I hate Southerners. On its own this might be a troubling statement as it is clearly prejudiced and judgmental, but it gets worse, I live in the South. Less than two years ago I moved away from my beloved New York City to follow the husband when the Army decided we’d been living too good of a life and needed to suffer. The first stop on our tour of suffering was Leavenworth, KS. The town of Leavenworth sucks slightly less than a trip to Walmart on a Sunday afternoon, but not much. After a 10-month stint there, we proceeded to Fayetteville, NC where Fort Bragg is located. For five agonizing months we lived in this hellish town of pawn shops, strip clubs and gun stores. Even though Fayetteville is located in North Carolina, it didn’t feel Southern due to its overwhelming military population, it just felt like the world’s largest trailer park. It wasn’t until Jeff deployed and I moved two hours west to Charlotte, NC that the true horrors of the South began to creep in.
Charlotte is a pretty decent city overall. Most people are transplants rather than native Charlotteans as they like to be called, although I prefer Charlatans, because it cracks me up. The city is fairly affluent and it is quite beautiful with lots of greenery, large well-maintained homes, a clean downtown (they refer to it as “uptown” here) and really friendly residents. I have met some amazing people here, but it is still the south and I still pretty much have to talk myself out of hating complete strangers on a daily basis. It’s not that these are bad people. They are hardly the slave owning, cruel bigots of decades past, their transgressions are not nearly that forthright. No, my big issue with the south is pretty much just that it and they, are Southern. The accent alone makes me want to take a fork to my ears in an attempt to permanently disable my hearing. I also dread how slowly they move and their unwarranted interest in the details of the lives of complete strangers. I’m also pretty tapped out on “y’all,” visors, blondes, pearls, and sweet tea.
Southerners aren’t bad people, they’re just different in a way that makes me want to hurl something heavy at their heads. They cannot help the way they sound and luckily, since most Charlotte residents are transplants, you only get the accent in about one of every three people you meet, but that’s really enough. I don’t know what it is about the Southern accent, but the minute someone opens his mouth and you hear it, the general assumption is that he must be stupid. This is unfair of course. It’s just a regional dialect, but knowing that logically does not change the fact that they sound really damn stupid. Sometimes I even find myself speaking more slowly or explaining certain terms to an “accent.” (Yes, my pet name for people with that annoying twang is “accent,” deal with it.)
Being a Yankee through and through, there are many little details common to the South that are unfamiliar to me. I talk fast, I walk fast, I do everything fast, but in the South each activity is an exercise in patience. People discuss things for what seems to be an interminable amount of time before ever taking their first steps toward actual action. There are perpetual smiles, and words of greeting that seem charming at first, but quickly become invasive when you discover that saying “hello, how are you,” isn’t enough. They want to know everything about you, and feel it is perfectly okay to ask you personal details and then share some of their own. I think it must be similar to what pregnant women must endure as random strangers try to feel up their belly. It’s just so personal for these people. Ever since I moved here, anyone I meet who finds out I’m new to town takes it upon themselves to try to investigate my life and tell me where I should go, what I should do, blah, blah, blah.
Hands down, my favorite question I get asked all the time, is the “have you ridden the light rail” question. It seems that Charlotte went and got itself a light rail several months ago. This is a convenient way to get North and South in the city and runs right into the heart of uptown. If you can park and ride it is actually an excellent way to get to the city center where parking is nearly impossible to figure out. I would say the frustration level of attempting to park in uptown Charlotte is similar to being stuck in line behind someone who’s child is repeatedly saying “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom” and the Mom in question refuses to simply say “What?” The light rail train can be convenient, yes, but anyone who has ever ridden a light rail knows that they are not exactly speedy or exciting. So why would a person ask if I’ve ridden the light rail with that look of anticipation and pride in their eyes? Am I missing something? I mean, it’s just a slow train, right? There are no rollercoaster-like hills or twists, so what’s the urgent need everyone seems to have to get me to go on it?
Maybe I just don’t understand the lifestyle down here. I don’t want to pretend to be friendly to everyone I meet and then talk behind their backs. I want to actually cross the room in less time than it took to build it. I don’t only root for sports teams when they’re winning. I think visors are ridiculous and make you look stupid and while we’re on that track, so do braided belts, boat shoes when you’re not on a boat, and croakies (those stupid string-like laces to keep your sunglasses around your neck).
There are also more serious things like racial issues. The south is all about black and white. Having previously lived in a very diverse environment with lots of races, religions, and cultures, the lack of ethnic diversity here is somewhat startling. What is really strange about it though, is how normal it is for these people to talk about things in terms of color. It makes me really uncomfortable and even my smart friends are guilty of it. It’s not that they are being racist, they just feel it’s okay to mention that someone is black or white all the time as if it changes the context of a story that otherwise is completely unrelated to race. Perhaps they are overcompensating for a shameful past that they are not responsible for, but are still carrying the guilt by association.
Speaking of guilty by association, maybe that is why I won’t allow myself to like the South. I don’t want to be lumped in with the accents, preppy clothing choices, sweet tea drinkers, tanning bed aficionados, or color qualifiers. I like talking fast and sounding smarter than I am. I am proud to consider myself a New Yorker and am not ready to give that up for the gentile life of the Southerner. So it’s possible that things are not really so bad here, but because I am not ready to be a Charlatan or Charlottean, for that matter, I’m focusing on the negative rather than embracing the charm of the South. Yes, it has charm, but I’m not ready to give into it. If you talk to me and you ever hear a bit of the twang seeping in, do me a favor and don’t let me know. It’s hard enough to like yourself when you’re a girl without becoming what you actively disparage.
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