[QUOTE=Jodi]
Rigs, I already accidentally tripped that grenade, there’s no need for you to be blown up as well. No doubt our southern gentlemen have a limitless supply of “[negative adjective] bitches” to throw; no need to give 'em multiple targets. Run for the exit; I’ll draw their fire. SAVE YOURSELF! AND TELL MY MOM I LOVE HER!
[/QUOTE]
Bless you for my first real laugh of the day. I’m not going to leave you–we’re in this together, babe! The natives are restless and the time is fraught. (fraught with what, I dunno, I just love the word fraught). To the trenches! To arms, to arms! The South has arisen! (and without flour, too–they are fiendishly clever in their subversiveness…)
AK. AR. Whatever.
Sampiro– you know the South does polite insincerity better than anyone except the British. The North needs to take lessons in how to make people squirm while maintaining a perfectly courteous and civil manner. The South is the multiple razor cuts you never feel until your lifeblood oozes from your side. The North is a bit more obvious and crude in its way–a brick to the head or a swift knockout punch.
Frankly, the subtle condescension and pithing of others is something I’ve always admired of the region. So, for you take **Jodi **to task for a true statement is a bit much. I just couldn’t let that one go. I think Jodi admires that Southern skill as well–lord knows it would come in handy on a cross exam.
It was nice of you to apologize. I think this flour thing has stirred some waters (there’s an image–maybe I’m making sourdough biscuits?).
IMO, I think that we (America) might have already changed and like so many other things, our cultural references haven’t caught up yet (a future shock of sorts). There are so many transplanted Northerners/immigrants living in the south now that the clannishness and regionalism will start to dilute (if it hasn’t already).
Time was my mother knew almost everyone in town when she would visit her aunts in Lexington KY. That time is long gone. Communities (well, larger cities) in the south have morphed into beings more closely resembling northern cities(Atlanta for one).
Women are in the workforce more, limiting the amount of Junior Leaguers/Guilds/church groups that used to hold sway (hold sway? try ironfisted grips in spotless white gloves) in communities throughout the south. It has happened here as well–small town or suburb Midwest has its share of social strata and tight-knitness.
Also, rural poverty, while still a problem, has a different face than it did around the Korean war (which is about where these stereotypes got frozen, IMO). Most poor folk have a TV, a phone, a meth lab (kidding!). They are not in tar paper shanties, with EllieMae wearing Daisy dukes and a falling off peasant blouse while Pappy makes moonshine in the holler, and the hounds snore on the saggy front porch with Grammaw fixin’ greens and puttin’ up preserves before Jethro comes back from huntin’ coon. Not that the face of modern poverty is pleasant or sanitized. A worn down mobile home has no charm.
So, the question becomes, how to move on from the stereotype? (and this holds true for the North as well. We are not ill mannered, in a hurry, city slickers/ Howard Hill types come to con your men and seduce your women–well, not all of us). Is it up to us? Yes, but we also have to hold the media accountable. I am thinking now of Suzanne on Designing Women who used to rant about just this issue and she did it well. If you see something that seems out of line, point it out, but point it out civilly because the person may have no intent to offend or may be ignorant of causing offense.
But I think (as I said) you can’t have it both ways: “We’re all such characters down here! Don’t call us characters!”. What needs to occur is for the South to find a way of maintaining its identity without alienating the other regions of the country (you all are not as foreign to us as you’d like to think you are. Our families matter to us, as does our food and our towns; we have eccentricities as well), and without exaggerating characteristics that also lend themselves to satire. Y’all have adorable accents, excellent manners, poise and social skills. Export that, instead of jokes about privies, overalls, salacious men, hot chicks, fast cars and likker.
The North has efficiency, organization and practicality on its side. Surely the two can be combined into a force to be reckoned with? A blending of the two, with a synergy that is exponential in its effect. I actually think stuff like this is already happening–look at Atlanta or the Triangle in SC. I think in 50 years, there will be a new south, respecting the past, but with eyes firmly fixed upon the future. And if there is a new south, the north must change as well.
Ok, so that’s a bit more high falutin’ and sounds like a political speech, but I hope you get my point.
