Bigotry

[pat]

I have seen this link making the rounds. My answer, as a transplanted Southerner?

Fuck you, too.

Jimmy Carter is a Southerner. As are Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Edwards.

On the other side, Orrin Hatch is from Utah. Arlen Specter and the notoriously homophobic Rick Santorum are from Pennsylvania, which last time I checked was above the Mason-Dixon line. The anti-choice zealot Henry Hyde is from Illinois. Alan Keyes may or may not be from Illinois, but he's not from the South in any case. John McCain, who whatever you think of him supported Bush in his reelection, is from Arizona. One of Bush's most vocal fans this fall was Rudy Guiliani, former mayor of New York. And as for the Governator, who spoke at the Republican National Convention.... well, you know. And as can be seen from this map, Republicans hold sway far and wide outside Dixie.

Bigotry based on geography is bigotry nonetheless. I think geekchick said it best: "Make no mistake, those of you ranting about moronic Southerners are every bit as bigoted and intolerant as anyone painting you as a "liberal, elitist, babykilling traitor", so get the f*ck down off your high horse."

Oh, and for anyone saying "lighten up, it's all in fun"? Let me ask you, would you ever make a racist joke to a person of color, and tell them to lighten up if they objected to it? If the answer to that question is "no," you have no business telling me likewise.

Comments

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Language and style matters. It is hard for me to listen carefully when I am being called a "dickhead."

However, those facts he trumpets... Let's take that one about where tax dollars go: those red states that get more money than they take in? They include Alaska, North Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, and South Dakota. Bastions of the Confederacy, there.

You want to talk about the TVA? Fine. But then we should also talk about the federal water projects out west.

Massachusetts is such a bastion of gay rights that one of its senators supports an amendment to ban same-sex marriage. (That would be Kerry -- I have no idea what Kennedy's position is.) And then there are those bastions of gay rights such as Oregon and Michigan.

Oh, and that cheap shot about Florida and the hurricanes? What about all those people in Illinois and along the upper Mississippi and Missouri who live in flood plains? Or the entirety of Tornado Alley, only part of which (Texas) is in the South? And let's not forget California. Although earthquakes are infrequent, severe fires and mudslides most decidely are not.

As far as the divorce statistics goes, he's right. The top ten states with the lowest divorce rate are not in the South (although he fails to mention that Louisiana is at number 11). Of the ten worst, only four are Southern states: he may count Nevada an aberration, but what about Idaho, Wyoming, Indiana and Oklahoma?

I could go on, but I have to go make dinner.

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

However, those facts he trumpets... Let's take that one about where tax dollars go: those red states that get more money than they take in? They include Alaska, North Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, and South Dakota. Bastions of the Confederacy, there.

Exactly! Because he's not attacking you. He's attacking Republicans!

You may laugh or be horrified by this but I honestly thought that Indiana and Oklahoma were part of the confederacy. Cuz they sho nuff don't fit in with the North. Then again neither does most of Illinois.

Just goes to show you, the healing hasn't begun. Now we're not only squabbling across the aisles but across the country. Oh for shame!

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

So call the website fucktherepublicans.com. Or fuckthestupidhypocrites.com

As far as the confines of the South, I was always taught that it was the Confederate states (N.C., S.C., FL, AL, AR, GA, LA, MS, TX, VA -- note: WV split off from them to remain with the Union -- TN) as well as Kentucky. I might grant you Oklahoma and WV as Southern states, but *only* if you also include Maryland as a Southern state. (Maryland has the ninth lowest divorce rate in the country.) Indiana and Illinois? The Midwest.

You may find all this a hoot. But for people who have spent a lot of time being treated like they were stupid, racist, closeminded or all three simply because they speak with a Southern accent, it's not really a laughing matter.

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

The whole South thing is a mystery to me. I mean most of the south is actually the east, most of the midwest is pretty far east too. then the sw starts in the middle. *shrug* I know Illinois isn't actually in the south I'm just saying that outside of the Chicago area, it becomes very rural, white and christian. Which to a lot of urbanites, feels threatening and southern. The joke in Chicago is that the mason dixon line might as well start at Congress (the southern end of the loop right in the middle of the city).

As for the whole southern chip on the shoulder, I think that a lot of the times Southerners just take northern brusqueness personally and think it's because they're southern. I mean I have seen people assume someone was stupid because they spoke southern so it's not like that doesn't happen. But I've seen it happen even more where the southerner thinks they're the butt of the joke and they just aren't. Of course, once they start going off (and I mean the ones who really go off) about how northerners assume they're stupid and closeminded, they become right.