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Schrödinger's Southerner
May. 31st, 2020 12:46 amI am only Southern when it's convenient for others.
I'm from the city, not the country. I didn't grow up poor, but I did grow up in an upper middle class household while chronically failing at Southern etiquette and family relations. I know what it's like watching family spin out around you and feeling like you ought to be grateful that you have family, and somehow you don't. And that's treasonous for a Southerner, to fall away from the close-knit family model because you were hurt so much over and over again: by abusive family members, by peers, by expectations, by media narratives, by isolation and poor social modeling.
I am liberal, and I don't carry the traditional accent drawl of the rural areas around me. Non-Southerners express astonishment that I'm from a deep South state, but also imply relief. Thanks (no thanks), I hear you; thank you (no thank you) for telling me what you actually think of Southerners in general. I shift in my speech, shadows of a stigmatized dialect. The Southern words and phrases bleed through and pronunciation fights with itself. I will Southern host you to death, and I use Southern turns of phrase. I eat many traditional Southern foods, have opinions on different states' peaches and peanuts, and Coke is my favorite soda. Azaleas, dogwoods, and magnolias are my favorite plants.
I would not say my relationship with Southern culture and tradition - both as a region and localized - is one I tend to love; it is up and down, but it is not all bad. And then I see people making those comments about 'not helping the South,' a throwaway region, or more subtly phrased. The rebuttal is "Well, marginalized people still live here, so you shouldn't say those things." Would you write off, then, the people you don't class as marginalized? The poor "white trash" and more financially stable people alike? Would the best parts of an entire region's collective culture be worth letting die?
But of course, I am only Southern when it's convenient for others.
I'm from the city, not the country. I didn't grow up poor, but I did grow up in an upper middle class household while chronically failing at Southern etiquette and family relations. I know what it's like watching family spin out around you and feeling like you ought to be grateful that you have family, and somehow you don't. And that's treasonous for a Southerner, to fall away from the close-knit family model because you were hurt so much over and over again: by abusive family members, by peers, by expectations, by media narratives, by isolation and poor social modeling.
I am liberal, and I don't carry the traditional accent drawl of the rural areas around me. Non-Southerners express astonishment that I'm from a deep South state, but also imply relief. Thanks (no thanks), I hear you; thank you (no thank you) for telling me what you actually think of Southerners in general. I shift in my speech, shadows of a stigmatized dialect. The Southern words and phrases bleed through and pronunciation fights with itself. I will Southern host you to death, and I use Southern turns of phrase. I eat many traditional Southern foods, have opinions on different states' peaches and peanuts, and Coke is my favorite soda. Azaleas, dogwoods, and magnolias are my favorite plants.
I would not say my relationship with Southern culture and tradition - both as a region and localized - is one I tend to love; it is up and down, but it is not all bad. And then I see people making those comments about 'not helping the South,' a throwaway region, or more subtly phrased. The rebuttal is "Well, marginalized people still live here, so you shouldn't say those things." Would you write off, then, the people you don't class as marginalized? The poor "white trash" and more financially stable people alike? Would the best parts of an entire region's collective culture be worth letting die?
But of course, I am only Southern when it's convenient for others.
