So a couple months ago I was down the pub, minding my business, and suddenly I hear a loud guffaw in an accent I know all too well. Sure enough, there’s a couple of guys down at the other end of the bar and one of them is braying away in The Accent. You know the one. The hard-R Southern accent. Not the Foghorn Leghorn-Howell Heflin accent, the “economically anxious” one.
I have a big problem hearing my native accent out here. I shouldn’t. God knows I sound like a bowl of grits drenched in Jack Daniel’s, especially on third down, so it is a Hell of a thing to say for me to say that the Southern accent is like nails on a chalkboard and makes me think a stranger is immediately suspect.
But when you think about it, that’s the shibboleth. The South has become an affirmative indicator in red land, a signifier that you are on Their Side. Just look at the guy who whipped up a quick bigoted ditty and got propped up on Twitter overnight – just paint yourself as a pore ol’ rural white man being oppressed by the existence of all them Others and there’s gold in them thar downloads. Hell, the entire sport of college football is currently being reduced to basically the SEC and Ohio State because that’s what ESPN and Fox are willing to pay to broadcast, and if you’re west of the Rockies you’re gonna have to hitch a ride with the rednecks.
I’ve said it before and I stand by it: the only place I’ve ever experienced people making assumptions about my racial and political attitudes as a white guy with a trace Alabama accent is in…the South. Because in my experience, the rural white South assumes anyone who sounds like them is like them. Which, writ large, is how a Queens property hustler who cites things like “Two Corinthians” gets to be held up as God’s miracle plan for America. He thinks a wishbone is something you get out of a turkey and couldn’t distinguish sweet potato pie from sweet potato casserole, but he’s right about What Really Matters, and that is that he hates the same people they do.
And so, I turned my earbuds up as loud as they would go without damaging anything and tried to lose myself in SomaFM Thistle Radio. But there it was, an annoying buzz underneath all night. Finally, after hearing the mention of Arkansas, I stopped by on the way out the door with a “Woo Pig” and passed a small amount of conversation. He was an electrician, out on a job with his buddy from Colorado. And, sure enough and sadly enough, he was exactly as his accent pegged him.