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Hi all! A thread in GBS ( Why should we put up with the South's poo poo? ) prompted me to do some serious thinking about my home region. I'm a native Georgian and have lived here for almost my entire life (now residing in Atlanta) and there's no denying that it is incredibly evident that the South is the worst off region of the USA. These graphs demonstrate that the South is the poorest (though I really impugn the use of the idea of "backwardness" to describe it) area of the country: Southern states (except for Texas, which isn't really "Southern" per se) take in more Federal tax dollars for aid than they pay back every year  The "Deep South" (North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida) have much higher crime rates than the rest of the country (and the upper Southern states)  The South has higher poverty on average than the rest of the country:  It has the highest rate of child poverty in the USA:  Why are poverty rates so high, you ask? Well, because the South also has the lowest minimum wages in the country as well!  Key: Green: States with higher minimum wages than the Federal Blue: States with minimum wages the same as the Federal Yellow: States with no minimum wage Red: States with minimum wages lower than the Federal Due to the above, people living in Southern states are much less likely to move up the economic ladder! This is a map of economic mobility and the South looks pretty bad!  I hope you don't get sick, because with the exception of Kentucky and Arkansas, no Southern state expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act....  ....Which is going to cost the South a poo poo ton of money by 2022, as this map shows:  This is particularly distressful because the South is the fattest and most unhealthy region of the country as well!  We're also heavy smokers, but the South does grow some goddamn good tobacco. I don't smoke, but I use snus on a daily basis (which on a scale of tobacco, rates the safest method of consuming it). Our cigarettes are cheap here ($4 for a pack of Marlboros in the middle of Atlanta and it goes down to sometimes $3 out in the rural areas)  Due to our largely abstinence-only education in schools, we have the highest rate of teen births in the USA.  And finally, we're the least happy region of the country.  So, I put the question to all of you: what can be done about this? The reasons for these statistics are pretty clear and date back to the Civil War and Reconstruction. The North had the perfect opportunity to practice forced integration and all when they tried Reconstruction, but they didn't and it hosed up the entire Confederacy even more. Where can we, both as a region and a nation, go from here to improve the plight of the South? We're quickly becoming a very important part of the nation with many Southern states becoming major centers for job growth and we're exploring additional industries (Atlanta in particular and Georgia as a whole is becoming a sort-of Second Hollywood with our new movie and filming tax breaks. You may have seen my state on The Walking Dead, which was filmed right around where I live) and many other films and TV shows are starting to come here. In fact, if there's a movie with an old theater in it, there's a 90% chance it's the Fabulous Fox Theater. The South needs some serious help. We've been taken over by extremist right wing crackpots and what's worse, the rural citizens are HAPPY with those crackpots being in Congress. There's got to be something we can do.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:05
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You've got a bad political culture built on apathy and good old boy networks that stretch back to Reconstruction (or even further). The best play to break that stranglehold would be to find run locals on a centrist, economy-focused platform after you've spent the previous dozen years building up a volunteer network and voter rolls. Of course all of that takes big money, so you run into a chicken & egg problem. If you want a (somewhat) applicable model, you could check out Battleground Texas.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:27
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Before everyone starts going "loving rednecks are dumbshits" the vast majority of the South's poverty is concentrated in minorities:   You're just as likely to be a poor white person in Vermont as you are in Alabama. You're also just as likely to be black and poor in Vermont as in Alabama (or Hispanic and in Pennsylvania vs Georgia, etc). How the nation as a whole treats minorities is very much related to how poor the South is.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:32
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I am not fond of the south, that is all. also Texas is a wannabe southern state, Texas is more Midwest/Southwest. Unless you are talking culture, but in that case AZ and NM could be southern states. Helpimscared fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 20:35
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computer parts posted:Before everyone starts going "loving rednecks are dumbshits" the vast majority of the South's poverty is concentrated in minorities: poo poo, I don't know how I could have forgotten about that. Blacks especially are treated very poorly in the South, for logical reasons. You are more likely to receive harsher prison sentences, be in poverty, and the like if you are black. Atlanta is different in a way, since it is a minority-majority city (all the white people fled to the suburbs in the past forty years). They don't know what they're missing out on though - Atlanta's black culture is loving awesome and soul food is delicious. They can keep their whitebread chain restaurants, I'm going to pop across the street to the BBQ shack and get some ribs from the 65 year old black man whose family has been running that shack since 1940. 1lb of ribs for $6? Hell yes.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:37
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What was that net worth graph? Whites were a median 55kish, blacks, 6k. America is racist as poo poo. Legalize all the illegals, and so that is more muted maybe? I can't find the graph I was thinking of, but goggling it shows multiple graphs, all telling the same story. 
Femur fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 20:43
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Excellent OP, and I hate to do this only a few posts in, but:HonorableTB posted:Southern states (except for Texas, which isn't really "Southern" per se) If you want to have a good discussion about the American South it's probably best to dismiss this whole idea of "Southern" versus "not-Southern" states. The idea of "Southern"-ness in the U.S. is more cultural and less geographical. Yes, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone saying that Lubbock is culturally Southern, but on the other hand you'll definitely hear a rebel yell or two in Beaumont. The whole "this state is/isn't Southern" thing is going to come up, why not just go ahead and acknowledge the fact that the "South" as a cultural region in the U.S. doesn't line up neatly with our state borders? Of course the problem is that statistics are usually collected by counties and states, but, having high hopes for the thread, I don't want to see long, pointless derails about whether Missouri or Virginia are sufficiently "Southern" enough.
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Jul 6, 2014 21:22
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TipTow posted:The whole "this state is/isn't Southern" thing is going to come up, why not just go ahead and acknowledge the fact that the "South" as a cultural region in the U.S. doesn't line up neatly with our state borders? http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/which-states-are-in-the-south/ This is an interesting fivethirtyeight article that speaks to this point. A poll on what is or isn't the south. Different groups are polled; those who identify themselves as "southerners" and those who do not. quote:"First, the Southerners were considerably more certain of which states are their own. While the top few Midwest states barely pulled 80 percent of the vote, nearly 90 percent of respondents identified Georgia and Alabama as Southern, and more than 80 percent placed Mississippi and Louisiana in the South. South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and North Carolina all garnered above 60 percent. Edit: I attempted to attach an image file, but apparently that's broken. There are nice graphical maps at the url.
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Jul 6, 2014 21:35
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I think the "South" really does conform to state boundaries. There's a difference between Mississippi and Texas just like there's a difference between Kentucky and Ohio. I'd even hesitate to place Kentucky in the "South" as it never went for the Confederacy. Traditionally speaking, what is considered to be the South is the old Confederacy. Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Texas is its own thing, though. They're both Southern and not Southern. Edit: I do agree with the idea of cultural boundaries not neatly conforming to state ones, though. You'll find culturally Southern areas in southern Ohio and Indiana, and probably southern Maryland and west Texas too. Also, possibly southern Missouri though I can't really vouch for those since I've never been to Texas or Missouri. I still hold that demarking the physical boundaries is important, though.
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Jul 6, 2014 22:30
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I've always felt that Bob Dylan of all people summed up the south fairly well in Only a Pawn in their Gamequote:A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood Nckdictator fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 22:37
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HonorableTB posted:Edit: I do agree with the idea of cultural boundaries not neatly conforming to state ones, though. You'll find culturally Southern areas in southern Ohio and Indiana, and probably southern Maryland and west Texas too. Also, possibly southern Missouri though I can't really vouch for those since I've never been to Texas or Missouri. I still hold that demarking the physical boundaries is important, though. Texas east of the Brazos (roughly) is much more like the more eastern south than the rest of the state. Most of Texas was unpopulated by Europeans (and barely by Native Americans) at the time of the Civil War, but the eastern part of the state was cotton country. The central uplands of the state were populated by Germans and other Central Europeans starting after 1848 (mostly), and that part of the state is (and was, in the 1860s) culturally a lot different than the east. Dallas and Houston today are (for Texas) fairly progressive, as of course are San Antonio and Austin. There's still the general hard-headed unwillingness to generate revenue (i.e. tax) for just about anything at all, which is why the roads suck and there's no public transit (Dallas is a big exception; I don't know what happened to the water supply in that place after I left in the late 80s).
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Jul 6, 2014 22:47
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HonorableTB posted:I think the "South" really does conform to state boundaries. There's a difference between Mississippi and Texas just like there's a difference between Kentucky and Ohio. I'd even hesitate to place Kentucky in the "South" as it never went for the Confederacy. Traditionally speaking, what is considered to be the South is the old Confederacy. Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Texas is its own thing, though. They're both Southern and not Southern. The problem with this is it isn't black-and-white. What of the slaveowning Native American tribes in what is now Oklahoma that sent delegates to the Confederate Congress? Oklahoma was a part of the "Solid South" from post-Reconstruction until the civil rights era, complete with the white primary. HonorableTB posted:I still hold that demarking the physical boundaries is important, though. Why is that?
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Jul 6, 2014 23:02
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dp
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Jul 6, 2014 23:02
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wow, hosed this up
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Jul 6, 2014 23:03
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emfive posted:Texas east of the Brazos (roughly) is much more like the more eastern south than the rest of the state. Most of Texas was unpopulated by Europeans (and barely by Native Americans) at the time of the Civil War, but the eastern part of the state was cotton country. The central uplands of the state were populated by Germans and other Central Europeans starting after 1848 (mostly), and that part of the state is (and was, in the 1860s) culturally a lot different than the east. Yeah, that population pattern is made pretty clear if you actually look at who voted for secession.  Every county with an X (all in the west) had no returns, so the area in which (white) voters lived and were politically organized was even more restricted than the borders of the map suggest. What's now the more "culturally Southern" part of Texas is, more or less, Confederate Texas. The anti-succession glob in the center of the state comprises the largely German-settled counties. And no, I don't know what is up with Angelina County.
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Jul 6, 2014 23:07
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TipTow posted:The problem with this is it isn't black-and-white. What of the slaveowning Native American tribes in what is now Oklahoma that sent delegates to the Confederate Congress? Oklahoma was a part of the "Solid South" from post-Reconstruction until the civil rights era, complete with the white primary. I believe it's important because of regional pride. It may be a really silly notion, but Southerners are proud to be Southern. And there's also a really big internal debate about what states ARE considered Southern. By and large, everyone accepts what the "Deep South" states are. There's more ambiguity about Kentucky, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, West Virginia, and Maryland. Some people support labeling those states as Southern states, and some people think there's a difference in those states that amounts to economic, cultural, and regional differences. If we're going to discuss a region, I feel that it is necessary to properly lay out what areas we're discussing. For example, Kentucky never joined the Confederacy but it still held strong ties to Southern culture and values. They were occupied by the Army of the Republic; would they have also seceded if that were not the case? That would have changed many things, including a probable Southern victory in the Civil War. In that same vein, if Kentuckians wished to secede but weren't able to, that would put them more in line with "Southern" values and tradition and lead to a different cause-and-effect scenario where the root of the problems I listed in the OP for Kentucky would be different. If I'm wrong, please point it out because I am no professional historian, social or otherwise. I hold a BA in history and half of a Masters in it, but that by no means makes me an expert.
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Jul 6, 2014 23:20
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Oklahoma's major metro areas really lack that "southern" vibe as well. I can't speak much for the deep rural areas which are admittedly the vast majority of the state, if not it's population, but in my sadly extensive experience, Oklahomans would much rather be though of as cowboys and westerners (in the classic, western-movie sense) than they would southerners. Most of the no-shirt-coveralls-confederate-flag-on-my-pickup-truck assholes are spillovers from other states. At least, that's what I tell myself to make it less embarrassing to be an Oklahoman. Tulsa is awesome though.
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Jul 6, 2014 23:52
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I moved to Oklahoma at age 22 and I've never heard so many people casually say the n word. I've heard it in Walmart, I've heard it at social gatherings, restaurants. It's a pretty southern state, at least politically and socially.
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Jul 6, 2014 23:55
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Oh ok well if casual racism and voting Republican are how you want to define "southern" than yeah we sure are, although those things are hardly unique to the south, and are I think a little reductive of an assessment of southern culture. Racists and Republicans are everywhere. Are they more densely concentrated in the south? Sure. But I don't really think those are defining characteristics of what makes a place culturally southern.
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Jul 7, 2014 00:03
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stinkles1112 posted:Oh ok well if casual racism and voting Republican are how you want to define "southern" than yeah we sure are, although those things are hardly unique to the south, and are I think a little reductive of an assessment of southern culture. Racists and Republicans are everywhere. Are they more densely concentrated in the south? Sure. But I don't really think those are defining characteristics of what makes a place culturally southern. Yeah if you're going by that definition then parts of literally every state (usually the majority of the land in the state) would count as being southern. Including West Virginia is especially funny because of the circumstances behind its creation.
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Jul 7, 2014 00:16
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Oklahomans talk like southerners for one.
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Jul 7, 2014 00:53
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Pretty much any of the red/pink areas on this map east of the rockies are what I consider the south. Trying to argue that Texas is not culturally part of the south is hilarious. Please continue. 
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Jul 7, 2014 01:33
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crabcakes66 posted:Pretty much any of the red/pink areas on this map east of the rockies are what I consider the south. I mean, probably not Delaware, and West Virginia and Maryland are debatable
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Jul 7, 2014 01:38
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Koyaanisgoatse posted:I mean, probably not Delaware, and West Virginia and Maryland are debatable Have you ever been to West Virginia?
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Jul 7, 2014 01:40
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crabcakes66 posted:Pretty much any of the red/pink areas on this map east of the rockies are what I consider the south. Texas isn't so much Southern as it is an amalgamation of Spanish/Mexican/Texan/Southern because of its unique circumstances of first being a Spanish colony, then a Mexican colony, then its own country. You could make much a same argument for Florida, without the "Floridian" bit.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:44
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HonorableTB posted:Texas isn't so much Southern as it is an amalgamation of Spanish/Mexican/Texan/Southern because of its unique circumstances of first being a Spanish colony, then a Mexican colony, then its own country. You could make much a same argument for Florida, without the "Floridian" bit. North Florida is the embodiment of The South.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:48
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Yeah the difference between Central and South Florida to North Florida is pretty shocking. Of course across the entire state people living in the sticks are just as uneducated and poor as the rest of the south.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:55
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The southern borders of states like Ohio, Illinois, etc, are all ambiguous of course, but I would say Missouri as a whole is not southern. Texas and Florida are part southern, north Florida and East Texas are both 100% though. As for Delaware, Maryland and Northern Virginia yeah sure why not, they were historically in any case.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:57
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icantfindaname posted:The southern borders of states like Ohio, Illinois, etc, are all ambiguous of course, but I would say Missouri as a whole is not southern. Texas and Florida are part southern, north Florida and East Texas are both 100% though. As for Delaware, Maryland and Northern Virginia yeah sure why not, they were historically in any case. Northern Virginia, especially around D.C. in places like Alexandria is very very liberal, for obvious reasons.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:58
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It should be pointed out also that places like much of Texas, much of Florida, Atlanta, Northern Virginia, etc, places that have had nearly all of the growth in population and economy in the last 50 years, are basically night and day different than the traditional small town rural south.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:04
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crabcakes66 posted:Pretty much any of the red/pink areas on this map east of the rockies are what I consider the south. Texas is definitely culturally Southern, at least everything East of I-35 is, but we did a good job of pivoting post-reconstruction into being a "Western" state. State history classes in Texas focused on our winning independence from Mexico, not our loss as part of the confederacy. Gave us more pride than the other confederate losers, so while they basically doubled-down on the southern thing, we kind of kept it at arm's length. Those same history classes that talked about how we should remember the Alamo would also focus on Sam Houston's bitter rejection of succession. A century of young Texans had an education that framed the whole thing was just a dumb goof. The confederacy wasn't a big part of our history, it was just one of the six flags that flew over the state during it's history. Also, during the civil rights era our politicians weren't as blazingly segregationist. Partially because they saw the winds of change coming and knew they didn't want to die on that hill. Partially because we had a lot more power in the federal government than many other southern states. And mostly because they knew that LBJ could ruin you with one wag of his dick if he thought you were gonna cross him. That said, my high school only got rid of the Confederate battle flag as its school flag the year before I came in as a freshman, in 1994. And they still sang slow-dixie at our graduation in 1998. Texas is a very weird place.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:05
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icantfindaname posted:It should be pointed out also that places like much of Texas, much of Florida, Atlanta, Northern Virginia, etc, places that have had nearly all of the growth in population and economy in the last 50 years, are basically night and day different than the traditional small town rural south. Well there is still the rural/urban divide going on but that also plays into the fact that the south is more overwhelming rural than the rest of the county.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:06
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I think it's worth making clear (especially to people not from the South) that being liberal and not-racist doesn't disqualify a place from being "southern." Progressivism in the US is very much a rural vs urban thing, inside and outside of the South.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:08
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HonorableTB posted:Texas isn't so much Southern as it is an amalgamation of Spanish/Mexican/Texan/Southern because of its unique circumstances of first being a Spanish colony, then a Mexican colony, then its own country. You could make much a same argument for Florida, without the "Floridian" bit. That's like saying that New Orleans isn't part of the South because of its unique circumstances. Every state in the South is unique, that doesn't mean you get out of being the South.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:08
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SedanChair posted:That's like saying that New Orleans isn't part of the South because of its unique circumstances. Every state in the South is unique, that doesn't mean you get out of being the South. Okay, how about this then: Texan is southern, but generally has the good sense to be ashamed of that fact and tries to hide it.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:12
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TipTow posted:
Well, for one thing, politics tends to occur within state, county, and city boundaries. Labor laws, minimum wage, taxes, and welfare programs all tend to be controlled at the state level, and these all contribute immensely to institutional racism. A higher minimum wage means that women and minorities have a higher standard of living. Lax labor law enforcement empowers (usually white, upper-middle-class) business owners to steal from (usually poorer, usually less-educated, often minority) employees. While cultural attitudes tend to shift gradually across geography, without specific regard to political borders, laws have hard-and-fast borders at the state level, and attitudes towards enforcing those laws tend to shift at county and state borders. Gravity Pike fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 02:12
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Small town rural attitudes are the same no matter where they are. I grew up on the border of IL and WI on a farm with the closest town being one of 100 people, and have more in common culturally with people I know from Georgia and Alabama than from Chicagoland. Lawn jockeys (most people don't even know what these are, but southerners sure do) were a common sight where I grew up, as were confederate flags, and this is in the unarguable 'north.'
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Jul 7, 2014 02:13
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e_angst posted:Okay, how about this then: Texan is southern, but generally has the good sense to be ashamed of that fact and tries to hide it. Texas has the bad sense to think that being texan isn't worse than being a southerner.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:14
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TipTow posted:The whole "this state is/isn't Southern" thing is going to come up, why not just go ahead and acknowledge the fact that the "South" as a cultural region in the U.S. doesn't line up neatly with our state borders? Of course the problem is that statistics are usually collected by counties and states, but, having high hopes for the thread, I don't want to see long, pointless derails about whether Missouri or Virginia are sufficiently "Southern" enough. I think it's hilarious that someone posting "Please don't start a debate about what is and isn't the South" started a debate about what is and isn't the South. I'm from and have lived all over Texas, rural and urban. Culturally it is its own thing, very Southern, and very Southwestern all at the same time. Politically and historically however it is southern, and while maybe not as monolithic as the deep south, it's a firm solid south state and has been so for its entire history.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:14
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e_angst posted:Okay, how about this then: Texan is southern, but generally has the good sense to be ashamed of that fact and tries to hide it. Can you explain why someone should feel ashamed of being Southern? The South, like other areas, has its upsides and downsides. The South isn't all slavery and Jim Crow. There are many legitimately good things about this region, and no one should feel ashamed of that. We gave the rest of the country sweet tea, after all.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:24
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