Just Ain’t That Different Anymore

As a native southerner, I just can't help but thinking that the Newsweek reporters who penned "Just Ain't That Different Anymore"(August 11, 2008) need to get off the interstate more often. The south that I know and love is as different as a Coney Island Dog and a Coon Dog. Maybe I could start a tour service for harried reporters working on deadline, but for starters try dropping O'Henry's Restaurant in East Bend, North Carolina for some potato pancakes or grilled homemade apple pie or the Hillbilly Hideaway near Walnut Cover for their Friday night fishfry. I'd also recommend a Friday night outing to the Blue Ridge Backroads in Galax, Virginia, or Floyd's General Store in Floyd, Virginia. Leave your notebook at home, sit for a spell, and just enjoy yourself. I think your reporters will discover a uniquely southern brand of hospitality and culture that you won't find anywhere outside of the south. William G. Matthews, Jamestown, NC.

The Republicans have always had to get themselves a General or a Movie Star to win. They know this. That is why Palin who is doing what the GOP does best.....hold out the candy issues of Guns and Abortion.....as a distraction while they rob us.

We did not start the fire.

I enjoyed the article but take issue with one statement made by the author. The South is not the only US region to have been conquered. The American war of aggression against Mexico in the 1840s resulted in the conquest of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and California. The ancestors of the natives who remained in those states are still here.

I agree with ICYEYES800 with regards to the South being different....the South (New or whatever) has become overrun with people from every state in our Great United States....many would call these people "economic parasites" meaning that they go where the money and economic opportunity is....that oasis of work and affordable living is not in Detroit.... I was born and reared in the south-have lived in the north and actually ran into blatant prejudice in a mid-western town....I was surprised that the whites there did not care for blacks....Illinois, by the way.

The South has received many bad raps with regards to bigotry and racism....Barak Hussein Obama epitomizes radical racisim....individuals in the North, East, South and West need to carefully consider this gentleman (used loosely) and his credentials, beliefs, and prejudices before they jump onto the appeasment election of an affirmative action president.

This election process and primaries have been disheartening to many Americans.

RAD, IF, as you say, the SOUTH is ignorant, prejudice, and filled with ill-educated, then WHY IN THE HELL are we being over run with people from ALL over the USA???? It's because they are looking for a better way of life. You are extremely narrow minded and probably never been to the south...Just generalizing!!
NOW, let's review HISTORY, We have more than our share of the RESULT of the Civil War...blacks not willing nor wanting to WORK...which has lead to a ton of the "sick and tired of blacks who haven't gotten over slavery"...Now, if you want to discuss people holding on the "ISSUES' that allow them to be "VICTIMS'...then we may have a discussion, otherwise, your statements are USELESS and won't hold water...It's the equavelent of saying everyone who lives in DC is CORRUPT....Do some homework, before you ramble on about things you don't have a clue about....Get a grip

The reason the south has changed so much is so many northern people have moved south. Some of the changes have been for the good and some for the bad. The education system down south was not good and that has been improved. However many things have gone down hill also. The price of real estate has been driven up by the snow birds moving south with their retirements and $$ from their home sale up north. They have priced the average southern family out of their home. It's their right to do so but the effects have not all been positive. The cities of Atlanta and New Orleans look more like Detroit or Newark everyday. Too many folks not working and paying their fair share. They have profected the southern art of sitting on the porch, but they are waiting for the goverment to improve their life. Like that is going to happen!!! Bye Ya'll

I would have loved to be interviewed by Dickey and meecham-as a 57yr.white female who was born and lived in 5 southern states and in Michigan,was educated in public as well as prviate schools,whose mother's family had a maid for over 55yrs.and tok care of her like she was 1 of the family,who had to teach
blacks in jr.high and high school as part of a thesis,who watches local news every night and the 1st 15 minutes show robberies,rapes and murders and the faces are ALL black ir hispanic-we call it the "***
doing "report-and you wonder why we're NOT going to vote for obama-we are TIRED of bending over backwards to help who only continue to play victims and WANT more-They're INGRATES and all it is REDISTRIBUTION OH WEALTH(Socialism)

The South isn't that different? As someone who has lived in Texas, Georgia and Louisiana, I can tell you that the South is very different. It's a region that's still very torn between the past and the present and the new generation of Southerners are dealing with a new set of issues such as, what does the Confederate flag really represent? And, what do we do about racist monuments that represent a large part of our history? Cover them up and pretend that slavery and Jim Crow never happened, or leave them up to serve as warnings of what horrors humans are capable of commiting?

I think Meacham overlooked a large number of contreversial issues currently plaguing the South that could have made this article a lot more interesting.

You know, I have been sharing my thoughts on threads like this for a while now and I have wondered at times if anybody ever listens. Oh, not to me. But to anyone at all. It strikes me that as time has passed in this country we all have become more and more accustomed to expressing our opinions on anything that might come to our mind. Not just in online forums or letters to the editor, but on bumper stickers, on tee-shirts and in other forms of public discourse. I suppose an argument can be made that all this discourse ultimately serves a good purpose.

But the more I talk (or write) and the more I try to listen (read) the more I am convinced that our society (all points of view) is so consumed with talking that we have abandoned or lost the ability to listen. Especially, to listen for the purpose of learning. Sure we find time to listen for ideas which reinforce our notions of how things should be. But there are very seldom signs in places like this where anyone betrays even a willingness to change, let alone clues that anybody actually is persuaded to change their thinking.

At times, the most common single theme in forums like this is people telling other people how misguided they are. But if nobody is listening, especially nobody is listening with an inclination to learn and change what useful purpose is served here? And if our purpose in communicating in this and other ways is to educate or change minds, who among us could really believe that the mindless insults that are traded every day could have any effect other than to close minds and reinforce already entrenched positions.

In January we will have a new president. If anybody really expects anything resembling change, it will come about only as a result of respectful discourse, not the continuing escalation of personal invective. I have been around a long time, and I am discovering that the hateful, anonymous personal attacks which characterize the New Age of communication simply leave me distrusting every stranger and almost everyone else I have ever known. I suspect that, more and more, the tone of modern communication is having the effect of isolating people rather than bringing them together.

Well I have talked enough. I would like to sit back and listen for a bit. Especially to the answer to one simple question. Has anyone here ever learned something from this or any other similar place which changed their mind (not reinforced, but changed)?

I watched Jon Meacham grow up for seveal years when he lived in my small Tennessee hometown on the Alabama/Georgia borders and think he is striving to deal with political, moral and religious issues in a way that provokes the reader to think about another perspective and accept that each of us may be a few degrees off in our interpretation of "The Truth". Unfortunately, over the last two decades, we have been led slowly and surely by Congress and their new toys called cable television and talk radio to the new Coliseum, where we now expect and demand blood and human carnage packaged as news. There are very few innocent talking heads out there who truly attempt to find our common ground as human beings vs. spout outrageous, twisted attacks on their opponents for political/financial gain. We, the American people are empowering both radical fringes and the real, hidden powers behind the politicians ...because we like to watch the gladiators go at it...when will we have the common sense and courage to stop it?

Comment: I watched several years of Jon Meacham's growth as a young man when he lived in my small Tennessee hometown , right on the Alabama & Georgia borders. Having traveled the U.S.and overseas for 30 years, I can identify with his sense of irony regarding the South's media driven image vs. the reality of social integration/separation being now based more upon economic/education levels than race. I grew up watching the CBS evening news with the endless images of urban cities in the Deep South showing large, menacing police with dogs and water cannons attacking black protesters, then far worse as people started shooting and bombing those who were fighting for civil justice. The facinating thing to me was that we did not have that kind of racial hate in our town, even though there was a street that generally divided the small town into the white & black neighborhoods, with the exception of a few areas where the poorest of the poor lived side by side and their kids played in the same dirt yards and jumped into the same creek in the summers. When I started travelling, it became obvious that we were not as racially segregated in Tennessee as they were in Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and every other major Northern city I visited. We were portrayed as "Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry buffoons, Boss Hoggs", or several other stereotypical ignorant, backwoods versions of the Deliverance cast. Likewise, we thought the North was all dirty, evil and rough like the Kojak and Baretta TV shows...neither radical caricature is correct, just as we are once again being presented in this election cycle just like the last 10. As long as the American voting public reward and encourage the entrenched political powers to demonize and character assassinate opponents, we will continue to reap the bitter harvest flourishing in Washington. There are few innocents among the talking heads-I would like to believe that Jon is trying to find the middle ground where most of us reside; the sad reality is that the common sense middle doesn't entertain the audiences anymore, it only makes both sides angry. Cable news has become our Roman Coliseum and we want blood!

mccain is anti-women's rights...but he is pro viagra....though!!!!!! mccain hates women's, disrespects his own wife who funds his campaign...look it up......but I guess the South has fallen a long way when not voting for someone of mixed heritage trumps having any decency, honor.....bunch of scumbags vote for whoever you want.....don't equate some redneck belief with being "southern" or representing any evolved persons.....if you don't know anything, stay out of the voting booth......

The south has changed. The problem is that Obama's efforts to get blacks to vote for him because he is black, and to characterize those who criticize or oppose him as racists -- because, after all, how could they complain about his positions on policy or his outstanding record of accomplishments (LOL) -- has caused racism to rear its ugly head again. We haven't had those problems with local elections, and many African Americans have been elected not only to local, but to state and national positions from the south.