Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history but Southern identity now has more to do with food accents manners music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.
New York City is home to so many people from so many places and the uniqueness of it is that you never feel a foreigner. English is almost hardly ever heard in the subway. In fact it's weird.