Your humble blogger "T-Mo" is a born-n-bred Michigander, but I did live for two years in New Jersey and nearly nine years in Atlanta.
I have experienced first-hand Southern culture and hospitality (not to mention excellent food), and believe the much-maligned South has a lot of redeeming qualities. (Full Disclosure: I hate the heat and humidity, and that, as much as horrendous traffic, is what drove me out of Atlanta.)
For many years, I have tried to explain to friends and acquaintances from the South that if they have a disdain or dislike of "Yankees," they ought to qualify that sentiment. There is a world of difference between we Midwesterners and northerners from the Northeast, who often tend to be more liberal, secular, elitist, anti-gun and full of unbridled faith in big government. (Speaking in generalizations, of course. There are always exceptions.)
Matter of fact, I dare say many of us in the Midwest dislike New Yorkers as much as Southerners do. You know, those folks with their brash demeanor and annoying accents ("New Yawk...Don't tawwk like ya haven't had yer cawfee..."). Those who often have the mentality of the famous cover of The New Yorker depicting everything west of the Hudson River as rubesville and cow pastures. I can't tell you how ecstatic I was when my Detroit Tigers defeated the New York Yankees in the playoffs in 2006 and 2011!
Here's what Midwesterners have in common with Southerners: They tend to be people of faith, family oriented, down-to-earth, supporters of the Second Amendment and enthusiastic about hunting and fishing. Seymour, Ind., native John Mellencamp is a sort of Midwestern troubadour. He sums up the Midwestern mindset of loyalty to one's roots with the 1985 hit "Small Town."
While it is true that several Midwestern states have often gone blue in presidential elections, and have repeatedly elected Democrat U.S. senators (e.g., Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and sometimes Ohio), this is primarily due to a high concentration of African-Americans and/or union members in large urban areas. Truth be told, were it not for the large urban areas, most of these states would be reliably red.
What inspired me to blog on this subject was a recent book review in the Wall Street Journal (sorry, can't link to it because one must be a subscriber to see it online -- it was in weekend WSJ of Aug. 11-12, 2012). Chuck Thompson, liberal travel writer from the Pacific Northwest, wrote a snide book called "Better Off Without "Em: A Northern Case for Southern Succession."
As you'd expect, Thompson is condescending and mocking in his tone, if the reviewer is to be believed, and apparently approached this book with preconceived notions and just went out to find the types of characters and places that would confirm his prejudices.
The reviewer, Barton Swaim, makes note of Thompson's apparently lazy scholarship. Thompson cites many "sources" that are simply Internet web pages, and misinterprets certain celebrated authors about Southern history and culture, including James Cobb, Edmund Wilson and C. Vann Woodward. Swaim writes that Thompson "quotes from these in ways that make you wonder if he has read or understood them."
Swaim also wryly notes that Thompson discovered, to his chagrin, that he couldn't always get what he was looking for as he poked around the South: "Mr. Thompson spends most of the book looking for easy targets and finding them. He faces more difficulty when he seeks out Mr. Cobb, a professor at the University of Georgia, and sits in on a class on Southern history. What if the South seceded? Well for starters, says Mr. Cobb, 'You guys might be putting up a Berlin Wall because you're losing so many people.'"
True, that. In recent decades, millions of Northerners have moved to the South, for a better job market, lower taxes and cost of living, and warmer weather, among other things. African Americans from northern cities are increasingly relocating in the South, where most of them have extended families and perhaps believe is a region where they will feel more welcome. Many southern states, after all, have much higher black populations than do northern states. And let me just say it right here: The notion that race relations are hunky dory up North, and better than in the South, is far from true. Detroit is one of the most segregated cities in the nation, and many northern cities have distinctly separate black and white sections.
The root of all this, most likely, is that Thompson is a typical smug liberal, and he wants to look down his nose at those who live their lives differently. Whether it's praying, reading scripture and attending church several times a week, being passionate about college football, avidly following NASCAR, bellying up to the Shoney's breakfast bar, or whatever other southern stereotype he can find, Thompson doesn't like southern customs.
The reviewer Swaim notes that southerners serve disproportionately in the U.S. military, defending our freedom. But don't expect a leftist like Thompson to ever acknowledge or appreciate that fact.
The fact is, you could go anywhere in the country and find yahoos, rubes, uneducated people, examples of bigotry and lifestyles that you didn't agree with. If Lewis Grizzard were still alive, he could have a field day writing about the Sodom and Gomorrah in San Francisco and its train wreck culture.
I don't agree with everything that goes on in the South. I think perhaps the obsession with college football can go to extremes (e.g., people shelling out hundreds of dollars to subscribe to recruiting services, and pressuring college administrations to ease up on the academics to allow certain players to qualify). I don't like the heat and humidity; I don't like several things about the South.
But I respect it and recognize it for its contributions to our great nation. I would much rather spend a day or evening in the company of "good ol' boys" watching football, swigging beers, chowing some barbecue and wearing casual clothes, than to be with pretentious people attending a play or the opera. (Generalizations on both sides, but you get my drift.)
Strictly from a literary and artistic standpoint, the South is loaded. We've got William Faulkner and Harper Lee ("To Kill a Mockingbird") plus a gifted writer of more recent years, Cormac McCarthy. The late great Civil War historian and writer Shelby Foote, like Faulkner, was a native of Mississippi.
Musically, R.E.M. is from Athens, Ga. That's a band I consider one of the greatest of all time. The legendary Johnny Cash was from Arkansas; prolific Tom Petty is from Florida. Many gifted black singers have come from the South, including James Brown, Little Richard, Gladys Knight, Percy Sledge, and Ray Charles.
I think Thompson is just upset that millions of people don't see things the way he does. Like liberals everywhere, he wishes he could change their thinking and way of life, and "enlighten" them with his worldview. But since he knows he can't, he defaults to condescension, derision and scorn.
Let me just say this: As long as we have the South, misguided elitists like Thompson will NEVER take complete control of our nation. Bank on it.
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