> > Anyway, I'm as tired of being labeled as stupid
> > because I have a drawl as African Americans
> > are of being labeled as dangerous when 2 or
> > more are walking down a Southern street.
>
> If it makes you feel any better, there's a *lot* of people in other countries (including me) who had no idea before reading your post that a US Southern accent is supposed to sound "stupid." To me, it's always sounded like one of the cooler regional accents of the US, and all it means to me is "somebody who comes from the US South and sounds pretty cool."
>
> Brunnen-"around here we call rednecks Westies"G

If THIS helps (and if it doesn't, oh well, it's an excuse for me to post something), back where I used to live in New England, a lot of my friends considered a Southern accent an extremely attractive attribute for a woman to have. Not from a "Southern belle" stereotype of what Southern women were like, I don't think, but just cause they thought Southern accents sounded pretty. (I can't help but agree, though my personal favorite accent is an Irish accent, with Scottish coming in at a close second. I might as well strike against stereotypes here and say that I don't find French accents very remarkable; I don't hate the sound of a French accent, but I've never understood why speaking French or even French-accented English is supposed to cause "romantic" people to melt. Perhaps a note on accents is in order in "How To Be Romantic"?) As an additional note, at our fairly conservative private school, "redneck" was considered a mild swear word and its use was frowned upon. Just some (hopefully) encouraging words.