Journal Entry: Regional American Literature & the South

Journal Entry: Regional American Literature & the South

Regional American Literature seems to deal with specific areas and their culture. Culture has evolved throughout the years. Using the South as an example, its culture was clearly defined before the Civil War. The South was comprised mostly of slaves working hard picking cotton until their fingers bled for no pay, white supremacist slave owners quick to bludgeon at the slightest sign of insurgence and the rest of the populace unsure of which side they belong. Blacks were looked at as possessions, not allowed to learn how to read or write, sleeping in dark, damp shacks dirtier than animal stables, beaten and raped at their owner’s whim. Today, though the South still has an air of contempt that has carried itself through generation after generation of confederate pride, a new generation has a mind of its own believing that life is better lived in harmony. Our grandparents, mothers and fathers may still reference the African-Americans as “niggers,” but the phrase makes the children of the 21st century’s skin crawl. For example, my mother-in-law came for a visit and said, “The Smith’s house was bought by a bunch of niggers. There goes the neighborhood. All of our houses are worthless now.” Her son and I are adamantly against racism. Their attempt to taint their children’s belief system by implanting white supremacist ideals has failed. A new generation is born; a generation which better understands the melting pot that America has always been. Instead of “white pride,” it’s just pride; pride in being an American. I believe this generation, being the so over-exposed to a wealth of media and knowledge, has drastically altered the regional literature of the South and for that matter, the United States as a whole.

And how can adults operating under the “old southern principals” raise their children to value education and become doctors, lawyers and leaders of corporations. Maybe the parents didn’t teach the children this drive for education? Maybe it’s their peer discussions and television programming showing them that there is an abundance of opportunities outside of being a farmer, beer truck driver or a stay-at-home mother right out of high school. Television has been and continues to be a powerful tool in getting the word out to those underprivileged children living in poverty with seemingly no hope for a better life. Television is also assisting in changing the literature of a region by spreading a wealth of resources available from the abundance of commercials boasting easy mail-in or online college courses to programs geared towards children sending the message that they can be anything they want to be; these positive resources are becoming available to children at a young age and may assist in altering futures and breaking family cycle of poverty.

Producing a tentative topic for research into Regional American Literature would seem to entail a great deal of literary research, interviewing, investigating, comparing and conducting a number of case studies. I believe a viable topic for such