Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast believes “It’s Time to Dump Dixie.” Please do. He also thinks that there may be a point in the future when the South should have its independence. Hallelujah, but we tried that once and were forced to keep company with our “kind” neighbors to the North, those like Tomasky who call the South, “one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment.” Tomasky, by the way admits he was born in West Virginia, yet laments it “was not a Southern state when I was growing up but culturally is one now.” You see, according to Tomasky, the South lacks “tolerance, compassion, civic decency, trans-racial community, [and] the crucial secular values on which this country was founded….” Translation: America used to be a great progressive wonderland of democracy and equality, but evil Southerners ruined it! Better to just write off Dixie than try to convert them, for, as we all know, the North is the bastion of all things good and noble, the shining city upon a hill for the world to emulate.
Tomasky suffers from a common syndrome known as Yankee Self-Righteous Delusional Disorder (YSRDD). It can be seen in most major metropolitan areas in the North and heard on many nationally syndicated radio and television programs, particularly those that lean Left. You can also find it in Northern dominated tales of their moral and intellectual superiority. See, for example, any major collection of American literature or art. But are the invectives that drip from Tomasky’s pen true? After all, one would think with all the hand-wringing over the problematic South there must be something to the progressive narrative of the region.
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Let’s start with Tomasky’s first claim that the South lacks “tolerance” and “trans-racial” communities. According to a study by professors John Logan and Brian Stults, only eight of the top twenty-five most racially segregated cities in the United States are in the South, and that includes Miami and St. Louis, two cities that Tomasky considers Northern and Western. Remove those, and nineteen of the most racially segregated cities are found in the North, including Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Detroit. Progress. Perhaps us racist Southerners should look to emulate our good brothers to the North. Examples of modern, progressive meccas of racial harmony abound north of the Mason-Dixon. Probably as a result of YSRDD Tomasky conveniently forgets that the nastiest and most violent of all the race riots of the twentieth century took place in Northern cities. And he probably doesn’t know—or doesn’t care to know—that according to the Christian Science Monitor, black Americans are moving back to the South in large numbers for “economic and cultural” reasons. So much for the South as a hostile, segregated, cultural wasteland of America.
What about civic decency? I am not sure of Tomasky’s definition, but this would generally include good manners, hospitality, and charity. Conde Nast Traveler recently released its annual survey of the friendliest cities in America, and surprise, surprise, four of the five friendliest places are in the South, with number one being Charleston, South Carolina. Conversely, all five of the unfriendliest places in the United States are found in the North, with number one–Newark, New Jersey–ranked as the unfriendliest place in the world in 2013. That is a big honor for our Northern “friends.” At least they are number one in something.
