16 John Shelton Reed Quotes for You to Enjoy

John Shelton Reed

Sociologist

Born: 1942

Confederate Music Old People Think You

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We could say that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow stock-car racing, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt 'possum, go to Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to Scotch are likely to be Southerners. John Shelton Reed

Music People Country Corporal Say Churches Punishment Hunt Follow Eat Could Support Country Music Bourbon Likely Schools Go Scotch Southerners Listen Baptist Prefer Racing Who

The South: What is this place? What's different about it? Is it different anymore? Good questions. Old ones, too. People have been asking them for decades. Some of us even make our living by asking them, but we still don't agree about the answers. John Shelton Reed

Good People Old Living Too Our Some About Make Answers Still Been South Questions Decades Different Anymore Place Them Us Asking Old Ones Agree Even

You ask people what their ethnicity is, and a lot of Scots-Irish people either don't know or if they know it they just don't acknowledge it. It's not something they really identify with. They're just plain old Americans, plain vanilla. I don't think they are a self-conscious voting bloc. John Shelton Reed

You People Voting Old Think Vanilla Something Self-Conscious Know Identify Lot American Just Acknowledge Either Plain Ask Really Ethnicity

Every Southerner, I think, knows people like Bill Clinton, maybe not quite as smart and maybe not quite as liberal, but kind of a glad-handing, country-club yuppie Southerner. The problem is we don't have labels for middle-class Southerners. John Shelton Reed

People Problem Smart Every Think Liberal Kind Like Knows Clinton Labels Southerner Southerners Quite Maybe Bill Bill Clinton

Country music historically has been sort of middle-aged people's music. John Shelton Reed

Music People Country Has-Been Country Music Sort Been Historically Middle-Aged

I think there's a suspicion in the South of people putting on airs. You see it in most successful Southern politicians, but you also see it in someone like Richard Petty, who may be a multimillionaire stock car driver, but he's also beloved because he has a nice self-deprecatory way about him. John Shelton Reed

You People Car Politicians Nice Petty Think Way See About Someone Driver He Putting Like Most Also Him Because South Stock Southern May Suspicion Richard Successful Who Beloved

If you care to define the South as a poor, rural region with lousy race relations, that South survives only in geographical shreds and patches and most Southerners don't live there any more. John Shelton Reed

I do believe states' rights was a sound doctrine that got hijacked by some unsavory customers for a while - like, 150 years or so. I'm professionally obliged to believe that knowledge is better than ignorance, but some kinds of forgetting are OK with me. John Shelton Reed

Me Knowledge Ignorance Rights Better Believe States OK Kinds Some Obliged Unsavory Hijacked Like Doctrine Got Sound Years Than Forgetting While Customers Professionally

I don't think massification and globalization and all those other 'izations' are necessarily hostile to regionalism. John Shelton Reed

Think Other Those Hostile Globalization Necessarily

Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races, a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here. John Shelton Reed

Music Food History People Past Confederate Manners Something More Variety Both Open Identity Accents Yankee Been Years Brainwashed Southern Than Move Maybe Races Ethnic Ethnic Groups Who Groups Now Here

Southerners smile more than other Americans. John Shelton Reed

Smile Other More Than Southerners American

I've occasionally wished I had Caller ID. Even telemarketers, I hate to hang up on them. I try to explain I'm not interested, but they have all these canned responses so I end up having to hang up on them anyway. John Shelton Reed

Hate Try Responses Having Had ID Wished Occasionally End Up Hang Canned Not Interested Anyway Explain Interested Them Even

Barbecue is the third rail of North Carolina politics. John Shelton Reed

Politics Carolina North North Carolina Barbecue Rail Third

I can see why many Southerners, black ones in particular, don't like the implication that Southernness and the Confederate heritage are one and the same, because they're not. On the other hand, there are people who want to extirpate that completely and want folks to spit on the graves of their ancestors. John Shelton Reed

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