Books, Arts & Manners

Having been assured for twenty years by sensitive Yankees that they like the South—“The Atlanta airport is fine, and there was this Chinese restaurant, and . . .”—I am nearly convinced that the South no longer exists. If it did, why would strangers feel at home there? “Atlanta is not the South,” I used to say; but now I’m not so sure. The land of the poll tax and the cotton boll—much to the relief of concerned aliens—is vanished, if not gone with the wind. In its place we have Confederate Toyota and Rebel Honda, Pizza Hut and Lockheed and Grumman, cable television and the ubiquitous whine of the air conditioner. Why not? In Paris, le Big Mac est servi; in Nairobi, Kentucky Fried Chicken is franchised. “The South” may have become merely the eastern Sunbelt, a handy retirement spot, a pleasing location for factories and corporations, and a useful handle for denominating items of literature and history and culture as seemingly remote, if not so important, as medieval Sicily.

So for good reason I am nearly convinced—but not quite. The cadences of accent, the remnants of specifically Southern forms of rhetoric and humor, the maintenance of familial and religious commitments, the private survival of a distinctive cuisine, the personal assertion of codes of honor and manners: These testify that “the South” is not—at least not yet—merely a geographical expression.

JT

About the Author

J. O. Tate

Featured Tags

Martin Luther King Jr

Having been assured for twenty years by sensitive Yankees that they like the South—“The Atlanta airport is fine, and there was this Chinese restaurant, and . . .”—I am nearly convinced that the South no longer exists. If it did, why would strangers feel at home there? “Atlanta is not the South,” I used to say; but now I’m not so sure. The land of the poll tax and the cotton boll—much to the relief of concerned aliens—is vanished, if not gone with the wind. In its place we have Confederate Toyota and Rebel Honda, Pizza Hut and Lockheed and Grumman, cable television and the ubiquitous whine of the air conditioner. Why not? In Paris, le Big Mac est servi; in Nairobi, Kentucky Fried Chicken is franchised. “The South” may have become merely the eastern Sunbelt, a handy retirement spot, a pleasing location for factories and corporations, and a useful handle for denominating items of literature and history and culture as seemingly remote, if not so important, as medieval Sicily.

So for good reason I am nearly convinced—but not quite. The cadences of accent, the remnants of specifically Southern forms of rhetoric and humor, the maintenance of familial and religious commitments, the private survival of a distinctive cuisine, the personal assertion of codes of honor and manners: These testify that “the South” is not—at least not yet—merely a geographical expression.