TW: Brief mentions of colonization, genocide, slavery, white supremacy, massacres, lynchings, KKK, Jim Crow, segregation, human trafficking, anti-Indigenous racism, abortion, CSA, COCSA, birth defects and genetic diseases, contact pedophilia, traumatic pregnancies. Consistent mentions of racism, poverty, conservatism, classism, SA, incest, generational trauma, bullying, oppression, anti-Black racism
Country/Southern Stereotypes
Idk, maybe I’m that one friend who’s too woke but “country stereotypes” pmo so much
I am from the American south. I know its history and especially the history in my area (though I am still learning every day). The colonization, genocide of Indigenous people, slavery, white supremacy, racism, Jim Crow-era, segregation, the destruction of natural environments that misplaced Indigenous people, anti-Indigenous and anti-Black legislation, inability to vote, hunting/massacring animals that provided sources of food for Indigenous people, ripping away the culture and language of Indigenous people and forcing them into schools that forcibly erased their identities, the trafficking of Indigenous and Black people, disproportionately forcing poc into poverty, indentured servitude, lynching campaigns, the KKK, massacres of Black and Indigenous people, and so, SO much more.
And I know there’s a concentration of conservatives here even currently that actively harm others.
I will never be the type to praise the south or be extremely proud of my roots because they grew from the blood of so many innocent people, but fact is that I am from this region and therefore am part of a southern demographic.
Ofc, much like anything else, the south is diverse and everyone has different experiences, but as someone from the south I have always been hyperaware of ‘country stereotypes’.
We are consistently seen as unintelligent, uneducated, unhygienic, impoverished, conservative, and often force ourselves to train our accents and natural dialect out of ourselves to be seen as “less stupid”.
I’m sick and tired of it.
To assume anyone is inherently stupider due to the place they were born in is just plain, downright wrong. We know this. But education funding in the south is often lacking, and so a lot of southern people do go without unbiased, funded, accessible education. This is not the fault of the people there but the government who is failing us
Not all places in the south are impoverished, though there is a higher density of impoverished communities here. I personally live in one of the lowest income communities in the US. HOWEVER, reducing all of us to “poor, dirty, trailer trash hicks” negates the real harm of infrastructures who consistently fail to help us rise up and provide for ourselves. Also, a lot of it is rooted in racism, coming from stereotypes perpetuated by the false idea of the “welfare queen”, almost exclusively depicted as a Black woman who abuses public assistance programs to “live above her means”. Most of the time when someone is impoverished, it is due to generational poverty, disability, lack of access to necessary education, national/global trends, and a failure on the government’s part
Immediately assuming all southern people are conservative is 1) just not true, 2) negates the experiences of southern people who are minorities and are actively harmed by the conservatism plaguing the south, 3) offers an excuse and avenue for those with conservative ideals to never challenge their bigoted mental frameworks because they are “already assumed to be conservative”. No one should feel comfortable with bigotry and we should not normalize it in the slightest
Having to erase the natural way you speak to be taken seriously by employers and people outside of your demographic is inherently harmful and it feels awful. My accent helps me connect with myself and the folks around me, and when I moved to an area that spoke primarily Standard American Dialect, I was bullied and made fun of for the way I said words/the words I used, and it not only made me feel like shit for simply existing in my natural state, but forced me to conform to a dialect that wasn’t natural to me. I spent years not talking like myself and I always felt disconnected from my home and local community, and it took genuine effort to relearn my natural dialect and accent (even if it never fully left me, I just suppressed it). Code switching is a natural part of being a social, sentient being, but having to suppress your natural speech constantly is NOT okay
Now, setting aside my experience as a white person, this kind of behavior disproportionately effects Black people. AAVE is spoken all over America, but ESPECIALLY so in the south, and Black people consistently have to change their dialect and vernacular to find/keep jobs, be taken seriously in education, be seen as “not aggressive” (due to stereotypes that Black people and especially Black women are inherently more aggressive, which is, obviously, not true), and to avoid harassment/bullying. Creating an environment where people have to divorce themselves from their way of speech due to their upbringing, surroundings, community, and region is classist (this is a whole discussion within itself), racist (when specifically done against bipoc), and extremely harmful
Allow me to nerd emoji 🤓 for a sec: the dialect spoken in the south is called Southern American English, which is an umbrella term for a collection of regional dialects spoken in the south, each respective of the particular state/city that unique accent/dialect hails from. There are actually SO MANY different southern accents and it’s completely fascinating to me, especially the accents from my state (🤫). Unfortunately, due to social media, most American accents are starting to become homogenous, SPECIFICALLY morphing into the Standard American Dialect (think of places like California and Arizona, though not everyone there speaks it). Southern accents are becoming rarer, let alone other accents from other parts of the US. The last natural American British accent, from Guinea, Virginia, is on the verge of ceasing to exist and it’s heartbreaking. Accents are amazing and unique features of spoken language, and they make everything that much more fun and beautiful. It would be so boring if everyone spoke the exact same way. EVERYONE, PROTECT YOUR ACCENTS!! GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO LEAN INTO THEM!! PLEASE! PRESERVE DYING AMERICAN ACCENTS!!!
Let’s also talk about the stereotype of “country people do incest”. First of all, EW. Second, making jokes out of incest undermines the experiences and trauma of survivors. You shouldn’t make fun of incest just like you shouldn’t make fun of SA. By turning it into a joke and normalizing it as just “something that happens in the south”, that not only will encourage someone to potentially act on these things because they see it as normal, but it ALSO makes it THAT MUCH HARDER for those who have experienced incest to reach out for help/talk about their experiences. We need to take these things seriously. Oftentimes, incest intersects with power dynamic imbalances, CSA, COCSA, SA, contact pedophilia (in cases of family members taking advantage of underage family), generational trauma, birth defects and genetic disorders upon birth, underage/traumatic pregnancies, inability to access safe abortions, and intense social stigma.
It is NOT a stretch to say that these kinds of things hurt people and can harm families for generations.
I’m going to be very vulnerable here (internet mistake No. 1 I fear 💔💔) and say that my family recently found out that on my father’s side of the family, and though it was a few generations back, there was at least one confirmed case of incest, AT LEAST. It has caused a lot of emotional distress for my family and they had to confront a lot of icky thoughts they otherwise wouldn’t have, and all of the people on my paternal grandmother’s side of the family suffer from intense, life-threatening allergies. I also have many chronic illnesses and disabilities, and though it doesn’t have to be necessarily related, there’s a part of me that believes it probably didn’t help 💔💔
It is never funny to joke about incest.
If there are any southern/country folks out there who have experienced mistreatment/negative stereotypes due to being from the south, I’d be curious to hear about your experiences. If you have any other common stereotypes that I forgot to mention or some more explanation/information about the points I mentioned, please share!
I know this is a longer read, and I’m sorry, but this is something that has bothered me FOR YEARS and now I’m finally armed with the education and words to explain myself.
Have a great day/night now, y’all! Thanks for reading.
