You know the irony about southern stereotypes that i see even just in my own life experience?
I grew up in Pennsylvania. Pretty solidly up north. I was less than a 2 hour drive away from Philadelphia and New York city. While i was rural, the population density immediately around me was very dense.
And where i grew up? There was a lot of bigotry, a lot of white supremacy. I grew up with a close family that was mixed race (immediate family, first cousins, aunts, uncles on my dad's side) but an extended family that was all white. Those of us with mixed blood were outcasts to most of the purely white family just on account of not being fully white. Again, in Pennsylvania, up north. Even some of the mixed race family members like my own father bought into white supremacy and that made him fit in better with some of the bigoted extended family.
And in my like 98-99% white home town? Incest happened. People lived in trailers and slums. Any southern stereotypes you can think of happened there.
Like, i dunno, i saw basically every southern stereotype somewhere around me growing up in the north. And I really think that if you don't see bigotry and white supremacy around you up north, especially when you venture outside the biggest cities in any northern state, you're really just not looking hard enough. I saw it in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana. I know it's in Oregon and Washington and Idaho. Where in the north is supposedly free from this sin we tend to only associate with the south? Name a place and i bet these southern stereotypes are less than an hour drive away, if not closer.
I feel like this characterization of the south, especially among northern liberals (and even leftists) is an easy way to act like the entire problem is elsewhere. If you live up north, it's an easy way to put your head in the sand and act like there's nothing you need to do to fix anything nearby. That all of the problems are so far away that there's no real work you could do on your own local community.
It's an easy blame game. In feb of 2021 when the texas power grid was failing and people were freezing, liberals at large and even groups of leftists made fun of texans about this.
"This is what you voted for"
"This is what you deserve for being in texas"
In February 2021 i was disgusted witnessing this kind of sentiment. I knew that many of the communities that were suffering the most were minority communities that were gentrified out of their votes swinging texas blue. And more broadly, regardless of who voted what, it was the poor suffering as the wealthy enriched themselves in deregulating and privatizing the texas power grid. Yet many liberals and even many leftists got enjoyment and laughs out of the suffering and even deaths of poor people at the greed of the wealthy elite.
There are plenty of people down south who are working and fighting to make their communities better. There are plenty of people down south who are working hard to move somewhere safer for them. Neither of these things are easy.
I'm gonna summarize the points I'm trying to make in all of this:
-Anything bad or gross stereotyped as a thing that happens in the south also happens all across the north, including bigotry and incest.
-Bad things that happen to people in the south shouldn't be funny or cathartic to leftists, as these are losses in the class struggle. These are poor people (including minority groups you supposedly care about) being hurt by the greed of the wealthy.
-North vs South is another line of division for the working class that the wealthy benefit from.
-We on the left have allies down south. Ignoring this only hurts our cause in more ways than i can list here.
-For many reasons people can't "just move" as most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck because of the class struggle. It takes forever to save up to move somewhere like New York or Seattle where you'll be safer as a queer person.
Bonus point i didn't make yet but is also relevant: making fun of southern accents is rooted in racist origins. I might get into detail on this another time.
