Indeed, it blows my mind that it's completely acceptable in some company to speak for "the South" as a huge area filled with tens of millions of people think in

Indeed, it blows my mind that it's completely acceptable in some company to speak for "the South" as a huge area filled with tens of millions of people think in a homogeneous way. My experience has been that people are no more racist in the south than they are anywhere else. It sure makes it easy to sweep people with slightly different lifestyle under the rug and dehumanize them though.