Talking about how You Speak

As a native Georgian living in the North (northern Delaware is the North; Southern Delaware is fairly Southern), I found this story at Red State interesting, disappointing, but not terribly surprising. It's about an attempt by Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, to belittle his Republican opponent, Jerry Kilgore, for the latter's mountain Southern accent. Kaine, it seems, is from Missouri, which he seems to belive places him in a position to ridicule Southerners. Kilgore, who hails from Southwestern Virginia, sounds like -- well, like a Virginian from the mountains.

Much of this particular case stems from Virginia's bi-polarism, a condition caused by the rapid influx of people from all over the country to the Washington suburbs. But it goes further than that, too, since a strong Southern accent is assumed by some to indicate low intelligence. No one has accused me of that -- at least not because of my accent! -- but I've been told that I talk too fast for a Southerner, or that I move too quickly, or that it's remarkable that I at one time taught Renaissance history.

None of that really bothered me, in no small part because those expressing such sentiments didn't generally harbor any ill will. Plus, not many of them struck me as particularly sophisticated themselves, so that I felt reasonably confident that their comments could be ignored.

To boot, I've never agreed with those who seek victimhood because of their region of birth. If someone dislikes me because of my origins, I'm not quite sure why I should care.

But in the Virginia story, we're seeing a non-native attack someone born and bred in the Commonwealth for being too much of a Virginian. I hope he doesn't get away with it, because, on principle, his attacks are beneath contempt. Kaine may assume his speech marks him as a man of class, but the words he's using belie that assumption.