Which states qualify as culturally Southern?
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  Which states qualify as culturally Southern?
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Poll
Question: Which states qualify as culturally Southern?
#1
Texas
#2
Oklahoma
#3
Missouri
#4
Indiana
#5
Louisiana
#6
Mississippi
#7
Alabama
#8
Kentucky
#9
Tennesee
#10
West Virginia
#11
Georgia
#12
Florida
#13
South Carolina
#14
North Carolina
#15
Virginia
#16
Arkansas
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Author Topic: Which states qualify as culturally Southern?  (Read 4572 times)
dead0man
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« Reply #25 on: October 10, 2014, 12:13:05 PM »

Florida outside of Miami is definitively the South.
Aye.  I lived in Panama City (Tyndall AFB) for 2 years and it's quite rednecky.  Especially if you dare to drive inland for about 10 minutes.  Where I was at wasn't too bad because of the AFB and the "party" culture of PCB, but head north and it turned Deliverance right quick.
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dmmidmi
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« Reply #26 on: October 10, 2014, 12:22:07 PM »
« Edited: October 10, 2014, 12:28:30 PM by dmmidmi »

(I'm not making fun but....)

You can be a hunter and camper and NOT be southern.  Ask every other person in Canada.

This. I promise you, hunting is popular in Michigan, and you'd be hard-pressed to convince anyone that Michigan is "Southern".

Regarding the topic--all of the above, except for Indiana and Texas. Because despite the fact that the Colts are in the AFC South, you could argue that Indiana is the very definition of Midwestern.

And Texas, because Texas is Texas.

If I had to classify...

Deep South
Louisiana
Mississippi
Alabama
Georgia
South Carolina

Dust Bowl
Oklahoma

Upper South
Missouri
Kentucky
West Virginia
Virginia

American South (somewhere in between Upper South and Deep South)
North Carolina
Arkansas
Tennesee

Part Deep South, Part Not Southern At All
Florida

Midwest
Indiana

Texas
Texas
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Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck
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« Reply #27 on: October 10, 2014, 12:29:47 PM »

I know people who live a 10 minute walk from downtown Minneapolis who enjoy camping and hunting. What the f[inks]

Yes, and people in Vermont are super-Southern as well.
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Yank2133
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« Reply #28 on: October 10, 2014, 01:46:42 PM »

A lot of VA isn't southern, especially in central VA(Charlottesville etc.)
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politicus
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« Reply #29 on: October 10, 2014, 01:57:11 PM »

A lot of VA isn't southern, especially in central VA(Charlottesville etc.)

How do you define Southern in this context?
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Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook
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« Reply #30 on: October 10, 2014, 02:03:47 PM »

Well, if country music is popular there (Not just the legends, country music in general.) and was a slave state in 1860 are two good signs of a state being Southern.
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memphis
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« Reply #31 on: October 10, 2014, 02:08:50 PM »

The South is probably the region of the country where people camp the least. The weather is super hot and humid and there are insects everywhere. Hunting is moderately popular with some people, but not to the extent of places closer to the Great Lakes. To the extent that we have outdoor recreation, popular things to do revolve around water. It's refreshng on a hot day. People in Memphis love to drive eight hours each way to go to the Redneck Riviera of the Florida Panhandle. Swimming. Jet skiing. Driving the four wheeler nowhere in particular. People love big loud engines. But, for the most part, we're very much an indoor society.  Summer is very much for parking your butt in front of a television away from the bugs and the weather.
As for the question, obviously states are heterogenous creatures, but even if they weren't, fitting a cultural model isn't a binary thing.
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Person Man
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« Reply #32 on: October 10, 2014, 02:17:39 PM »

The South is probably the region of the country where people camp the least. The weather is super hot and humid and there are insects everywhere. Hunting is moderately popular with some people, but not to the extent of places closer to the Great Lakes. To the extent that we have outdoor recreation, popular things to do revolve around water. It's refreshng on a hot day. People in Memphis love to drive eight hours each way to go to the Redneck Riviera of the Florida Panhandle. Swimming. Jet skiing. Driving the four wheeler nowhere in particular. People love big loud engines. But, for the most part, we're very much an indoor society.  Summer is very much for parking your butt in front of a television away from the bugs and the weather.
As for the question, obviously states are heterogenous creatures, but even if they weren't, fitting a cultural model isn't a binary thing.

You can camp all year long in the Keys. In the summers its in the 80s and Winters its in the 70s. I used to like to go fishing and snorkeling there, too. I even tried to play with a fish that caught while snorkeling, but it bit me and ran away. Sad
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politicus
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« Reply #33 on: October 10, 2014, 02:30:43 PM »

As for the question, obviously states are heterogeneous creatures, but even if they weren't, fitting a cultural model isn't a binary thing.

The thing I was interested in was what Southern culture is in a modern context, and the extent of it existing outside of a few relatively rural deep South states. It is a very vaguely defined thing and yet people seem to take it for granted. Of course cultural definitions are always vague and ambiguous, but Southerness is interesting in that there seems to be so little to base it on apart from increasingly less relevant history and a few superficial characteristics.

The poll was just for fun. But probably a dumb idea to include it.
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20RP12
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« Reply #34 on: October 10, 2014, 02:37:49 PM »

Again, I'm not saying hunting and camping is a Southern only thing, I was trying to say it's the people who hunt and camp and their attitudes about it.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #35 on: October 10, 2014, 02:44:48 PM »



Eastern Texas, northern Florida, and parts of Virginia are Southern -- but Dallas and Houston both seem more like Greater Los Angeles than any part of the true South, and anything to the west of Dallas and Houston is either Western or Midwestern. Parts of Texas have 'too many Mexican-Americans' to be Southern. Florida has too many Hispanics to be Southern. Virginia politics are very Northern, the only former-Confederate state to vote for Hoover in 1928, one of two such states (Florida was the other) to vote for Nixon in 1960, and the only former-Confederate state to vote against Carter in 1976. It voted (with Florida) twice for Eisenhower and twice for Obama.    

You may be surprised with my choice of Oklahoma and Missouri as Southern states instead of Texas.  Missouri has Kansas City, which is borderline-Northern. St. Louis is Southern.  Oklahoma as far west as Oklahoma City seems "Mountain South", but unlike central and western Texas, western Oklahoma has only one city that one uses as a control city on an Interstate (Lawton).

In Presidential elections, Florida now seems to vote much like Ohio and Missouri seems to vote much like Georgia.  
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memphis
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« Reply #36 on: October 10, 2014, 03:04:16 PM »
« Edited: October 10, 2014, 03:15:59 PM by memphis »

Again, I'm not saying hunting and camping is a Southern only thing, I was trying to say it's the people who hunt and camp and their attitudes about it.
The hunting part is simply conflating rural with Southern. It's inaccurate, but we have a vague sense of what you mean. Camping is where I haven't a clue what the Inks you are talking about.  Camping seems like something Boy Scouts and affluent suburbanites do if we're speaking in stereotypes. I think of Western National Parks, not Southern Good Old Boys.
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TDAS04
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« Reply #37 on: October 10, 2014, 03:34:14 PM »

Virginia politics are very Northern, the only former-Confederate state to vote for Hoover in 1928, one of two such states (Florida was the other) to vote for Nixon in 1960,...

Nope, it was one of five to vote for Hoover.  Tennessee also voted for Nixon.
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Atlas Has Shrugged
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« Reply #38 on: October 10, 2014, 03:44:29 PM »

All of them but Indiana.
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Yank2133
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« Reply #39 on: October 10, 2014, 04:02:47 PM »

A lot of VA isn't southern, especially in central VA(Charlottesville etc.)

How do you define Southern in this context?

Politics and culture. NOVA and central VA are closer to the northeastern states then they are to what we think off of the south.
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memphis
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« Reply #40 on: October 10, 2014, 05:07:10 PM »

NOVA has no regional identity because so many people have moved from all over to work in/near DC. I don't know what you mean by Central VA. That's not a term I'm familiar with. Are you referring to metro Richmond? That's very much a Southern town. Southern doesn't mean rural trailer trash.
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« Reply #41 on: October 10, 2014, 05:12:56 PM »

Florida outside of Miami is definitively the South.
Aye.  I lived in Panama City (Tyndall AFB) for 2 years and it's quite rednecky.  Especially if you dare to drive inland for about 10 minutes.  Where I was at wasn't too bad because of the AFB and the "party" culture of PCB, but head north and it turned Deliverance right quick.
I spent the night in Quincy, Florida. It's right on the Alabama border and I had to remind myself several times that I wasn't in Alabama Tongue.

I'd expand the Miami qualification all the way up to Orlando, minus the Everglades/central southwest Florida areas.
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #42 on: October 10, 2014, 06:18:20 PM »


I tend to agree with this. In terms of religiosity, accent, geography, historical accounts, and other things, this fits well. Voted for all but Indiana
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #43 on: October 10, 2014, 06:50:35 PM »

Virginia politics are very Northern, the only former-Confederate state to vote for Hoover in 1928, one of two such states (Florida was the other) to vote for Nixon in 1960,...

Nope, it was one of five to vote for Hoover.  Tennessee also voted for Nixon.

I stand corrected.
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20RP12
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« Reply #44 on: October 10, 2014, 07:20:31 PM »

The hunting part is simply conflating rural with Southern. It's inaccurate, but we have a vague sense of what you mean. Camping is where I haven't a clue what the Inks you are talking about.  Camping seems like something Boy Scouts and affluent suburbanites do if we're speaking in stereotypes. I think of Western National Parks, not Southern Good Old Boys.

Yeah, maybe I fudged on the camping thing just because of the way my grandmom is. She's a very culturally Southern person despite being raised in Philadelphia. She even has a Southern accent, somehow.
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Sol
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« Reply #45 on: October 10, 2014, 10:07:48 PM »

As for the question, obviously states are heterogeneous creatures, but even if they weren't, fitting a cultural model isn't a binary thing.

The thing I was interested in was what Southern culture is in a modern context, and the extent of it existing outside of a few relatively rural deep South states. It is a very vaguely defined thing and yet people seem to take it for granted. Of course cultural definitions are always vague and ambiguous, but Southerness is interesting in that there seems to be so little to base it on apart from increasingly less relevant history and a few superficial characteristics.

The poll was just for fun. But probably a dumb idea to include it.

Accent and religion are also two other big things.
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politicus
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« Reply #46 on: October 11, 2014, 10:17:04 AM »

As for the question, obviously states are heterogeneous creatures, but even if they weren't, fitting a cultural model isn't a binary thing.

The thing I was interested in was what Southern culture is in a modern context, and the extent of it existing outside of a few relatively rural deep South states. It is a very vaguely defined thing and yet people seem to take it for granted. Of course cultural definitions are always vague and ambiguous, but Southerness is interesting in that there seems to be so little to base it on apart from increasingly less relevant history and a few superficial characteristics.

The poll was just for fun. But probably a dumb idea to include it.

Accent and religion are also two other big things.

Accent was one of the superficial things I was thinking about. A specific approach (for lack of a better word) to religion is true.
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Sol
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« Reply #47 on: October 11, 2014, 09:14:31 PM »

As for the question, obviously states are heterogeneous creatures, but even if they weren't, fitting a cultural model isn't a binary thing.

The thing I was interested in was what Southern culture is in a modern context, and the extent of it existing outside of a few relatively rural deep South states. It is a very vaguely defined thing and yet people seem to take it for granted. Of course cultural definitions are always vague and ambiguous, but Southerness is interesting in that there seems to be so little to base it on apart from increasingly less relevant history and a few superficial characteristics.

The poll was just for fun. But probably a dumb idea to include it.

Accent and religion are also two other big things.

Accent was one of the superficial things I was thinking about. A specific approach (for lack of a better word) to religion is true.


Hmm, it's sort of difficult to quantify exactly what you want, but maybe also:
-Southerners tend to be a lot more "polite" than Northerners
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Adam Griffin
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« Reply #48 on: October 12, 2014, 03:04:17 AM »

Depends on how we define the South. Living in a less-than-Deep South area in a Deep South state, I often think of "the South" as GA, AL, MS, SC and maybe LA (but they're that weirdo French relative by marriage that only kind of acts like us) since all of them are effectively south of me, but a lot of people won't see it that way.

In the broader sense, I'd say AR, LA, MS, AL, GA, SC, NC, & TN are Southern; VA, TX, FL, MO, OK & KY are not Southern as states, though each have small parts that can be considered Southern. That's key: having a region of a state being Southern does not mean the state is Southern. Some of those latter states never really were Southern to begin with (I'm looking at you, Texas), while others have transitioned (Virginia).

There are so many definitions that can be used to define "the South" - even in a culturally Southern sense. Culturally Southern today? Culturally Southern historically? Do we define it by accents, mannerisms, cuisine, racial dynamics, or any other number or elements?

So I had a map that was colored in by county of the "Levels of Southron" awhile back, but it was made in half-jest and there are of course going to be disagreements with any and all interpretations. I decided to try again, using five different intensities of "Southron" and loosely associated groups together that might not otherwise be associated with one another predominantly on a) proximity to what is unarguably Southern, b) what has been more or less the aggregate cultural presence in those areas for the past few decades and c) geography. Darkest shade if unarguably Southern; lightest shade is either barely Southern, can be argued one way or another or has some historical contrasts to it when compared to the region as a whole.

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shua
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« Reply #49 on: October 12, 2014, 04:06:28 PM »

I would definitely consider at least the rural areas of Eastern/Coastal Virginia to be Southern, which means most of the area around the Bay, including and perhaps especially the Eastern Shore.  I would also tend to emphasize history in what is culturally Southern, which is very much built into the landscape here. I don't see any reason to consider that the changes mean it is no longer Southern - there is more than one "South" after all.  The urban areas could be described as Mid-Atlantic, but to me it is still mostly more Southern than Northern in character.
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