US Election - outsiders looking in

[Maurice Butler]

hi,

The BBC (UK) produce a great car program called "Top Gear" and filmed a show in the Southern States. They stirred up all the red necks living in the area and in the end had to get out for there own safety.

If Obama is president will the south try another civil war, or having a woman as president in a few years worse? (woman leader is a shocker was for us in NZ, talks about everything - doesn't do a lot)

If you get McCain will it come with fries www.mccain.com

Pot well stirred - sit back and see how it brews

[mdmull]

Comedian Lewis Black has a great routine about his trip to New Zealand. Basically, If you want to get the benefits of the USA, - Move those islands closer. Don't forget, if not for us, you'd be raising sheep for Japanese wool. Pot shaken?

[Maurice Butler]

Originally Posted by mdmull

Comedian Lewis Black has a great routine about his trip to New Zealand. Basically, If you want to get the benefits of the USA, - Move those islands closer. Don't forget, if not for us, you'd be raising sheep for Japanese wool. Pot shaken?

we are raising cows for japanese meat,
we make icream for japanese pleasure
in return we drive their cars (in the main boring & reliable)

the benefits of of America (classic fords, chevs, etc) we are shipping here as fast as we can find the money

[BeanCounter]

Rednecks?

At least our girlfriends don't wear wool 365 days out of the year.

[MysteryTrain]

Maurice,

Yeah, and I watched this movie once and it was filmed in NZ. It was a great movie about lords and rings and adventure. I was going to visit there once, but now I'm afraid that I will be attacked by elves and dragons. Can you please tell me the safest places to visit in NZ where I will not be accosted by midgets with hair on their feet?

All kidding aside, if you were actually asking a serious question out of innocent ignorance of the southern US, let me help. I grew up in Tennessee, went to college in the western US, have family in the New England area, and now live in Los Angeles. There is by far more racial tolerance and understanding in the south than any other part of the country I have been to. Sure, ignorant people can be found anywhere, but that stereotype of the south as racist and redneck is old and outdated. I've met tons of racist rednecks in Los Angeles, but knew only a few in the south. Hollywood and apparently, the UK media, still love to play up the tired old southern stereotype, but those who really live in the south understand that it is a far more complex and soulful place than could possibly be understood by any Yankee (a term, for you non-americans, that in the south refers to anyone who is from a place other than the south and is not a particularly flattering one). So, you are technically a Yankee also, and thus forgiven for your ignorance of the glorious south. And no, we would not have civil war if Obama won. In fact, there would be a much greater likelyhood that the ghetto areas of LA would riot if Obama lost than to have white southerners declare war if he won. If you were not serious about your inquiry, see paragraph #1.

[VRM]

MT,
I'm a (Damn) Yankee (living in New England). I've had the good fortune to be able to travel extensively for both work and pleasure. I can say that I have experienced more racism in the American south than I have in any other part of the US.
I once threatened to leave a job site (phone company work) when the central office techs and managers tried to 'impress' me with their less than civil treatment of a waiter at the place we were having lunch. I'm sure my accent (or lack of one - I've been confused for English, Canadian, Aussie, but never New Englander where I grew up) gave me away as something other than southerner.
There were also a few that I met in the hills of WV who did not take kindly to strangers, or the cell tower CO at the top of their hill. The CO had to have an electrified fence and security cameras otherwise the place and workers cars would be looted.

On the other hand, with the exception of the Irish and Scots, I have never had better hospitality from strangers. I would agree with the term 'soulful' to describe many Southerners, but there was also a distinct lack of curiosity about anything outside their own comfort zone for many of them. I have not met every Southerner, but I do feel that I have met a reasonably representative sampling from a variety of locales from 'civilised' Atlanta to Bayou Cajuns to backwoods trappers. Not all of them met the commonly accepted criteria for 'racist' or 'redneck' - in fact I would have to say that the majority of them did not, but the minority that did seemed significantly larger than the racist minorities in other parts of the US. Though Hawaii also seemed to have a lot of racism.

I also have to say that the most racist country I have ever been to is probably China.

Steve

[Ron61]

How many of you actually know what the term Redneck came from and what it meant when it was first used?

As for what Steve said I am in agreement with him as I had to work in some of those areas and lived in the Ozarks as a kid. Of course that was before the Earth was divided into continents. So there was no racism among the 3 of us.

I met a few of the old timers and some of them just didn't like anything new and wanted to be left alone. Didn't want any hand outs from the Govt. and would have preferred if they could have shot the ,quote, "Fools they send down here to tell us how to improve our lives."

Ron

[MysteryTrain]

Steve & Ron,

No doubt that Southerners are wary of strangers and outsiders as you mention. However, this is not necessarily "racisim". And yes, you can give plenty of anecdotal evidience of racism in the south. I'm simply saying that where I lived in the south and where I've lived outside the south have shown me that there is as much and more racism elsewhere. My evidence is only anecdotal too, but since that is what is accepted here, let me offer it up.

In Boston, CEOs of a large company there used the 'n' word regularly over lunch and on the golf course. Their sense of superiority was so complete that they didn't even realize they were racists. They were all well to do New Englanders and turned me off in a huge way as representatives of their part of the country. In Colorado, I witnessed multiple KKK and Neo-Nazi rallies, one of which ended with mounted riot police in downtown Denver. I never saw that growing up in the 1980's in the South. I've lived for almost 15 years in LA, and no city so diverse is so segregated. Blacks, Asians, Latinos, and whites simply don't live together the way you might expect. They have their own cities within the city and my white and black co-workers look at me strangely for going to gym in a black neighborhood because I work around there. And "rednecks" with giant trucks and rebel flags populate the inland empire region of Southern California with just as high a percentage as in my hometown. When was the last race riot in the South? In the 1970s. In LA? Last decade. I'm sure that you can find racism in the south, and congratulations if you worked there in the past, and if you grew up there when the dinosaurs roamed the earth but I had 20+ years growing up there in more recent times and whites and blacks went to the gym together and worked together and went to school together with less overt racism than the other places I mentioned. Is the South "glorioius" as I mentioned tounge-in-cheek earlier? No more so than any other region of the world. But is it worse? Not in my experience.

By the way, Steve, West Virgina is not the South to a Southerner. Heck, Tennessee is just barely in. And I agree with your experience with the Irish. However, I don't think that attitude is shared in places like Germany, France, eastern Europe. Racists and rednecks live everywhere. We all just like to pretend they only live in the Southeastern US. And finally, though you are a Yankee, I wouldn't call you a "Damn Yankee." See, we're not so intolerant.

[427 S/O]

MT, steve has previously stated 'I'm an agatator', so there you have it. I honestly believe, 'as an agatator', steve kinda makes stuff up as he goes along..........

Cornbread and buttermilk, thank you very much..........

[MysteryTrain]

don't forget the gravy

[VRM]

Originally Posted by 427 S/O

MT, steve has previously stated 'I'm an agatator', so there you have it. I honestly believe, 'as an agatator', steve kinda makes stuff up as he goes along..........

Perry,
Post the quote or bugger off. I never said I am an agitator (and I certainly would have spelled it correctly if I did). I don't usually point out spelling errors as we all make typos, but doing it twice in the same paragraph is ignorance, not a typo.
You've already posted a bunch of bogus info on Obama, now you need to do the same to me. No facts and ignorantly presented; just like I would expect from you.

MT,
Yep, there is certainly racism in New England as well. A friend of mine was involved with gang wars in Boston (and got killed because of it). You could not imagine the level of racism involved with just those gangs. Throw in the cops, and various other groups and you have a real mess. Racism in the cities in the east and west seems more potentially volatile, but that also seems to be because the various groups have sufficient mass to be able to fight against it in whatever way they think will work. The racism I saw in the south seemed to be expected. That waiter just took it - I ended up standing up for him. I was also in very little danger of being taken out back and beaten - I don't know if the same would hold true for him.

The cities in France and Germany are pretty inhospitable, but the rural areas are another story entirely. They are very friendly. Rural Japanese and Chinese even more so (though there was always an aura of Chinese superiority).

I think if the South as anything south of Carlisle, PA.

I do have a problem when people (and we have some of them on this forum) from the South call the 'blue' states anti-American and immoral. It's that whole glass house thing. But other than that I do find Southerners rather likable and friendly - and a lot of them could teach us Yankees (Damn or otherwise) a thing or two about family bonds, relaxing, manners, and work ethics.

Steve

[Ron61]

Mystery Train,

I wasn't trying to say the Southern people are any more racist than any other place. When I had a little time I would take a company car and drive off into the back areas and yes I did run into a couple of the Barney Fife type deputy sheriffs. What you doing driving a telephone company car and you are from California. Hauling dope back here to corrupt our kids. The darn car came from their own company about 40 miles away. That said most of the people that I stopped and talked to had a more laid back way of life and just preferred for the Govt. to stay out of their lives. They didn't like change especially when we were putting in computers to take the place of 10/20 men that had worked on the old mechanical machines and at times it got a little testy there. I believe that every person has some racism in them just as we all have some good and bad, and it is just how the individual was brought up or what that person chooses as to which is predominant for the most part. CEOs I never paid much attention to as I just counted them as highly paid politicians. More concerned with impressing the next higher level than giving credit to the people under them that had actually worked so they could enjoy those titles.
As for the term Red Neck, that can be attributed to the Unions from way back in the coal mine wars of West Virginia and a couple of other states when we first started becoming an industrial nation. If you ever get the chance to watch the show Hillbilly, narrated by Marty Stewart, do so. It is interesting.

Ron

[427 S/O]

I stand corrected steve, you said you were 'contrary' not an agitator.

Quote: vrm,
Just because I like to be contrary, and the lounge already has enough anti-Obama material...

Contrary:.... opposite in nature or character; diametrically or mutually opposed: contrary to fact;