For the southerners...

[mgc1961]

HOUSTON — I'm tired of apologizing. I apologized for being a Muslim after 9/11. Now I'm apologizing for my Pakistani origins, and apparently for being a Southerner, too.

When environmental catastrophe erupted in my backyard, courtesy of British Petroleum and others, I looked to the media to tell our stories; instead, I found quotes from experts ruminating on energy policy. Where are the families and fisherman whose livelihood suffers at the hands of big oil? Where are the restaurant owners of the French Quarter who still haven't caught their breath since Katrina swallowed their lives?

When I recently rubbed elbows with fellow liberals from the East and West coasts, their disdain for the South was palpable. This led to my quest: to understand why mouths drip with condescension when it comes to the South, and particularly to its people.

Is it Dubya? He was born in Connecticut, a member of Yale's elite Skull & Bones Society and a graduate of the Harvard Business School.

Then it must be Sarah Palin, but she was born in Idaho and raised in Alaska.

They claim that Texas is overrun with bigoted right-wing conservatives. Texas has had 48 governors, but only six of them have been Republicans. Gov. Ann Richards delivered the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic Convention, where she uttered the famous words, "Poor (Bush) . . . He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

Then it must be our pervasive racism.



There's more to read at http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/17/94177/commentary-im-tired-of-apologizing.html

[Ishoutandscream2]

1. Hearty K and R

[DonCoquixote]

2. And a secular humanist AMEN from Florida

Your fellow whipping boy state, also afflicted with that New England Yankee family, the Bushes.

[TNDemo]

3. Because if you put someone else on the hot seat

then you don't have to worry about being on it yourself. It makes people feel superior to look down on another group as inferior. Been happening throughout human history.

[X_Digger]

4. And the drive-by un'recs start.. *sigh* n/t

[damntexdem]

6. But I recced, and it's up to 7.

But then, I'm "just" a, yikes, Texan, like the poster.

[Mopar151]

9. Having a little trouble

Finding "Yikes, TX" on the map. Was there a contest to rename Baytown or Texas City, owing to the number of cataclysmic explosions in the neighborhood?

If that contest is ongoing, I would surmise that "Incoming, TX" and "Holy Shit, TX" may well appear on future maps.


(from an occasional to Kaboom (formerly Colebrook), NH)

[Daveparts still]

5. Randy Newman

Rednecks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nGw_vAnqPI

[Alcibiades]

7. I cannot sign on to this

This article betrays an outsider's misunderstanding of the south, despite the author's claims to have risen autochthonously from southern soil.

* Most of the folks who read the Economist are not progressives.
* Does she imagine that we have forgotten that Faulkner and Capote were southerners? Also, how could someone slam people for being ignorant of southern contributions to American culture and then namedrop a list of only two southern authors? How about Tennessee Williams, Robert Penn Warren, Thomas Wolfe or Mark Twain?
* She writes about "southerners" and "progressives" as if there were no southern progressives.
* Her examples fail to make the point she claims: for example, it is exactly because southern conservatives are so tone deaf to the uninsured while we have such a high uninsured population that some folks criticize the south as unenlightened.
* The fact that so many military bases are located in the south speak more to the advantages of our climate, and the power of southern congressional delegations, than they do to any sense that southerners contribute disproportionately to the national good. These bases are assets to the southern economy, not some high price that we must pay, and are a big part of the reason why the south gets so much more spending from the federal government than its residents pay in taxes.
* She describes how she grew to love crawfish and sweet tea, which she calls iced tea. A real southerner does not grow to love these things.
* She describes the civil rights movement as an example of southern "flourishing," without any real sense of the divisions or history embodied in that movement. Overly glib.
* How can one write an article decrying overbroad generalizations of southerners and then construct an overbroad generalization of progressives, and relying on the assertion that "You know the type?"
* She betrays a profound ignorance of the history of the south, Texas politics and our national political history, when she claims that somehow having only six Republicans out of 48 governors proves that Texas is not overrun with bigoted right-wing conservatives: in fact, most of those Democratic Texas governors were card-carrying bigoted right-wing conservatives.
* An incidence of anti-Muslim sentiment in New York or Chicago does not in any way prove that there is less anti-Muslim sentiment in the south.
* She mentions three blues musicians, but fails to note why it was that two of them had to move to Chicago to find success.
* She claims "Southerners aren't the ignorant, inbred trailer trash that my progressive colleagues paint them as." That's certainly true, and, as someone whose family has been southern for over three hundred years, I appreciate her testimony. Though inbreeding isn't the scourge it used to be, to act as if there are not plenty of southerners who are ignorant trailer trash is just as misleading as the straw man she sets up. (As a native southerner, many of the folks whose politics I find most objectionable don't belong in this category: they are the southern economic elite, the descendants of the same folks who took the south to war over slavery, and the same ones who today profit from their cozy relationship with the Republican Party.)

[tavalon]

8. Yeah, I noticed a number of disparities in what she was saying

I lived thirty of my years in the south (Florida and Texas) and in the microcosm (especially in Austin) the people are great. In the macrocosm, it's a racist, homophobic, bible thumping land of people trying to out idiot each other. Molly Ivins got it, though she held more love for the idiocracy than I did. I don't miss the south but neither do I think that the macrocosm of stupidity makes all southern people stupid.

[nolabear]

11. LOL! You kicked my butt on this one. I just popped off. You answered. Kudos.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nolabear]

10. I think it's a way to salve your conscience, sit back and do nothing else.

"Well at LEAST I'm not..."

I'll cop to everything bad about it. The history and the current bigotries make my guts roil. But projecting the ills of one's own crooked little heart onto a single population makes for some pretty stupid, and often misdirected, stone-throwing from within some big glass houses.

[mgc1961]

12. I'm part southerner by parental culture and residence.

The reason I'm an incomplete southerner is the first 13 years of my life were spent primarily in the southwest including the states of Texas, New Mexico, and southern California. The southern part of my identity is, as a result, a later addition to my pluralistic and dare I say western identity.

There's no doubt that much of the opinion held by outsiders about the racist south is well deserved but, as previously stated, my parents stand in stark contrast to that distorted image. Perhaps it has something to do with their chance to travel a bit and met people from not only other parts of the country but the world as well.

In regard to southern culture, one of my biggest gripes is the historical obsession with the Civil War (Confederacy) as the defining factor in regard to southern identity. It's true that the north is/was not without it's own race problem but many southerners willfully reject the historical record of nearly 300 years of our presence in southern North America in favor of a narrowly focused five year effort to deny the human dignity of their fellow human beings on the principle that it violates their freedom to be indifferent, if not outright hostile.

:silly:

[depakid]

13. "Texas is overrun with bigoted right-wing conservatives"

To that one would also have to add, corrupt, dishonest and hypocritical fundamentalists who would impose their dysfunctional policies and bizarre beliefs on everyone else in the nation.

Sorry, Charlie- there are very rationals reasons why the region is held in disdain- and it's far better to accept and work to change that than it is to get all indignant about offering apologies where they're due.

[Umbral]

15. yep. nt

[suzie]

22. Funny, how people from other parts of the country never, ever notice that a

good portion of those who would never vote for anyone liberal or a Democrat are Northern transplants.

The worst racists I know are not from the South at all, but among the group of Northerners who live amongst us and extoll everything Republican, corrupt, and fundamentalist.

And they're the most sanctimonious, because after all, they're not from the South. The kinds of folks that adore those Yankee aristocrats named Bush.

[Lucky Luciano]

14. "Poor (Bush) . . . He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

!!!

I never heard this one before!

:spray:

:rofl:

[eridani]

16. Houston has a lesbian mayor. No city on the Left Coast does n/t

[Doctor_J]

18. I'm surprised McClatchy would publish this tripe.

It would be much more at home in the Murdoch Journal of Moonie Times. Though you have to marvel at the sheer self-loathing of a Pakistani, Muslim, wingnut Houstonian. Like being at a zoo and seeing a creature so bizarre that you can't really believe it.

[suzie]

19. Gosh, it's such a joy to live in the South and have Michiganers arrive come wintertime to tell

us that we're worthless, idiotic no-gooders who couldn't find our way out of a paper bag.

It gives Michiganers a great rationale for arguing with the hairdresser, the restauranteur, the hotel owner, because they've determined that they're overpaying since anyone who lives in the South isn't as deserving as they are.

It's the time of the year when the restaurants remove the sweetener from the tables, because the Michiganers steal it since they're too cheap to buy it. When you have to stand waiting on them at the deli counter as they instruct the--obviously stupid--young Southerners, "Now only 7 slices of cheese, not half a pound, 7 SLICES ONLY." Or as they elbow you out of the way in the store because they require the entire aisle to discuss whether canned tuna costs more than "back home".

Or explain for the zillionth time, that it all costs less and is done better "back home". Especially as you watch the Michiganers leave a 2% tip, because after all, they're only Southerners waiting on them, not like "back home".



And if you think that's an unfair stereotype, then go back and re-read your post.

[Doctor_J]

20. Are you a middle eastern, muslim liberal basher like Dr. Jilani?

If not, I fail to see why you would find my post offensive. If you are, then why are you at this web site?

[suzie]

21. Just a Southerner who is as weary of Northern "cocktail party progressives"

as Dr. Jilani.

[SlimJimmy]

23. You got that right

I'm just about tired to death of the northerners coming here and telling us how much better it is there. Well, here's a piece of advice - go back home then.