Come Back When You've Got Something Really Good

http://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com/2012/03/conservative-ignorance-down-south.html

What kind of southerner would I be if I did not defend this attack by northern aggressors?  Am I going to half-heartedly yell "Stop!" then step aside as the mob runs past?  My answer to both questions is: Yes

First the stepping aside.  The author's claims of Southern ignorance are not new.  Southern Conservatives (especially of the Alabama variety) have a long history of making a bad name for themselves.  Do I need to remind you of George Wallace, and Bull Conner?  One need only look back as far as 2011 to see the backwardness of Southern Conservative views in action.  Alabama and South Carolina state houses both debated serious overhauls of the immigration laws that would end up hurting more than helping the agricultural businesses.  The Tennessee Tea Party has chimed in with some pretty stupid remarks of late, and lest we forget Florida's pee in a cup for welfare bills.  There are a smattering of ill advised remarks throughout history mad by Southern politicians (of both stripes) to mark up any claims the region can make to intellectual supremacy. 

A few claims made by researchers that Southern Conservatives are ignorant (especially on a topic such as evolution) is not a big deal.  If fact, I have read this study before.  It comes out every few years when some researcher needs a Doctoral Thesis and runs out of orginial ideas.  I say come back when you've got something really good.

That being said, my defense will now commence.  I will offer up the knee jerk reaction of "We're not all like that." but in true fashion of the blog, I will attempt to do so in a manner that is intellectual.  I offer the follow rebuttals.  First, southerners have a long history of progressive and even outright liberal view points.  Even while George Wallace stood in the doorways, southern liberals would marching along side blacks in Selma.  The South had to shed her racist bonds on her own, with her own hands.  Evidence of this is the progress made.  If we had not made progress, then how can you attest for black mayors in towns that only a generation before were hanging people simply for the color of their skin.  How but through self-progress can you explain the fact that southern cities like Charlotte, Atlanta, and Dallas are some of the fasting growing cities for all races?

Look too if you will, at the regions where alternative energies are growing the fastest.  A prime example is Rocky Mount, Virginia's Center For Energy Efficient Design or CEED.  It is the first public building in the United States to be completely build using German Passive House designs.  The CEED building makes money for the Franklin County Public School System, and is a model for schools across the country.  Studies are showing that more solar panels are being bought and installed in the south than any other area of the country.  Bio-fuel and electric stations are popping up in major southern cities faster than northern ones.  All of this is offered as a way to say "We're not all like that."

Finally, and this is so stereo-typical it is not funny, we do not need anyone else to tell us we have our own backwardness.  We know it, and what place does any other region have telling us about ignorance.  There are just as many ignorant people in the north, and west.  Plenty of city dwellers offer up ignorant opinions on races, religion and science.  Just watch Jersey Shore if you need further proof.  Google: JERSEY SHORE WITH JAY LENO, watch the video where they play the quiz show and tell me those people are not as ignorant as any Alabamian. 

I write all this not as a knee jerk response.  In all honestly my first response was "Duh, it's Alabama we're talking about here." Ignorance is common all over the country.  Look in your own back yard and you will see it.  It might not have studies done, it might not be made public, but it's there.