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I am a New Jerseyan considering a move to the South, specifically Mississippi or Alabama (Florence-Muscle Shoals area). I happened to be watching a YouTube video recently about Natchez, MS and one commenter stated that a Natchez resident warned him of the following:
"All are welcome to visit but outsiders of any race are not welcome to live ... if you're not a Natchezian you're not going to make it here ... locals will starve you out."
I was disappointed to hear this and it put me off of Natchez and Mississippi as a whole. My question is, are those same exclusionary beliefs present in Alabama?
Thank you.
Can you provide a link to you're quote?
How about a link to the youtube video you are talking about?
I am a New Jerseyan considering a move to the South, specifically Mississippi or Alabama (Florence-Muscle Shoals area). I happened to be watching a YouTube video recently about Natchez, MS and one commenter stated that a Natchez resident warned him of the following:
"All are welcome to visit but outsiders of any race are not welcome to live ... if you're not a Natchezian you're not going to make it here ... locals will starve you out."
I was disappointed to hear this and it put me off of Natchez and Mississippi as a whole. My question is, are those same exclusionary beliefs present in Alabama?
Thank you.
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 docare. 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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreggT
My wife and I have lived all over because of my job. Hardly ever more than two years in one place or state. We have been welcomed in ever place we have lived which included Puerto Rico AND a couple places in Mississippi.
We have found that how you are accepted is not a function of the community you moved to but you yourself and your efforts to blend in.
Who ever told you that is not your friend and in fact must live a miserable life!
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)
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 07-26-2023 at 05:58 PM..
That has got to be one of the more dumb memes to hit the internet. Just because someone sings something doesn't make it accurate.
I carry. Permitted concealed, but as a last resort. "Good ol boys" might actually be the ones I have to step up to and say "Uhhh, no" to when they trespass on my land.
Rural life includes a recognition that there are methheads, scrappers, and drunks who only lack an "sk" instead of the "dr" at the beginning of the epithet out there.
Outsiders do need to understand that in ANY area they will be vetted and determined to be.. or not to be.. safe and a member of the community. That is the question, whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of neighbors, or, ...
You'll notice I deliberately used the past tense in my post. I'm sure there have been positive changes since the 1980s, but I'm also sure a lot of the entrenched attitude has simply gone underground - hence my suggestion of that article about UAT.
It is 2023, is it not?
Brookies have evolved a bit so has the Greystone crowd.
A lot depends on OP's housing budget, personality and need of location based on employment.
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 docare. 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)
I am not sure what Standard Upper Class Scottish Mississippi English may sound like.
As white, overly tall, female immigrant fresh of the airport I had no problems in Weedowee, AL or in Birmingham, AL. It is actually a place I miss for the food, the people, the gardening climate. We also had no issues with our neighbors. Actually some stopped by in Oklahoma today.
I am not sure what Standard Upper Class Scottish Mississippi English may sound like.
As white, overly tall, female immigrant fresh of the airport I had no problems in Weedowee, AL or in Birmingham, AL. It is actually a place I miss for the food, the people, the gardening climate. We also had no issues with our neighbors. Actually some stopped by in Oklahoma today.
One of the things one might gather from Gloria's post is she make no effort to fit in but seems to go to some lengths to do the opposite then whines about the results. Maybe I'm wrong in my assessment.
By the way, we are not affluent, not even close. I was raised by two alcoholic parents, left home right after HS, put myself through school and went to work in textiles. My wife and I frequently moved thanks to NAFTA putting company after company out of business. A few times between jobs, we wondered where our next meal would come from. Massive pay cuts were the norm.
As I mentioned, just like in a marriage, moving into a new area, takes two to make it successful. Our experience with 10-12 or possibly more relocations, every place was an adventure and something my wife an I will treasure as our life together experiences.
That has got to be one of the more dumb memes to hit the internet. Just because someone sings something doesn't make it accurate.
I carry. Permitted concealed, but as a last resort. "Good ol boys" might actually be the ones I have to step up to and say "Uhhh, no" to when they trespass on my land.
Rural life includes a recognition that there are methheads, scrappers, and drunks who only lack an "sk" instead of the "dr" at the beginning of the epithet out there.
Outsiders do need to understand that in ANY area they will be vetted and determined to be.. or not to be.. safe and a member of the community. That is the question, whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of neighbors, or, ...
I mostly said to see how if anyone responds. Thank you for this well written and informative response
GG's rendition of Natchez is accurate and demonstrates a firm grasp on the this very odd and very old city.
Natchez is more than a pretty tourist attraction. It’s a place to think about the past and ask questions. How did Natchez survive the American Civil War undamaged? Why was it the wealthiest city in the United States? Why was Natchez ground zero for the slave trade and why is the Forks of the Road memorial important? What is the Devil’s Punchbowl and what happened there? And when you visit an an antebellum home look beyond the grandeur and think about what you see. Why is the Historic Natchez City Cemetery important to it’s citizens? Look closely at the graves when you visit the Natchez Cemetery and ask about Jewish Hill.
Like GG said, Natchez is unlike the rest of Mississippi and it's not likely you'll find another like it anywhere in the United States. Both Richard Grant and Greg Iles described it as a time capsule.
The people of Natchez are varied. It would take a cultural anthropologist to explain that one. If GG said they were rude, they were rude. If she said it was unprovoked, it was unprovoked.
GG's rendition of Natchez is accurate and demonstrates a firm grasp on the this very odd and very old city.
Natchez is more than a pretty tourist attraction. It’s a place to think about the past and ask questions. How did Natchez survive the American Civil War undamaged? Why was it the wealthiest city in the United States? Why was Natchez ground zero for the slave trade and why is the Forks of the Road memorial important? What is the Devil’s Punchbowl and what happened there? And when you visit an an antebellum home look beyond the grandeur and think about what you see. Why is the Historic Natchez City Cemetery important to it’s citizens? Look closely at the graves when you visit the Natchez Cemetery and ask about Jewish Hill.
Like GG said, Natchez is unlike the rest of Mississippi and it's not likely you'll find another like it anywhere in the United States. Both Richard Grant and Greg Iles described it as a time capsule.
The people of Natchez are varied. It would take a cultural anthropologist to explain that one. If GG said they were rude, they were rude. If she said it was unprovoked, it was unprovoked.
Ah....
Another expert on Mississippi from Southern California!.....LOL!!
GG's rendition of Natchez is accurate and demonstrates a firm grasp on the this very odd and very old city.
Natchez is more than a pretty tourist attraction. It’s a place to think about the past and ask questions. How did Natchez survive the American Civil War undamaged? Why was it the wealthiest city in the United States? Why was Natchez ground zero for the slave trade and why is the Forks of the Road memorial important? What is the Devil’s Punchbowl and what happened there? And when you visit an an antebellum home look beyond the grandeur and think about what you see. Why is the Historic Natchez City Cemetery important to it’s citizens? Look closely at the graves when you visit the Natchez Cemetery and ask about Jewish Hill.
Like GG said, Natchez is unlike the rest of Mississippi and it's not likely you'll find another like it anywhere in the United States. Both Richard Grant and Greg Iles described it as a time capsule.
The people of Natchez are varied. It would take a cultural anthropologist to explain that one. If GG said they were rude, they were rude. If she said it was unprovoked, it was unprovoked.
Interesting. I will read up on Natchez Miss.
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