confederate soldier, erected sometime in the late 1800's. In the late 1980's or thereabouts, the statue was struck by a drunk driver and toppled or severely damaged. The vicious controversy over repairing/replacing it went on for years. A certain segment of the population simply wished to no longer acknowledge that the war had ever happened, given all that it can represent. It was eventually repaired in a nod to history. At any rate, the cities you've mentioned (as well as those I mentioned in the other thread), are really fairly major cities with a large percentage of the population being fairly well educated, as well as "diluted" by people from other parts of the country (or world), which greatly changes the experience. The towns that K2 visited were more remote and rural, and probably are very similar to remote, rural and more impoverished areas of anywhere in the US, or any other country. They merely represent one tiny facet of the south, or even of the US. But as he notes, it is also, unfortunately, a side that is frequently portrayed in film and results in a less truthful representation of the whole southern culture. And finally Walmart caters to a predominately lower income and often, less educated portion of the population. My local Walmart (in a large urban setting, not in the South) will find customers with similarly odd (to us) or in some cases downright vulgar, fashion ideas. Although I have honestly never seen a woman's bare backside in any store, I'm sure it has happened in AZ. As for me, I certainly am feeling a whole lot better about my own derriere after seeing hers. Although I have no plans to dress like that.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2010 6:29:31 GMT
When I was little, the borders of the south were very well defined -- the former Confederate states. That has blurred over the years, as the country has become more uniform in certain ways, and the southern states have become different from each other in other ways. I'm not an expert, but I don't consider Virginia to have much in common with Louisiana, for example. And then there's Texas, which is considered more West than South now.
As a native of Mississippi, I knew that at the time it was the poorest state in the country, and the one that spent the least money on things like education. Our schoolbooks were often falling apart, and I remember sometimes wondering how some of the teachers ever got their certificate. I know that I could spell better than my 5th grade teacher, and then there were those classes in junior high taught by the football coach. He would get stuck with history or something and just read it out of the book, because that's all he knew. And yes, there were some good teachers, too, with remarkable dedication.
Therefore it was very strange when we moved to California, the richest state in the country and the one that spent the most on education. I thought that the schools would be very impressive so I was thunderstruck to find the one I went to even worse. Due to the extra money, the teachers would often set up a projector, turn on the film and leave the room. That was the class for the day. Also absenteeism was rife for whatever reason, and you could never count on some of the teachers being there. It really taught me a lot about expectations vs. reality in the rest of the country.
Mississippi is no longer the last state of the United States. I think that it is Arkansas that now has that honor. Interesting to think that the largest retail empire in the world was founded there.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2010 6:40:37 GMT
Meanwhile, I certainly do not feel the least bit susceptible about people criticizing the South, or Mississippi in particular. Even back then, people would make fun of the Deep South on television and in movies. Sometimes there were real insights about the life there, and a lot of the time it was a load of crap. Since I grew up with insults during my entire childhood -- having a foreign mother made me little better than a savage to a lot of people -- I was taught by my mother to ignore people's ignorance and only to react to their cruelty. Most of the people in town were not cruel at all, but boy were they ignorant!
I think a lot of people have trouble making the distinction.
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Post by imec on Jan 29, 2010 13:52:30 GMT
As a native of Mississippi, I knew that at the time it was the poorest state in the country, When I visited Birmingham, I knew I wasn't seeing the real Alabama - saw a few broken down areas near the airport but mainly was in the "nice" part of town. My hosts filled me in on what the state was mainly like - but consoled themselves with the saying "thank god there's a state called Mississippi".
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2010 13:59:25 GMT
Alabama and Mississippi are not big fans of each other.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 29, 2010 17:50:20 GMT
Alabama is an interesting state because it's so "tall & narrow". The area up near Huntsville, for instance, might as well be in a different state from Mobile. If you ever get a chance, visit around Fairhope and Dauphin Island. Besides being extremely pretty, Fairhope has a most interesting tax structure. I am distressed to repeatedly read how someone "was told" something. I'm sure your hosts were lovely people, but their perception of a place may or may not be accurate, or they may well suffer from the chip on the shoulder sometimes found on those who live in a place perceived as "lesser". That was a great point you made earlier about the states seeming so unlike each other, and Cristina gave an excellent, insightful answer. Aside from the historical reasons for grouping those states as "the south", there is the climate. Even though the states aren't that similar, as you point out, didn't they sort of "feel" southern to you because of the climate?
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Post by lagatta on Jan 29, 2010 18:42:43 GMT
bixa still lives in the South. ;D
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2010 18:50:37 GMT
In a way the 'South' contradicts itself. I've travelled through it in the past and I have good friends who are Americans from the South. But they are full of the old world charm, in the way they speak and carry themselves and their gentle ways...I find it really pleasant to observe.
I guess maybe it all depends on the area of town they are from or their economic status?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2010 19:06:58 GMT
Not necessarily the economic status. There are plenty of the poorer people who give new meaning to the word "gracious" in their demeanor.
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Post by traveler63 on Jan 29, 2010 20:42:46 GMT
First of all Casimira, I am sorry that you feel this way. If you read my response after the post of the pictures then I think you will see that I don't have any deep seethed hostility to this part of the United States. I agree with Imec regarding the education aspect and I also agree that the particular town K2 visited most likely was not a true portrayal of Tennessee. There are many areas of that state that are very gentile and very modern. Nashville is beautiful and one of the only places we have visited. Here is a site that I think can really help look at the disparity of education vs. money and SAT scores to more accurately address this discussion. blog.bestandworststates.com/2009/02/14/graduation-rates-sat-scores-and-educational-spending.aspxFor example: Arizona is 50th in spending per student but as the article says: "Arizona is the next lowest spend state yet ranks 29th on the SAT Scores list. Arizona students perform better than the top 6 spenders. Mesa, AZ which is at the bottom of the Heritage list of city spends has a graduation rate of 77.1%. Mesa spends only 40% of Boston which has a much lower graduation rate of 57%." I hope this helps to redirect this discussion.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 29, 2010 21:06:16 GMT
traveler, I know spelling flames are about as lame as anything can come, but I do think you mean "genteel", not goyish. Why does Arizona spend so little on education per pupil? I know there are Native Reservations (we say "Reserves" up here) that are very poor, but otherwise I don't think of it as a particularly poor state. Though I imagine a big city like Boston has a lot of "urban issues" that make comparison with smaller and somewhat-suburban Mesa difficult, even though here Boston would evoke all the universities and colleges over there. Looking at Mesa Arizona has me finding about the Native Hokoham people!: (from Wikipedia: Mesa, Arizona):The history of Mesa dates back at least two thousand years to the arrival of the Hohokam people. The Hohokam, whose name means "All Used Up" or "The Departed Ones", built the original canal system. The canals were the largest and most sophisticated in the prehistoric New World. Some were up to 90 feet (27 m) wide and ten feet deep at their head gates, extending for as far as 16 miles (26 km) across the desert. By A.D.1100 water could be delivered to an area over 110,000 acres (450 km2), transforming the Sonoran Desert into an agricultural oasis. By A.D.1450, the Hohokam had constructed hundreds of miles of canals many of which are still in use today". Sounds like those canals outdid ones to their south, which surprises me. I would have thought Mexican Pre-Colombian people would have built the most sophisticated canals.
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Post by traveler63 on Jan 29, 2010 22:27:56 GMT
Arizona spends so little because we have a state government who does not value education, and now a Republican legislature and a deficit that is beyond belief. This state is more concerned with guns and abortion than anything I have ever seen. Just today in the paper there is a state bill to say that Arizonans will be able to manufacture their own guns and ammunition and there is possibility that it will pass. The state legislature has also introduced a bill that will allow professors in the universities to carry guns. There have been cuts to the education in the amount of $88 million dollars and that was in Feb 2009, they are working on additional cuts for 2010 fiscal -2011 will be approximately $450million all together. On top of that we are paying for children who are actually Mexican citizens who come across the border and go to our schools. We will have a state deficit of over $1 billion dollars after all of the cuts. It is a mess! I didn't even mention that 60% of our state parks will have to close because there is no money. It is so bad that some of the programs for education, money that is there is being held back and slowly paid out. By the way, yes genteel
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Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 30, 2010 15:09:55 GMT
Hmm ... this is really bothering me. I am sorry if I offended anyone in my original post. I am actually really fascinated by the south, and I admit my ignorance. I had a friend from Alabama who I used to sail with in Nova Scotia, and she just didn't have anything nice to say about it. She ended up going to University in Nova Scotia. But I think perhaps the problem isn't even so much a prejudice against the south, but the fact that many Canadians have a problem with the US in general. But that isn't the purpose of this thread.
And yes, Walmart is scary ... wherever you go.
I would like to apologize for my ignorance, and I would appreciate any enlightenment offered by Anyport members. I am seriously considering traveling south in the semi-near future and I am very interested in this area.
I understand that negative stereotypes are hurtful. However, I come from an area that is accustomed to making fun of itself. Do all Nova Scotians have a drinking problem? No. Do all Nova Scotians drink? No. Are there enough examples of the above to warrant the stereotype? Absolutely!
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