Talk:Southern United States

I think this article just got a heavily partisan rewrite by a proud Southerner who believes his political views are definitive:

The scars left by the total war against Southern civilians may never fully heal. Before the war, the South was the wealthiest part of the USA with a dynamic culture that supplied many of the American Founding Fathers, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Sometime after World War II, the Northern economy expanded south, shaping a "New South" into a manufacturing region and colony of Northern capitalism.

But as many mills are being shut down all over the USA, while their multinational corporate owners relocate to "Communist" China and to India, Southern nationalist and cultural groups, such as the League of the South, attack the inhumanity of modern capitalism. Such groups advocate a return to a more peaceful, humane and self-sufficient agrarian society. The League is made up of university scholars and other Southern intellectuals who also teach loyalty to Southern tradition and hope that secession from the imperialist USA will be realized once again — just as Norway won her independence from Sweden.

The region is blessed with plentiful rainfall and a mild to warm climate. Many kinds of crops grow easily in its soils and can be grown without frost for at least six months of the year. The South is blessed with fragrant Magnolia trees, fragrant Jessamine vines, beautiful flowering Dogwoods, and many and sundry other natural delights.

The vast majority of Southerners never owned slaves and they were independent yeoman farmers just as in the North. Political tensions arose for a number reasons, especially slavery, and in 1860, 11 southern states left the Union and formed a separate nation, the Confederate States of America. Immediately, President Abraham Lincoln sent armed warships down to Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on the pretext to keep it from reverting to the Confederacy. War broke out, officially called in the North, the American Civil War, and called in the South, the "War for Southern Independence." n

Since 1965, Texas has been flooded with tens of millions the poorest inhabitants of Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.

Southern Religion Question

"for its Calvinist religion called 'fundamentalism'" -- aren't most Southerners (stereotypically speaking) Baptist? jengod 22:42, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)

Baptists may be the largest single demonination, but I don't know that they're the majority. (I have no figures at hand, just my impression.) "Calvinist" may not be the best term here. -- Infrogmation 23:32, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say that they're the largest in number, but I would not say that they're the majority. Just like anywhere in the country, I'm sure they get competition from rival Protestant sects as well as Catholicism. Mike H 03:22, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that Baptists are anywhere a "majority" in the South, athough there might be a few counties where this is the case, especially if one were to lump all of the various Baptist sects together (something that they themselves are either unwilling or unable to do). They are certainly a "plurality" in much of the South, though, and quite often bigger than the next two or three religious groupings put together. That having been said, while the South certainly has more than its share, the idea that a majority of Southerners, or even a majority of Southern religionists, are a bunch of Bible-totin', Scripture quotin' "fundamentalists" is an oversimiplification at best and an unfair stereotype at worst. Such do exist, and in abudance, but are far from all that there is to the Southern culture. They probably exert influence beyond their numbers because of the willingness of so many of them to be "in your face" and hence loud in both the literal and the political/social sense (although many others express a quiet humility). As to Calvinism, there is a certain amount of Calvinist influence in many Baptists, particularly conservative ones, and in fact Calvinism in the 21st century probably has more influence among Baptists today than it does among modern Presbyterians. Many fundamentalists also believe in free will, so that is probably another unfair stereotype. The number of Catholics in the South is now rising rapidly due to immigration from Latin America, which is making another huge religious change and in someplaces is overwhelming the Catholic infastructure, which for many years primarily catered to small communitites of Irish, Italians, and Germans.

Rlquall 14:51, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Might take a look at the Southern Baptist Convention article for a bit more insight. Quinobi 18:11, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Gulf Coast (including parts of Alabama and Mississippi) was originally settled by the French and the Spanish. Moreover, the port cities on the Gulf Coast have received a large number of Irish and Italian immigrants during the last two hundred years. Catholicism was once the predominant religion of these areas and still has a very strong presence.

Politics

A previous writer seems to say that the average southerner identifies with only Republicans, but this is true only in federal elections. States like AL, MS, TN, LA, and AR have both houses controlled by Democrats. In many of these, the Democrat:Republican ratio is 2:1. Other southern states are likely to have at least one house of the legislature controlled by Democrats. To say these voters are simply voting based on evangelical beliefs is inaccurate. Many southerners are motivated by their opposition to a large federal government, preferring local/state authority. The dislike of "bureaucracy" is strong in the South.

Native America

Again, as with many US-centric articles, there is no mention of Native Americans at all. How can the History of an American region be represented without some reference to its original inhabitants? Shame shame. Quinobi 18:20, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Just playing devils advocate here: Maybe because all the Natives who lived here are covered by other articles about the Native Americans of America. The South as a cultural region never really coexisted with Natives, so there wouldn't need to be any mention of them. Anyways, a sentence or two and some links might be nice.-

LtNOWIS 02:57, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To futher advocate the aformentioned devil: Georgia Cherokees were so assimilative of the Southern culture that at the time of the Trail of Tears, many of the wealthier ones (such as Chief Vann) owned numerous black slaves which worked their plantations. Some Mississippi Choctaws also owned slaves. This assimilation attempt might merit mention, even though the attempt at coexistence (represented in part by the above, which was partially a move for assimilation and white acceptance) was a failure due to Jackson's insistance on Removal.

Rlquall 03:15, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The War Between the States; Atlanta vs. The South

That term was still in very wide use forty years ago during the centennial of the event, but is dying out raidly even among Southerners; I edited the article slightly in an attempt to reflect this. Almost none outside of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and fringe groups like the League of the South still speak of "The War for Southern Independence" or "The War of Northern Agression", most call it, like the rest of the country, The Civil War, even though there was very little civility involved for the most part. That having been said, the South has tens of thousands of Civil War buffs, ranging from intellectuals who want ever detail throughly researched and authenticated, through a vast mainstream group which is interested in the history of the period, to those whose only interest in it whatever is the fact that it was a period of unquestioned white supremacy.

It is true in the main that, "In the South, the past is ever present. In fact, it's never even passed." The resentment that many rural Georgians and other Southerners as well feel toward Atlanta goes so far beyond the traditional rural/urban rivalry, or even racism, that it is surprising to outsiders (and probably most Atlantans, especially white ones, are largely unaware of it or knowingly ingnore it) and is in part caused by the fact that modern Atlanta has so little connection to its own past in particular, the Southern past in general, or to its region. Those who go to Atlanta to experience "the South" are apt to be disappointed, as in many ways they find a modern large city that fits anywhere in North America, only governed by blacks and with a black majority. Rlquall 14:18, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth, having spent the first 25 years of my life in the South, I have never heard it called anything but the Civil War. This reminds me of an entry in the American Heritage Dictionary, saying that in the South, people call soft drinks dope (probably from the original recipe of Coca-Cola). Maybe in Atlanta, but I have never heard that in Alabama. News to me.

I've got a feeling the term "dope" in reference to soft drinks may have have been a product of the original formula, but I've never heard it said in Atlanta, but in the mountains of East Tennessee and hills of Middle Tennessee and only by older people, never anyone even middle-aged.

Title

It's probably too late now, but wouldn't this article better be titled "Southern United States"? The Midwest article isn't entitled "U.S. Midwestern states". I know that it's a redirect from "Southern United States" but that certainly seems a more natural thing to look up, in my Southern U.S.-centric view at least.

Rlquall 15:01, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This article's title fails by two counts.

1. It contains an acronym
2. It contains an acronym whose initials are seperated by periods

--ZayZayEM 00:50, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As noted above, I agree that the title is bad. But is it an acronym? SCUBA is, Radar is, but is U.S. Southern states? I don't think so. As an acronym, would it be USSS? Or is that an initialism? Well, anyway, the general U.S. usage (at least in the Southern states) is not US but U.S., although both are correct. However, to a U.S. resident (at least this U.S. resident), US always looks "foreign".

Rlquall 03:10, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

pendantically speaking... I think plain US (no periods) is used in most other Wikipedia titles that contain it. US embargo against Cuba was expanded.--ZayZayEM 03:27, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Normally in style books, directions like "southern" and "western" are not capitalized, but noun regions like "the South" are. It should be "U.S. southern states," not "U.S. Southern states." It's "southern Wisconsin," not "Southern Wisconsin," and "southern music," not "Southern music," for similar reasons. Bebop 00:03, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You may be technically right. However, Southerners tend to regard themselves as somewhat of a separate ethnicity, and this I would say is the origin of this otherwise-deviant practice. It's almost like someone from southern England being "Cornish", if they are in fact from Cornwall. "Southern music" is then capitalized, because it is music made by Southerners, just as there is "Cornish music". To confirm this in at least a backhanded way, I submit the huge number of businesses throughout the South that refer to themselves as "Southern Whatever" — Southern Tire Service, Southern Drywall, Southern Cleaners, etc. There is not a similar number of Eastern Tire Services or Nothern Cleaners. (The only region with anything even similar is, to a far lesser extent, the Midwest.) Also, Southern states have specific regions which have distinct meanings; they are "terms of art". I doubt if you could say exactly which counties are in southern Wisconsin in the way that it can be precisely listed what counties constitute Lower Alabama, or West Tennessee. I would renew my request that if this is to be renamed, it should be renamed what its residents mostly call it and would probably in the majority wish for it to be called, "Southern United States". Rlquall 02:33, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I certainly have no quibble about whether the topic is called Southern United States or not. I was more thinking about how to consistently capitalize the word throughout the encyclopedia. I'm a southerner/Southerner myself. I guess your logic is that "the South" (which definitely should be capitalized when used to represent this area of the country) is the proper noun equivalent of "Cornwall" as a name of a place. Thus Cornish and Southern would be the capitalized adjectival forms of these proper nouns. I'll go look in some of my style manuals regarding this issue when I have some time. As far as your exmples about "Southern Tire Service," that really isn't persuasive to me; it's just a company name, and company names are always capitalized. As for West Tennessee or Lower Alabama, that's a different beast from "western Tennessee," which is never capitalized. When you put a direction like "west" in front of a proper noun to denote a subregion that has become known by that name as a proper noun form, rather than qualify it with an adjective like "western," then you certainly do capitalize it (i.e., West Tennessee), whereas you wouldn't capitalize "western Tennessee" or "southern Alabama" except if that was the part of a university's or company's name. I agree the Midwest is referred to as a capitalized region. The North is also capitalized when writing a discussion about the area above the Mason-Dixon line, such as when discussing the people of the North and South regarding the U.S. Civil War; there is also the North v. the South teams in an annual, end-of-year Senior Bowl all-star college football game (and another football game called the Blue-Grey game, as well as numerous high-school state all-star North-South football games). And there are businesses named Northern and Northeastern, per Yahoo. Bebop 19:51, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, now I have just gotten through looking at "southern tours" in a sentence referring to a tour of the South, and I'm trying to decide about capitalizing it. As for "southern states," it seems to me that when you are speaking of Southern music, you capitalize it as meaning "music characteristic of the South." But when you say "southern states" you mean southern United States, not "states characteristic of the South," so it should be lowercased. A "southern tour" by a band is a tricky example; maybe it should say "southern U.S. tour." Very confusing subject. I definitely need to look it up in stylebooks. Bebop 22:12, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NYT Style convention : 'south' should always be capitalized when referring to the region of the U.S., as well as when it is used to mention a distinct region (the example they give is South Texas). 'Southern' works the same way (e.g. Southern California). They say (or at least I think they say) not to capitalize when 'southern' is used to just mention a place that is not necessarily a distinct region (i.e. southern Utah). I would say western Tennessee is rarely considered a distinct region, but East Tennessee may be a different story. Again, this is only New York Times style. --Mauvila 00:34, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's not just the business usage, it's the fact that there are thousands of businesses naming themselves such; other regions just don't have anything to a similar extent. (Nashville used to be the U.S. headqaurters of "Northern Telecom" before it reinvented itself as "Nortel Neworks" and then nearly bit the dust and had to downsize and cut overhead, but that was a Canadian company and what the "Northern" referenced.) The NYT convention is generally a good way to go for U.S. usage. (But West Tennessee is just as definitely a place as East Tennessee is, one can even define which counties are in it, namely all of those west of or bisected by the western part of the Tennessee River as it passes through the state. So is Middle Tennessee a defined place, and, for that matter, Middle Georgia, I believe.) I think that "southern U.S. tour" is better than "Southern Tour", for whatever that's worth. Rlquall 00:47, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I just noticed that Delta blues has uses "southwestern Tennessee," rather than capitalizing it. That seems normal. I still need to get out my style books. Back to your question, Rlquall, does anyone know it reason this shouldn't be moved to "Southern United States"? Bebop 16:48, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)