The South is Full (Now Git!)

A day or so ago, I posted this on X (the artist formerly known as Twitter). It was written quickly as something of a lighthearted jibe at a growing problem in the Southern States. But it resonated with many and ended up going a bit viral. So I decided to share it here with you folks

In recent days, there’s been an influx of people from California, Oregon, and the Yankee territories to our area. They come because land is cheap, taxes are low, and people tend to leave you alone. But because of years of brainwashing, they aren’t sure what to make of the natives.

They look at us as though we were some kind of exotic animal. “Real live racists in the wild.” (Then again, I suppose it *is* true that some of us haven’t had all our shots.)

Of course they don’t usually say it as plainly as all that because they know we all own guns, and they’ve heard that we believe that anything that can’t be baptized should be shot.

So instead, a New Englandish woman ends up saying something like, “It’s much different here than we expected. At first we wondered how we would adjust to the Deep South, what with with all those sweaty poors and bare feet.” And then exclaims with no small amount of surprise, “But just today I saw the cutest little shoe store!”

While immigration from the southern border is an existential threat to cherished cultures, we are also facing yet another critical invasion from the North. A new breed of carpetbagger is upon us.

They come in hybrid cars barely mobile under the weight of the two small bicycles strapped to the roof. They come with bumper stickers for PETA and Greenpeace; come, I say, to a land of hunters and paper mills. They come with their Old Bay seasoning and with accents sharp enough to grate cheese. They come with Blue State notions, and are then shocked to learn that we prefer our Gray heritage as much as our Red State ideals.

So now, when people whose only knowledge of my corner of the world comes from the media or Hollywood, ask me what the Deep South is really like, I tell them “It’s just like Faulkner described it.”

And then I issue a warning to these folks from far flung places like London or Paris or Boston, “We’re so impoverished we can’t even afford punctuation. It’s an awful place. We shoot people over semicolons. I’d stay away.”

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