I want to talk frankly about the south hate here

[Speck Tater]

77. My son lives in the south, and when I visit him I meet a lot of wonderful people. But...

stereotypes don't spring up out of thin air. They are always cruel and thoughtless, but always an exaggeration of something real. Comics and comedians will never get a laugh out of something that is completely untrue. Poking fun at the "hillbillies in San Fransisco" just doesn't fly, because there's no small kernel of truth to it that makes it work as a stereotype.

I will confess that I have done my fair share of poking fun at "the South", but I think I'm more poking fun at an abstract concept than an actual place. I'm poking fun of a particular kind of people who work hard to stay ignorant, and who take great pride in their ignorance, and while there are plenty of those to be found in every state, there do tend to be pockets of concentration. My own area of rural Oregon is just such a pocket, and so are some places in the South. (Where I live the city of Eugene and the city of Springfield are separated by I5, and both made up of perfectly nice people, but the stereotype is that the people who live east of the freeway are the hicks and yokels to be poked fun of and made the butt of jokes. There is no escaping that phenomenon anywhere you go.)

I would in no way claim that everyone in the south is that way. It simply isn't true. It's not even a majority. In truth I'm sure it's probably a very small percentage, but it's a larger percentage than most (but not all) other places, and so it becomes a convenient shorthand, a symbol. It's insulting to intelligent, thoughtful caring people who live in the south, and that's a fact. Another fact is that as a stereotype, as a symbol, as a shorthand way of talking about the problem, it has just enough of a small tinge of truth to it to be sticky. (When my son first moved to the South 10 years ago his first reaction was "why can't these people seem to get over a war they lost 150 years ago?" Imagine if the Japanese or the Germans obsessed about WWII the way the South obsesses about the Civil War, wouldn't you consider that a bit peculiar? They put it behind them and moved on. The South doesn't do that, to their detriment. They work hard to keep the outrage alive from one generation to the next, just like the folks in the Middle East who train their young to hate the "ancient enemy".)

I'm sure for people from the south the stereotype is maddening, and I apologize for my own callousness in using the South as such a symbol. But the stereotype is not going to go away unless the underlying kernel goes away, and that's not likely to happen.

(And besides, ever since we were forbidden to tell Polish jokes by political correctness, we just don't have anybody left to pick on. And sometimes you just NEED somebody to pick on. Just ask Jeff Foxworthy and the folks from Hee-Haw why their humor works.)

So what would I do if I had the opportunity to move to the South and live closer to my son? I'd do it in a heartbeat. I enjoy visiting the South. I love the people, I love the geography and the flora and fauna. I love the South, Kudzu and all! I'd live there proudly, and with no hesitation. So no, I don't hate the South. I really don't hate the South. I love it. But I'm not likely to stop poking fun at it any time soon. (No disrespect intended.)