Sins of the South

Fly or Die - N.E.R.D. (mp3)
Damage is Done - Me My Head (mp3)

While I'm the kind of nerd who enjoys WIRED even if I don't understand all of it (translation: a wannabe nerd), I especially get my geek on for graphics like the one below that breaks down our entire country into color codes and tendencies:

Anyone who lives in the South won't be very surprised by this graphic. Hell, maybe folks from the other corners of the country will be surprised that the South only dominates four of the seven. I got this little graphic from WIRED magazine.

Envy. Wrath. Lust. Pride. These are the Four Deadly Sins of the South.

Because of my Christian self-loathing, my first inclination is to correlate the number of churches per capita with the number of deadly sins per capita. We go to church more often down here in these parts because, well, we need it more, is how the thinking might go.

But then I take another look and realize that we tend to share a lot of our problems with Southern California and the Sun Belt. At that point I realize that these sins might break up quite nicely based on weather patterns and conditions.

Sloth tends to exist more often in colder climates like Montana and Wyoming, where people are stuck inside for half their year. The South's Deadly Sins are sins of activity, the kind of shit you do when you're hot, bored, and poor or horny. The South isn't slothful because we're too busy robbing or stabbing or screwing.

And then there's Gluttony. Apparently people eat more whenever they've had to deal with the Bush family for extended periods of time.

One cannot possibly look at these maps without coming to the realization that the Midwest really is a relatively safe and saintly area of the country. The true Rorschach test is to figure out what your very next thought is, because it's probably one of two things:

(a) Wow, I bet the Midwest is a really great place to live; or
(b) Wow, the Midwest sounds like a completely boring place to live.

Does the South's obsession with sin and morality practically doom it to be more sinful and immoral? Isn't it like ghosts? The more you have to say to yourself, "There's no such thing as a ghost... there's no such thing as a ghost..." doesn't that just make it all that much more impossible to not notice the curtains moving in a mysterious way, or an inexplicable crrrrreeeaaak coming from the attic. Christians spend so much of their lives obsessed with demons and sin that we're bound to find them more appealing, right?

What cracks me up is that the snoots on the East + West coasts waste all this time assuming the South is awful because of RACISM. That's like saying the Titanic had a cold water problem. It's like saying Iraq has an IUD problem. (OK, that's not true, but I'm drunk, and I thought subbing in "IUD" for "IED" was funny, so I'm sticking with it.)

As provincial as I've been in my precious little life, I've known more than enough people from all corners of this lovely country to be able to say, with complete confidence, that racism is nothing over which the South has a monopoly. The South may have its own particular and unique kind of racism, but it's not any worse than the kind of racism that runs rampant through the streets of Los Angeles or Brooklyn or Fargo. In fact, as racism goes, I'd say the South's version is refreshingly honest, because we're too ill-mannered and improper to realize it's rude, and we don't realize you're supposed to whisper those things behind closed doors rather than just uttering them aloud in a restaurant. We apparently drive our loud tractors so long that we lose a little of that hearing and common sense.

In Chattanooga right now, the NAACP is pissed off because the local police have shot and killed three people under dubious circumstances in the past four months. Those three deaths are the only three by police gunfire all year. In that same stretch of time, 90 other people have been shot by fellow citizens, and 14 other people have been killed by gunfire. Apparently those other 90 gunfights, and those 14 other deaths aren't worth getting upset about, because even if it's violence and homicide, it's not racism, so it's OK.

We get more upset about one "racist" murder than about 100 black-on-black killings. Am I racist to think that's really bad math?

The South's sins, or the ones at which we're apparently particularly gifted, aren't about race. They might be about poverty, and they might be about our obsession with religion, and they might be about living for centuries with a big ol' chip on our Southern shoulders, but it's not as simple as black and white anymore than Utah's problems are all about them damn Mormons or Kansas' problems are all about them damn Injuns or Hollywood's problems are all about them damn Jews (or them damn 'roided-out and plastic surgified actors and actresses).

It shouldn't be unreasonable for me to defend the South as "no worse" than other parts of the country, yet it feels like I should be ashamed that I honestly believe this to be true. We're no worse than y'all, mmkay? Now pass me some more o' that moonshine and move outta my way so I can finish watching Kyle Busch.

EDIT: I meant to add the New Yorker article about Atticus Finch and Southern liberalism as a link for those who love discussing racism and the South, because it's an intriguing article. -- b