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Regional Differences In America – Commentary Lesson

Hi, this is Kristin, welcome back to the commentary for the conversation Regional Differences In America.

Now I thought that I would talk about some stereotypes of the south. You remember, stereotypes means an oversimplifying of an image. So I thought I’d talk about some stereotypes of the south because I’m from the south. I’m from Georgia which is a state in the southeastern part of the United States.

I grew up in Georgia from age 8 through college, until I moved away. I don’t really consider myself a southerner, though, because I was actually born in the state of Illinois which is in the middle part of the United States, it’s a Midwestern state. And then my family moved, within a year of me being born my family moved to the state of Michigan which is north of Illinois and it’s…it’s a northern, it’s considered to be the northern part of the Midwestern states. So we lived there until I was 8 and then my parents moved to Georgia.

So I don’t really consider myself a southerner because actually my…both of my parents are from Midwestern states as well, Indiana and Illinois, so they’re from these states that are in the middle part of the United States. But having grown up, so having lived many years in Georgia, I feel like I know the south pretty well that I can talk about it. And it wasn’t discussed a whole lot in the conversation.

So let’s start. I thought I would first talk about some negative stereotypes but then I want to talk about positive stereotypes. So we’ll talk briefly about some of the negatives and those are that some of the country tends to think of people living in the south as being racist, so not liking other ethnicities of people other than what they are, mostly maybe white.

Many people think of people in the south as being conservative. So if you remember conservative, we talked about that in the vocabulary lesson. Conservative means traditional, so they’re not open to new ideas or new things that they might come into contact with.

And people in the south are thought to be very religious. There’s many Baptists in the south. A Baptist, it’s a…it’s a type of Christianity, a denomination or a type of Christianity. The area of the south actually, the states that are in the southern part of the United States, that are is called the Bible Belt actually, which again just…the Bible referring to the Holy Book of Christianity. So just…it’s a description, kind of a negative description of southern states being very religious.

And there’s many people in the United States who think that in the south or in the southern states there’s many rednecks. And a redneck is…it’s a white southern person who usually lives in more of a rural area, so they’re not living in a city. They’re living out in tiny towns, small towns or in the countryside. And, y’know, they might very well have a lot of characteristics that I just mentioned. They might be racist or conservative or very religious. Not that there’s anything negative about being religious, it just can go along with being conservative, y’know, you’re not open to new ideas. Sometimes people can be that way.

And another negative stereotype would be that southern people are not direct. They’re very indirect when they speak. So that means instead of telling you what they think they will tell you everything else but what they think. So it might be difficult to understand what they really are thinking or feeling or meaning when they say something.

That was very different when I met Joe. Joe is from, originally from New York before his family moved to Pennsylvania. Y’know, New York’s in the northeastern part of the United States, people there tend to be more direct. They tell you exactly what they think or feel and to people in the south that can seem a little harsh, at times. Not that it is, it just might seem that way.

And one more negative thing and then we’ll move to the positive, one more negative stereotype is that southern people might come across or they might seem like they’re being insincere when they talk to you.

So again that’s kind of being indirect. You don’t really know what they’re thinking or feeling. They’re not really speaking truthfully.

Another example of that is, this actually can happen a lot, you might have a friend who you tell them something and they listen and they…they feel sympathy for you and then they turn around and, and they’re also acting like they’re your friend, they’re supporting you…and then they turn around to someone else and say something negative about you.

So that if you actually heard them you would think, wow, that’s not my friend. So that’s what I mean also by being insincere. It’s also a slang term for that is called backstabbing. One minute you act like you’re someone’s friend and then you, to someone else, you act like you’re not their friend but you don’t tell your friend that you have those feelings.

Okay, so let’s move to the positives. Southern people, there’s the stereotype that they’re very warm and friendly and welcoming and for me that was difficult when I first moved to San Francisco. I felt that people were very cold and distant. So when I mean cold, I mean they weren’t welcoming. There was no friendliness, I felt, initially when you first met them, in the beginning when you first met them.

So there’s also in the south, there’s a very distinct accent. And some people might actually view that as a negative. They might not let you…some people in the United States don’t like the southern accent, but some people do like it actually. And it can vary. I actually don’t have a southern accent. People who do have one, it can be very thick. If you remember thick accent from the conversation it means it can be very strong, to where you might have difficulty understanding them actually.

The accent tends to be…people tend to speak slower and their words are, because they’re speaking slower everything is just kind of drawn out like this. It’s just everything is slow which can also, because of that I think, some people in other parts of the country might think that people in southern states are actually…many are not well-educated.

Alright, oh, I’ll give you an example of a southern accent. So I’ll do a sweet southern belle type accent.

Southern belle means someone who is born and raised in the south and it usually refers to a woman or a girl. She’s very strong…her ancestral roots are very strong as far as being firmly rooted in the south, if that makes sense. Okay, so, she has a lot of southern characteristics about her, let’s say that.

So, this would be a real good southern accent. Southerners can speak real slow. Everything like I said gets drawn out. That may be a little bit exaggerated but actually some people can sound like that. And then there’s more the redneck accent which is like this. But I don’t want to do anymore of that. That was enough. That was fun but it was enough.

So I don’t have a southern accent because my parents, like I said, were from Midwestern states and they didn’t really want me and my brothers picking up the accent or some of the terminology, terminology meaning some of the words. Because some of the words are different also. So, for example, instead of pushing a button you would mash the button. You don’t push it, you mash it.

So when my brothers and I, when my family first moved to Georgia and I heard that for the first time at school, I didn’t know what the teacher was saying. Interestingly enough, me and my older brother do not have southern accents, but my younger brother does. For some reason, he has one and sometimes it’s thicker or stronger than at other times. But I don’t have one so it’s fun for me sometimes to pretend or play like I do, like I just did.

Okay, so another positive stereotype of southern, or the south I should say, is…or this actually is not really a stereotype but it’s a culture…it’s a regional difference, it is positive. It’s the food. So the food is very different than other areas in the United States in that there is…there’s, well let me just describe some different things.

So you’ll find black-eyed peas, which are these, it’s like bean and it’s a light brown color an din the middle is a dark…a darker color. And a lot of times those are cooked in lard or fatback. Fatback is actually fat that’s taken from the back of a pig and it’s a hard fat. So in southern cuisine or southern food you would cook the black-eyed peas in the fatback to give it flavoring.

And there’s also different greens that are used in the food. What I mean by greens are like leafy greens.

So, for example, collard greens or mustard greens. These come from vegetables. It’s the leafy part of vegetables, the leafy green part. There’s turnip greens that are cooked. And those greens, like the black-eyed peas are cooked in fatback to give it…to give them flavoring.

And then there’s pan-fried chicken. There’s mashed potatoes with gravy. The gravy probably is cooked with fatback. I think fatback is used a lot in southern cooking. There’s cornbread, so it’s actually bread made from cornmeal or corn flour. There are grits. Grits are made from corn so they’re made from corn that’s been ground up and you can melt butter on them or you can even melt cheese on them. They’re really good. They’re eaten usually for breakfast.

And then there’s chicken-fried steak. So it’s chicken that’s been fried and there’s a sauce that’s put on top of it. There’s buttermilk biscuits. That would be more of a breakfast food with the grits. Sweet potatoes. What else? Oh, barbecue…barbecue’s really big in the south. So, especially ribs. And fried catfish and fried green tomatoes and okra, fried okra.

Okra is a vegetable. It’s kind of got a slimy consistency or a slimy feel to it. Joe actually hates it for that reason. Green beans, so the green beans would actually be cooked in fatback as well. And for desserts there’s usually like cobblers, like a fruit cobbler. Cobbler’s like a pie. So blackberry cobbler or peach cobbler, those are common. And then as far as pies, pecan pies, pecan is a nut. Pecan pies are popular, sweet potato pies are popular.

And then the most popular and common drink that’s non-alcoholic is sweet tea. So it’s just tea that’s not served hot, it’s served cold, so you put ice in it. And it’s been, actually when it’s been brewed, so when it’s still hot there’s sugar that’s melted into it to make it really, really sweet. Sweet tea in the south is usually sweet.

And it’s funny, I can remember one time I was actually flying to Korea. I was moving to Korea to go teach English and I had a layover in Chicago which if you remember from the conversation, Chicago is a city in the state of Illinois, Illinois is in the middle part…it’s one of the middle, it’s one of the states in the middle part of the United States.

So I had a layover and I wanted…I went to a restaurant in the airport and I wanted sweet tea. So I ordered at the counter. I ordered whatever food I was getting and then I told them I wanted sweet tea and they just looked at me and said, “What?” I said, “Sweet tea, please.” And they said, “Okay, well, we have tea but you have to put the sugar in yourself.” I just…I didn’t realize. I thought that everywhere in the United States people drank sweet tea. But actually it’s only really common in the south.

So that concludes my commentary. Actually, I want to mention, if you have anything that you would like to talk about on the social site as far as characteristics about the region that you’re from in your country, y’know, whether they’re positive or negative, we’d love to hear about them. So share with us on the social site.

Alright, so this concludes the commentary for the conversation Regional Differences In America and I’ll see you next time. Have a good month.