The "South" is not monolithic at all.
There's Southern states like Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, and Virginia that are more moderate and have more Blue cities/suburbs in them.
Even California isn't monolithic. Orange County is one of the biggest Republican strongholds in the country with tons of not only Whites but Asians, Hispanics, and Persians that are
due to being conservative and not being used to being around Black people at all.
And rural/inland California has tons of rednecks that are as racist as their Southern/Midwestern counterparts. And there's minority communities dominated by Hispanics, Asians, and Middle Easterners that aren't very accepting of us.
Even the living standards vary. California has a very strong economy in the Bay Area but the Bay is also one of the most expensive parts of the country and hard to live in if you're not in tech. LA has Hollywood but actors are broke these days if they're not at least B list. My cousin moved to LA to become an actor more than a decade ago and he still hasn't "made it" outside some commercial spots and meeting celebs in person. He's still living with 5 roommates and has multiple "hustles" that have nothing to do with acting.
In the South, Virginia, NC, Tennessee, and Texas have pretty strong economies while the rest have average at best to poor economies. That said, the COL is much lower so you can get more of a bang for your buck even without a White collar job and buying a home is easier. It's still tough to thrive with such shytty wages and lack of job benefits though that's prevalent in many Southern states.
All in all, it really depends cause we're talking about 2 huge areas here.
