Being from the south and coming to a northern school I am very aware of both the redneck community, and the stereotypes that a person that is not part of that community get when they come to Vermont. First of all let me explain that Atlanta is not part of the stereotypical community in the south that parades around with confederate flags, does snuff, and shoots squirrels off of there front porch(even though I would not mind doing that...squirrels suck). Atlanta is a huge city composed of "city-folk," just understand that.
The instance that I saw the other night at U-mall was both really funny and also enlightening to how some of the ideas people in the north form the ideas they do about people in the south. First of all where would you expect a group of rednecks to walk out of at a mall? They walked out of the Apple bee's, of all places these southern folk could of walked out of they chose the most stereotypical location. Also at the time it was snowing outside so when this southern family walked out of the Apple bee's they immediately started yelling very loudly,"Oh My God! It Is Snowing Outside." All of which is said in a very heavy southern accent. It is fine to yell about the snow, it is ridiculous that it is snowing right now. The thing that got to me was when this family kept on screaming about things that were not necessary, in fact I don't even know what they were screaming about because it was so uselessly loud. Everybody that was outside was starring at them and then the family said,"It's okay were from the south." That is the statement that really got me, I am not like that and I am from the south, but now a few of the people that were watching this situation will have the idea that most people from the south yell for no reason and have heavy accents. I do not have or do either of these things.
My heritage is southern, but in reality I am not a deep southern boy that has lived on a farm his whole life. I live in a massive city, that is very liberal and not in touch with there southern heritage. I am not disregarding my roots but I am also not part of the stereotypical apple bee's eating, Camo wearing farm boys that a lot of people seem to think that people from the south are.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
hahahaha. Since I am from Louisiana, I understand some of the things you are talking about. I grew up about an hour north of New Orleans in a small town. Comming up north, two years at boarding school in Maine, made me aware of some misconceptions on both ends. I had always imagine the north east as endless cities and snotty people. When I traveled through upper New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine I was stunned at the amount of wildlife and forests there. And for the most parts, the people were pretty nice to.
to me it seems like when they said "it's okay were from the south", they meant that to apologize for shouting about snow, since because they are from the south, they are not used to coming out of a building and realizing that it had started snowing while they were inside. but thats just my guess, they might have actually been using that as an excuse to be rowdy.
It seems to me you are the exception rather than the rule. I still think southern people are funny and the stereotype is hilarious. It easier just to laugh at silly southern people yelling about snow than to think about how that's not really how all those people down south are.
Post a Comment