What’s the origin of the Incest stereotype in Alabama ?

18 comments

1. General anti-Southern sentiment focused on the most stereotypically Southern State.

   Ironically, first cousin marriage is illegal in Alabama but legal in my State, California.

2. The original stereotype was about early Appalachian settlers (Hillbillies) living isolated and “backwards” lives up in the mountains. Idk how it morphed into focusing on a few southern states, but in the olden days that joke would be made about people “up in the mountains”.

3. “Rural hicks doing incest” is a joke [throughout the world](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/fopi32/whats_the_region_of_your_country_people_make/?sort=top), it’s just that America has settled on the South and specifically Alabama.

4. >Born and raised in MD and have never left that relative area. Never visited the southern regions

   You live in the south.

5. I think its specifically centered on Alabama because “Roll Tide” is such a handy shorthand for any number of Alabama jokes.

6. Yeah. West Virginia would probably be more fitting

7. Probably more common in Kentucky or Tennessee. Small towns in Appalachia specifically.

8. It’s a mean-spirited, classist stereotype. People from other regions often associate the deep south and Appalachia with impoverished rural communities, and poor people are often stereotyped as ignorant and backwards or generally less intelligent, etc.

9. Cousin marriage was fairly common in Appalachia. The rest of the country overexaggerated that fact and misapplied it to the entire South, and I suppose Alabama is just prototypically Southern in the view of many people.

10. What’s interesting is the early ‘first families ‘ of Virginia who were rich and anything but hicks married their cousins. The women just exchanged the same few last names back and forth when they married. They even joked about it. ‘Better to marry family than to break in a stranger. ‘.

11. I grew up in Alabama, and I have no idea where the stereotype came from. I never encountered anyone who dated/married a cousin or even thought it was an acceptable thing to do. It’s not even legal in Alabama.

12. A lot of stereotypes are based truths.

13. Southerners are the only minority group in America that can be depicted in a negative light in mass media. A lot of” Southern” states are no longer culturally Southern because of immigration from the North, but Alabama still is. Someone said that Alabama is the most “stereotypically” Southern state. It’s just that Alabama is still the South, and therefore can be hated on.

14. Weird because I always heard this about Kentucky.

15. People are shitty. It’s classist bullshit that everyone has decided is perfectly acceptable.

16. Anti-Southern bigotry combined with rural disdain by more urban dwellers especially from those on the east and west coasts.

17. it’s because the south is an easy target and Alabama is the southiest southern state for a lot of people. The joke is super dated and extremely dumb.

18. Literally every culture has a stereotype that rural people marry/have sex with close relatives compared to people who live in cities.