# To all the ignorant people out there - stop making the South out to be some unique villain. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 2, 2015, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024 "2015-07-02T04:59:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/401 "2015-07-06T22:43:56Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > No, he was just raised a poor white child in the south. No, we were comfortably upper-middle class. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/402 "2015-07-06T22:45:05Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > No, he was just raised a poor white child in the south. Me too! But, my mother said she’d love me even if I was the color of a baboon’s ass. Bless her heart. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/403 "2015-07-06T22:56:38Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I thought in one of the racism discussion you said you were black. No? In all seriousness, you aren’t the only one who is remembering it that way. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/404 "2015-07-06T23:06:11Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > In all seriousness, you aren’t the only one who is remembering it that way. Yeah, it’s pretty clear in my head. But the search function never friggin’ works for me. Nut if he says he’s white, maybe I am misremembering it. I don’t have an impression of iiandyiiii being a dishonest person. God awful wrong, yes, But not dishonest. 😉 I may try to search just to see how that notion got placed in my head. But thanks for chiming in. At least I know that there’s likely some basis for the impression I have. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/405 "2015-07-06T23:10:23Z")
\ **iiandyii** ain’t on the list. But he is on the list of Dopers I wish I knew in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/406 "2015-07-06T23:16:13Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > I don’t really care what Missouri gets called. I did think they wanted/want to be southern. In terms of slave state/free state they were so torn as to have two separate state governments, and to have a governor lead state troops against the federal government. That’s good enough for me. Walks like the south, talks like the south, rides around in the back of pickup trucks with no shirt on… If you don’t need to scan your backyard for water moccasins and big-assed gators before you let your dog out to take a dump, then you don’t live in the Deep South. What makes you pee your pants up there in St. Louie? Chipmunks? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/407 "2015-07-06T23:17:23Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Nope. Do you have a cite? > > If you’re curious about my biological-ethnic background, I discussed it in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=716687). Well, you did say 3.1% sub Saharan Africa, so, you know… ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/408 "2015-07-06T23:18:02Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > \ > > **iiandyii** ain’t on the list. > > But he is on the list of Dopers I wish I knew in real life. Thank you! And I feel the same about you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/409 "2015-07-06T23:19:03Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Yeah, it’s pretty clear in my head. But the search function never friggin’ works for me. Nut if he says he’s white, maybe I am misremembering it. I don’t have an impression of iiandyiiii being a dishonest person. God awful wrong, yes, But not dishonest. 😉 > > I may try to search just to see how that notion got placed in my head. > > But thanks for chiming in. At least I know that there’s likely some basis for the impression I have. I’ve probably mentioned that some members of my family are black, so that may be what you are remembering. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/410 "2015-07-06T23:34:25Z")
[This](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15187888&postcount=30) is the oldest post by me that I could find in which I mention my ethnicity. This was before the DNA test, and thus before I was aware of my African ancestry. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/411 "2015-07-06T23:58:52Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Yeah, it’s pretty clear in my head. But the search function never friggin’ works for me. Nut if he says he’s white, maybe I am misremembering it. I don’t have an impression of iiandyiiii being a dishonest person. God awful wrong, yes, But not dishonest. 😉 > > I may try to search just to see how that notion got placed in my head. > > But thanks for chiming in. At least I know that there’s likely some basis for the impression I have. Hey, you could always try what I have just now coined as the Shagnasty Paramater. Do a search on his user name and a particular word that starts with m. Wait, wouldn’t that just show him to be white with pretensions of having Black cred? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/412 "2015-07-07T00:13:23Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Recurring problem in America (and not just the South): thinking that white people can get an accurate perspective of the history of race-relations, racism, and the black experience in America _without deferring almost entirely to black people’s reports, views, and experiences_. In the 1800s, black people, as a group, had an accurate and truthful understanding of how black people were actually treated in America, and white people generally did not. The same was true in the early and mid 1900s – black people, in general, knew what was going on (just with the treatment of black people – I’m not arguing that black people have any special insight into all truth and all topics), and many or most white people did not (and many of the white people that did thought it was appropriate). > > Sorry, **Tibby** , but it’s ludicrous to claim that black people and white people lived mostly “in harmony” in the South after slavery. Black people were continual victims of terrorism in the South – lynchings, beatings, rapes, and the like were consistent threats for just being in the wrong place, using the wrong bathroom, or other such “crimes”. Black people were mostly unable to vote in huge swaths of the South for nearly a century after slavery ended. The KKK or white citizens’ councils ruled many towns, organizing to determine how best to keep the black population in their place. > > You’d know all this stuff if most of your information came from black sources (meaning black writers from the time, black journalists, black people over a certain age [and not just one or two, but dozens or hundreds]). I would further postulate that the Great Migration is pretty good evidence of whether blacks found the South or North (or California) more hospitable. Sure, blacks were frequently treated like shit north of the Mason-Dixon line. But whites ruled their lives in intimate detail in the Jim Crow South, to the extent that blacks migrating to the North frequently had to sneak out of town, leaving most of their possessions behind, so that the whites who all but owned them wouldn’t know they were going until they were safely out of reach. (Cite: Isabel Wilkerson, _The Warmth of Other Suns_. It’s a real eye-opener on how blacks were treated in both South and North during the decades either side of midcentury.) ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/413 "2015-07-07T01:19:32Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Hey, you could always try what I have just now coined as the Shagnasty Paramater. That is awesome. I love having conjectures in honor of my user name. There have been more than a few over the years and you have been one of my most dependable nominators. I want to thank you for that. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/414 "2015-07-07T01:45:35Z")
> [@pool](#): > > Apropos of mostly nothing after looking up The Dukes of Hazzard on Amazon I came across some pretty bizarre books: > > [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/141207178X/ref=mp\_s\_a\_1\_3?qid=1436172464&sr=8-3&pi=AC\_SY200\_QL40&keywords=confederate+flag&dpPl=1&dpID=414QcLDljwL&ref=plSrch](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/141207178X/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?qid=1436172464&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=confederate+flag&dpPl=1&dpID=414QcLDljwL&ref=plSrch) > > Also if you think the Civil War was about slavery at all you are simply ignorant, take a gander at this book (hope you’re picking up my sarcasm): > > [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0985363274/ref=pd\_aw\_sim\_14\_2?refRID=0NM5MAZAV27CRFG7RAVJ](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0985363274/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_2?refRID=0NM5MAZAV27CRFG7RAVJ) Self-published and with crazy eyes! First editions, too. Order early so yours doesn’t have water stains from when the garage flooded in 2006. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/415 "2015-07-07T03:35:40Z")
If Southerners want to be absolved of the blame they’re rightly getting, its easy, they just have to agree to a few simple things. They don’t even all have to agree! I’ll settle for their elected officials and prominent Southerners in the public eye. First, agree that “States Rights” has always been a dog whistle for owning slaves in the past and being a bigoted shithead in the present. No Southerner really gives a damn about giving States more power than the Feds, its all because the Feds are seen as liberal and they don’t like stuff like the Voting Rights Act interfering with good old boy racism On the same note, “Southern Heritage”, including the Confederate flag, Confederate generals and notable people, basically the whole Confederacy itself is another huge dog whistle for bigoted racist pricks. Own that. Admit it. And take down those stupid symbols of hate. Just as Hindus and Buddhists don’t try to fly swastika flags because they know that the symbol has been perverted, so too should Southerners know that they can never use the Confederacy symbols to celebrate their heritage. Its forever tied to shipping people from across the world to slave away on plantations Speaking of perverted history, a lot of Southerners and their apologists try to bring up the fact that the Republican party started as the party of Lincoln and lots of Democrats were racist bigots in the recent past. But what they don’t mention is that Reps and Dems basically flipped ideologies. Saying the GOP is the party of Lincoln means nothing. Instead, if you want us to not blame you guys for fomenting hate, say that liberals were Republicans and they were the ones who deserve the credit for freeing the slaves When did that script flip? That’s another bit of history that Southerners and their apologists like to ignore or lie about. Acknowledge that the Southern Strategy was real and continues to be real. There were some crazy ass racists in living memory who abandoned the Dems after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. You guys own that completely, all those fuckers who, even a hundred years after you lost the Civil War (and no, it was never about Northern aggression, please stop saying that, you sound like idiots) refused to give minorities full rights and did whatever you could to stop it. Hey, I have an idea, to prove you’re not dicks anymore and deserve to be forgiven, how about you guys stop fighting against the gays? The SCOTUS just ruled that gay marriage is legal, you can start fresh! Drop the legal challenges, the little nit picks that you’re obviously going to throw up for the next few decades and just treat them as total equals! Lastly, you guys have gotta stop with your obsession with ineffective and frankly illogical social experimentation that never works. Its no secret or surprise that states like Mississippi or Alabama are usually last in measurements of the quality of life. You want to reduce teen pregnancy? Stop teaching abstinence only shit and give these kids some condoms and actual sex ed.! And one of you has gotta convince Brownback to stop dicking around with Kansas before it becomes the next North Korea. Conservative policies don’t work, we have data, and when you’re not busy banning words like “Global Warming”, you might have some time to read and acknowledge that the world will go on despite you being in your little bubbles. These are not hard things to do. Most people already know them as fact. It doesn’t take that much brainpower to know that the South is uniquely idiotic in refusing to accept these things. Its not like we’re asking you to accept Evolution, something that takes a bit of studying to understand. Just accept that a war was fought, you guys lost badly, and were in the wrong, and shouldn’t try to paint that as anything else ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/416 "2015-07-07T04:15:38Z")
Request acknowledged - request denied. The whole point to this thread was to ask people to stop painting the most populous (and growing) region in the U.S. with such a broad brush. You are as guilty of stereotyping as anyone could possibly be. The modern day South represents all groups including an exceptional number of minorities. Can’t you see the problem with that? Sure, it has problems and some very big ones in certain places (just like everywhere else) but it never helps when other areas of country just write it off as a racist region that is to be ignored and ridiculed. That is an extremely bigoted message no matter what greater message you think you are projecting. It is offensive to blacks, whites, Hispanics, Indians and everyone else that looked at all the options available throughout the entire United States and decided to make the South their home for their own reasons. That is the modern day South. Most people in this thread have focused on issues that happened before I was even born (I am I not even that young anymore). If it makes you feel better about yourself, isolate yourself in your own mental capsule but realize at some level that it does not reflect current reality and you are no better than any other ignorant prejudiced person because you have no idea what you are talking about. To be fair, I will not ever visit New York City overnight even though it is not that far away. If there is one thing The Jeffersons taught me, it is that it is extremely dangerous especially if you wander into the wrong part of Harlem after sunset. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/417 "2015-07-07T04:39:27Z")
Absolutely. Let the modern south build a brighter future. Just don’t imagine that it can be done under the banner of treason, racism and oppression. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/418 "2015-07-07T05:07:35Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Absolutely. Let the modern south build a brighter future. Just don’t imagine that it can be done under the banner of treason, racism and oppression. Right. Chose another symbol. Until the next group of Offenderati decide that that symbol is unacceptable for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/419 "2015-07-07T05:14:01Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Right. Chose another symbol. Until the next group of Offenderati decide that that symbol is unacceptable for some reason. “Some reason?” Have you just… not heard of the Civil War or something? ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/420 "2015-07-07T05:39:09Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > It is offensive to \*\*blacks, whites, Hispanics, Indians \*\*and everyone else that looked at all the options available throughout the entire United States and decided to make the South their home for their own reasons. Bolding mine: one of these things - well, perhaps two, but we’ll leave Native Americans out of this for now - is not like the other. You are actually aware that slave ships didn’t issue a “preferred region” questionnaire; and that the occupants were sold from their own perfectly good homes in Africa and forcibly transported to the South for other people’s reasons: not a whole lot of volition on their part, nor on that of their descendants. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024.md?page=22)