Southern accents don't make you stupid

One of my mom's favorite anecdotes from my childhood is a story that a lot of northern-born parents seem to share when raising their children in the south. You see, about 17 years ago, back in Morrisville, North Carolina, she remembers me running home excited because I'd just learned to count to 10 and wanted to show off for her. So, I started counting, "One, two, three, foah ..." At this point in the story, my mom likes to laugh and tell people about how scared she was that I would start talking like that for the rest of my life.

We'd moved down to North Carolina from Pennsylvania when I was about five years old. I have very few memories of actually living in Pennsylvania, so I like to think of North Carolina as my home, and my accent has reflected that quite often. Yet, I've never really felt like I truly belong. Sometimes, when I force myself to speak like my parents do, people ask me in an angry tone where I'm from (seems that attitudes are still a little sour from carpet bagging ...), but when I accidentally slip into a southern twang I get laughed at by young locals who've learned to hide their accents.

It seems there's really no way to win for the young people being raised in the south. We're constantly bombarded with images of the stupid, ignorant southerners in movies, television and radio; can anyone really say that Larry the Cable Guy helped improve the south's image at all? Yet, we're told to hold onto our pride and have dignity for our home. It's gotten to the point where almost every person I know who was born and raised in North Carolina can slip in and out of their southern accent, depending on the situation. In line at Parker's? Time to pull out the accent. Talking in class? Better hide it. I've even met people who lie about where they're from along with hiding their accent, despite the fact we go to school in North Carolina.

Can anybody really blame them? The southern accent has become the catch-all stereotype for ignorance and stupidity, and we're helping it along by forcing ourselves to hide any accent and consuming the entertainment that exploits southerners. As I mentioned earlier, Larry the Cable Guy helped reinforce a lot of negative attitudes about the south - the fact that we're stupid, fat, white trash hillbillies who have less class in our whole body than the rest of America has in their pinky fingers. Can anyone even think of a positive portrayal of a person with a southern accent in popular entertainment anymore? Outside of Mark Twain, idiot-savants like Forrest Gump, and a few characters from Fried Green Tomatoes, the south just can't seem to find a positive role model in movies or TV.

A lot of those born-and-raised North Carolinians I mentioned, tell me they don't like to speak with an accent because it "makes them sound stupid." Stupid to whom? We're in North Carolina, for God's sake. If I went to North Dakota I wouldn't be shocked by people talking like they did in Fargo, and if I was in New York City, I wouldn't laugh at a person with a Brooklyn accent; so why do we feel like we need to hide ours in our own state?

We need to stop being ashamed of a colloquial accent and start embracing it. My doctor once told me he was teased in medical school because he talked so slowly, yet he graduated top of his class and surpassed everyone's expectations of him. If he'd dropped his accent around his peers, he would've just reinforced their stereotype of where he came from, so why don't we do the same?

If someone makes fun of you for your accent, prove him or her wrong. It's time we stopped buying into stereotypes, letting them control who we are, and start being ourselves.

And for the love of God, don't give any more money to Larry the Cable Guy.

This writer can be reached at opinion@theeastcarolinian.com