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To: ReagansRaiders
Much has been made of this one with the "hillbillies" talking about Al Gore.

These folks claim to be from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Well, here's a scoop: I live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and have for the past 20 1/2 years. (Prior to that, I lived in nearby Nashville for about 33 years.) And I have never heard the sort of dialect spoken by these (supposed) Murfreesborians. I have, on occasion, witnessed a similar lack of apparent literacy. But even that is unusual.

The person who posted this is simply playing into a stereotype--and a poorly considered one, at that. It is my understanding that hillbillies of the Tennessee variety (although I have never seen a real, live one, in person) reside principally in Appalachia--which is in the mountainous region of upper east Tennessee, past Knoxville.

The now-defunct TV series Hee Haw probably did a great deal to advance the notion of Nashville (in middle Tennessee) as a mecca for hillbillies. And the Nashville Chamber of Commerce no doubt played along, as this image--albeit a hugely false one--tends to promote tourism, if only out of a patronizing curiosity.

But Tennessee is not dominated by Apalachia (which, by the way, extends into some other states also), any more than Mississippi can be defined by its Delta country or Missouri and Arkansas defined by the Ozarks.

This is just another example of certain stereotyping being considered okay by the politically correct folks--the same folks who would roundly roast anyone who might dare to suggest a forbidden stereotype.

17 posted on 07/24/2007 10:09:50 AM PDT by AmericanExceptionalist (Democrats believe in discussing the full spectrum of ideas, all the way from far left to center-left)
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To: AmericanExceptionalist

Sounded more like Andy Kaufman than anyone from Tennessee that I know.


19 posted on 07/24/2007 10:13:00 AM PDT by griswold3
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To: AmericanExceptionalist
Geeze, you don't even want think of the stuff that we in New England get blamed for. A map of Appalachia. The lure of Appalachia is poor Whites. Politically it's easier to sell poverty programs if they aren't seen as an interracial income transfer mechanism.


22 posted on 07/24/2007 10:17:18 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (I never consented to live in the Camp of the Saints.)
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To: AmericanExceptionalist

It is a “stereotype” but it won’t be branded racist. “It was a joke” you know “A choke, maaaan, jess lighten up eeets funny”. Oh wait, that dialect wouldn’t be PC.


26 posted on 07/24/2007 10:26:45 AM PDT by weegee (NO THIRD TERM. America does not need another unconstitutional Clinton co-presidency.)
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To: AmericanExceptionalist

I work in Mboro and am wondering where all the cud-chewers are? Good God that was ridiculous.


34 posted on 07/24/2007 12:14:30 PM PDT by cpanter (9/11 - first time in history that fire has ever melted steel - Rosie the Hut)
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