Though nobody asked, I will offer this additional tidbit.

During the 14 years I lived in NC, not a single week went by without someone repeating the “why don’t you go back where you came from, yankee!” line – typically right to my face. It was really a nearly daily thing, but occasionally I didn’t get out much and got a reprieve. Strangers would walk up to me in the grocery store and dish out that bile, absolutely unprovoked, based on nothing more than an absence of southern accent.

For a farm kid who grew up in rural Nebraska, that sort of ‘hospitality’ wound up being the majority of the reason why I left. The enforced ignorance that permeates every corner of that state is best left to those who find it comfortable. I’m not inclined to live around a group of people that practice open disrespect towards others…