re: Ranking the SEC states in terms of "Southernness"

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We're not southern. We're Texas. We really don't belong on any southern list.

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I agree to some extent. I consider Texas to be the SW but West, TX might as well be the regular South. Whereas other parts of Texas are so different internally it's truly amazing. It's sorta funny because no matter how many times I mention the differences in TN it seems to fly right over folks heads. We are called the "Three States of Tennessee" for a reason (in fact our signs used to say "Welcome to the Three States of Tennessee" as opposed to "Welcome to Tennessee" (a governor finally got so pissed at our internal regionalism and tried to unite us by changing it and that wasn't too long ago ). Obviously Texas has inherited that attitude of regionalism within a state.

TN is the only state in the Union where the terms East, Middle and West are actually a matter of law and have legal consequences. They're Grand Divisions enshrined in our state constitution and they dictate certain political appointments in an effort to balance each region's representation, especially in the courts. Not only are we very different in terms of internal geography (e.g. the Mountains, the rolling hills, and the Delta) we're also very different culturally, historically, politically, and economically/work wise to name just a few things.

This is why I say West, TN is Deep South (close culturally to Mississippi), Middle TN fancies itself on par with the high society/aristocrats of the Plantation South and the plantation aristocrats of wealthy Kentucky, and East, TN is Appalachian (a mixture of Upper South, Border territory, and even some aspects of the North). For us, gradations are a way of life but I prefer to think of it in terms of the unique cultures of the South.

Texas, OTOH, has too much western influence to truly be considered Southern, especially nowadays. Southern influence has largely dissipated and a new culture - the SW has arisen and taken it's place out West. Not a damn thing wrong with that either.

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We're not southern. We're Texas. We really don't belong on any southern list.

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Yup.

Portions of Texas are more Southern in culture, but many different regions of the state aren't.

We kinda just do our own thing. And I like that a lot