As a North Carolina native, I have to patiently endure regional bigotry from those outside the region who think the South is full of ignorant, toothless, uneducated hillbillies who drive down the highway tossing beer cans out of the window and burn crosses on the weekends for entertainment.
Of course the “wisdom” of political consultant Dave “Mudcat” Saunders makes my job even harder. His “redneck for hire” schtick—sold to pols (like failed presidential candidate John Edwards) who want to get to know Mudcat’s demographic—pay handsomely for this advice to Barack Obama:
The nominee’s difficulties are not about the colour of his skin but the tin in his ear. “White people in the South and throughout the Appalachians love black culture. I mean, Southern-style cooking is black food. Everything I eat is fried. Your swing vote in the Appalachians comes down to common-sense thinking people who have strong faith, and what Barack Obama needs to do is embrace his culture. Because we like his culture. But nobody knows anything about him; over 10 per cent of the rednecks out here — and I’m a redneck — think he’s a Muslim ‘cause nobody’s ever told ‘em any different.”
No, those folks have been “told different” and they stubbornly still believe he’s a Muslim. Sorry, Mudcat, it’s a weasely way of being uncomfortable about Obama’s “difference” without saying it’s racism (and it’s not just a southern thing - remember that woman in Ohio who insisted Obama will “revert to his Muslim and “Arab tendencies.”) .
And as if to prove my point, Mudcat reveals an aspect of Southern culture that he holds in high esteem by showing us his bedroom and the covers he slips between at night:
More below the fold.