Two of the things you get used to when you tell people you are from the South are the stupid questions and the automatic assumptions. From the age of 9 until I graduated high school at 18, I lived in the Deep South—Alabama to be more precise. I moved there from a small town in Connecticut in 1984, when my father was out of work. The only job he could find was in Alabama. So my whole family packed up. I can’t say I loved all of it, but it is where I lived. At least I have the perspective of having lived in two completely different areas of the U.S. At least they seem different on the surface. Sure, the people talk a little more slowly and they seem more friendly. But to use the cliché People are people. No matter where you go, people are basically the same. That’s why when I read Maud’s post yesterday I felt I had to put in my two cents as well.

Maud takes umbrage with Charles Simic’s article in the most recent New York Review of Books, an essay titled ‘Down There on a Visit‘. And she was not the only one. The Morning News’s Clay Risen, from Nashville, wrote a great response to Simic’s article. And I just found Jeff of Syntax of Things response, which is eloquently written. We (and whomever else has read Simic’s article and hails from the South I suspect) feel like Simic already had his mind made up about the South even before he went on his two week trip through Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.

I agree that the South is not perfect. Changes still need to be made. But so don’t things elsewhere. The South is not the only area of the country where racism exists unfortunately. Simic talks about the mostly white enclave Fairhope, Alabama, a wealthy artists’ community. It was founded in 1884 as a model community where land was a cooperative and free from private monopolies. Now it is an upscale resort, writes Simic, where the citizens do not notice the growing disparity between rich and poor. Honestly, you can name a hundred towns like that all over the U.S. that sound just like that. Nantucket isn’t exactly a social paradise, where everyone is treated equally rich or poor.

It is not that I disagree with what Simic sees on his trip. It is just the paint he uses to make his picture, to use a poor metaphor. He talks as if nothing has changed down South, while the rest of the country has evolbed into some sort of utopia. He does acknowledge that New Hampshire has it’s share of heartless politicians. But he is also quick to say that the New Hampshire politicians don’t “invoke God as they go about ensuring that the poor stay poor”. And he mentions that Americans as of late have been voting against their own self interests, caring more about ‘family values’, guns, and the teaching of evolution. “They squabble, as they did on Alabama recently, over whether the Ten Commandments ought to be posted in a courthouse while the education of their children continues to be underfunded and their overcrowded public schools are violent and dangerous places.” See only in Alabama do they the ignorant parents fight over religion when there are more pressing issues at hand. Only in the South are people so obsessed with religion and guns. Yeah. Only in the South.

I am sure if I not been white, my experience would have been different. But the South tries. And I don’t find things much better up here in New England either. Boston is segregated still too. There is much racism in this city. And in other cities across the U.S. Why then does Simic and other authors continue to portray the South as this backwards region populated with ignorant but friendly folk (they are always friendly they make sure to say)? Why do people I know talk about being scared of the South? Scared of getting harassed or something? They are bad assumptions that continue to endure because people like Simic continue to write articles like ‘Down there on a Visit’. Risen is correct when he says the most of the readers of Simic’s article won’t be shocked. Rather, it will be affirming what most of them believe already, what they have been taught.

I doubt anything I say here will make much of a dent in the South’s poor reputation. I suppose I just want people to know that its not that bad. And why Southerners always seem to be on the defensive. We just get so much crap from everyone. Take a look at where you grew up. Is that much different? I didn’t think so.