If ever there was a true statement regarding Southern thinking... "I asked him if he did not look inside the deepest part of himself, his soul, and fear sometimes that he might be wrong. The man simply did not understand the question."
"We may have lost the South for a generation" an un-sourced comment attributed to LBJ after signing the Civil Rights Act turns out to be insanely optimistic. Another excellent chapter Michael. I am always impressed (not jealous) of people able to interact with strangers in the way some journalists do. Your voice certainly identifies you as an outsider but I wonder if the interviews would have gone the same way if you had picked up a British accent with your move to the UK. (Everyone I have ever known who moved into the Old South found themselves fighting picking up an accent. Some without success.) LBJ's attributed quote "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you" seems to me to be a defining point for much of the US. Americans claim to hate elites but we are very selective about who gets that attribution. And "States Rights" I love it. The Right is all for them until they control the federal government and then the States are expected to subservient to the Federal controls. Looking forward to the next chapter.
I don't know if a British accent would have made a difference and I actually lapse very easily into a Southern drawl. My dad was stationed near Memphis the first two years of my life (it was the Korean War) and I first spoke with a deep Southern accent. When we returned to NYC it was my parents' party trick to trot me out and have me talk with that accent.
The sad thing is I don't think you can do that sort of reporting anymore. People are very leery of the press and also the suburbanization of even rural America is total that every town is like Tupelo (which is now a sizeable city). So you can't just drop in and get a feel for a place.
Most of my first cousins were on my father's side and they all lived in North Jersey (through Ancestry I found out that my father's aunts from Missouri all ended up in north Jersey, too, although I never met them.) We all had that accent which I have referred to before. Years later, after an aunt moved her family to Tennessee, they all showed up at a holiday thing in New Jersey. They all looked the same but I couldn't understand much of what they were saying. By then, after eight years in Iowa, my former accent was gone. I knew someone in grad school in Connecticut who had an interview at Middle Tennessee State where she said that she could feel the drawl trying to happen while she was there for the week!
It is unfortunate that the sort of reporting that I have heard for years, and lately read, done by you is becoming rarer. I can appreciate that people are concerned about being mischaracterized or portrayed as stereotypes. But, we have truly become a society of intellectually lazy people across the spectrum who simply want their prejudices "confirmed." It is not as though this is new but it feels more pronounced today. (Thanks interwebs ;)) Please keep fighting for thoughtful longer form journalism.
If ever there was a true statement regarding Southern thinking... "I asked him if he did not look inside the deepest part of himself, his soul, and fear sometimes that he might be wrong. The man simply did not understand the question."
Thanks, Susan
"We may have lost the South for a generation" an un-sourced comment attributed to LBJ after signing the Civil Rights Act turns out to be insanely optimistic. Another excellent chapter Michael. I am always impressed (not jealous) of people able to interact with strangers in the way some journalists do. Your voice certainly identifies you as an outsider but I wonder if the interviews would have gone the same way if you had picked up a British accent with your move to the UK. (Everyone I have ever known who moved into the Old South found themselves fighting picking up an accent. Some without success.) LBJ's attributed quote "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you" seems to me to be a defining point for much of the US. Americans claim to hate elites but we are very selective about who gets that attribution. And "States Rights" I love it. The Right is all for them until they control the federal government and then the States are expected to subservient to the Federal controls. Looking forward to the next chapter.
I don't know if a British accent would have made a difference and I actually lapse very easily into a Southern drawl. My dad was stationed near Memphis the first two years of my life (it was the Korean War) and I first spoke with a deep Southern accent. When we returned to NYC it was my parents' party trick to trot me out and have me talk with that accent.
The sad thing is I don't think you can do that sort of reporting anymore. People are very leery of the press and also the suburbanization of even rural America is total that every town is like Tupelo (which is now a sizeable city). So you can't just drop in and get a feel for a place.
Most of my first cousins were on my father's side and they all lived in North Jersey (through Ancestry I found out that my father's aunts from Missouri all ended up in north Jersey, too, although I never met them.) We all had that accent which I have referred to before. Years later, after an aunt moved her family to Tennessee, they all showed up at a holiday thing in New Jersey. They all looked the same but I couldn't understand much of what they were saying. By then, after eight years in Iowa, my former accent was gone. I knew someone in grad school in Connecticut who had an interview at Middle Tennessee State where she said that she could feel the drawl trying to happen while she was there for the week!
It is unfortunate that the sort of reporting that I have heard for years, and lately read, done by you is becoming rarer. I can appreciate that people are concerned about being mischaracterized or portrayed as stereotypes. But, we have truly become a society of intellectually lazy people across the spectrum who simply want their prejudices "confirmed." It is not as though this is new but it feels more pronounced today. (Thanks interwebs ;)) Please keep fighting for thoughtful longer form journalism.