# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/141 "2015-07-02T22:23:32Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > The South produces people like Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio … … Jesse Helms … ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/142 "2015-07-02T22:23:39Z")
Funny thing is, Southern heritage/victimization pops up in unexpected places. The Calgary NHL team, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/143 "2015-07-02T22:40:42Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > NM. North & South is not fixable, any more than the Middle East is. The relationship is fucked up and it always will be. Both of these statements are based in misconceptions about humans and history. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/144 "2015-07-02T22:41:32Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > But some states are smart enough to recognize that and [did something about it](https://boa.sd.gov/divisions/capitol/CapitolTour/blashfield.htm). Hmmm. We might actually want to keep that one. Sometimes it’s good to have a reminder around about what assholes we were. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/145 "2015-07-02T22:44:24Z")
> [@CinnamonBabka](#): > > You know that’s a pretty common issue people bring up, right? As in “not unique.” Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/146 "2015-07-02T22:48:22Z")
> [@CinnamonBabka](#): > > Alright. So now that we’ve established that the South flying the Confederate battle flag is a unique case of a public entity associating itself with a symbol of bigotry, can you tell us how “the ignorant people out there” have incorrectly “(made) the South out to be some sort of unique villain”? No. We just established that it’s not unique. I really couldn’t speak to to why anybody would think what you postulate. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/147 "2015-07-02T22:49:25Z")
> [@busmol](#): > > \*\*Or it could have been “Let’s just make our flag a big ole picture of somebody pouring sugar into a glass of iced tea.” \*\*:smack: > > NO. Just no. You put the sugar in, let it dissolve, THEN the ice. If you do it your way it is just tea with sugar at the bottom, not sweet tea!😃 > > I just don’t understand why people from other areas don’t get this:o > BTW, **Scylla** you are now my favorite poster Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/148 "2015-07-02T22:50:24Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > As a Southerner by upbringing and a long heritage, I have found it astounding how quickly the rest of the country has turned against the South once again based on the acts of a lone individual… . It isn’t anyone in the north that is responsible for the Governor of South Carolina calling for the shitty flag to come down. And it isn’t anyone in the north that is responsible for the Governor of Alabama for-the-luvva-pete to actually bring the shitty flag down. Time for the Southerners who live in denial become adults. Of course there are racists everywhere. Not just the South. Where else is anyone going to see this? Fuck that shitty flag, and the shitty ideals it stands for. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 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/724024/149 "2015-07-02T22:56:56Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > All the state flags that were adopted specifically to incorporate Confederate symbols or commemorate the Confederacy are using symbols of hate. That includes Alabama (adopted 1895), Florida (adopted 1900, modified in 1985), Georgia (basic design adopted 1879), Mississippi (adopted 1894), and Arkansas (adopted 1924). [**Every State Flag is Wrong, and Here is Why**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2015/06/23/every-state-flag-is-wrong-and-here-is-why/) Every state flag is teh stupid. Maybe it’s a good time to change all of them. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/150 "2015-07-02T23:03:30Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > That is all a bunch of piggery-jokery. Don’t you for an instant think this went unnoticed. You are a horrible person and should feel shame. Shame, I tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/151 "2015-07-02T23:07:22Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > It isn’t anyone in the north that is responsible for the Governor of South Carolina calling for the shitty flag to come down. And it isn’t anyone in the north that is responsible for the Governor of Alabama for-the-luvva-pete to actually bring the shitty flag down. Time for the Southerners who live in denial become adults. > Of course there are racists everywhere. Not just the South. > Where else is anyone going to see this? > > Fuck that shitty flag, and the shitty ideals it stands for. Love the Quote at the end “God do not like ugly.” ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 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/724024/152 "2015-07-02T23:16:03Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > It isn’t anyone in the north that is responsible for the Governor of South Carolina calling for the shitty flag to come down. And it isn’t anyone in the north that is responsible for the Governor of Alabama for-the-luvva-pete to actually bring the shitty flag down. Time for the Southerners who live in denial become adults. > Of course there are racists everywhere. Not just the South. > Where else is anyone going to see this? > > Fuck that shitty flag, and the shitty ideals it stands for. I am getting the impression that people didn’t actually read the OP. I didn’t mention the flag in South Carolina at all. My only reference to it was pulling the Dukes of Hazzard from TV because the General Lee has a Confederate flag painted on it. It still think that is incredibly dumb and probably counterproductive. I probably should have left any flag examples out completely because it isn’t essential to the overall point and people seem to have an unusual fixation with it even over much more important and currently relevant topics. This thread was meant to be a lot more broad than that. Notorious mass murders and acts of terrorism have happened all across the country in recent years ranging from Colorado to Connecticut to Boston. There have been full-scale race riots in California and others. All of those are tragic but the larger public almost never blames the whole region for the crimes of one or a few. You often hear discourse about problems that are endemic to all of America but isn’t generalized to be mainly caused by regional culture. Luckily, until this tragedy, most of the really high profile crimes, even race based crimes and unrest, didn’t take place in the South at all. However, people seemed to be waiting for the first lone nut to pull something like this in the wrong state. Then, boom, the media and public go into a frenzy describing how all of Southern culture is deeply flawed and has been that way for hundreds of years just based on deep-seated prejudice. Part of that is true but my major point is that it is also hypocritical because nothing about it is unique to the South today. I truly believe that the South is just being used as a scapegoat so that other areas of the country can ignore their own problems that are often much worse. That attitude is divisive on its own and won’t help anyone including the deluded people that hold those attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/153 "2015-07-02T23:23:52Z")
I think that there has been a lot of delusion about race issues, and how we are supposedly past them, that have been shown to be lies all over this country. For the past you name how many years. In recent years, with the police shootings of \*not white \*people and the subsequent civil unrest, Americans in general are more fed up than any time since 1964. The only backlash against “The South” in particular has been directed at the wink-wink-nudge-nudge aint our flag historical bullshit. ---
**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 2, 2015, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/154 "2015-07-02T23:49:30Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Luckily, until this tragedy, most of the really high profile crimes, even race based crimes and unrest, didn’t take place in the South at all. However, people seemed to be waiting for the first lone nut to pull something like this in the wrong state. Then, boom, the media and public go into a frenzy describing how all of Southern culture is deeply flawed and has been that way for hundreds of years just based on deep-seated prejudice. Part of that is true but my major point is that it is also hypocritical because nothing about it is unique to the South today. I truly believe that the South is just being used as a scapegoat so that other areas of the country can ignore their own problems that are often much worse. That attitude is divisive on its own and won’t help anyone including the deluded people that hold those attitudes. What’s unique about the South today, or at least about many/most white people in the South, is the unwillingness to accept the truly horrible and dehumanizing nature of historical Southern culture and society. It truly is, in my mind, similar to descendants of Nazi Germans whitewashing that history and claiming that their culture and the associated atrocities were not uniquely terrible or particularly out of the ordinary, and shouldn’t be so highly criticized and focused on. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/155 "2015-07-02T23:59:58Z")
> [@camille](#): > > [**Every State Flag is Wrong, and Here is Why**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2015/06/23/every-state-flag-is-wrong-and-here-is-why/) > > Every state flag is teh stupid. Maybe it’s a good time to change all of them. Funny site. But taking the question seriously, I disagree. I’ll respond to this more fully in Cafe Society: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18487671#post18487671](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18487671#post18487671) ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/156 "2015-07-03T00:10:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > What’s unique about the South today, or at least about many/most white people in the South, is the unwillingness to accept the truly horrible and dehumanizing nature of historical Southern culture and society. It truly is, in my mind, similar to descendants of Nazi Germans whitewashing that history and claiming that their culture and the associated atrocities were not uniquely terrible or particularly out of the ordinary, and shouldn’t be so highly criticized and focused on. I disagree. Who in the South is saying there wasn’t slavery? Seriously, this whole Northern righteousness against the South really smacks of hypocrisy to me. The North had slaves until 1804. Do Northernors need to walk around acknowledging all the atrocities and injustices that occurred in the North before 1804? Slavery has been gone for almost 150 years. Nobody alive is responsible for it. Slavery has been a problem since civilization began. It is hardly a Southern thing. I live in the North now, but I prefer the South. People in the South are genuinely nicer, IMHO. There is such a thing as Southern Hospitality, and it seems like it’s taken seriously. Northernors seem a lot more dour, and unfriendly. The South is prettier, has a better climate, better food, the accents are sexy while Northernors are clangy and grating. Southern women are hotter. People are a little more relaxed and enjoy life more. There is a better sense of community. Nobody goes around asking Northernors to apologize for “Jersey Shore.” It seems to me that there is this big old holier than thou attitude since the North gave up Slavery 50 years earlier. Big fucking whoop. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/157 "2015-07-03T00:37:54Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > People in the South are genuinely nicer, IMHO. Bless your heart. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/158 "2015-07-03T00:46:56Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Nobody goes around asking Northernors to apologize for “Jersey Shore.” But no northern state–not even New Jersey–has put a picture of the cast of “Jersey Shore” on the state flag, or put up a big “Jersey Shore” monument on the lawn of the state capitol. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/159 "2015-07-03T00:47:18Z")
Committing treason to protect and expand slavery is not the South’s sole racist sin, **Scylla**. Pretending that the reign of racial terror in the South ended in 1863 is part of the problem we have in America with whitewashing. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-all-the-ignorant-people-out-there-stop-making-the-south-out-to-be-some-unique-villain/724024/160 "2015-07-03T00:53:50Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > It seems to me that there is this big old holier than thou attitude since the North gave up Slavery 50 years earlier. Big fucking whoop. It would be silly if the argument were “Your gt-gt-gt grandfather was a racist, but mine wasn’t. It was _his_ grandfather who was the racist,” but I think few make that argument. _It is present-day racism that is the problem_. There are racists and non-racists everywhere but it would be silly to pretend that the problem isn’t worse in the South. Between 1882 and 1968 there were [492 blacks lynched in Georgia but only 2 in California.](http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingsstate.html) Given present-day U.S. politics, voting in national elections can be taken as a \*very \*crude proxy for racism. In [Alabama](http://elections.nbcnews.com/ns/politics/2012/alabama/president/#.VZXar_mSySo), Romney beat Obama 84-15 among whites. In [California](http://elections.nbcnews.com/ns/politics/2012/california/president/#.VZXbW_mSySo), Romney’s margin among whites was 53-45. > [@Acsenray](#): > > Of course the South isn’t uniquely racist compared to the North. The North is pretty damn racist too. But that’s not the point. The South uniquely celebrates symbols of its racist past (and present). This is the key point. [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=7) [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=9)