The problems with the 'southern' stereotype
Whenever we hear someone talk in that distinctly slow southern drawl, we cannot help but assume two things: first, whoever is speaking is stupid, and second, they are, in all likelihood, racist. Popular culture has reinforced these images with films such as Deliverance and The Dukes of Hazzard which portray the south as a region consisting of nothing more than illiterate rednecks and Confederate flag-waving racists.
Having grown up in a small town in rural western Virginia, comfortably below the Mason-Dixon line, I’ve come across plenty of people who fit this description. However, no one who has recently spent significant time in the south would agree that all, or even most southerners can be accurately described by such characterisations. These essentialist stereotypes ignore both the changing nature of the ‘new south’ as well as the millions of black Americans who proudly call the south their home. This erasure of black people from the identity imposed upon the south by west coast and northern onlookers is a form of structural violence that disproportionally affects black people. The same stereotypes that forge caricatures of uninformed racist southerners, are ironically just that— uninformed and racist.
Onlookers have long, and understandably, defined the south by its problematic past. It is undeniable that the south has a legacy tarnished by the blood of slaves and haunted by the trauma of slavery. However, many southerners recognise that racism and oppression are not yet history, and they actively work to make it that. The widespread movement to remove confederate statues across the south is evidence of such efforts. The many statues scattered along Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia have long stood as sobering reminders of the hate and oppression on which the southern states were built. Their removal signals a change. Now, symbolically installed just one block from Monument Avenue, stands a colossal bronze statue of a black man dressed in hip-hop regimentals atop a rearing horse, usurping the pose of Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart. The artist, Kehinde Wiley, who is best known for his portrait of President Obama, effectively communicates the essence of this new south—a place that celebrates everyone.
If still unconvinced of the changing tide in the American South, one need not look further than the political metamorphosis that has occurred in Georgia. For the first time in 28 years, a democratic presidential candidate carried the state. Georgia’s recent election of Jon Ossof, a young Jewish man, and Raphael Warnock, a black preacher, to the United States Senate underscores this breakthrough. In becoming the first black senator to represent the state of Georgia, Warnock personifies a new south, one unrecognisable to his grandfather. Homogenising the south as racist overlooks this critical transition in the works.
Perceived stupidity has also come to define the south. While in some places graduation rates are low and drop-out rates are high, this is not representative of the whole population. The south has produced some of the greatest minds in American history, not to mention fifteen U.S. presidents. It is home to over a dozen of the best universities in the world, and, contrary to popular belief, these universities are not full of northern transplants. For example, of the students enrolled at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill over 50% are actually from North Carolina. Not only are there good schools but cutting-edge research out of North Carolina’s research triangle has successfully incentivised graduates from southern universities to stay in the south. In the places where illiteracy is actually a problem, it is important that it be seen not as an inherent deficit of ‘backwards’ southern states but as a structural failure of the collective United States.
According to the 2010 census the south is home to 55% of America’s black population and 105 southern counties have a black population of over 50%. There is a good argument to be made that the ‘average southerner’ has a different skin colour than what many onlookers might expect. These many black southerners are also to thank for countless intellectual and cultural contributions that have been stolen and appropriated as characteristically ‘American’—jazz, soul food, and rock and roll. Yet, when we think of the south, we don’t think of the contributions of black men and women; we instead think of the actions and behaviour of racist white people. The fact that white people at their very worst overshadow black people at their best is quite obviously prejudiced. While the south should be remembered for the evils of slavery and Jim Crow, we cannot let it render the contributions of black people invisible.
The number of black men and women in the south also makes stereotypes of southern stupidity deeply concerning. When people make the sweeping claim that those with southern accents must be stupid, they do not realise the racial undertones. University of Georgia professor Scott Nelson argues that when northerners first started making these generalisations, they did so due to a perception that the southern accent was more closely related to ‘black English’—something people in the north associated with stupidity. Those who see southerners as intellectually inferior need to consider how these stereotypes might negatively impact black communities and their opportunities for success. As a Wall Street Journal Article highlights, discrimination based on assumptions related to one’s accent is real and this intersects with existing racial prejudices to create a heightened experience of inequality.
The late Georgia Representative and Civil Rights icon John Lewis put it best, the south is an ‘unbelievable place in the making.’ Although it has yet to cross the finish line, the south is undeserving of essentialist troupes which prohibit progress by arresting its identity to that of its former self. That we have allowed these archetypes to monopolise the representation of the American south is a true injustice.
Banner image courtesy of Jimmy Thomas via Flickr, ©2019, some rights reserved.
