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Old 09-25-2019, 08:40 AM
 
Location: OC
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Fascinating topic. I’ll add my thoughts later
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Old 09-25-2019, 10:21 AM
 
Location: OC
12,734 posts, read 9,357,032 times
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First of all, thanks to the OP for posting this. I think this is a very complex and fascinating topic that really does not have one answer.

As most of you probably know, I grew up in Texas, and most would consider that the south or it has elements of stereotypical southern traits. But before I start, I want to point out that mine and everyone else's experience is anecdotal. My experiences may be different than yours and no region is so homogenous or monolithic that everyone is the same.

So, imo and from my experiences, 95% of the people Ive come across are not racist, in the south. Of course, who knows what's said when you're not there? I've heard people say bad things about blacks when they aren't within earshot, who knows if they don't say the same about Asians. Growing up, did I have some tense moments? Absolutely. Were there times I felt unwelcome, sure. I'll acknowledge a lot of this stuff is just light joking, but I've heard a lot of racist (overt or covert stuff) from southerners. I'll list them if needed, but again, we're talking 20+ incidents over a lifetime,is that really a lot?

My friend lives in Michigan, kind of small town and he said it's more racist than any part of the south he's lived in. I've lived out of the south for a total of 5 years. There's been one negative incident involving my race, and that was from an African American. But other then that, nothing. Not one iota. Of course, the sample size is tiny right?


Racists can happen anywhere. The dog that mauled and killed that lady in SF were owned by racist lawyers in SF. Yes, even educated big city folks are racist. One of the fellas arrested in Charlottesville was a waiter in Berkely. You always wonder why a militant conservative would want to live there, but I guess that's another topic.

To me, the split in this country is more urban/rural than south vs north.
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Old 05-14-2021, 02:01 PM
 
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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Old thread, but for what it's worth, still got kin in AL & GA we keep in touch with and visit every few years, and my sense is that much of the former overt racism in the South has largely been driven 'underground' now, or survives mostly thru the 'older' generations. Like my great aunt who retired to the GA 'burbs, from being a Manager at AT&T Corporate in Atlanta for >30 years.

And while she's usually a very charming and gracious lady, still whenever we'd go for a drive and occasionally happened to encounter the inevitable 'bone-headed' sorta driving that we all deal with everyday... she often seemed to have a 'Special' level of irritation if the errant driver happened to be one of what she refers to as 'Those People'.
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Old 10-31-2021, 03:27 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Soul Bro View Post
As an African American man, I've always thought this was weird. The rural south seems to be the poster child for intolerance. You know the stereotype, dominated by white guys in overalls with pick up trucks with a strong dislike for "minorities." I've even heard blacks from other regions say things such as, "Yeah, I wouldnt get caught dead outside of Metro Atlanta while I'm in GA. I'm not trying to have the KKK coming for me"

It's weird to me because the rural areas and small towns down here are usually anywhere from 25%-65% black, as opposed to the 90%+ white in other regions.

Sure, you have some people the "stereotype" applies to, but most of these towns are a bunch of blacks and whites who've grown up together and get along just fine. As a black male, If I travel through these southern rural towns and make a stop, there's no problem or discomfort. Half or more of the people working at the stores and the patrons are black themselves and the rural whites are used to being around blacks so they dont act strange, I feel comfortable.

In contrast, when I travel through the rural areas of the Midwest and Northeast, I receive awkward looks, mannerism, and there usually isn't many other black people around.

I've just always thought beliefs and comments like the one I mentioned above, particularly by other blacks from places like NYC or Philly, was pretty weird because those 90% white rural areas in states like those sure seem less "accepting" than the ones down here.

Have any of you other AAs ever felt like this while in rural areas outside of the south? Is this a common belief, that the south's rural areas are "worse" and "less tolerant?" I dont see it, and have experienced the opposite.
Your experience is more typical, and represents the hidden reality that the media tries to ignore: bigotry is often as prevalent or more prevalent in the "blue" states than it is in the red states. I think it's probably a dynamic, ever-changing sort of thing though, that goes on the demographic ratio in the area. The rural South is definitely absolutely more balanced racially than the North is, right now. Yes, it also was in the 1950s too.... but the South has made some progress in a positive direction since then. Much of the North is still looking like what it looked like in the 50s... and with not so much change in attitudes that accompanied the flip flop in voting patterns.
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Old 10-29-2023, 03:47 PM
 
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The main difference that I see between big city and "country" is not racial.
It's about who they are best for. Both are best suited for a different type of person.
The big cities are best for people who are either good at fraud or can get along well with it. The "one can get rich stealing eggs too" types. A big town is by definition a (admittedly flashy) real estate Ponzi which begets the rest of the scamfest.
The "country" is better suited for straight shooter types. People with useful skills, who provide value and take no ****.

In a nutshell, "the bigger the city, the thicker the scam" is my personal take on the main city vs. country difference. I'm sure exceptions exist.
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Old 10-29-2023, 06:20 PM
 
Location: Germantown, Philadelphia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
There's an old saying, it goes something like this:

White people in the South are fine with black people living next door, as long as they have no power. White people in the North are fine with black people having power, as long as they don't live next door.

In my experience, this is mostly true. (Disclaimer, I am white).

The north has a really terrible ugly racial history which is now mostly forgotten. In the period after the Civil War, blacks moved from the South to the north in relatively large numbers. As they were from rural areas in the south, most of them moved to rural areas in the North. There weren't huge populations, but most small towns in large portions of the country had at least a few white families.

But after Reconstruction, things changed, and racial attitudes towards blacks in the North became strongly negative. Town's began passing "sundown" ordinances, which made it illegal for any black person to stay in the Town overnight. During the period from roughly 1890-1915 or so, nearly every small town had some version of a race riot, the result of which was the forcible expulsion of the black community in the towns by a white mob. The black population fled to the cities, and was later swamped by the Great Migration.
The concise (and IMO more memorable) version of your saying is:

"In the South, they don't care how close you get, as long as you don't get too big. In the North, they don't care how big you get, as long as you don't get too close."

In the part of the country where I grew up, near the dead center of the 48 states, we heard of the "Exodusters." These were freed slaves who largely lived close to the Mississippi River and were lured north by promises that they would receive land in Kansas; all they had to do was make their way to St. Louis, where trains would be waiting to take them to the Promised Land.

Of course, no trains were waiting for them when they got to St. Louis, and the local citizenry wasn't thrilled at the prospect of all these ex-slaves hanging around. The locals managed to book passage for a good number of them on steamers headed up the Missouri, where they would at least be close to Kansas once they got to Kansas City.

The Kansas Citians, however, were as puzzled as the St. Louisans were when they arrived. Most of those who made it there settled in the city, but a few hundred hardy souls did make it to a site in northeast Kansas where they established a town called Nicodemus. That town is all but empty now, but some of its buildings remain, and the settlement is a National Historic Landmark.

I didn't pick up any overt hostility visiting my grandma's (Dad's side) relatives in Lufkin, Texas. It was more like we kept to our part of town and went downtown if we needed to, but we were treated like anyone else who lived there. Ditto visiting my uncle, who married into Dad's family and lived in Savannah (an artist, he was the Kansas City Art Institute's first Black MFA graduate, and HBCU Savannah State College [now University] hired him immediately upon graduation and brought him down to establish its art program).

I did experience some hostility when I met a white girl who lived in Valley Falls, Kan. on a bus trip to an Episcopal mission near Riverton, Wyo. She took a liking to me and wanted to stay in touch, but she had a boyfriend in VF. Still, when whe came to KC with a student group from her high school, she asked me to meet her for lunch in Crown Center.

Word apparently got back to Valley Falls via her classmates, and about a week later, I got two letters in the mail. One, from her, expressed the hope that we might meet again sometime but also said that it would be best if we didn't correspond for a while because of the commotion in Valley Falls. The other, from the boyfriend, was more hostile; I might have chalked it all up to jealousy had he not also said that whites and blacks shouldn't socialize together. At least he didn't use the N-word and ended by asking me to "Get the H*ll Out Please!"

I guess, then, that my own experience mirrors Southern Soul Bro's assessment of the state of Black-white interactions in the small-town North vs. the small-town South.

(FWIW, Mom — b. Omaha, Neb., 1931; raised in Horton, Kan., and a graduate of the University of Kansas [Rock Chalk Jayhawk!] — spent much of her youth in mostly white environments and emerged from the experience not only unscarred but determined to enable her two sons [born nine years apart; I'm the older of the two] to play the game by the rules the white folks set — and beat them at it.)
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