Irritation.

Nov 28, 2005 05:47

I was born in the south. I was brought up in the south. I have lived in the south my entire life. Tennessee, to be exact. Now, for many years it has irritated me to listen to people who live in the south be berated, simply because this is where we live. The whole "everyone from the south is stupid." Or that everyone who lives here has many cars up on cinderblocks, or other retarded things like that. I will grant you, I am not a super intelligent person. I have in fact, spent most of my life telling people I am stupid, however, contrary to this, I do actually believe myself to be of average intelligence (for anyone, anywhere). Yes, I have been known to walk outside barefoot occassionaly. On my father's land there are a total of seven vehicles. One of these is for his work, one is a truck, one is his everyday car, one is a van used for trips, one a 1970 Buick he is working on restoring, one is my brother's broken down car, one is my husband's broken down car. Personally, I do not believe, given that he is a mail carrier and the one for work is specifically designed for such an occupation, that this is bad. However, since we live in the south, apparently it is. Though, if we were from the north, it would be acceptable for him to have five of his own vehicles and two of his children's or their spouse's. This infuriates me to no end. I am very proud of my southern heritage. What brings this up is a joke I saw on a forum that I sometimes post on. It went like this "Why do our kids have to take the Iowa Test for Basic Skills? Why can't we have a Georgia Test of Basic Skills with questions like, "Bubba's got three cars and he done traded for two more. How many cement blocks is Bubba gonna need?" "
Now, I find that offensive, because I am from the south, but ok. Fine. Then another person comes right along behind that one and posts "OMG.. are you sure that is not the Tennessee state test, for General Equivalency Diploma's?" I find that beyond offensive. To me, the saddest part is that these two are from the south themselves. Ok, I grant that I am most likely over-reacting to what is meant to be a harmless little joke. You know, though, a lot of jokes that "poke fun at" people aren't funny. Some people, not all, but some will take offense to them. This just happens to be one of the things that offends me.
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