on being Southern

[anotheranon]

As mentioned earlier, I visited with my family down in Atlanta for Thanksgiving. Much bird and much talking, on matters great and small. And in the course of discussion, I came to a kind of realization.

I don't identify as "Southern" anymore, if I ever really did.

It's hard for me to explain just what makes the culture of the Southern U.S. different from elsewhere in the country, partly because I've not lived that many different places. Wikipedia has an entry on Southern culture, divided into tidy sections about people, cuisine, music, etc., and while it's a nice overview it still doesn't get at what I'm trying to describe.

When I think of the overall "mood" of where I grew up, it's one of leisure and hospitality overlaid with a subtly enforced conformity. Understand - the open heartedness and hospitality are unbelievable - if you go through the correct motions everyone is generous and friendly to a fault. But there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of room to "fly your freak flag", so to speak.

I'm not talking about the stereotypes about Southerners that describe open ignorance and bigotry, nor am I talking about justifiable shocked reactions when one violates the basic rules for polite cocktail party/work conversation (don't talk about religion/politics/sex). It's the silences that greet revelations that one doesn't go to church, or the raised eyebrows when one casually mentions one's (male) friend's boyfriend, and the like.

A couple of years ago my mom and I talked about this and she confessed "Some things just aren't talked about in the South". It's true, they just aren't, even when they're glaringly obvious to all onlookers.

Maybe I was just being oversensitive, but as a kid and even more as a teenager, butting against these Things That Can Not Be said chafed miserably. Being unable to shoehorn my frustrations into words, I was a fairly angry kid. And there's very little room for Angry Females(TM) in the polite, self-effacing model of Southern womanhood I percieved growing up (a whole other post of its own).

Please understand that this isn't a denigration of the South or all things Southern - this is just my experience and may be biased by familial or generational stuff I ran into. There are certain things I love about the region to this day - the food, the kind people, the slower pace of life. But where I live now seems a lot more open to people being themselves, and being an adult with some significant "freak flags", it's a better fit for me.

I realized I was never going to "get it" when my sister started going off about "outsiders" who come in and try to tell Southerners "how to do things". Outsiders? Aren't we all Americans?

And yeah, I've heard people who try and trot out the stereotype of ignorant hicks who marry their cousins, but it's fairly easy to point out that the South hasn't cornered the market on stupid, and I know they can't be talking about me.

Maybe it's just that I've never had very many people put me on the defensive about it, or maybe it's just that I never quite fit in the first place.

Comments

[timcharmorbien.livejournal.com]

I do understand what you mean about the pressure to conform, though I have been cheerfully ignoring it for years. :) I suppose I only really think of myself as Southern because I actually *live* here, because I do have different ideas/values then many of my neighbors, and most of my real friends don't live anywhere NEAR here. I am a bit less conflicted about the local culture, but then I didn't grow up female in a still rather patriarchal society, so that gives me a different perspective.

It doesn't mean I have much patience with revisionists or those apologists that try to gloss over slavery/segregation, that the Confederate battle flag has no POSSIBLE negative connotation, or that the South is the "last bastion of Christianity" (if I may quote the odious missive on the Dixie Outfitters homepage), and you should hear me rant when our state legislature acts like a bunch of hicks, but there are a few intelligent, free thinking individuals who give me hope that it really COULD turn out to be a New South after all.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

See, that's the thing - most Southerners I know (including yourselves) don't meet the "ignorant redneck" stereotype. Nor do they meet the less offensive Southern "ideals" of traditionalism or religosity (two ideals I have little use for). So why get knickers in a knot (or put oneself on a pedestal) over traits that anyone anywhere can have?

I do miss the slowed pace sometimes though. DC works hard and plays hard!

I won't even start about Southern patriarchy :P