It’s easy to see why the story made international news. It doesn’t get crazier than this cavalcade of questionable decisions, though the victim (expected to recover) probably disagrees. Recently, in Georgia, a man decided that a) he should shoot an armadillo which was offending his sensibilities in some way, and b) he should do so with a 9mm handgun. Thing is, armadillos are, as the name implies, armored. The bullet hit the presumably innocent armadillo, bounced off its hard shell, flew into a nearby mobile home, and planted itself in the back of the man’s mother-in-law. Which raises further questions.
But hang on — there’s more. Local law enforcement delivered to the media the sensible advice we should all heed in the wake of this shooting: “I really think if they’re going to shoot at ‘varmints’ and whatnot, maybe use a shotgun.” Which, I’m sure, is what most of us were thinking.
At this point, you may well be having a good chuckle at this hapless Georgian or at the advice of this Roscoe P. Coltrane (may he rest in peace). I told this story to a Yankee of particularly close acquaintance and she said something like, “Yeah, those stupid Southerners!”
Well, hang on again.
I am as Southern as they come — born in Texas, spent many a formative year in Louisiana and Mississippi. But it’s only about once a decade that somebody picks up on that in my speech. That makes me privy to some interesting Southerner-bashing from time to time. There’s a difference between laughing with and laughing at, so either take your tittering out of earshot, or ease into the porch swing for a second.
I’ll admit that people like the Georgian armadillo vigilante make it hard to defend my Dixie homeland. Though it’s a great story. That’s a dumb set of events on several levels, no matter where you live. Haplessness roams free down South, but before you put on your Dartmouth sweater and crack into a quahog, ask yourself whether it’s really more common in Georgia than here in the Yankee’s native clime. I’ll wager it ain’t. It’s more that people have selective filtering of news from down South, mostly noticing what confirms their already bad impression. That’s largely thanks to some terrifying and inaccurate stereotypes. See, something happened in the ’70s that dealt North/South relations the worst blow since the War of Northern Aggression. That something is the film Deliverance. You know: “squeal like a pig,” “Dueling Banjos,” redneck rapists in the wilderness, etc.
I can’t count how many times a Northerner has told me they “drove through” the South, as if it were a badge of courage like rounding Cape Horn. Most of them admit to white-knuckling it the whole way, ever-vigilant for sudden redneck attack. They seem to imagine that the Southerners you see are only the tip of the iceberg, that three-toothed bubbas live wild in the bush, ready to pounce on anything with an Elizabeth Warren sticker or unusually high gas mileage.
Truth is, the South is a big and varied place. Texas is hardly like South Carolina, and New Orleans is a unique cultural redoubt that has little to do with North or South. Deliverance was not a documentary. It was more akin to a cartoon. It may well be true that there are more racists and more poorly educated folks with bad dental plans down South. It is undeniably true that most of the craziest members of Congress — that’s you, Ted Cruz — represent the South. But chew on this for a minute: those crazy Texans in Congress, of course, don’t represent the views of all Texans. Texas has an estimated 27 million inhabitants. If even a ridiculously low 30 percent of Texans were well-informed and non-redneck, that’s 9 million people, as in more than the population of New York City.
Research shows that every time you dismiss all Southerners as a bunch of conservative rednecks, a little more of some Texas Democrat’s soul shrivels. And the battle for respect gets harder for the many very good people who happen to live south of the Mason-Dixon. That’s on you people laughing in the back row. So stop it already.
I know it won’t be easy. Even I equate a strong Southern accent with less education. But that’s messed up. I know better. Some of our finest writers — Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Walker Percy, John Kennedy Toole, for starters — came from the South, and that’s hardly an accident. The roots of jazz, blues, rock ’n’ roll, country, bluegrass? You can thank the South for that, too.
Heck, Deliverance was written by a Southerner, James Dickey. And here’s something to think on: the non-crazies, the victims of his scary hillbillies? They didn’t come from New Jersey. They came from a big city in Georgia. I’ll wager Dickey didn’t intend to cast aspersions on the entirety of the South, but on crazy hillbillies, wherever they reside.
The South doesn’t have a lock on hillbillies — the last Confederate flag I saw wasn’t spotted on my recent voyage to Texas, but right here in Western Mass. I get it — stories of backwards yokels are funny. Even Jeff Foxworthy was funny once or possibly twice. Climate-change denial, dismissal of evolution, and jaw-dropping ignorance is worth derision. Just make sure you dole it out wherever it pops up. “Southerner” should not equal all of the bad things you’ve ever attached to the worst citizens of Dixie.
And please, the next time you shoot an armadillo, remember to use a shotgun.•
James Heflin can be contacted at jheflin@valleyadvocate.com.
