Explaining The Southern USA To NonSoutherners

[laura oz]

The word "Yankee" is so out of the realm of my personal experience (I have lived in the Midwest my entire life, and my family didn't come to America until about 40 years after the Civil War) that I would be REALLY confused if someone called me that. I wouldn't know if they were joking or serious.

My brother once went to the University of Tennessee to visit a friend. When he said that he could visit by train the next time, one of the friend's friends shouted, "Trains?!? Y'all Yankees dun bombed our railroads!" My brother had absolutely no clue how to respond.

[gustava]

Can you please post the link to the article?

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/the_whi ... st_defeat/

Thanks. Sorry for the oopps.

[ladyamylynn]

Interesting, I just realized that I usually say "I'm a New Englander" or "I'm an Easterner" rather than "I'm an American" because the differences between the East and the rest of the country can just be so glaring.

I have a really hard time explaining this to non-Americans when I travel. One of my colleagues in Russia kept asking me what "Americans" believe about particular topics and how they behave, and she didn't seem to understand what I meant when I tried to explain the culture wars here.

I'm curious to hear more about what you mean by "the differences between the East and the rest of the country." Yours is an attitude that I encountered during my time living in NYC and I always wondered what parts of "the rest of the country" they were referring to. The West Coast? Chicago? Hawaii?

[darareaksmey]

Well, there is Clemson Spineless Okra which should be easier to pick. I don't think it would make the okra any less caterpillar-y though. Why does writing that sentence remind me of the way that my girls used to say caterpillar as callipitter?

Hmm, I live not 10 miles from the Clemson Vegetable Lab in Charleston; I wonder if they grow it there. Well, if I ever see it for sale anyplace, maybe I'll give it a try, sauteeing it as HereticHick suggested above. I like pretty much all vegetables, but okra's appeal has always eluded me.

[roddma]

My Southern cred: born and raised in the South. But I left for good as soon as I could. I can't stand the racism and the way the South chooses ignorance. Some of the cities in the South are okay but the rural areas, well, all I'll say about them is that there's a reason most horror movies are set in the rural South. *shudders*]

I am am Tennessean and darn proud of it. I am not ignorant nor racists. I associated with blacks as well as whites. My husband and I are friends with a black man who has been the absolutely best of the bunch. Racism is everywhere. I hate the way we are depicted on tv. Yes some marry younger than normal in certain area shere are but many of us marry older and have no or few kids. The Duggars, Bateses and Honey Boo Boo give us all a bad name. How can you judge a whole region by two or three families? Elvis and Dolly Parton are from the South. Oprah is , too, though she dares to let it be known. I can't get where you need to be ashamed of where they are from. Stop lumping people together.

[Sweetpea1]

But but but, if it weren't for Steel Magnolias, I'd never get to say "Blush and Bashful" whenever anyone asks me what my favorite colors are! :D

[BravaAmica]

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/the_whi ... st_defeat/

Thanks. Sorry for the oopps.

No worries! Thank you so much!

[SilverBeach]

I was raised in Chicago by a mom who was originally from Arkansas. We grew up eating grits, Alaga syrup, and plenty of other really good Southern specialties (aka "soul food"). She still does not care for much outside of Southern cuisine, and I cook it on special occasions. That said, my mother came to Chicago during WW2 and never went back after her mother died in 1950. She could not stand the racism. Chicago was racist too, but in a different way, you didn't get called pickaninny or have to step off the sidewalk when a white person came by. I am so offended by the confederate flag, southerners need to get over it, they lost the civil war, and GWTW notwithstanding, chattel slavery was a horrible, evil thing.

[BravaAmica]

I am am Tennessean and darn proud of it. I am not ignorant nor racists. I associated with blacks as well as whites. My husband and I are friends with a black man who has been the absolutely best of the bunch. Racism is everywhere. I hate the way we are depicted on tv. Yes some marry younger than normal in certain area shere are but many of us marry older and have no or few kids. The Duggars, Bateses and Honey Boo Boo give us all a bad name. How can you judge a whole region by two or three families? Elvis and Dolly Parton are from the South. Oprah is , too, though she dares to let it be known. I can't get where you need to be ashamed of where they are from. Stop lumping people together.

Oh, I'm not ashamed of being a Southern Woman. I just don't like living in the South. It's humid. It's hot. And don't get me started on pollen season, otherwise known as "springtime." It's mainly the weather that drove me from the South. I could always live in Charlotte or Atlanta, for example, if I wanted to live in the South. (And I don't think Honey Boo Boo gives the South a bad name. If anything, she's got a better shot at a good life than any of the Duggars.)

[FeministShrew]

Small world! My SIL and her family lived in Greer (well, they still do in name, but I'd call where they live now Simpsonville).

We'll have to get together next time I'm down. We can go to BJU and poke the fundies! :lol: I'll wear my denim skirt and Michelle Duggar JC Penney shirt!

I'm near Highway 14 in Campobello! I drive through Greer & pass BJU on my way to work every day.

[OkToBeTakei]

We live where we live.

I SO want to visit and learn.

I do not judge every person by geography. BUT must say I want to go South. Maybe this forum but probs cos' I just want to.

[roddma]

I think Honey Boo Boo ups the 'redneck' factor. At least, I hope so. Speaking of Southern food, most of America eats horribly anyway.

And there are more terrifying things to me than a 150 yr old flag with no meaning.

[formergothardite]

We live where we live.

I SO want to visit and learn.

I do not judge every person by geography. BUT must say I want to go South. Maybe this forum but probs cos' I just want to.

Come visit and I will fry you some chicken, that came out of a can. :D

[debrand]

Come visit and I will fry you some chicken, that came out of a can. :D

[CallmeChaCha]

I'm with anniec, this is a fascinating thread! And I'm California! :? I went to the south for five days a few years ago and all I remember (good or bad) was when I had brisket and OMG it was to die for! And I also got a lemonade in a jar :drool: :drool: :drool: I do live in what my co-worker calls the "tea-bagger belt" (of California) and from reading this thread it seems there's a bit of the same with racism and the confederate flag but not as bad. Quite interesting. So, are people from the west also referred to as "Yankees"? Also, kind of OT but I just saw a house two days ago that had a confederate flag and two US flags but the US flags were hanging upside down. Anybody know what that means? I'm afraid to google it

[Ex 2x2]

One of my favorite quotes about the South:

"More than any other part of America, the South stands apart...Thousands of Northerners and foreigners have migrated to it...but Southerners they will not become. For this is still a place where you must have either been born or have 'people' there, to feel it is your native ground. Natives will tell you this. They are proud to be Americans, but they are also proud to be Virginians, South Carolinians, Tennesseans, Mississippians and Texans. But they are conscious of another loyalty too, one that transcends the usual ties of national patriotism and state pride. It is a loyalty to a place where habits are strong and memories are long. If those memories could speak, they would tell stories of a region powerfully shaped by its history and determined to pass it on to future generations." Tim Jacobson, Heritage of the South

I hope the part about people moving there never becoming southerners isn't offensive. I do know that even though I've been in the midwest now for more than 10 years, I'll never become a midwesterner, so I think it's true either way.

[Seven Severn]

I'm a flatlander and, specifically, a native Kansan. Like all people born and raised on the plains my speech is riddled with hard r's. My particular part of Kansas heavily borrows its accent from an adjoining state, so not only are there hard r's, but an ugly nasal sound, also. When I was 13 I really heard how we sounded and I vowed to lose the accent. I did and now no one is able to place exactly where I'm from. I still have the hard r's, though.

I don't consider the word Yankee to be a pejorative. If a southerner "accused" me of being a Yankee my response would be along the lines of "Damn fucking straight, I am!" Kansas was fighting the Civil War long before the rest of the country and its free status was very hard won. I'm proud of that.

I've lived all over the Midwest and the southern U.S. seems so foreign to me; I doubt I could ever be comfortable there.

[darareaksmey]

I'm with anniec, this is a fascinating thread! And I'm California! :? I went to the south for five days a few years ago and all I remember (good or bad) was when I had brisket and OMG it was to die for! And I also got a lemonade in a jar :drool: :drool: :drool: I do live in what my co-worker calls the "tea-bagger belt" (of California) and from reading this thread it seems there's a bit of the same with racism and the confederate flag but not as bad. Quite interesting. So, are people from the west also referred to as "Yankees"? Also, kind of OT but I just saw a house two days ago that had a confederate flag and two US flags but the US flags were hanging upside down. Anybody know what that means? I'm afraid to google it

I think hanging the Stars and Stripes upside down is an international distress signal. Anti-goverment types do it to symbolize their belief that the country is going to hell in a handbag, generally because of the current administration's policies.

[debrand]

I'm with anniec, this is a fascinating thread! And I'm California! :? I went to the south for five days a few years ago and all I remember (good or bad) was when I had brisket and OMG it was to die for! And I also got a lemonade in a jar :drool: :drool: :drool: I do live in what my co-worker calls the "tea-bagger belt" (of California) and from reading this thread it seems there's a bit of the same with racism and the confederate flag but not as bad. Quite interesting. So, are people from the west also referred to as "Yankees"? Also, kind of OT but I just saw a house two days ago that had a confederate flag and two US flags but the US flags were hanging upside down. Anybody know what that means? I'm afraid to google it

I think that an upside down flag means that the country is in distress of some sort.

You want to make a southern apologist mad? Tell him/her that the south lost the war so that he/she is a yankee now. I did that under one of the articles on Huff Post. The other poster was not happy with me.

[PennySycamore]

I'm near Highway 14 in Campobello! I drive through Greer & pass BJU on my way to work every day.

That area is so pretty! You end up passing very close to my house on your way to and from work as I live a few blocks off Wade Hampton Boulevard.

[jaynie]

Could someone clue in a clueless Canadian here? What states are you all considering part of "The South"? Google is being unhelpful in that it seems to have as many different answers as hits. :S

[PennySycamore]

Yankee really refers to a resident of New England. My daughter's boyfriend is a Connecticut Yankee. To some Southerners, Yankee could refer to any Northerners and to other, to anybody from a state that was loyal to the Union. My Kentucky born and bred dad would have been a Yankee under that definition. He told me one time that he would never be a South Carolinian to some people because he was not born here.

That reminds me of a story told to me by Father Joe at the Catholic Center at UGA. There was this one old lady who was just revered in Athens. I don't know if she was a professor's wife or what, but she was widely loved and respected in Athens. When she died, the local Athens paper The Banner-Herald said in her obituary that she was a native of Athens. A few weeks later, the paper published a retraction saying that Mrs So-and-so was not a native a Athens. She was a native of Athens, but was born in neighboring Winterville and had moved with her family to Athens when she was six weeks old. She had lived there for the remaining 90 or so years of her life.

To Jaynie, anything south of the Mason-Dixon line is the South. Some of the border states such as Kentucky and Maryland stayed loyal to the Union in the Civil War. Part of Virginia remained loyal and became West Virginia. I have heard for years that the westernmost counties in SC wanted to do the same and tried to declare their independence from the state. I don't know if that's true, though.

[Seven Severn]

Could someone clue in a clueless Canadian here? What states are you all considering part of "The South"? Google is being unhelpful in that it seems to have as many different answers as hits. :S

It typically means the states south of the Mason-Dixon line.

ETA: Cross-posted with PennySycamore.

[Kellbells]

My cred: born in Valdosta, GA, raised in NC, went to college in Greenville, SC (Furman) where I lived until moving back to NC 3 years ago.

For those of you mentioning Greer and Simpsonville, I have family in Mauldin and owned a house in the dodgy end of Parkins Mill. So I guess that makes me a bit of a stereotype.

Have any of you read 'A Southern Belle Primer or why Princess Margaret will never be a Kappa Kappa Gamma" by Maryln Schwartz? It's a tongue and cheek coffee table book that I found at Goodwill. Funny read but points out the importance of appearances and the implied social hierarchy that nobody understands but still blindly follows.

I could go on about that for awhile but I'm on my phone and it would take forever.

I hate how actors screw up accents. They vary widely and if you spend time listening, you can pick them out. Tidewater VA, Eastern NC, upstate SC, Charleston, piedmont NC, eastern TN, Nashville, Memphis...they're all different and these are just the ones I know well. I love movies that take place in Savannah where the actors are speaking a hybrid of Charleston/New Orleans/unspecified redneck.

The word redneck-no strong feelings to it. My grandma is one and I have it in me if you make me mad enough. :)

[OkToBeTakei]

I'm all about freebirthing now. My chicken is a water birthing happy chick :P