# Who counts as a "Southerner"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 29, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540 "2013-08-29T23:04:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/41 "2013-08-30T21:54:36Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > “Speaks” like a Southerner. 🙂 That would be a Yankee transplant. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![grama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@grama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grama)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/42 "2013-08-30T21:57:31Z")
Anyone south of the wall. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/43 "2013-08-30T22:23:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > For one thing, Southerners are white by definition. Ever hear an AA proclaim “I’m a Southerner!”? As noted, that is not true…at all. You should see my Facebook feed with all of my black friends from back home. They makes references to being Southern all the time and even bitch about ‘Yankees’ when they travel. I have an Asian friend who is as a fundamentally backwoods Southern as you can get because that was the way he was raised. He is a lawyer who lives in San Francisco now but, from what I can tell, he only lives where he does because of his wife and he would be thrilled to put up a shingle on a law shack in any small Southern town rather than stay there. Being Southern knows no racial, ethnic or religious boundaries. I went to heavily Jewish private university in the Deep South. Did you know there are full-blown Jewish Southern Belles? I didn’t either until I met them in college and there were plenty of them. It shouldn’t be surprising because some of the oldest continuously active synagogues in the U.S. date from the 1700’s in the high-society cities of Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA among others. The ignorant stereotype of Southerners only being poor white rednecks was never true and is especially untrue today. It is a vibrant region with many distinct subcultures and their own histories that get rolled up into the label ‘Southern’. That would be a good label for the collection of subcultures as a whole if people like yourself and the media didn’t constantly insist that it only implies traits in white people they don’t like or understand. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/44 "2013-08-30T23:08:04Z")
Two of the most “southern bellish” people I know are Jewish. Florida is a big heterogenous state. Places like Tallahassee and Pensacola are straight-up Southern. Fort Lauderdale, Naples, and Orlando are bland gumbos of an assortment of American cultures. And then Miami is another country practically. So “Floridian” doesn’t tell me anything. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/45 "2013-08-31T00:04:00Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Two of the most “southern bellish” people I know are Jewish. > > Florida is a big heterogenous state. Places like Tallahassee and Pensacola are straight-up Southern. Fort Lauderdale, Naples, and Orlando are bland gumbos of an assortment of American cultures. And then Miami is another country practically. So “Floridian” doesn’t tell me anything. C’mon, Monstro. Floridian cuts across a lot of things, with a common experience. Floridians may or may not be southern. If you’re from Palatka, Live Oak, Immokalee or Tallahassee, you’re Floridian. And most like Southern. People from Brooksville are Southerners. People from the Villages are Floridian and probably not Southern. Tampa folks are mostly not Southern, but some are. Depends mostly on they’re pedigree. People from Highlands, Glades, or Hendry counties are most likely Southerners. People from Escambia county are from Alabama, whether they realize it or not. 🙂 But if you’re from Florida, you know that it rains in the afternoons in the summer, that the best parking spot is in the shade (not closest to the doors), that people from Ontario and Quebec don’t know how to drive, that Disney is generally a pain in the ass, that folks from the Northeast come down I-95 and people from the Midwest come down I-75. You know how to pronounce words like Apalachicola, Okeechobee and Withlacoochee AND how to pronounce most Spanish place names, even if you don’t speak Spanish. If you’re from the southern half of the state you know what goes on a Cuban sandwich; if you’re from the northern half you know that the oldest city in the US is not in Virginia or Massachusetts. You know the difference between a Nole, a Gator and a Cane. Net, there is a broad Floridian experience that may or may not include being Southern. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/46 "2013-08-31T00:48:04Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > I’m from Mississippi. I don’t consider Florida or Texas the South, really. They’re their own thing. I mean, if someone from Florida says they’re a Southerner I won’t correct them. But it’s not what I think of as the South. > > I also don’t call myself a Southerner, because I don’t have that attitude. So, maybe I’m not even qualified to say. Don’t ever be ashamed of being from Mississippi. It is a beautiful state. It just gets a really bad reputation for being poor overall but outsiders don’t really understand why that is or what it means. It is all because of historical circumstances. You get the bad stuff like poverty in the present day but few other states have to deal with the historical legacy of why that is. My parents lived in Jackson for a few years and I always loved going there. It was a breath of fresh air after being forced to live in Massachusetts. Mississippi also has more wealthy blacks than you will ever see up here. I can say this. Without Mississippi, we wouldn’t have most modern musical styles today including rock and blues. That is where blues originated and Elvis was raised among many others. Almost all modern music came from a very small area centered around that region. It is ironic how the proponents of forced cultural assimilation can’t seem to appreciate how the same things happened organically in states like Mississippi and see it as a failure rather than triumph. The state definitely has its issues but it is nowhere near as bad as some people seem to think. I would rather be a black person in Mississippi as opposed to Boston or Detroit and I think most of them feel the same way today because that is where they stay are an integral part of society at every level. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/47 "2013-08-31T00:49:21Z")
> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#): > > Note to **SlackerInc** : > We prefer Alabamian instead of Alabaman. 🙂 > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Is that in general use? Some residents of Arkansas call themselves “Arkansawyers”, which sounds like the Beverly Hillbillies to me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use the word Alabaman or seen it used in print/media. Alabamian is always used to describe someone from Alabama. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/48 "2013-08-31T01:36:03Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Because of where I grew up, I always had a problem with the ‘Texas is not the South’ claim. I could and did walk to Texas in a few minutes and many of the people I grew up lived over the border in East Texas. I knew for a fact that I was Southern and they were the same as me so there you go. Texas is a big state though. I always claim that South ends at the Western edges of the Houston and Dallas areas. East Texas is very Southern like you say. My family’s from Galveston in large part, and they seem more Southern than Texan in many ways. However, I’ve known some people from out in South or Central Texas who are quite a bit different than the South-East Texas folks I grew up with in Houston. For a really minor example, they think Cajun/Creole food is weird, but I think of it as pretty normal, because it’s extremely common in the Houston/Galveston area and parts east. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/49 "2013-08-31T02:18:28Z")
> [@bump](#): > > East Texas is very Southern like you say. My family’s from Galveston in large part, and they seem more Southern than Texan in many ways. > > However, I’ve known some people from out in South or Central Texas who are quite a bit different than the South-East Texas folks I grew up with in Houston. For a really minor example, they think Cajun/Creole food is weird, but I think of it as pretty normal, because it’s extremely common in the Houston/Galveston area and parts east. In West Texas, there was always a sense of being “Southern,” but not as radical as in some other states. Being Southern was much less important than being Texan. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/50 "2013-08-31T02:56:32Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Florida is a big heterogenous state. Places like Tallahassee and Pensacola are straight-up Southern. Fort Lauderdale, Naples, and Orlando are bland gumbos of an assortment of American cultures. And then Miami is another country practically. So “Floridian” doesn’t tell me anything. My only quibble is that you lump in Fort Lauderdale with Naples and Orlando. Palm Beach and Boca Raton might belong in that loose general grouping, but Fort Lauderdale and Miami are like peas in a pod - particularly post-Hurricane Andrew. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/51 "2013-08-31T15:40:58Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > I’m from the South. A Southerner is someone (in my opinion) who, to a degree, defines themselves by the place of their birth. And many of them are right to! It’s a huge part of their identity! A lot of New Yorkers do that. (NYC) the south is Arkansas, Louisianan, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the panhandle of Florida, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Large metropolitan areas are sub-set of the South and their residents are a sub-set of Southerners. Southerners are people who are from these places and/or live there and adapted to the Southern way of life. What is the Southern way of life? I’ll let them tell you but it’s more than eating grits and making out with your cousins. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/52 "2013-08-31T16:23:54Z")
Zebra writes: \> the south is \> \> Arkansas, Louisianan, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the panhandle of Florida, \> North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Large \> metropolitan areas are sub-set of the South and their residents are a sub-set \> of Southerners Let me repost the Wikipedia entry I did before: > **[The Nine Nations of North America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Nations_of_North_America)** > > The Nine Nations of North America is a 1981 book by Joel Garreau, in which the author suggests that North America can be divided into nine nations, which have distinctive economic and cultural features. He also argues that conventional national and state borders are largely artificial and irrelevant, and that his "nations" provide a more accurate way of understanding the true nature of North American society. The work has been called "a classic text on the current regionalization of North America... So I’d say you’re close, but you should also include eastern portions of Texas and Oklahoma, southern portions of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, and the Eastern Shore of Maryland (and it includes slightly more than what’s usually called the Florida panhandle). Also, you should not include the part of Virginia within about fifty miles of D.C. This brings up the question of why the boundaries of the region (or any of the other “Nine Nations”) ignore state lines. I’d say it’s because the real definition is what city you are closest to, not what state you are in. Of course, really there are no such things are precise dividing lines. Everything gradually merges into everything else. The second thing that occurs to me is why (in various SDMB threads, as well as other places) people worry about the definition of the South and not about other regions of North America. The only other region of North America that this is even thought about is, perhaps, Quebec, and that’s the only one of the “Nine Nations” that matches a political boundary. Why is this question important? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/53 "2013-08-31T19:39:00Z")
Indiana and Illinois? With all due respect, that is silly. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/54 "2013-08-31T19:59:38Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > The second thing that occurs to me is why (in various SDMB threads, as well as other places) people worry about the definition of the South and not about other regions of North America. The only other region of North America that this is even thought about is, perhaps, Quebec, and that’s the only one of the “Nine Nations” that matches a political boundary. Why is this question important? The short answer is immigration. Or rather lack of it in the South. I think that Southern subculture has maintained commonalities and cohesiveness stretching all the way back to Jamestown. In the north, there has been so much immigration that multiple subcultures emerged. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/55 "2013-08-31T20:04:48Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Indiana and Illinois? With all due respect, that is silly. > 🙂 You would be surprised. I used to fly to a small city in Indiana for work and it wasn’t quite Southern but it wasn’t far from it either. The definitely had a strong Southern accent and most of the food had commonalities to Southern food as well. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/56 "2013-08-31T20:07:58Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Indiana and Illinois? With all due respect, that is silly. > 🙂 Not at all, if you look at migration patterns and [linguistics](http://aschmann.net/AmEng/#LargeMap). Take Abraham Lincoln’s family as a good example. They started in Virginia, then migrated through Kentucky to southern Indiana, then Illinois. That was a common migration pattern, with the result that southern Indiana and southern Illinois to this day have an almost “Southern” vibe. (See the map on the link.) Give a listen to [Larry Bird](http://youtu.be/5AJodNs2p74?t=1m45s), from French Lick, Indiana. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/57 "2013-08-31T20:47:49Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Don’t ever be ashamed of being from Mississippi. I’m not. 😉 > [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > eta: re-reading my post, I said I wasn’t ashamed to be from the South, but also earlier I said I didn’t like telling people I’m from Mississippi and it occurs to me that that sounds like a contradiction. But the reason I hate saying I’m from Mississippi isn’t shame; it’s that people are ignorant assholes. I’ve had people ask me _if I own shoes_. Seriously. So now I try to sidestep that. Mississippi is a lovely state with lots of great people. However, some people buy into stereotypes about the state (and the South as a whole) and I don’t always feel like arguing with people who aren’t worth my time. It’s astonishing to me how many people, in their zest to prove they aren’t racist, will smear an entire swath of the country. Especially considering it’s the part where most black people actually live. :rolleyes: But, you can’t cure stupid. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/58 "2013-08-31T20:49:50Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > In West Texas, there was always a sense of being “Southern,” but not as radical as in some other states. Being Southern was much less important than being Texan. True. I think there’s a lot more shared culture than a lot of people like to admit; I went to a wedding in rural Georgia not long ago, and other than having different accents, there wasn’t anything unexpected about it in any way. Probably the most foreign thing to me was the lack of access roads on the interstate! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/59 "2013-08-31T20:54:39Z")
Mrs. Plant’s (v.2.0) Aunt and cousin from NY visited us. Cousin was surprised that I worked on computers and wore shoes. We were smoking in the restaurant bar. She asked me, “This\* is\* the South, isn’t it?” I responded, “Well, we lost the war.” and she nodded sagely. 🙂 Pardon, a cat is helping me type. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540/60 "2013-08-31T21:05:05Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Zebra writes: > > \> the south is > \> > \> Arkansas, Louisianan, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the panhandle of Florida, > \> North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Large > \> metropolitan areas are sub-set of the South and their residents are a sub-set > \> of Southerners > > Let me repost the Wikipedia entry I did before: > > [The Nine Nations of North America - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Nations_of_North_America) > > So I’d say you’re close, but you should also include eastern portions of Texas and Oklahoma, southern portions of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, and the Eastern Shore of Maryland (and it includes slightly more than what’s usually called the Florida panhandle). Also, you should not include the part of Virginia within about fifty miles of D.C. This brings up the question of why the boundaries of the region (or any of the other “Nine Nations”) ignore state lines. I’d say it’s because the real definition is what city you are closest to, not what state you are in. Of course, really there are no such things are precise dividing lines. Everything gradually merges into everything else. > > The second thing that occurs to me is why (in various SDMB threads, as well as other places) people worry about the definition of the South and not about other regions of North America. The only other region of North America that this is even thought about is, perhaps, Quebec, and that’s the only one of the “Nine Nations” that matches a political boundary. Why is this question important? I grew up in Oklahoma. They are not part of “The South”. They would self identify as Western or “Mid-West”. I don’t think the question is important but it was asked so I offered my opinion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-counts-as-a-southerner/667540.md?page=4)