When ‘I’m Sorry’ is a putdown

Why is it that otherwise polite people (who are introduced as close friends) by relatives who live outside the South find it necessary to say with a perfectly straight face “I’m sorry” when we say we’re from Georgia?  If they weren’t friends of my relatives, I could respond in all kinds of ways.

We love the South because that’s the first place we got the clap.Most of our time there was spent in jail, so we had no choice.You’re sorry? I admire your honesty about that because most people who are sorry won’t admit it.

The best I can say is, “We love it there.” Or, “We were born lucky, I guess.”

And yet, they say it with such progressive guile as though we’re living in hell and that’s how God rolled the dice.

My wife, I think, wants to slap the shit out of these people. I understand that because she was born here in Georgia very near where we now live. I was born in California and lived in Oregon, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania before settling in Georgia. The “I’m sorry” people don’t know any of this and if they did, it wouldn’t matter, because they’re living life looking for an excuse to say nasty things about Southerners.

I feel like pointing out to those who live in Maryland that their state was a slave state because I don’t think they know that. Yes, the South has a lot to atone for but Maryland’s sins are not on our to-do list.

When I was a kid, of often heard, “Save your Confederate money because the South’s going to rise again.” That’s pure BS. And all of us who live here don’t subscribe to that BS. Never did. So now I think time has moved far enough away from the Civil War to put away sniping between the regions. That’s kid stuff and outside what the country is trying to achieve through unity.

“I’m sorry,” you say. Ha, I bet you’re not.

–Malcolm