So what is this thing I call Southern Nice? Some of us have heard of Minnesota Nice, which is demonstrated par excellence in the Cohen Brother's Fargo. Minnesota Nice, overall, is general politeness. Regardless of who you are talking to, you are just generally nice when you talk to them. You can hate the person, love them, never have met them, they could have slept with your spouse, it does not matter... in public you are nice to them. Southern Nice differs from this in many ways. The key thing to understanding Southern Nice is hate. Southerns hate everyone; even their family.
How can you spot Southern Nice?
For people who come from more tolerable cultures, Southern Nice is not easy to detect. You will tend to think that these people are friendly, or, at the very least, simply indifferent. It's as if the South is just radiating with a "charmingly friendly" culture. This is not the case at all. It is usually a mask of friendliness, but beneath that mask is animosity. When I was living in Boston my sister once asked me if people were actually mean up north. I told her : people in the South act nice to your face and talk shit behind your back, while in the North they just skip the niceness and talk shit to your face. That's about the only difference : one form of hatred comes raw, while the other comes with a pretty red bow and the scent of roses.
First, it has to be understood that the South is filled with a bunch of racists. Most Southerns will not admit to this, and usually have some pretty good rhetoric on how they aren't racist, even when they are. This is part of Southern Nice. Only the lowest of the low of Southerns actually proclaim to be racist. The rest wrap their racism in politeness and niceness. As long as a Southern is nice to an African American, they won't think their racist.
There is also a double standard to Southern Nice. While a Southern may be being "nice" to another fellow Southern, Southerns instinctively, and yet unconsciously, know when they're getting Southern Nice. It's as if they were unconsciously hearing an extra, hidden parameter to the speaker's voice that spewed animosity. So Southern Nice from one Southern to another is much more concealed. Someone not of Southern culture would not be able to hear it. Let me give an analogy : remember when you were about 11 or 12 and you saw two college kids on a date, and the guy seemed really into everything the girl was saying? As a kid you didn't know that he didn't really care about anything she was saying, he just wanted to slip his tube snake into her (sorry for the Full Metal Jacket reference). It isn't until you are out of college that you can spot this kind of hormone-induced niceness. You know now that beneath the horny sophomore's polite demeanor is pure animalistic instinct raging. Beneath Southern Nice is a throbbing urge to splash sulfuric acid in your face.
Why is there this layer of politeness over an entity of hate? It's quite simple to answer and understand : Southerns are primarily Christian. That should say everything, but I'll humor those who don't see the point. It's not Christian to be hateful, but it also is. Somehow Christians these days think God wants them to kill everyone who doesn't agree with them, and Satan is the one who wants us all to get along. This comes from the litany of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is suppose to unite the seven greatest nations and bring peace amongst the people of the world. Then the Antichrist is suppose to kill everyone and Jesus is going to come back and make all true Christians happy and stuff. And they cannot wait for this to happen. They pray for the coming of the Antichrist. Peace and death in one entity : that should sum up Southern Nice.
Because the Antichrist embodies this sort of duality, anyone who is generally nice is placed under suspicion. Anyone who is actually nice must be evil. And while Southerns may actually be some of the most vile and hateful people in the States, they shroud it with a veil of rainbows, sunshine, and tobacco enemas.
Paradoxically enough, anytime a Southern wants to actually be nice to another fellow Southern it is usually wrapped in malcontent or, at the least, ambivalence. This is done for a number of reasons in a number of different contexts. If parents are actually nice to their children, then the child is being spoiled. If an employee is actually nice to a superior, then he or she is kissing ass. If two guy friends are actually being nice to one another, then they come off as homophiles (heaven forbid there be homosexuals in the South!). If a white person is being nice to a black person, then the double standard kicks in : the white person is being a racist! The only way to not come off racist in the South is to ignore persons that are not white. Unless the black person is your drug dealer, in which case you are being "nice" for another reason.
Note : no Southern will admit to this. They won't admit to it simply because they don't know that they do it. The culture of Southern Niceness is naturalized into them. My maternal grandmother is one of the sweetest women I know, and I still see her pull Southern Nice on her neighbors, whom she cannot stand.
If only the veil of niceness could be lifted on Southerns, an apocalypse, if you will, then we would find some malicious demons walking amongst us in our own country. If I may borrow the term from Milton, a pandemonium in the South.
Hate thy neighbor... but be nice about it!
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