Sounds like you got shut down. Your first line was good, but your second needed to be, "Then what do you dislike about the south?" And when she goes on to call them uneducated and stupid and poor, then you whisper and tell her, "You shouldn't say such racist stuff at work, what's wrong with you?"
Out liberal her. Truth is on our side. Virtually everything negative about the south is because of blacks and Hispanics. Our education rates, school ranks, poverty, crime, IQ. The south is shitty because we have all the blacks. Anyone that thinks otherwise has obviously not investigated it much. Stupid liberal girls always think there are fields of sprawling trailer parks and red necks when they make up about 2% of the population at most and most of them don't actually vote. Rednecks haven't elected anyone but even so the poorest white communities have fewer drugs and less murder than the richest black communities.
Every liberal complaining about how stupid the south is, is actually complaining about blacks and Hispanics and it is actually blatant racism hidden behind a thin veil of ignorance. No exceptions, hang out in Atlanta anywhere that liberals like, it will be 100% white in a 78% black city. White left avoid blacks like the plague and just get around the racism by calling their areas, "the bad part of town" or start leaving when blacks show up. It's amazing.
At work I have heard, "Why is the south so against welfare, they use more of it than anyone! lol" Yes, we do use more, because we have all the black people. The white population in the south are overwhelmingly conservative but also overwhelmingly more educated and upstanding.
Go to Jacksonville Fl, beautiful place, posh, upstanding folks everywhere, leans left because of large black populations in section 8 housing, of course, the bad part of town. They almost all vote left because they always want more free money. It's clear that over 50% of the left's support is from blacks, Hispanics, and other nonwhite groups. Yes the brainwashed white left girl will show up, go to Ortega, or Riverside & Avondale ( Old traditional white areas that are rich, well maintained, and have great local white culture) and act like you are a backwards hick if you don't like the leftist policies even though the only part of Jacksonville under leftist majority is Moncrief Park, a crime ridden hellhole full of murder and rape carried out by blacks, and surprise, that's not the part of town white left girl wants to visit. It's the, "bad part of town". Even though she can't connect the dots and realize that's what she supports.
You only need to give white left a reality check about their own racism. They all hate the black parts of town more than you do, they just don't say it. If shitlibs want to hang out after work, side with your black coworkers, ( they usually over ride the black vote at work and never go where they want because they don't think it's a good area or they don't like fried chicken.). Invite them to a spoken word black poetry place. Make the white left uncomfortable. Always choose the blacker option and then call it out at some point. "Why don't you ever want to go to the black areas? You have a problem with them?" Harass them because soon there won't be places like Ortega and Avondale left. Make them come to their own conclusion that it's insane to want to grow Moncrief Park. "It's racist to just avoid blacks all the time." "Don't you like diversity?" "This area is growing no matter waht those damn Trump supporters want" Fucking troll them by making them face their own hypocrisy. I have had nothing but success with this.