# Southern stereotypes and casual slurs **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 27, 2000, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233 "2000-04-27T02:46:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/41 "2000-04-28T05:53:00Z")
That’s “hear,” not “here.” No jokes please 🙂 I was typing too fast to even notice. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/42 "2000-04-27T18:07:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, perhaps you can find a few backwoods towns up North where racism is tolerated. In general, though, it is not. And that’s because, in most small towns in the North there are no blacks. It’s easy to decry racism when you live in an ivory tower (pun intended). I think you’ll find that in towns up North where there _are_ significant numbers of blacks, there is also substantial racism. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/43 "2000-04-27T18:27:00Z")
Spoke-, as somebody noted on another thread, Southern cities haven’t been making the news the past year because their cops have declared open season on blacks. Prejudice is everywhere. In his novel, The Star Beast, a human official apologizes to an extra-terrestial ambassador after the ambassador has encountered a particularly obnoxious bigot. The ambassador tells him it’s all right; the belief that one’s home area is the best around is the only joke so funny that God repeats it. Neutron Star, I suspect you see more bigotry and corruption in the South because you look for it more. ---
**Author:** ![abderian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@abderian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abderian)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/44 "2000-04-27T18:32:00Z")
Spoke- said: > [@](#): > > My own experience is that racism exists wherever there are large numbers of blacks. (North, south east or west.) Just a guess, but in those places you have lived where there was no blatant racism, did you also find that there were no blacks (or relatively few blacks)?It’s easy to be self-righteous in a vacuum. But come on. Yes, I agree, it is a sad fact that racism is widespread. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to imply that racism is limited to the South. Spoke-, your words imply that you are feeling somewhat goaded in this thread, and I can’t say that I’d blame you for that. But to attribute the viewpoints of others to their ‘living in ivory towers’ merely sounds defensive. I have lived in and near a number of major cities. And like I said in my first post, perhaps I have been naïve. Here is what I said: Until I moved to the Southeastern U.S., **I** had never before heard so many racist statements. Ever. Each occurrence simply left me stunned, because I had honestly _never heard people utter such things before._ And yes, I _have_ resided in areas where there was a mix of races among the population. This has nothing to do with self-righteousness whatsoever. Of _course_ there are racists elsewhere. To claim otherwise would be ludicrous. Whatever the reason for the fact that I had not been faced with such attitudes — whether it’s my own naivete, my previous sheer luck or sheer stupidity, or whether the “cowardly, forked-tongued Yankees” simply hide it better — I found the volume of such attitudes in the Southeast to be striking and unattractive. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/45 "2000-04-27T18:42:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Neutron Star, I suspect you see more bigotry and corruption in the South because you look for it more. I’m afraid I don’t look for it. It looks for me. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/46 "2000-04-27T19:26:00Z")
Any of you guys ever come across an early-1970s record album by Randy Newman, called _Good Old Boys?_ I think you’d all get a kick out of it. Newman grew up in L.A., but was born in Louisiana. This album (it was one of his lowest-sellers, and that’s SAYING something in his case) is a marvelous “concept album” about the South…he addresses all the stereotypes that bothered him, and they were a LOT more prevalent in 1973. _Easy Rider_ scared the living piss out of young people. The first song, “Rednecks,” lines up every cliche about the loudmouth Texan, the drunken suburban Atlantean in his white shoes, the toothless redneck, the boneheaded fratboys at LSU…points out that the Northerner considers himself a better person because he asys “Negro” instead of “nigger,” then counts off all the Northern city ghettos (“cages”)that the smug Yankees force their local blacks to live in. ---
**Author:** ![Needs2know](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5e925/32.png) [@Needs2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Needs2know)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/47 "2000-04-27T19:40:00Z")
Neutron you are right. I’ll tell you something else too…it is extremely difficult to stand your ground and proclaim…I don’t like that kind of language. I guess you can imagine the names I’ve been called. But in my home, I don’t allow it period. And I have called many a person on it. It’s my house I make the rules. To be blunt, we don’t say nigger in my house. Needs2know ---
**Author:** ![ignatiusjreilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@ignatiusjreilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignatiusjreilly)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/48 "2000-04-27T19:50:00Z")
I will be specific: In a previous incarnation as first year accountant for a Big 5 (Big 6 at the time) firm, I got sent from Boston to perform some audit procedures at a client’s subsidiary just outside of Harrisburg in a town called Mt. Holly Springs. Now, while Harrisburg wasn’t that bad of a place, Mt. Holly Springs was a typical backroad bump in the road. While very very nice, many of the client personnel with whom we were working were a bit on the gooberish side. They weren’t bad people, but they weren’t particularly cosmopolitan in atttitude or demeanor. Whilst in Mt. Holly Springs, we learned that this subsidiary had a subsidiary of its own in a town called Mercersville, which is about 100 miles SSW of Mt. Holly Springs. My supervisor, decided that I, as the lowly man on the totem pole at the time, was obliged to do the whole professional standards gig and drive down to Mercersville and check the place out. When the king goober (the plant controller) found out I was going down there, he laughed and told me to “watch myself.” This was vaguely ironic, because he was right - the people in Mercersville were worse. So I rented a car and drove to Mercersville, which turned out to be smack dab in the middle of Appalachia. It was buried in the middle of a (very scenic) mountain valley and was populated with many people who gave me quite the deliverance gaze as I paraded past in my pressed khakis and golf shirt. They had the aforementioned sloped foreheads and buck teeth and apparently didn’t get many visitors from “the big city” (their words) because as I walked in for my 30 minute plant visit, I noticed that the message board in front had a note that said “XYZ company welcomes visitor Johnnyharvard” After my visit I drove on to Pittsburgh for the weekend and hung out with an old college roommate. Along the way, I drove through many small towns populated with stray dogs, old pickup trucks, burning trash, and deer antlers. These were rednecks in their finest glory. My point of the story is not that Pennsylvania is full of goobers, but that they’re not just isolated to the South. True, I was in small towns and didn’t observe any of this in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, but neither is Atlanta or Houston or Charlotte or Dallas solely populated with rednecks either. If you drive through small towns in ANY state, you’re going to find lesser educated and less worldly types of people. It’s not just in the south. ---
**Author:** ![writefetus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writefetus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/writefetus)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/49 "2000-04-27T19:52:00Z")
Lemme tell you what goodbuddy, I have lived most of my life in north GA. and have often seen and heard evidence of _CASUAL_ bigotry , but nothing that I experienced here prepared me for my 4 years in and around NCY, In Manhattan, no problem , lotsa diverse individuals living and working cheek by jowl …but WHOA get out into the working class (and primarily ethnically segregated) burroughs and 'burbs and all I would hear is “niggah” this and “Spic” that all day, every day, even though these people seldom if ever interacted with someone of a different race. It just seems to me that the racism down south is more casually arrived at(Maybe something in the water, I dunno) and up north people had to ( and were quite willing to) make an effort to go out of their way to be ugly in matters pertaining to race relations. Anyone remember Howard Beach? There was a certain maliciousness there that I have found lacking in my experiences in the South. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/50 "2000-04-27T19:53:00Z")
Wonder of Wonders Alert: from an article in today’s Stranger about the Seattle Police Department: “CIT stands for Crisis Intervention Team. Founded in 1998, the CIT is comprised of officers who are specially trained to recognize and deal with crises involving the mentally ill. They learn techniques that apply to specific illnesses; for example, when dealing with a paranoid schizophrenic, officers always show their hands, so it’s obvious they’re not hiding something. The program is modeled after a similar team established 10 years earlier by the Memphis Police Department, which, before it started its CIT unit, was “justifiably” killing mentally ill people at a rate of seven per year. Once the team was established, that rate dropped to just two albeit controversial) shootings in the past decade.” Can this mean that something progressive and humane can originate IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, and be desirable in that most trendy, Northetn utopia, Seattle? well pierce my ears and call me drafty. ---
**Author:** ![ultress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7c8e57/32.png) [@ultress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultress)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/51 "2000-04-27T20:20:00Z")
"Yes, Ultress I would expect you to say that since you are one of my Southern sisters who insists on defending that damned flag. So don’t go crying foul when the non-Southern dopers flame your silly little southern belle ass! I’ve also noticed that you don’t have the good sense to stay out of the “does God exsist threads. That’s a no-win situation in case you haven’t figured it out yet.” **needs2know** How nice that you check out threads that I post in, but if you will notice I haven’t posted in the “Does God Exist” threads in quite some time now. And I have yet to meet anyone who has ‘flamed my silly little southern belle ass’ to an extent that impressed me, yourself included. This is still an open message board, and everyone is still allowed to post in any forum they wish without asking your consent or really caring what your opinion is on what is a win-win situation or what is not. On the subject of my defending the flag, there are several issues that I defend, simple because I believe that people are entitled to their rights. It’s the closed minded people like yourself that are taking us so long to ‘fight ignorance’. I’ve yet to see a post of yours that impresses anyone on the board yet. But I would still defend your right to post. Yes this thread has certainly gone astray, as most threads do where you start posting, because it all goes back to the confederate flag. I’m sorry that you had a certain historical event shoved down your throat as a child, but please don’t keep shoving that down our throats. Enough is enough, move on to a new topic. As far as the jokes that Virginians make about the Carolinas, we just look at the source. Even your posts come across as arrogant and close-minded. Mostly we just ignore you. * * * \*\* _Sigh_. So many men, so few who can afford me \*\* _Original by Wally_ _I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it._ Homepage: [www.superlativeandsassy.com](http://www.superlativeandsassy.com) Occupation: Temptress Location: Ultra, California Interests: surpluses, excesses, abundances, extras, lagniappes _profile by UncleBeer_ ---
**Author:** ![Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ed655f/32.png) [@Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crown_Prince_of_Irony)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/52 "2000-04-27T23:09:00Z")
## Hopefully this nugget of wisdom from the late, esteemed Georgian Billy Carter (that’s President Jimmy’s brother) will give us Northerners some perspective. He said, “A redneck is a man who drives down the road in his pickup while drinking beer, and throws the empties out the window. A good old boy throws 'em in the back. I’m a good old boy.” As you can see, Southerners don’t tolerate stupidity. Or wastefulness. You can call me the King of Futility There’s a purpose to my actions, I just haven’t found it yet You can call me the Crown Prince of Irony It’s a crown I wear with dubious pride; it keeps falling down as I swim against the tide ---
**Author:** ![sugaree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/53 "2000-04-27T23:50:00Z")
Sorry neutron, just can’t let this go unchallenged- > [@](#): > > I also see a hell of a lot more corruption. NOBODY here pays speeding tickets. Everyone has a friend who gets them “fixed.” This practice is unheard of in PA. Oh, it’s definately heard of and practiced around Pittsburgh and here in south central horse and buggy country. BTW, one of the best public high schools in the country? Mt. Lebonen by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/54 "2000-04-28T00:50:00Z")
I’ve lived in Mississippi for 11 years, and before that North Carolina, but grew up all over the country. Mississippi sure does have racial problems, and problems due to it’s tradition of a small percentage of people ruling the infrastructure. I’ve been frustrated by the small-mindedness of those in power, and joke about it. Our last governor was a pure fool. But, the new one is much better. And, there has been so much progress in the past three decades. The change is immense, and has dealt with not just ideals, but how to make things work in a population of racially different people who continue to be very intertwined. My work here has been documenting blues musicians, and I’ve been priviledged to hear life stories that would leave you crying in what people have had to put up with. My partner and I have found it quite painful. Mostly because to go from one cultural world and back into the mainstream is still a heavy shift. That gives an indication of how different things are, and how much work needs to be done. There’s plenty of racism here. I’ve been labelled as a term I hate because of my company, and have suffered from it. On the other hand, I’ve seen country white boys use the N word, and then go fishing with a Black guy they’ve come up with and love like a brother. To be brief here, the more I’ve seen, the more complicated it becomes. Many Southern Writers do the situation justice because it truly is the stuff novels are made of. Tragic, convoluted, and yearning for a measure of Love and Truth. NEUTRONSTAR: Maybe this will help in your Yankee-Expat discovery. I sympathize; I found myself on a schoolbus at 12, moving from Maine ( & before that from NY and California). I couldn’t understand people’s accents, and didn’t say my “sirs & m’ams”. I’d not had an integrated school experience (70’s), and being small, met with several bigger Black girls who put me up against the wall in the locker room to get my lunch money. That was a new experience. Years later, for some stange reason, I was elected president of one of the girl’s civic clubs, and encouraged many of my former nemesis to join. It was the first time that school entity had really tried to integrate. I got called all kind of names, by the local & state Civitan (that was the group) authorities. But it really helped to open things up. Perhaps I’ve strayed a bit, but my intention is to show how complex it is. One valuable thing I’ve found as a, albeit long term, Southern transplant is that if you encounter people and have a pushy attitude, you’ll be “tested”, often with the N-word. I’ve seen people do this a lot. It’s to see how you stand. OK, that’s a bitch, but the way I handle it is to say I don’t use that word, and people respect it, at least to my face. But I have been labelled by some portion of the community. That’s their problem. But a lot of folks who would be deemed “redneck” have respected me for standing up for my beliefs. Yep, whut I said, Complex. Ummmm…as I’ve been typing this, my husband has just come back ranting from the local store. He was talking to the store owner, and in the course of the conversation, asked what D. did. He got his Master’s in Southern Studies( specializing in interaction between white & black musicians), but the store ownner just heard “southern” & replied, " Yeah, no N–, and we got a Klan meeting next week." Maybe it was the test thing, cause it’s a new store, but still, Honeyboy came back in a flurry wanting to get “the Hell away from here”. The Truth can be quite unpleasant. And I expect idiocy is found everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/55 "2000-04-28T01:30:00Z")
I left that a bit hanging, because I was a bit shocked that while I was typing my post, Honeyboy came back with the worst rant on the topic at hand in some years. Quelle surprise! So, that S.O.S certainly does exist, as I learned in a most timely fashion. I’d like to comment on the Southern Accent thing. When I say I live in Mississippi, I notice that folks do seem to tone down their discussion, like I’m a moron. I wish it weren’t true, but 11 years of experience bears witness. I’m a 4th generation born Californian, and, unfortunately, I find Californians & New Yorkers to be the most provincial in this respect. One thing to keep in mind about the slow-easiness of Southern speech is; if you’re running around in July and August, expecting things to be done in a _hurry_, you’re just gonna have a coronary, Hon. Air-conditioning not withstanding, when it’s a 100 degrees out, and lung-boggling humidity, it’s time to slooooowww down! ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/56 "2000-04-28T01:55:00Z")
**sugaree** : Mt. Lebonen? Naw, must be Chartier’s Valley, n’at. Peace ---
**Author:** ![sugaree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/57 "2000-04-28T02:11:00Z")
Hey, this is the pit- it’s the perfect place to bring up Mt. Lebo! My boyfriend went to C-V, but I am Canon-MacMillan, class of 88, myself (so I know a thing or two about the northern hicks being discussed here). Go Colts and Macs! And to all you non-Burghers, yes, the football team at my old high school is named the Big Macs. No, our mascot is not a giant cheeseberger. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/58 "2000-04-28T04:55:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by neutron star: > \*\* Way down at the bottom in tiny six point text. The bullet is green and it says True at the top of the page. This is a pretty lame trick to play for a site that is trying to expose urban legends. They’re passing one off themselves. Shame on snopes. \*\* You saw the bullet, so you were at the Lost Legends front page, so you have no excuse for not seeing this bit: > [@](#): > > We created The Repository of Lost Legends (TRoLL for short) for those of you who don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. If you have a taste for the unusual and arcane (and can suspend your disbelief just a little), sample some of these precious gems. Don’t blame snopes for your complete and total lack of reading comprehension. The Lost Legends (Like the Onion) are a collection of parodies - some obvious, some less so - all disclaimed - the collective lesson of which is to actually _read_ and _ **think about** _ the information you encounter - on the internet or elsewhere. As a side note: Yoknapatawpha County is the fictional county in Mississippi where William Falkner set many of his stories and novels and of which the Snopes family were important residents. (This in and of itself would only give people very familiar with Falkner’s works a clue to the non-validity of the article, but anyone who sought out the Yoknapatawpha County Register to check out the article snopes cited would soon find out that it seeming (and actually) doesn’t exist.) * * * _Eschew Obfuscation_ ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/59 "2000-04-28T06:13:00Z")
Sorry to neglect my own post… I wasn’t seeking or expressing approval. And the digressions into various sterotypes isn’t really helpful. Yeah, I know Virginia is prone to snotty distinctions. (Rita Mae Brown has reverted to a literary insularity expressing the “Confederate weakness”: I’m seceeding from you and you and you…and actually YOU are a loser, too".) This was a rant–feeble, pitifully little cussing–based on simple, basic fairness. Pointing fingers elsewhere is a sterile exercise. IMO, racism is regrettably present most places, but it’s no less toxic for being masked. My whole point was that cretins exist everywhere. Whether Down Easter in-bred sociopath a la Stephen King, Boston Southie bigots, midwestern/mountain/plains jerks, etc. Pointing fingers is easy and comfy; look over THERE, folks! Being more familiar with American versions of human stupidities, this example may be more particular than enlightening. But it still cheeses me off, BIG time, when human stupidities are based on based on comfy preconceived notions about accent and background. FWIW, I just as often associate a drawl with unpretentious culture and erudition. Shouldn’t be so suprised this topic got so diffused. But in a weird way it supports my complaint: people so disposed will find reasons to impute ill-will based on symbols of their own choosing. Still wordy…and tired, Veb ---
**Author:** ![Squirrelgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Squirrelgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squirrelgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233/60 "2000-04-28T06:15:00Z")
Ya know, having lived in both the North and the South, and now living in Hawaii, it’s possible for me to have a bit more perspective. You’re all racist, prejudiced bigots to some degree or other. It’s just easier to blame it on someone else. Guess what? There’s so much of it all over the mainland you don’t even see it any more. Julie It is the BBQ Pit, is it not? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-stereotypes-and-casual-slurs/6233.md?page=4)