Gringo is an anti-southern bigot

[Gringo]

I've been wondering about this for a while, and now that I've returned from a trip through the south, I'd like to ask the southerners a question.

On a few occasions, I've mentioned my dislike for the South in general, and have been attacked for "generalizing" or "smearing" the region. It's so strange to me that residents of a region so overwhelmingly characterized by racism, religious extremism, poverty and good-old-boy corruption would jump so quickly to its defense.

After my drive through N. Florida Georgia, S. Carolina, N. Carolina, and a wee bit of Tennessee, I can tell you that my impressions from previous trips has been reconfirmed.

The Blue Ridge & Great Smoky Mountains were gorgeous, and Asheville is a wonderful city, but in most of the places I visited, I saw slash pine & loblolly "forests", I saw women with mullets, Jesus programs on 95% of the radio stations, racist "mammy" dolls & confederate flags on sale in every convenience store, as well as the confederate flag being flown on trucks & stores everywhere. I talked to several people, some of whom insisted that I "didn't understand the heritage" represented by that traitorous rag.

I realize that there are many beautiful places and fine, hospitable people throughout the south, but the fact remains, IMO, that the South is for the most part an unbelievably intolerant and racist place. Why are so many Southerners, especially LIBERAL southerners in denial about this, and even defensive about it?

As annoying as Miami is, I'm glad to be back in a city where I don't get flipped off just for having Howard Dean stickers on my car, and where any store with the nerve to sell racist paraphernelia would be picketed or burned to the ground.

ON EDIT: I re-titled this to reflect the overhwelming sentiment I'm hearing. Obviously, there is not racism, ignorance or religious fanaticism in the south. I was mistaken. Sorry.