Mr. Turchin --

You seem to be taking issue with my post in part because I cite a few sixty-year old articles. If anyone really cares, I can produce lots of others. Just checking the New York Times index, there must be hundreds of articles dealing with the 'Hillbilly' issue. Lots of great material for Jeff Foxworthy.

I thought that contemporary evidence (post-WWII migration from the South into Northern urban centers) was the right way to demonstrate a point. The Detroit news survey seems like a reasonable gage of public opinion for that time. Although white Southerners clearly weren't the only undesirable minority in the city, the Detroit survey demonstrates that readers regarded them as the most undesirable minority in the city.

Jim Webb writes extensively about this topic in Born Fighting: A History of the Scots-Irish in America. Weeb could have subtitled his book, A Country Boy Can Survive.

Please explain why this is the wrong approach, or how I've misread or misused the evidence.

For the record, as an adolescent during extended periods I could be found in Chicago (Palos Heights), rural Michigan and Minnesota, without ever establishing residence there. Once we were introduced to a lady in Grand Rapids who quickly gave us her opinion of people from Alabama (no, she didn't use the word 'ogre', but that conveys the general idea). Moments later I overheard the same lady complaining about African-Americans moving in down the street. She related that event to certain vegetables that had disappeared from her garden. There goes the neighborhood!

Personally I don't believe this has any bearing on our discussion, but since you asked I attended a high school largely populated by children of second-immigrants from Southern Europe. First day there, I knew only one other student. WASPs like me formed a minority of students from a lower/middle class part of town. There weren't any Greek or Italian or WASP enclaves and I don't recall anyone using the slurs in your post. I look back on my experiences and the people I met there fondly.

Some of you might recognize the name of my classmate Bobby Horton, the Jimmy Buffet of Civil War music!

http://www.mckinneyspeakers.com/speakers/Bobby_Horton