It's like when I was growing up (and later) hearing Italians in my neighborhood complain about being identified with the Mafia, the biggest criminal element in American history. My reponse to that was if yous don't like it, think how the rest of us feel about the mob then. Don't like being called it, then don't do it then, people, simple, DONE.
On top of that the same complainers would then turn around and claim that they were "connected." And they're aaaaaaaaalways connected, so they say, and will tell you about uncle this and cousin that doing time like it was something to be proud of.
Perhaps if instead of after cleaving off with the Dixiecrats then later joining the Republiklans, the Southern KKKers and other racist trash just did like they wanted to and separated from the rest of America, they've been nothing but an emabrrassment in the least and lethally dangerous at most.
Seriously, you said you hailed from Georgia, the heartland, what DO these shitters want? Do they really think Trump is going to restart slavery again and the South shall rise again like a bunch of mostly poor dirt farmers with not so much as shoes on their feet - something JFK saw firsthand when he toured there a century after slavery ended? Even after FDR wired them up and paved their roads and introduced them to the modern world and put them on the dole, they stilled lagged in the 60s and still do today, albeit with SUVs for spending their hard yearned Welfare cash at the Walmart on bullets for that final civil war between them and anyone who doesn't require a spray on tan.
Caption this Meme 