Today my hat is off to John Jett of Roswell who attends Stanford University. -- I love this guy!! He is wise & informed beyond his years.
Anti-South bigotry big on campus
For the last three years, I have lived outside of the South, and I have missed it every day I have been away.
I attend college in California, and many of my friends at school admit that for them, the South is an unpleasant mystery.
Often when I meet someone at school for the first time and tell them that I am from Georgia, a subtle change overtakes them, as if I'd forgotten to put on my pants. They try to hide the embarrassment they feel for me. But they don't try too hard. Fact is, the stigma against the South is one of the last remaining socially acceptable forms of prejudice.
For example, during a recent lecture, one of my professors remarked matter of factly that America would probably be better off without the South. Several members of the audience chuckled. What if you substitute the word "Jews" or "blacks" for "South" in that sentence? Still funny? I didn't think so.
My classmates and professors envision a land fraught with economic privation, backward thinking and paralyzing racism. Some days, I see shades of those negative attributes, too. Most days, however, I just dwell on the South's many redeeming qualities.
Like Southern cooking. Or Southern idiom. Or pride and pageantry of Southern football games. But most of all, I love the Southern spirit, that quiet confidence that allows perfect strangers passing on the sidewalk to look one another in the eye, smile and say hello.
Yes, the South still has its problems. But suffering the self-righteous, uninformed prejudice of people from other regions will not help us solve those problems. After all, we in the South know far too well how harmful bigotry can be.
(ajc guest column.)
_______________
If I were Governor of the Empire State of the South, I would declare the month of December "John Jett Recognition and Appreciation Month."
For the last three years, I have lived outside of the South, and I have missed it every day I have been away.
I attend college in California, and many of my friends at school admit that for them, the South is an unpleasant mystery.
Often when I meet someone at school for the first time and tell them that I am from Georgia, a subtle change overtakes them, as if I'd forgotten to put on my pants. They try to hide the embarrassment they feel for me. But they don't try too hard. Fact is, the stigma against the South is one of the last remaining socially acceptable forms of prejudice.
For example, during a recent lecture, one of my professors remarked matter of factly that America would probably be better off without the South. Several members of the audience chuckled. What if you substitute the word "Jews" or "blacks" for "South" in that sentence? Still funny? I didn't think so.
My classmates and professors envision a land fraught with economic privation, backward thinking and paralyzing racism. Some days, I see shades of those negative attributes, too. Most days, however, I just dwell on the South's many redeeming qualities.
Like Southern cooking. Or Southern idiom. Or pride and pageantry of Southern football games. But most of all, I love the Southern spirit, that quiet confidence that allows perfect strangers passing on the sidewalk to look one another in the eye, smile and say hello.
Yes, the South still has its problems. But suffering the self-righteous, uninformed prejudice of people from other regions will not help us solve those problems. After all, we in the South know far too well how harmful bigotry can be.
(ajc guest column.)
_______________
If I were Governor of the Empire State of the South, I would declare the month of December "John Jett Recognition and Appreciation Month."
posted by Sid Cottingham | 6:15 AM
1 Comments:
I grew up and lived my whole life in California--up until I was 24 (I'm 29 now). John is pretty much on the mark with everything he says. I made my share of anti-Southern remarks before I ended up moving to Atlanta, and pretty much envisioned the entire region as some kind of weird hybrid of Deliverance, Gone with the Wind, and the Dukes of Hazzard...only more racist.
I have one memory of sitting in a sociology class (my major) while the professor was talking about how she chose graduate schools. One thing she mentioned was that she automatically wrote off any school in the South, because she refused to live in this region. No one questioned this or thought it was odd at all--I certainly didn't think of it as unreasonable or discriminatory at the time.
Of course, my view of this state and region is a lot more nuanced now. There are a lot of things here that need to be fixed--but it's not nearly as exaggerated as one would think from the way people talk about it. Maybe people who aren't from the South use the region to divert attention from their own problems: there are major cultural divides in every state in this nation--singling out Southerners as the "problem children" is misguided and even dangerous for the nation.
Californians aren't the only ones who do this "backward hicks" stereotyping, though. Plenty of people who live here in Georgia do the same thing. I can't tell you how many stupid jokes I've heard about Alabamans since I moved here. I guess everyone feels better as long as they can point to some other sucker and say, "Well, at least I'm smarter than that guy."
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