In this world where political correctness is paramount and every comment

is scrutinized, analyzed and criticized, why are Southerners still fair game

for wicked words and distorted views?

Why don't others leap to the defense of Southerners on national television

and harshly reprimand those who see fit to make fun of us?

Merri Grace, a diva friend from college, and I had this conversation after

seeing a television show where a Southern woman was placed in the middle

of a trendy Manhattan restaurant so the show's stars could make fun

of her behind her back for wearing a scrunchy, a ponytail holder, popular

over a decade ago but now considered a ridiculous relic.

One of the stars tapped her on the shoulder and asked with a smirk, "Where

are you from?"

"Macon, Georgia," she replied cheerfully.

The actors exchanged oh-that-explains-it looks and then voiced snarky comments

to that end.

Merri Grace and I were outraged at yet another slap in the face by television

writers.

"Why is that all right?" asked Merri Grace, who has worked in

the political arena for more than 20 years. "Liberals jump all over

stereotypes except when it comes to Southerners. Then, for some reason, it's

okay for people to make fun of us. I don't understand it."

I don't understand it, either.

Over the years, I've battled various forms of discrimination including

that of being a female sports writer in a world dominated by men. But never

have I known anything that compares with the affronts I have faced as a Southerner.

Rednecks, hicks, hillbillies, slow, backward, inbred - I've heard

it all and been accused of most of it.

Repeatedly, I have found myself explaining that the movie "Deliverance" is

not a documentary but rather a work of fiction.

It's very tiresome. Many times these showdowns have occurred on non-Southern

soil. Sometimes they have taken place in my own homeland, voiced by those

who chose to move here.

But the one that bothers me most, the one I have the hardest time shaking

off, even harder than the uninformed ones who think that indoor plumbing

is a luxury for us, is voiced by those who think our Southern society is

largely illiterate.

American literature without the ponderings and pontifications of Southern

writers would be an extremely thin collection of musings.

When American librarians voted on the most significant literary contributions

of the 20th Century, the two books that headed the list were written by women

from within the deep heart of Dixie. Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" was

tops, followed by Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind."

Both books won Pulitzer Prizes, both became Academy Award-winning, classic

movies and both deeply affected the conscience of the world.

No fewer than 10 Southern women have won Pulitzers for literature. Where

would the world, not just America, be without those contributions along with

those of Tennessee Williams, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, and others?

And where, pray tell, would our pop culture be without the imagination of

Mississippi-born John Grisham?

Once at a book conference, a man from upstate New York asked me, "You're

from the South? No kidding?" He grinned wickedly and then winked. "I

thought that people in the South couldn't read."

Fury ran over my body but I kept it in check. "Not only do we read," I

replied icily, looking him straight in the eyes, "but most of the time,

we write what the rest of the world reads."

Funny, but he had no reply to that.