The complicated intersection of ‘Southern hospitality’ and ‘No Trespassing’ signs

Unpack your knapsack of Southern stereotypes, and sooner or later you’ll pull out the phrase “Southern hospitality.”

As a Northern born, Southern raised Virginian, my sense of “Southern hospitality” cannot be found in the dictionary. To be hospitable, you are always happy for friends to drop by for a visit. Your home is always open for your neighbors to stop in.

Even if a visit has a purpose, you don’t directly state your business until after exchanging friendly conversation. For example, if you are going to borrow a feather duster, don’t barge into your neighbor’s house asking for a feather duster. You go in, talk about the weather and kudzu and how sad it is that Northerners don’t know what real biscuits taste like for twenty minutes before you mention your errand. It’s just manners.

Being hospitable means your home is always stocked with snacks and tea to give to guests, anticipated or not. You are also welcoming to strangers. While being more circumspect of strangers arriving on your doorstep, you don’t turn them away. You serve them snacks and conversation, just as you would anyone. Whether or not they have a good reason to be there, you treat them well, because you’re a decently raised Southerner.

The hospitable Southerners are always able to entertain friends, neighbors and strangers. If a guest in your home needs something, you provide it. It is as if an entire welcoming committee is squished into a single body. You ooze charm, manners, generosity and friendliness. You are able to be hospitable and accommodating without being a doormat. The bottom line of Southern hospitality is you do your best to make everyone feel welcome and comfortable.

Yet despite this Southern hospitality, there is one feature in the South that cannot be ignored: No Trespassing signs. Walk down a country road and practically every other tree is decorated with a neon warning sign. Wander off of state-owned land, and you’ll encounter a legion of Do Not Enter signs. While each sign may be worded differently, they all have the same sentiment: take one step onto my land, and I will shoot or prosecute.

This is not welcoming. This is not hospitable.

Do Southerners still deserve our hospitable reputations in the midst of threatening signs to stay away from our personal property?

This is not to say that No Trespassing signs don’t have a purpose, because they do. They can prevent passerby from using your resources, hunting or fishing on your property and protect your family/home from possibly dangerous people. These signs can reduce the property owners’ liability if someone got injured on their property, and they can enable you to be a nudist without fear of intruders. They are mostly to keep strangers off of property.

Strike against hospitality: not being welcoming to strangers. Neighbors could also be discouraged from forming relationships with people that line their land with No Trespassing signs. The likelihood of me bringing a pie to a new neighbor with Do Not Enter signs is drastically reduced. I am going to assume they aren’t friendly people.

How can we reconcile this hostile need to protect privacy and personal property with the reputation of being welcoming to everyone? Protecting property isn’t wrong, but what does it mean for Southern hospitality?

It seems that the mindset of hospitality, openness and kindness towards guests is being lost. We are losing our willingness to entertain at the drop of a hat. Strangers are unwelcome – we often prefer visits from friends when they come with advance warning. These signs give off vibes of isolationism, don’t-drop-by-unannounced attitudes and unwelcoming airs.

Perhaps my notion of “Southern hospitality” needs revision. The landscape is changing, and the lexicon must change with it. Strangers and friends we don’t know yet are excluded from our homes and stand outside the umbrella of hospitality. We Southerners are still hospitable towards friends. If someone I knew knocked on my door right now, I could offer her a choice of 15 different drinks, 12 different snacks and we’d go sit on the back porch and watch the sun set.

Yet my country road is two miles long and has two dozen “No Trespassing” signs. Without a doubt, the South is filled with reminders to Do Not Enter Unless Invited. Lining a property with unwelcoming signs, then pretending to follow the Southern commandment of hospitality is a contradiction.