Everytime I meet someone who isn’t from the South, I get the same question.
“So is it like…scary?”
Questions like these practically send me into a hot sweat that I can only stop by choking out a sad excuse for a response:
“I’m not from the South South, you know? I live 10 minutes from two huge schools. Everyone I know is pretty educated.”
I physically cringed writing that out. Besides realizing I need to grow a backbone, I’ve also woken up to the fact that saying things like that is just as ignorant as the question I’ve been stuck answering for years.
I’ve tried responding with a simple “no” a few times, only to be reminded that Jim Crow existed in the South. No. Way.
By trying to deflect from Southern-ness, we’re treating the entire region as an “other.” An “other” whose unique culture is practically built from Black Americans. An “other” that contains 58 percent of the Black population in America, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Yes. I’m quite aware that Jim Crow was most prominent in the South. I’m also aware that some of the greatest civil rights activists–Dr. King Jr., Ida B. Wells, John Lewis, just to name the bare minimum–were all proud Southerners. Black Southerners practically made Southern culture–from the food we eat to the slang we say, right down to the origins of almost any modern music genre. Erasing any links or pride we have with Southern culture is erasing our pride for the historic achievements of Black Southerners, and generalizing the South ignores the plight they still face today.
Questions like “Is the South scary?” are ways of shaming Southern culture. Remember how my weak response just had to mention the education of the Triangle? Because somehow, not only has Southern-ness been equated with racism, it’s also been equated with ignorance.
Somehow, the belief has been instilled in us that by talking about the academic achievements of the Triangle, we’re disassociated from the rest of the South–the hillbillies, the white trash, the people outsiders think are so scary. There’s a subconscious belief that because our South has more urban developments and access to higher education, we aren’t like the rest of the region.
The truth, however, is that by doing that, we’re just demonizing the poor and the uneducated. We’re making it seem like the absence of low-cost higher education in the South is something to blame the victims of poverty on, when, in reality, it’s the reason so many of them are exploited to seem “scary.”
I’ve taken American history. I understand the burden that lies with the South from years of fostering policies like Jim Crow and slavery. However, that’s not all there is to the South, and by assuming that, all we do is further perpetuate classist stereotypes on the large working class of the region, and ignore the actual achievements of Southern activists. The Southern culture that many of us choose to separate ourselves from is a reflection of its makeup- the working class, the minority populations, and much more. While it’s imperative to examine the historic faults of the South, it’s equally important to recognize the contributions that have made such a unique culture.
Photo courtesy of Peter Miller/Flickr
