The South has a tendency to get mocked, criticized and stereotyped when it comes to things like social attitudes, progress....many are under the impression that it's slower to adapt to change and even argue that in some ways it brings the rest of the U.S. down because of all that.

What's your opinion of the South? Does it need to evolve at a quicker rate, or does it get a bad rap?

It is generally backward.

A few urban areas try at cosmopolitan but don't quite make it. Maybe South Florida does because we have so much diversity here, but even Atlanta and Dallas seem kinda Southern backward to me.

its relative... the them, we suck. it's fine.. makes us different... we can't truly be a melting pot if we are all the same.

The stupidity certainly isn't limited to the south. Look at Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma & the recent idiocy about a fucking prom came out of Ohio, wasn't it? Not to mention the rights of women are being threatened everywhere.

The south's biggest problem is its location in the damn bible belt where christianity is "assumed" & all rights are "god given". The south has more than its share of ignorance but the rest of the country is racing to catch up.

Progress is a subjective term. Much of what is labeled progress is actually just repackaged old ideas that failed but that progressives are trying to cram down our throats again. I think not swallowing that is the true progress. The North probably brings the South down, if anything, by the tyrannical presidents we tend to elect.

I'd say the South keeps us afloat. We need em more than we will ever admit.

Nystyle709 wrote:

Both. A lot of people like to down the South and while their political attributes I'm totally against most of time, the South is one of the few places left that still harbors some sense of social decorum. Kids there still say "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am", the children have respect for their elders and certain shit is not tolerated. Not everybody thinks being a nasty mofo is an excuse for 'progression'. Black and white people get along better in the South now then they do anywhere else. While it does have a ways to go, it still has come a long way. There is an abundance of ignorance all over this country, so it's wrong to just stereotype and single the South out.

This reminds me of a few years ago when American Idol did their down south auditions, and Ryan Seacrest made a comment about southern hospitality. Every single person that didn't make the rounds told the judges 'thank you' and was as polite as could be, not like some people that got turned down, like that one Buddhist chick cussing them all out and telling Simon 'take it! Take it take it take it!' RIP to her though.

LOL, what the FUCK was Lincoln thinking?!

Um............

Mississippi didn't ratify the 13th Amendment (you know...the one that abolished slavery in the U.S.) until 1995.

The South and The North have sort of switched sides since the times of slavery. In today's day and age, the South would be the ones abolishing slavery and the north would be the ones making all of these sob stories for how slavery is good for racial relations.

Of course, I also say that the South would probably survive better without the North than the North could without the South. And I say this as a Northerner. haha

Supernova wrote:

This reminds me of a few years ago when American Idol did their down south auditions, and Ryan Seacrest made a comment about southern hospitality. Every single person that didn't make the rounds told the judges 'thank you' and was as polite as could be,...

The formal politeness of Southerners can be misleading. Also it can be imposed to the point that it becomes rote. I was often chastised by my Mississippi elders for saying "what" when called instead of "mam" or "sir."

From my memoirs of Apartheid:

Altho I was primarily raised in St. Louis and the 'burbs, I had exposure to the Deep South. My dad was from Mississippi and each summer we would take the City of New Orleans train down to visit my grandparents in rural Lincoln County outside of Brookhaven.

As a child I remember my grandmother getting help with the housework from a "nigra" woman, and paid her a paltry amount of money and used clothing. One summer my aunt was moving to Brookhaven and a huge semi moving van drove up to my grandmother's place. We were putting my aunt's stuff in a little house out back of the main house. Now in the rural South the midday dinner is the important meal of the day and Southern hospitality meant anyone in visiting shared this big meal. So the white truck driver sat at our table in the kitchen, while my aunt fixed plates for his two black helpers who ate on the porch. It was the system and everyone seemed satisfied with it - but it did not go unnoticed as strange.

In 1958 our family drove down U.S. Hwy 51 to Brookhaven. That is when I saw the segregation in the Deep South. Every gas station had "White" and "Colored" rest rooms. Restaurants had a "White" and "Colored" side and separate was not often equal, sometimes being just a serving window. Strangely, the food for the white side was prepared by black people in the kitchen who could not eat it in that side of the restaurant.

When I was a teenager I remember the "White" and "Colored" drinking fountains, side-by-side, at the J.C. Penney store in downtown Brookhaven. The water came from the same pipe. I don't know why, but I drank from the "Colored" fountain - probably just teen rebellion more than any protest. Having two fountains was stupid, just as so many other stupid things of which I was becoming aware, so I defied it. Luckily I wasn't taken out and beaten for doing it as a black person would have been. If anyone saw me, they likely shrugged it off as a stupid Yankee boy who didn't know better.

I remember in my late teens reading a book by Carl Rowan (could've been Go South to Sorrow - 1957) in which he mentioned Lamar Smith a black activist who was organizing voters and who was murdered in Brookhaven in August 1955. Wow, sleepy little Brookhaven made national news! I wrote my grandmother and asked her if she knew about it and her reply told me a lot about racism in the South; "We don't talk much about that here."

OK, back to the "New South." In the early '80s my wife and I were going to visit Myrtle Beach South Carolina and were driving in my VW Bug from Gainesville Florida along I-95. Somewhere in SC we were toyed with by some white good-ol-boys in a pickup. They would pull ahead of me then slow down making me pass, then run around and do it again. We, an interracial couple were being targeted by these rednecks and it was the most scared I have ever been. Found a well lit, busy service plaza and pulled off. The pickup followed us then drove off. We never encountered them again. I feel lucky because I have read a news report where the SC rednecks followed an interracial couple to their home and killed them in their driveway.

Oh yeah, here are some uninvited guests at our Gay Pride Picnic in Gainesville, Florida

CeCe wrote:

...The south's biggest problem is its location in the damn bible belt where christianity is "assumed" & all rights are "god given". ...

The above Klan Asswipes bowed their heads and prayed before robing up and saying "Death to Homosexuals."