Am I allowed to say I get really tired of South bashing?

[A Little Weird]

64. I feel your pain

There are a lot of things that need to be fixed in the south. But many times legitimate criticism of these issues devolves into classist insults very quickly. I am really tired of hearing terms like "trailer trash", "white trash" (I really hate this one), "redneck", and "toothless hillbilly". I have heard these insults my whole life by people slamming the south (some of these are more widely used but they come up a lot in these discussions). Most of these insults come from the fact that our society looks down on poor people. We have a lot of poverty in the south. Even in your defense of the south you diss the poor. There is nothing at all wrong with not having a degree, hunting, or working at Walmart.

"We wear shoes" - in the south, the warm climate allows people to go without shoes a lot more readily than in colder climates. So, especially in the past, poor people might prioritize other things than buying shoes. My grandmother told me that as a kid she and her siblings were not allowed to wear their shoes in the summer (except to church) because they had to make them last as long as possible. She said there were even poorer kids in her school who didn't have shoes at all and had to wrap their feet in old feed sacks during the cold weather. But really, whether someone chooses to go barefoot out of necessity or choice, how does anyone else think that is any of their business? How does it in any way reflect what kind of person they are?

Lift people out of poverty and improve education. Those are the top two things that need to be done to improve things in the south. It's hard to make either of them happen because the people in power (the ones with money) make sure things stay the same.