“Good Ole Boys” Defined

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. ~Voltaire.

If you come across a Southern White woman, that is, one who’s lived in the South all her life, avoid using the phrase “good ole boy” to refer to anyone associated with her. Why?

You may be met with an offended look and far worse. If that makes you wonder why, that’s understandable, since Southerners do tend to warp the meaning of things.

As I have come to discover, many Southerners sincerely hate being called on the racism issue, especially on racism that actually still exists in small communities throughout Florida. (The City of Davenport, Florida, where I live, is no exception.)

Here in the South, Florida is considered a truly a Confederate-style Southern state, where the phrase good ole boy is considered racist, and therefore, offensive. It’s not actually what it means, but try explaining that to a any good ole boy or girl and you’ll be met with righteous indignation or far worse.

By accurate definition, a good ole boy is nothing more than a description of most men who have lived in the South for all of their lives. It is a Southern white male who believes in their region’s traditional values. It is someone who conforms and conforms a lot to the values, culture, or behavior of his Southern peers, and it usually refers to old, White guys. A secondary definition is that it can refer to someone who engages in cronyism, so it is a phrase that surely offends politicians. A tertiary definition is to refer to someone as a loyal friend or ally or for those who have known each other for a long period of time.

Just like Kanye West said that “George Bush hates Black people,” calling someone a good ole boy is seen by Southerners to be tantamount to calling a person a racist. Is is also true that, because of the intolerant attitudes of the typical good ole boy, they are seen to be racist in nature, and this is how Southerners warp the meaning of this phrase.

Because good ole boys tend to be intolerant of other cultures, it is automatically assumed by Southerners that intolerance is the same as racism. It is not.

Because Southerners have become accustomed to mixing up words to maintain their code, they see any criticism of Southern ways to be a breach of their basic understanding of the universe. Southerners, for all their strange customs and pompous self-impressions, are basically thin-skinned.

Rather than asking why I would call Tom Fellows a good ole boy, it was assumed that I was calling him a racist, which, up until now, had never crossed my mind. Considering that he is the only commissioner in Davenport’s history who gave a Black community more than they asked for, I’d say he was not a racist. But he is still a good ole boy?

He possesses traditional Southern ways of looking at his world and is someone who spent the majority of his political career conforming to his Southern peers. He’s also an old, White guy. So far that makes Fellows a good ole boy.

But, does he fit other definitions of the phrase? For example, has he engaged in cronyism?

For an answer to that question, I’ll guess we’ll have to ask his daughter, Donna Fellows-Coffey, who became City commissioner by appointment before her commissioner father was even off the dais. She was appointed because the City did not inform the constituents of the election, so there were no other candidates running.

Does that count as cronyism? I’ll let the historians decide.

As for Fellows being a good ole boy, that definition sticks.