"He speaks with an accent that I would associate with hicks, farmers, non-intellectuals"
That might be because you're a hint bigoted? (No offence, but why else would you think that?)
(FYI someone from Kansas speaks with an accent - it's not a dialect.)
Or perhaps you've been trained very well by decades of Hollywood/New York representation of 'anyone with a southern accent as stupid?'
Also - you do realize that like 1/3 of Americans speak like that? Have you ever even been to the South?
I'm not American, but I've lived in various American states and come from a 'small town' myself.
After years of wondering how this stereotype exists so strongly in North East/West Coast American culture (i.e. negative view of Southern accents) - I believe it's something done expressly by the creative and Ivy League class: almost always when someone with an 'southern accent' is on TV, they're portrayed in a negative way.
I think that the 'Civil War' North/South divide is in some ways, still ongoing, culturally. Northerners are bigoted towards Southerners.
Where I'm from, in Canada, the accent issue still exists, but not remotely as strongly.
A thick 'Ottawa Valley' accent might mark you as 'a country local' but not 'stupid' or 'racist' or 'redneck'.
FYI Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter have soft Southern accents.
The downvoters are accidentally proving your point. I'm from the north, and it isn't really the north that looks down on the south (no pun intended), but the American left (arguably only the far left, depending on where "far" begins) looks down on the south. Conservative and moderate northerners are generally congenial towards the south. But the left dominates the academy and media and education and fine/popular arts and technology, so they are more visible in many ways, and they largely get to craft your exposure to American culture and its various subcultures.
That might be because you're a hint bigoted? (No offence, but why else would you think that?)
(FYI someone from Kansas speaks with an accent - it's not a dialect.)
Or perhaps you've been trained very well by decades of Hollywood/New York representation of 'anyone with a southern accent as stupid?'
Also - you do realize that like 1/3 of Americans speak like that? Have you ever even been to the South?
I'm not American, but I've lived in various American states and come from a 'small town' myself.
After years of wondering how this stereotype exists so strongly in North East/West Coast American culture (i.e. negative view of Southern accents) - I believe it's something done expressly by the creative and Ivy League class: almost always when someone with an 'southern accent' is on TV, they're portrayed in a negative way.
I think that the 'Civil War' North/South divide is in some ways, still ongoing, culturally. Northerners are bigoted towards Southerners.
Where I'm from, in Canada, the accent issue still exists, but not remotely as strongly.
A thick 'Ottawa Valley' accent might mark you as 'a country local' but not 'stupid' or 'racist' or 'redneck'.
FYI Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter have soft Southern accents.