Friday, July 31, 2009
Hicks From the Sticks Oh, Cary Tennis; A Tale of Anti-Southern Bias
Posted by Ashley Spurgeon on Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 4:11 PM
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
No rich literary history? C'mon now, Ashley. Most of my favorite authors are from the South: James Agee, William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry (Southwest technically, but you get the idea).
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C'mon, let her think that. Don we really need another one of those moving here?
And Hargrove, as Randy Newman said, the problem with sarcasm is that not everyone gets it.
To be fair, if you use our elected representatives, the Tenn. state legislature, as a proxy for the avg. Tennessean, then Mr Tennis is being very generous in his opinion of this region.
Or, just look at the comments under the "Birthers are Republican, Southern, ...", a couple of entries below this entry. Those reader comments simultaneously make you want to laugh out loud & also cry because of the level of stupidity that's out there.
Read the column. Can't figure out what angered you. Not a bit of Southern bashing in it.
I like Cary. In his meandering, lyrical answers is sometimes found great wisdom. Sometimes it's just off point, but there are some gems, one of which hit me quite profoundly a few years ago.
Anyway, (a) as others have said Ashley, what do you mean we don't have a rich literary history or great museums, etc.? Ever been to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta? Ever been to the Birmingham Museum of Art? (b) could Cary have taken a moment to disabuse the LW of her exceedingly common views of the South? Maybe, but his approach was probably more useful in the long run.
Also, Cary is a Southerner by birth, and was evidently pretty scarred by the experience of growing up in a religiously conservative home. He ran away to San Francisco and never looked back. I can sympathize sometimes.
I wrote Cary a rather serious email a couple years back. To my surprise, he wrote back. We exchanged a couple more emails. His comments were thoughtful (in both senses) and it was a helpful exchange. He seemed nice, and considerate.
Ashley,
For the benefit of those who comment on your posts, please provide a standard disclaimer that your post "may contain sarcasm"
