I am happy to introduce the first post in our newest series, “Southern Voices.” In this section, we present reflections from people who live or lived in the South who have unique insight or revealing experiences that help achieve the main goal of this site: offering an accurate view of what it means to be the South.

Without further ado, “Southern Voices” presents Kiran Patel, from Live Oak, Florida and now residing in Atlanta, Georgia.

Southern Hospitality…Desi Style.

Growing up as an Asian-American in the South was interesting, to say the least.  I think my family was like the second Indian family in my hometown when we moved there in the late 1980s.  I distinctly remember secretly wanting a southern accent, and sometimes I threw one in, just for kicks. Stop, visualize, and listen: petite, soft spoken, pink-wearing, 90-ish pound Indian saying “hey y’all!”  My sister and I came home to watch Country Music Television everyday – I was in love with Billy Ray Cyrus.  I also remember kind of shunning my own culture (Indian, Hindu) in my middle and high school years.  Why?  I am not sure anymore, but I definitely regret it.  I remember attending Fellowship of Christian Athletes , I remember allowing my friends to pronounce my name kuh-ron (instead of “kee-raan”), and I remember rarely talking about my ‘weird’ religion.  I am not sure why I wanted to fit in so much, but I did.  Maybe it’s because it’s hard to forget being called an ‘injun’ very early in life, maybe I just wanted to be like my friends.  It felt weird to be different, so I tried not to be.  It’s funny though because now culture is such a huge part of who I am.  What is it about that little town that made me stay quiet?  I don’t imagine my friends would have judged me, but, oh well.  So you learn.  I hope new minorities in my hometown are less timid about their culture.  I haven’t been to my hometown for an extended period of time in ages.  But I have to admit, sometimes I miss its small town appeal…who knows. Click to read more…

When I was in high school, I was already trying to apply my sociological imagination for my own benefit. By my senior year, I was very aware of the role football played in status and, thus, the role football played in one’s dating outlook. As an effort to gain the good graces of the cheerleaders at Suwannee High School and to gain attention more broadly, I spoke to the Suwannee County School Board in 2001 in protest of the decision to not allow the already-purchased cheerleading uniforms to be worn at school.

In one my earliest (and most failed) attempts at eloquence, I spoke to a crowded room of maybe 70 people about my own initial doubts concerning the importance or function of cheerleaders, and then discussed my stark conversion once the cheerleader uniform ban was revealed. The image of a school lacking such prominent reminders of this core tradition of southern education and tradition, football culture, was a devolution of our community feelings, I argued, and the long tradition of cheerleading uniforms allowing bare shoulders and slightly shorter skirts (which is required by the full range of motion in their routines) was an important mechanism for bringing school spirit to mind throughout the school day and not just at games that only a (sizable) minority attended. I also argued that I routinely broke dress code through my involvement in school theatre and playing varsity soccer (that’s right, varsity), as well as for Halloween and other costume events, all without recrimination. The Suwannee Democrat quotes me in their coverage of this debacle as saying, in reference to cheerleading uniforms during the school day, “It’s a symbol of our school, a tradition.”

While the uniform ban was not reversed, there was an up side: we had at least made the attempt, we had stood up and had been heard. Cheerleaders, parents, and I learned about the organizing for issues we believe in, and these skills are important for being good citizens.

And I did succeed in going on a series of dates with a cheerleader.

So, is Wal-Mart good for the South or not? I think I was in 8th grade when my hometown of Live Oak finally received a symbol of it’s status as more than a hick town (that’s roughly 1998, for those few readers not intimately familiar with my personal biography). At the north end of the city, a long and empty stretch of land from the town center leads to where Interstate 10 is dotted by fast-food and gas stations. It was here, surrounded by articles in the Suwannee Democrat expressing excitement and anticipation, that a new Wal-Mart store opened.

At the time I was as stoked as anyone to finally be able to buy clothes locally somewhere other than K-Mart, find cheap soda and candy, and get film developed all in the same location. After leaving Live Oak to begin my studies at New College, I began reading about the “Wal-Mart Effect” and the “Walmartization of America” and realized that Live Oak’s encounter with Wal-Mart may have been a more complicated gift than I originally thought. Click to read more…

Almost a year ago, I broke one of those simple yet insightful maxims of daily life I learned growing up in the South: don’t discuss religion or politics over dinner. I was eating with my parents back in Live Oak, and the issue of the upcoming election came up. We discussed the nominees for both the Republicans and the Democrats, and my father ventured a guess that I was to hear over and over the following year, all across the country: “People around here just aren’t going to vote for a black man.” He pointed towards the forested land we lived on, and said “People in Live Oak aren’t going to feel comfortable, and I’m not saying it’s right, but if Obama gets the nomination there’s no way he can win.”

While the immediate conversation devolved into a series of half-cocked assertions on both sides, more cool-headed reflections surface in the following months. Would people really not vote for a black man in this day and age? If so, by how much? And would this be especially strong in the South? How much does race predict voting patterns in a bi-racial election?

It turns out this is a well-known question, coined alternately the “Bradley Effect” or the “Wilder Effect.” These terms refer to the situation where voters do not voice racial bias to pollsters and so election-day results are significantly lower for black, or other minority, candidates. A recent paper out of Harvard University analyzes 133 races for state governor, and finds that there was a “Wilder Effect” but that it disappeared. The author argues that racially-charged issues in a specific period created the effect, and once this context changed, the effect went away: “the prominence of racialized issues such as crime and welfare declined markedly at the national level in the late 1990s and early 2000s” (7). The author uses data from the Clinton-Obama primary match-up, and finds that Obama actually did better than polls indicated, not worse.

Click to read more…