So everyone in the southern US is a racist hick?

[KdS_22]

This has been a stereotype that I have always had to deal with, since I live in Alabama. A recent thread on a gubernatorial candidate in Alabama just brought it back to the front of my mind. Why does everyone bash the South as a racist breeding ground? I have known many people who are from different sections of the US who are just as bigoted as some of the people in the South. There are racists and intolerant people wherever you go, so why is much of the hate directed at us Southerners? The majority of the people I know here are kind and gracious. Your response doesn't have to necessarily apply to the South, but have you or your friends ever been stereotyped as a bigot simply because of where you live?

 

[Marter]

No, never happened to me. Canadians actually are very tolerant of other people, regardless of ethnicity, religion or anything else.

 

[ThePoodonkis]

I'm from Alabama. Most of the people in my town are racist. In fact, the KKK was selling peanut brittle near my house not long before I moved here.
But the views of this little hole don't reflect mine. I hate all forms of racism.

 

[qazmatoz]

Representing GA, yeah it's a pretty common stereotype, but often times (from my high school days anyway) people were either blatantly or subtly racist towards one another.

The whole issue we had over the confederate flag being a part of our state flag a while back didn't help us much either.

 

[vento 231]

Yes, I have a southern accent, and I live in california, I have been stereo typed several times, because I listen to country also. I know that wasn't worded right, but you know what I mean.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

It's because we're an easy target. It probably had to do with the Confederacy having slavery longer than the Union, or something to that effect.

But really, it's just plain annoying.

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

Dude, I live in Texas. I get this shit all the time. And I'm not even white. Most people around where I live are the nicest people you'll ever meet.

I love the South, it's awesome down here. Yeah, there are quite a bit conservatives and Republicans but a lot of them aren't racist or brain-dead. Shocker, I know.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

The only things I ever learned about the South from my history lessons in Britain were that they were the slavery supporters who opposed the North.

Things I learned in Religious Education (we were also taught about the civilrights movement and the corruption of religion in RE) spent a lot of time detailing how the south had spawned a lot of the predominant racist offshoots of religion.

Basically, were I like a lot of my classmates, and too lazy to think 'there must be something more to this' then my entire education as a Brit would have led me to this conclusion. It's just that, at least from the curriculum I learned, the only things we were taught about the south of America is that they were racist and pro-slavery.

 

[KdS_22]

Representing GA, yeah it's a pretty common stereotype, but often times (from my high school days anyway) people were either blatantly or subtly racist towards one another.

The whole issue we had over the confederate flag being a part of our state flag a while back didn't help us much either.

I remember that happening. Actually, the elementary school where I lived had the "Rebel" as a mascot, complete with Confederacy uniform. The funny thing was that almost half the students were minorities, and no one ever brought it up as a problem. In fact, I think it may be the school mascot to this day. They didn't wave around a Confederate flag or anything at sporting events, so I was pretty okay with it.

 

[Srkkl]

God, here if people aren't black "gangstas" they're white rednecks who wonder why their car gets keyed when they wave around the Confederate battle flag. I'm a northerner stuck in a cornbread sucking, hushpuppy inhaling, shitty wannabe southern state. I hate it so much. What I'm trying to say is that there is some truth to the stereotype but with exceptions of course.

 

[rokkolpo]

from holland and i have been stereotyped as cheap.(i prefer not spending money on things i don't want to have or want to do)

is that really that strange?

 

[KdS_22]

The only things I ever learned about the South from my history lessons in Britain were that they were the slavery supporters who opposed the North.

Things I learned in Religious Education (we were also taught about the civilrights movement and the corruption of religion in RE) spent a lot of time detailing how the south had spawned a lot of the predominant racist offshoots of religion.

Basically, were I like a lot of my classmates, and too lazy to think 'there must be something more to this' then my entire education as a Brit would have led me to this conclusion. It's just that, at least from the curriculum I learned, the only things we were taught about the south of America is that they were racist and pro-slavery.

Believe it or not our textbooks (made in the US) said pretty much the same thing. It was shocking to learn in school that the rest of the country and possibly the world sees your area as the racist center of the US. And while I won't disagree that the Civil War and the slave trade panted Southerners in a bad light, that was a different time with completely different people. I am glad that you decided to learn a little more than the textbooks taught. I just wish that I could say the same for a lot of the other people from different areas who I've met over the years :/

 

[KdS_22]

God, here if people aren't black "gangstas" they're white rednecks who wonder why their car gets keyed when they wave around the Confederate battle flag. I'm a northerner stuck in a cornbread sucking, hushpuppy inhaling, shitty wannabe southern state. I hate it so much. What I'm trying to say is that there is some truth to the stereotype but with exceptions of course.

I agree that there is some truth to the stereotype, otherwise it probably wouldn't exist. I guess I just get annoyed when I go out of state and the first thing people assume about me when they hear my southern accent (which isn't that bad) is "Oooo, he must be a bigoted redneck." When in fact I have very little in common with the Southern stereotype. I loathe most country music, Johnny Cash being a major exception (if you can really even call that country music). And I hate loud-ass trucks with pipes and all that crap. Though I do love fried chicken... Mmmmm

 

[Vilcus]

I'm too busy meeting new people from different cultures, and backgrounds to really form any sort of prejudice. I do however hear many people call the south hicks and hillbillys, but in all honesty should you really take them seriously? Obviously it is them who are the hicks if they're going to resort to stereotyping.

My advice is to just shrug off any insults, because the people slinging them will more often than not represent the very words they are speaking.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

It's just a stereotype. Yes, you got the short end of the stick on which one applies to you, but someone's got it worse than you with them.

 

[madcap2112]

It's a stereotype that stems from centuries of slavery and discrimination. That's not to say there isn't any racism now, but I don't think there's any difference between the North and the South; both have their idiots.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

snip.

Believe it or not our textbooks (made in the US) said pretty much the same thing. It was shocking to learn in school that the rest of the country and possibly the world sees your area as the racist center of the US. And while I won't disagree that the Civil War and the slave trade panted Southerners in a bad light, that was a different time with completely different people. I am glad that you decided to learn a little more than the textbooks taught. I just wish that I could say the same for a lot of the other people from different areas who I've met over the years :/

I guess a lot of it also comes down to the focus that the textbooks have, and the important events of history. I don't know, but I would guess that for America, the War of Independence and the Civil War rate pretty highly on the history scale, much the same way that I learned about the Tudors for the religious upheavals, the Victorians for the scientific and exploration changes, and the Magnga Carta for the political changes.

Unfortunately, on the surface the south don't exactly come off well in the Civil War (though of course if you look deeper then you see that the North weren't exactly saints and the South weren't all racist slave mongers), and in a national curriculum you only have time to teach the basics.

It's the same way that we learned about a lot of events in British history. We never learned the good stuff, where we instigated reform and change, because it happened after the most important events had died down (we didn't outlaw slavery until quite a while after some of the biggest slave revolts). So if we learned about slavery, we learned about the revolts, not the dissolution.

I guess you sometimes do just have to accept that some things look bad on the surface, but take solace in the fact that you had the intelligence to know it couldn't be that simple. (I ended up doing an entire A Level project on the American Civil War because I liked it so much, and I took it from the point of view of the South. Got me an A and all.)

 

[KdS_22]

It's just a stereotype. Yes, you got the short end of the stick on which one applies to you, but someone's got it worse than you with them.

Yeah I agree and I mostly ignore the comments most people make towards me about it. I just felt like posting this topic since I saw a lot of hate directed at Southerners (Alabamians especially) in another thread. I'm not trying to sound whiny, I just wanted everyone's opinions on localized stereotypes like mine.

 

[Cinnonym]

Ha! Yeah, I did notice that there were a lot of Alabama slurs following that OP. Being from (and about to return to) Texas, I've had to deal with the whole racist thing. ...Even though it can occasionally prove to be true, I find it to be more of a generational thing rather than a South thing:

My ninety year old grandmother is more likely to make a racist comment than my nineteen year old cousin, but they both live in the same city, guys.

 

[Bek359]

Both have their share of racist dipshits. I have only lived in the North, so I'm not exactly qualified to comment on the state of racism in the South.