It's a bizarre contradiction, isn't it? I never expected to like living here--I grew up overseas, and spent most of my life on military bases in other countries--and I always thought that the South was somewhere that I would feel like a Martian walking around Times Square.

It turns out it's not, at least not by certain measures, but it is a remarkable exercise in doublethink. I've had conversations with people who will in one breath literally say that people who believe in the things I believe in should be shot, and then in another breath welcome me and my family into their arms and homes for a meal. I know people who are actual no-shit greencard-holding immigrants who are also anti-immigration. I know people who are married to minorities who are against "race-mixing." I know intelligent, highly-paid people who have been personally hurt by institutional racism who argue there's no such thing.

The most fascinating part to me as an outsider-turned-Southerner isn't that those feelings of "Southern Hospitality" are truly conditional, but that people can hold two diametrically-opposed viewpoints simultaneously and unconditionally. A coworker of mine just the other day posted two times, back-to-back on Facebook. In one post, he was congratulating a friend of his who just graduated and extolling his virtues, and then in the next post, he was complaining about how "the blacks" (his words, not mine) should be arrested for supporting BLM. Thing is, the friend he was congratulating is African American.

I'm no anthropologist, but there's some serious studies to be done down here on people's ability to hold vehemently contradictory views dear to their hearts without it shredding their psyche into coleslaw (unless it turns out it does, which is a very real possibility).

That said, there are some shitbags down here--shitbags live anywhere you look for them--but on the whole, Southerners are good people who simply have a preternatural ability to doublethink on a daily basis.