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then make your novel a friggin comment. knowing your usual self, i really didn't want to read all of it, because i'd probably just fume at the fact that nothing was learned here. my comment was 100% correct; "what i'm trying to dispel is the falsehoods that 1) the south was wrong and the north was right 2) all slave owners were evil white men and all slaves were victimized blacks 3) the north were freedom fighters who didn't profit off of slavery 4) the north didn't have slaves 5) and the falsehood that the south got "crushed" in the war. the south didn't get crushed at all. the south had 1/2 the soldiers the north had, and the north lost MORE soldiers in the war. the south kicked #$$, but we lost because the north had a larger economy at that time."
if you can find a false piece of information in the italicized response there, be my guest and tell me specifically.
You keep arguing Legal semantics as if they trump the morality of ending slavery.
Sorry, nobody cares if it was "illegal" for the North to force the South to stay in the Union. (and I am just trusting your interpretation of this point, which is probably pretty risky).
At the end of the day the Civil War ended slavery, which was a true evil in our society. So most people are going to say "that was a good thing to come out of a terrible event".
I am well aware of what happened in Boston. This still doesn't change the fact of all the things that happened in the South. I never said that bad things weren't happening up North. I know all about Boston.
This event in Boston just proves that this happens on both sides of the line. It isn't like I would live in Boston anyway.
Now, I would like to compare some Southern cities to Seattle, or even some Canadian cities.
racial issues are NOTHING unique to the south. because the kkk originated in the south, the south is all of a sudden "the evil racist white man," and northerners hypocritically paint the region with a broad brush. ONE man started the kkk. all it takes is ONE man. the south had that ONE man. the crips, started by ONE man, could've been just as easily started in new york or chicago. seattle had plenty of racism, and still does possibly more than the south. i'd bet that there are more black-white couples down south than in seattle (per capita).
You keep arguing Legal semantics as if they trump the morality of ending slavery.
Sorry, nobody cares if it was "illegal" for the North to force the South to stay in the Union. (and I am just trusting your interpretation of this point, which is probably pretty risky).
At the end of the day the Civil War ended slavery, which was a true evil in our society. So most people are going to say "that was a good thing to come out of a terrible event".
yes, i do argue legality. that's why laws are put into place, not so you could pick and choose which ones you agree with, but to follow. i don't agree with slavery, but i do believe that that's something southern states should've individually worked out on their own over time.
racial issues are NOTHING unique to the south. because the kkk originated in the south, the south is all of a sudden "the evil racist white man," and northerners hypocritically paint the region with a broad brush. ONE man started the kkk. all it takes is ONE man. the south had that ONE man. the crips, started by ONE man, could've been just as easily started in new york or chicago. seattle had plenty of racism, and still does.
I never said it was unique. The kinds of racial issues in the South have a more unique spin though.
As for Seattle, I don't recall my family having racism issues while living in the Seattle area. I used to live there. I never said there wasn't racism in Seattle, but compared to Boston, Seattle is more peaceful.
This is what my father has told me. He was born and raised in Wisconsin. His parents left the South during the Great Migration. My father does not like Mississippi and could never imagine living there. He is well aware of racism in Wisconsin and makes me aware that it exists there too. However, according to him, the mentality in the South is different. From his perspective, African-Americans are expected to "know the social order". That is the vibe that he gets.
For those who don't like the South because of Republican politics, a lot of poeple also dislike the Northeast and California for their tax loving, pro-abortion, pro-illegal immigration liberal Democrats. I love that bumper sticker that says "my gun's killed less people than Ted Kennedy's car".
This is what my father has told me. He was born and raised in Wisconsin. His parents left the South during the Great Migration. My father does not like Mississippi and could never imagine living there. He is well aware of racism in Wisconsin and makes me aware that it exists there too. However, according to him, the mentality in the South is different. From his perspective, African-Americans are expected to "know the social order". That is the vibe that he gets.
the north was never as integrated as the south, between blacks and whites. black people lived in the rural south. black people up north were segregated into places like harlem and the south side of chicago, among other areas in other cities. if black people were in such great number in rural wisconsin during the civil rights movement, whose to say the attitude wouldn't have been similar to what was seen down south? racism was more up front in the south than the north because the rural north was 100% white in most areas, some people in the rural north probably never even saw a black person. but the picture of boston proves the violence that was just as visible up north when whites and blacks did see each other, on the much rarer occassion they did.
there was a movie "guess who's coming to dinner" from the 60s about a white girl who brings her fiance to meet her parents in SAN FRANCISCO for the first time... her fiance was black. you guess the rest. sure, it was a movie, a hollywood movie, based on the reality nationwide.
Last edited by CelticGermanicPride; 04-26-2011 at 08:04 PM..
You know, I'm a northern transplant to the South. And I'm really amazed at the misconceptions I read here. It's like the sum total of your knowledge of the South is based on old reruns of In The Heat Of The Night.
Here's the thing. If you want to find racism, you'll find it whether you're in Birmingham, Boston, or Bensonhurst. In fact, I would add that, if anything, Southerners have done a great deal more to address it than we smug northerners have. Am I saying it's Utopia? Absolutely not. But I would offer that race relations are better here than where I came from.
What's more, here's a factor nobody talks about: Race relations can be remarkably easy when you have a minority that's less than 10% of the total population (I remember somebody from Vermont wanting to lecture me on race relations in the South once. Blacks make up roughly 1% of Vermont's population). Try managing a harmonious racial climate when the percentages are more even. Yet Southerners, black and white alike, seem to be making a good effort and mostly succeeding.
As far as the Southern hospitality thing is concerned, it's mostly true. But it's not unconditional. I've found that Southerners are an embracing sort. But you also have to realize that moving here means that you'll encounter a different culture that's worse in some ways and markedly better in others. But if you start expecting Southerners to act just the way people did in Cleveland, if you speak to people just the way you did back in Buffalo, then you'll get the cold shoulder in a hurry.
Economically, you better enjoy all the jokes while you can. Roughly 60% of the country's economic growth will take place in the Southeast over the next fifteen years. Yeah, Southerners don't have the per capita income that we northerners do, but the standard of living is actually higher. All you have to do is look at the home I own versus the homes I owned in San Diego or Cleveland. Not only that, but I get superior city services and my children attend one of the top 20 public school systems in the country--for roughly $3,500 a year in property taxes.
Location: Metro Atlanta (Sandy Springs), by way of Macon, GA
2,014 posts, read 5,099,557 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by green_mariner
This is what my father has told me. He was born and raised in Wisconsin. His parents left the South during the Great Migration. My father does not like Mississippi and could never imagine living there. He is well aware of racism in Wisconsin and makes me aware that it exists there too. However, according to him, the mentality in the South is different. From his perspective, African-Americans are expected to "know the social order". That is the vibe that he gets.
"know the social order"...?
Mississippi has one of the top 3 (if not number 1) most elected black officials of all states.
As a black male, I'd much rather be a black man in Mississippi, where there are blacks all over the state in large numbers so I wouldnt feel out of place pretty much anywhere there, rather than being in Wisconsin where if I drive outside of Milwaukee and Madison metro areas ....I'd be one of the only black faces around.
I know a mixed girl (mom white, dad black) who was born and raised partially in Milwaukee...but when her mom and dad split up, her mom left MIL and went back to her hometown (some small backwoods town about 2 hrs away).
She told me she faced all kinds of racism and being singled out for being one of the only "black" people around in town.
At least you wont have to go through that in Mississippi, being the blackest state.
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