South Carolina: Not Quite as Backward as It Used to Be, According to the NYTimes
New York Times Atlanta bureau chief Kim Severson showed a little anti-Southern, anti-conservative condescension on the campaign trail in her Friday filing “From South Carolina, a Wary Welcome.” (Previously Jim Rutenberg had declared the state "famous for surfacing the dark undercurrents of American politics.")
With much of the nation focused on South Carolina, the state’s defiant nature and quirky brand of politics are on full display.
Here, in the state that was the first to fire shots in the Civil War and the last to enact a paid state holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a version of the Confederate flag still flies in front of the State House.
Men wrapped in chains made from plastic baby dolls protest abortion on college campuses.
....
So when the national news media -- including many pesky Northerners -- invade the state, South Carolinians cringe. They know the colorful foibles they embrace like an eccentric country cousin do not necessarily translate well.
Severson gave the state backhanded praise for not being as backward as it used to be – there are even gays there!
[Greenville resident Jon] Evans and others across the state acknowledge that South Carolina’s political history makes it hard to believe that strong pockets of progressive thought and urban sensibilities are growing here.
They are, especially in places like Greenville, the second largest city in the state. It has a revitalized, cafe-laden downtown that seems more European than Deep South. Earlier this week, gay couples chose Greenville as a place to apply for marriage licenses in an effort to challenge South Carolina’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Change has been coming to South Carolina as more outsiders move in, longtime residents here say. South Carolina’s population grew more than 15 percent between 2000 and 2010, making it one of America’s 10 fastest-growing states.
People like Chip Townsend, an engineer who moved his family to Greenville from Boulder, Colo., in 2006, discovered that the state is not an insular, ultraconservative bosom of the Confederacy.
Severson can throw around excessive lines like “ultraconservative,” yet it’s been almost ten years since the paper has used the term "ultraliberal" to refer to a liberal political group.
- Clay Waters's blog
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Comments
The New York Times has an Atlanta bureau?
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 01/20/2012 - 7:15pm.
LOL - That would explain the foul stench I noticed last time I was downtown.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
I know one thing when people
Submitted by jkwtrading on Fri, 01/20/2012 - 8:24pm.
I know one thing when people see an oppussm, people in the south don't run.
Unlike the beady-eyed
Submitted by big.league.slider on Fri, 01/20/2012 - 8:45pm.
Unlike the beady-eyed misogynists in the Empire State, at least South Carolina voters are progressive enough to elect a woman governor.
We sure are, a woman of
Submitted by WGEargle on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 3:46pm.
We sure are, a woman of Indian descent at that. Bet she won't be called Client #9 either.
Leave it to the NY Slimes
Submitted by NJRightWinger12 on Fri, 01/20/2012 - 9:29pm.
To tell the reat of us that SC is cool, according to them! Oh, ok, so now we can warmly accept them, right, guys? Did they finally find a liberal in "evil Redstate" country?
#1 city in America is in SC ...
Submitted by WickedMark on Fri, 01/20/2012 - 10:55pm.
Ms. Severson ... do you know that the nation's #1 city to visit (according to Conde Nast) happens to be in South Carolina? Charleston, where the catfish are jumpin' and the cotton is high. *I wonder if she knows where that quote comes from?*
Elitist New York Times slime.
Submitted by drsamherman on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:50am.
That's right, Ms. Severson, not everyone in the South lives in a trailer park, is a rabid pro wrestling fan and eats dirt. That's right, Ms. Severson, not everyone in the South is as bigoted as you are. That's right, Ms. Severson, though your manifested attraction to Greenville is, as you put it, more "European" because you probably are a self-loathing American. Unfortunately, the latter will not play in the South. We love being Americans, even if you do not.