[AnsleyPark]

Hmmm. You might want to consider metro Atlanta. Moved to south Alabama from there some years ago. Seriously considering moving back.

[Nlambert]

I've never lived anywhere in Alabama where people cared where you came from or who wouldn't accept new-comers. The motto is generally that you will be treated as you treat others. Sure there are pockets of people who don't fit that, but the same can be said from anywhere.

I visited Manhattan a few years back and expected New Yorkers to be the most rude and disrespectful people on the planet... I mean.. if you watch TV that's how they're portrayed.

I found the complete opposite. Everyone that we stopped to ask directions were friendly and kind. We had great conversations with some who recognized our southern accents. They had also formed their opinions on people from Alabama from TV. We were both relieved to find that the stereotypes aren't true.

[MinivanDriver]

Originally Posted by Nlambert

I've never lived anywhere in Alabama where people cared where you came from or who wouldn't accept new-comers. The motto is generally that you will be treated as you treat others. Sure there are pockets of people who don't fit that, but the same can be said from anywhere.

I visited Manhattan a few years back and expected New Yorkers to be the most rude and disrespectful people on the planet... I mean.. if you watch TV that's how they're portrayed.

I found the complete opposite. Everyone that we stopped to ask directions were friendly and kind. We had great conversations with some who recognized our southern accents. They had also formed their opinions on people from Alabama from TV. We were both relieved to find that the stereotypes aren't true.

New Yorkers rock. Sure, they're more direct than what we're used to. But the way I see it, it just kind of saves time.

[grampaTom]

Originally Posted by GrandviewGloria

I don't know if it's a matter of "beliefs", but yes, in-general, it tends to be true. I'm pretty sure that Natchezians tend not to have any sorts of beliefs, at all. The culture, there, is very old, cynical, and sophisticated. But they will definitely freeze-you-out - and long before you attempt to move there.

Mostly, they'll slap-you-down, upon your being introduced to them by mutual acquaintances.

New Orleans, Mobile, and Miami, are all incredibly-rude places - ruder than New York ever thought about being. But Natchez rudeness has a special dimension of nastiness, which I can't quite describe. It's special, though. Maybe it's due to a collective bitterness. Maybe it's from cynicism, in a town which, for centuries, has seen an unending stream of hopeful wannabes, thinking they'll: catch a rich local (there are none)/break into local society/make a fortune redoing an old mansion/get rich running a B&B/get a great job at the new factory - whatever: they ALWAYS FAIL, and inconvenience/displace locals, in the process.

There was once a prominent crafty/back-stabbing/business-savvy residential architect, who accepted a commission to re-do one of Natchez' famous mansions. The Client was supposedly rich, and willing to spend "whatever it takes". Since that architect employs the best drafting architects in the South, his office generated some fabulous drawings for the refitting (which made their way to me, via a workman on the job: I've got my spies: it pays to be nice: it costs, to be nasty). Those drawings were NOT implemented by the Client, who balked, when fabrication cost estimates came in (I handed the drawings to my team, who've digitalized/modified them as standard built-ins for Trad-style office parks). Immediately thereafter, that Architect vowed to NEVER accept another Natchez project. "They're all broke, crazy, time-thieves." Instructions to his staff were that Natchez projects, and Natchez people, be rejected - automatically - never reaching him.

I'm brown. My friends are mostly Ashkenazim who grew up Methodist. They speak Standard Upper Class Mississippi Scottish English. They actually look like the people in the portraits hanging in Natchez' Antebellum mansions. They're actually descendants of the state's Founding Families. But Natchez people are ugly to my friends: really, REALLY ugly - astonishingly ugly.

Natchez people have also been ugly to me. That, I can understand, since my entire name is engineered and above my origins, and since I overdress, and since I wear big rocks (being brown, I have to overcompensate), and since my speech is distinctly 'RP' (Received Pronunciation, aka "POSH"). It's funny that in Southampton, and on Central Park South, and in Aspen, and in Seattle, and in the Malibu Colony,and in Jackson Hole - and even in low-key Portland, nobody has bothered to discern whether or not I'm 'The Genuine Article'. And when I tell them I'm up-from-nothing, they don't care. But in Natchez, they do bother to "see right through me". And they do care. And the motivation behind their discernment, is to hurt.

None of us ever went to Natchez, for any reason beyond having been dragged-there, for one reason or another. We weren't trying to do anything beyond being quiet and polite and cooperative, during whatever event/occasion/moment was at-hand. Still, locals felt the need to deliver hurtful slapdowns. I haven't been in that hellhole since '05, and hope to never go there, again. Ditto, for everyone I know, except for one powerful (thus useful) politician, to whom those people are nice (until her usefulness to Natchezians expires, at least).

Natchez is TOTALLY unlike the rest of Mississippi. The rest of Mississippi, is primarily peopled by the Shrimp Pink descendants of the Founding Families' white slaves (ten percent of the entire Scottish Nation, was sold into slavery, during the 'Clearances': most perished of Heat Exhaustion). Generally, those people have been kind to me, the odd little brown person with a fancy accent and a fancy name. One of them gave me my first job (pulling weeds, for money to buy cornmeal), and another, on her own time, and out of the goodness of her own heart, established my Choctaw Papers, arranged my scholarships, and drove me up to college (where, eventually, I acquired my fancy name and fancy accent).

The rest of Mississippi, has certainly been rejecting of the individuals in my original little group of college friends (but far less-so, than has Natchez). One glance at my inner circles' dark hair, dark eyes, and "bloodless skin", and Mississippians get skittish - or hostile - or resentful - or rebellious. Mississippians seem to instantly recognize their "Class Enemies", and react.

Most of the people who look like the people in the old New England/Virginia/Natchez portraits, long-ago left Mississippi. There is extreme anti-Mediterranean sentiment, in Mississippi (and, I assume, in Alabama). The 2000 Movie, 'Gladiator', probably did not help. In one Jackson exurb, Roman-style finials, atop a beautiful building (https://www.city-data.com/forum/12147953-post77.html), were dragged-down, at catastrophic expense to developers, at the insistence of what amounted to a White Trash lynch mob.

But while isolated, and forced to live within a very insular community of Upper Class people, my friends can/could (until they hit 100MM, and could afford to flee) mostly function in the rest of Mississippi. They can/could go to the office, go to the gym, go to private schools, and emerge unscathed. In Natchez, one can't even spend an afternoon. Their own race/class PEERS, in Natchez, are so deliberately hurtful.

Where I'm heading with this, is that one cannot generalize about an entire state. Each state has regions, which can vary greatly. And one cannot broadly generalize about populations in specific regions. Things, in the Deep South, are stratified, then cross-stratified, according to IQ, precise coloring, social class, groups within that social class (conformist sports enthusiasts vs free thinkers), income, net worth, family background, accent ('White Trash', 'Redneck', 'Nice People', 'Old Family', 'New Money with Big Teeth', 'POSH' - each group has its own way of speaking), school (Tulane/SMU/Vandy/Tougaloo/Ivies people have to just hide behind their hedges, and socialize out-of-state, while Ole Miss/State/USM/JSU people each have their own cliques/churches/private schools), smokers-druggies vs clean-living, which private school the kids attend, and precise religious sect.

That will hold-true in Alabama, as much as it does in Mississippi, although Alabamans are possibly less money-crazy than are Mississippians. But some locales are worse than are others.



I'm going to guess that you (and perhaps your wife) are white, fit, good-looking, and affluent (relative to others around you). You're probably hyper-normal, and expert at fitting-in. Not everybody is so lucky as to be precisely what people will universally welcome and tolerate.

Others, particularly refugees being settled into the Deep South, are in for traumatic levels of rejection (and worse - life-threateningly worse). A sizeable portion of the populace, see someone who is neither black nor white, and instantly see someone to rob, or someone upon whom they can blame a robbery (or whatever other crime for which a patsy is needed). Hispanics and South Asians get violently robbed-&-murdered in their homes (where they are assumed to keep lots of cash), and brutally raped in Southern prisons, where they are the prey-of-choice. It's a terrible place to move, if one is not part of a group which has traditionally done well, there. (and the statistics bear-that-out)

OK, you talked me into it -- I'm looking for a B&B to go spend a week there.

[Axxlrod]

You'll be fine. Just bring your own folding chair.

[supfromthesite]

Originally Posted by grampaTom

OK, you talked me into it -- I'm looking for a B&B to go spend a week there.

I’m glad somebody had the same thought as me. I might have to see if I can find a contract job to live there for 6 months. Sounds very interesting.

[xray731]

Just moved to Alabama from outside Buffalo NY - 2 months ago and love it. Everyone has been super friendly and helpful.

[GreggT]

Originally Posted by xray731

Just moved to Alabama from outside Buffalo NY - 2 months ago and love it. Everyone has been super friendly and helpful.

Where outside of Buffalo? I spent quite a bit of time in Seneca Falls, beautiful part of the country!

[ScoPro]

Too bad Natchez-Under-The-Hill is long gone, or have they tried to revive it?

[xray731]

Originally Posted by GreggT

Where outside of Buffalo? I spent quite a bit of time in Seneca Falls, beautiful part of the country!

We lived in the Town of Tonawanda. My son moved to Ala 10 yrs ago for his job and we've visited and love it so decided to retire down here. Moved just in time too as they brought migrants up from NYC last week and moved them into a Red Roof a mile from where we used to live. I'm all for immigration as long as it's legal. In the 3 weeks they've been in Western New York - there have been 3 rapes, multiple assaults and businesses damaged and at least one case of TB. I wish I could convince the rest of my family to move here.

Seneca Falls is beautiful and there are a lot of beautiful areas in NY that's the sad part