Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:I'm just trying to figure out why stereotyping Jews or Swedish/Egyptian hybrids is worse than stereotyping Kentuckians. My point, here and elsewhere, is that, while we all know it's verboten to pigeonhole gays or blacks or Polish immigrants, it always seems to be open season on rednecks, white trash, hillbillies, and whatever region one assumes spawns such people. Muhammad Ali and Rachel Grimes and Hunter Thompson are as quintessentially Kentuckian as that hypothetical NASCAR fan everyone seems to spend so much time thinking about.

well i imagine you meant this more as a statement than a question, but i wanna answer it because i think i know why. where you don't have widespread gays getting together to beat and/or kill Kentuckians, you do occasionally hear about the converse. historically, blacks were owned as property and tortured/killed by Kentuckians. the Jews have that whole holocaust angle, where any statement made against Jews, or Israel, even if it is factual or a good point, is deemed anti-Semitic and is strongly stigmatized. and "The South" or "Rednecks" which are virtually interchangable in the minds of many, those are the folks who collectively said "fuck you USA, we are not giving up slavery, we are giving up YOU!" and then nowadays are responsible for our suffering 8 years of The Dubya.

i don't think it's fair, or cool, to stereotype entire races of people, or entire regions of countries, even if there's something behind it, unless you are readily able to see through that stereotype and recognize that maybe it applies to many, or most, but never to all, and as such it's largely bullshit. you, brett eugene ralph, are a great example of this. i find your perspective and personality and choice of words on this forum to be quite contrary to the widely-held stereotype of Kintucky Folk. i think you are a cool, badass guy, and i always enjoy reading what you have to say about any subject.

one of my best friends has lived most of his life in the Carolinas (both of them) and has more recently moved to Tex-ass. he's very smort. he knows more about chem/bio warfare than anybody else i know, can fix a mountain bike up real good, and loves to listen to and also make the "rawk" music. he's a very cool guy. and i trust what he says about "The South" where he has lived the majority of his life. including the parts about how different people are in "The South", especially in "The Deep South". how there actually *are* large areas filled with backwoods pickup-driving, gun-rack-having, jew-hating, ni**er-hating etc etc folk. folks that can scare *him*, a guy who's lived most of his life in The South.

but anybody who believes that everyone in southern states is a big dumb redneck is himself a fool. i would venture to say that no matter who you are or where you live, chances are there's at least a few if not a few hundred people in the Research Triangle that are substantially smarter than you. not "you" meaning you brett, but "you" meaning the fool who actually believes that everybody in "The South" is a big dumb redneck. which of course is not actually the case with certain jackasses involved in this thread, who don't even believe it, but rather use it as an effective trolling tool.

but to bring it back home and answer that question again...

ancestors of holocaust victims versus repeat-Dubya-electing ancestors of folks who said "fuck you US, we're keeping slavery". that's why.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:but to bring it back home and answer that question again...

ancestors of holocaust victims versus repeat-Dubya-electing ancestors of folks who said "fuck you US, we're keeping slavery". that's why.

Surely we're not forever defined by our forebears, are we? If so, then despite the fact that some of mine no doubt supported secession and/or slavery, decades earlier, we all must claim (those of us who are Americans, anyway), some crusty great-great-great-great uncle who did his share of Injun-killin'--or, at the very least, supported those who gladly did it for him in the name of westward expansion. It seems to me specious to villify the current southern states for a slave-holding past when pretty much everybody in this country's got blood on his or her hands (albeit some of it fresher than others). Ian MacKaye covered this in a Minor Threat song over twenty years ago.

Now I'm no authority on Middle Eastern politics, but I think there are some who'd say that certain aspects of the Israelis' treatment of the Palestinians--not entirely dissimilar to the U.S. treatment of Native Americans--complicates whatever get-out-of-jail-free card surviving the holocaust might have earned them. I just don't get that argument at all: Somebody Jewish, based purely on the fact that his ancestors were persecuted, is worthy of more sympathy than someone who, by mere happenstance, was born into a region with a regrettable history? If so, then any white folks who perished in New Orleans--the nexus of the slave trade, after all--deserve less sympathy than an Israeli soldier who machine-gunned Palestinian schoolchildren.

Is that how it works? Jews, okay; Southerners, not okay? How about Native Americans? Are they more readily defined by having suffered genocide or by having, in some cases, massacred one another's villages? Are they more "noble" or more "savage"? Do we define African Americans by past enslavement or current drive-by's? Who's "blacker": Clarence Thomas or Barack Obama? Are the Japanese devils who bombed Pearl Harbor or poor souls imprisoned in Manzanar? Tell me, fast, so I know how to vote when I compare them to the Mexicans.

I appreciate your comments--I respect your opinion and eloquence, too. I'd just like to think that we're not defined by our pasts--either positively or negatively. I both represent Kentucky (proudly) while contradicting many of the things people assume about it. When you stereotype the region I call home, you insult not just the Dubya-voting NASCAR dolts but everyone who is fighting tooth and nail to turn it into a place that embodies the best qualities of its finest citizens.

Kinda like this whole country, you know? To the rest of the world, we're all "Bubba," we're all violent, evangelistic, insatiably greedy idiots. But Steve Albini is an American as surely--and as irretrievably--as George W. Bush is. We all are (you furriners excepted). Can't you see that I am to Kentucky (or "the South") as all of you home-grown progressive types are to "America"? Neither Bush's ascension nor the zeal of his supporters should eclipse the many laudable things that have been accomplished on these shores, just as neither slavery--nor the south's current conservatism--should eradicate the positive things that have sprung from southern soil.

It's like saying that, thanks to the Nazis, Rilke and Can and Neu! and Goethe and Werner Herzog just don't count. Sorry, guys: Nazism trumps great art that found its way into the world despite a terrible past.

That's really too bad because I'll miss watching Wim Wenders movies.

brett, i didn't mean to say that i endorse the concept i put forward. it's not actually my opinion-as-justification, it's more of my personal take on why such belief is widespread... my attempt at making sense out of why things are the way they are in the minds of many. my personal opinion of The South is that it's too hot, too humid, and the bugs are too big. and i wouldn't wanna live anywhere near the atlantic coast cause of all the hurricanes. and big bugs.

i agree with you about the difference between the way things seem to be and the way they should be. i could probably spend an hour coming up with answers to how i perceive modern american views about the pandora's box you've opened with your poignant examples. but i don't have time, as much as i would actually enjoy doing it.

fwiw, i don't have that slavery blood on my hands, as both sides of my family came here from Poland as recently as last century. all i have is a legacy of polocks working their asses off. phew!

and Steve Albini is not as American as Dubya! Steve can't really be American because he's actually a super-complex robot manufactured from moon rocks and scotch tape! i know because i read it on the internet and i once heard him beeping. well... i guess the scotch tape element is American. touche!

oh, and GENESIS ROOLZ!!!!

I'm not stereotyping people from Kentucky. I'm just making my best bet. You see, as a caucasian person, you can go hang in Kentucky, and all is good, so you think Kentucky is great. Good for you. If you can tolerate living in a place where you can buy a huge house for next to nothing, that's cool. The reason why houses are cheap there is because there is no demand to live there. You see, plenty of other people are not fans of Kentucky, and there is some evidence in the housing market...

Unfortunately, mutts like me pretty much have to stick to the urban perimiter of the U.S. This is OK, but then people from Kentucky have to move here and bring their Kentucky prejudices with them.

Am I mistaken, or was it the South where civil rights activists were murdered? Wasn't it the South where police chiefs released the hounds and firehoses on black people? Oh, but that was 40 years ago? So why are all the ultra-conservative televangelists from the South? I mean, the 700 Club isn't taped in NYC. I don't think my evaluation of the South is off base.

People have taken post-modernism too far. They feel you can't generalize about anything, and they come to a very non-postmodern conclusion -- "everything is the same". This intellectual reletivism that is so bunk it's not funny. You'll find a lot of people who respond similarly if one makes fun of how bad top 40 music is. You get the "music is music" argument. So from the desire not to generalize, people create the most crude and ridiculous generalizations...

The academics I have admired the most are people that use post-modern ideals with ethnographic/appreciative methodologies... Jack Katz's "Seductions of Crime" comes to mind. He generalizes, but these "categories" are based on extensive interviewing and ethnographic data. When examining, say, street gangs, these gangs have developed a culture that is very concrete. Instead of coming up with some slick social science term for say, a gangmember who is specialized as a combatant, he'll use their term -- "A badass" or whatever. The chapter titles in that book are hillarious!!!

Sure, there are decent people in the South, but you could not pay me enough to relocate there. This is true. I got an offer to relocate within my company and keep my Chicago salary and move to Nashville. No way! I mean, I'd be richer than Boss Hogg, but there's nothing to do there, and too many people there have primitive values.

So before you get into the faux-post-modern "all regions of the country are the same" train, let me derail it... The South and the rural midwest are still scary places for anyone who does not look white. The segregation is so obvious and you can still find public bathrooms that have a thin coat of paint over the "colored only" label.

Jim Crow laws never existed in Illinois, New York, or California. Dixiecrats anyone? They still exist! The remnants of when the Democratic party were pro-racism!

So let's get off defending the South as some region that has changed it's ways. I'll stick with Neil Young's impression of the Southern man, which for my best bet (like would I like to live in the South?) is accurate enough.

Regions of the country are different. NYC is very different than Atlanta. It's completely different than Frankfurt, KY. That said, as a non-caucasian person, I'd prefer to live in Chicago, as opposed to Frankfurt, KY. I can't expect you to (fully) understand this.

Anyway, back to Genesis... I heard a rumor that they are thinking of reforming, with PG, PC... Hopefully they'll get Hackett back too (hey, why not play "Please Don't Touch"). Banks is a given... He IS Genesis. It's alarming how few Genesis fans even realize this.

Anyone hear anything about this? I haven't been able to substantiate this rumor.

I do like the early Genesis records, especially "Lamb..." and "Selling England...". "Nursery Cryme" and "Foxtrot" are good as well. Anything after PG left the band, with the exception of "Trick of the Tail" sucks.

A few months ago, I watched some footage of the original PG-era Genesis playing live. Several of the members were sitting down.

Sitting down to play guitar live?

No. No fucking way.

Crap.

Wood Goblin wrote:A few months ago, I watched some footage of the original PG-era Genesis playing live. Several of the members were sitting down.

Sitting down to play guitar live?

No. No fucking way.

Crap.

The Velvet Underground quite often sat down and played music as well. Doesn't really have much bearing, for me anyway, on whether the music is good or not.

Just because someone jumps around like an overcaffeinated overcoked hyperactive spastic, doesn't mean their music is good.

From Genesis to Revelation was serious bab pants, but Tresspass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England and Lamb are all good albums the the first few without Peter Gabriel arnt bad but quickly turned into 80's shit!

I like Nursery Crime and Foxtrot quite a bit, but can't really hang with anything else, including the rest of the PG era.

"The Musical Box" is a ridiculous song with silly lyrics, but it rocks and is kinda moving by the end.

not crap for nursery crime and abacab.

yeah, that's right, abacab.

wf 9 for everything else.