From The New Mind of the South by Tracy Thompson. 

Copyright 2013 by Tracy Thompson. 

http://www.npr.org/books/titles/175496381/the-new-mind-of-the-south#excerpt

Being a Southerner is a lot like being a Jew, and every bit as complicated. For starters, this means there is no such thing as "Southern culture" — only "cultures," plural, which range from the equivalent of the militantly Zionist (the neo-Confederate crowd) to the Hassidic (regular attendees of the Ole Miss–Alabama game, perhaps) and all shades in between. Jews and Southerners are both self-anointed chosen people — Jews in a religious sense, Southerners in a cultural sense. Both identities substantially overlap with a specific type of religion (evangelical Protestantanism, in the case of Southerners), though within those parameters there's lots of room for variation. Both identities are voluntary affiliations that can be either adopted or forsworn, even if the natal imprint is tough to erase completely. Jews and Southerners alike know what it is to be a kind of invisible minority in the culture at large, forced to smile politely as they hear themselves referred to in unflattering, one-dimensional stereotypes: I'll see your Jewish American Princess or Shylock, and raise you one Alabama hick plus a Bible-totin', evolution-denyin' school board member from Dogpatch.