Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Where do I start. There are about 35 million blacks in the US. The US population is over 300 million. So blacks are about 10 percent of the population. Are you really going to tell me that blacks are the sole cause of the south's low rankings in education, per capita income and poverty?
The percentage of the black population in poverty as a whole, does rank higher compared to the whites population. But based on raw numbers, there are more whites living below the poverty line than blacks. To give you a snap shot of what I am talking about. Take Arkansas for example. 2.8 million people live in this state. Whites make up 82% of the population. Blacks make up 15% of the population. The rest of the population is made up of hispanics and asians which total about 3%. Out of the 415,000 blacks in Arkansas, almost 40% of them are poor which equates to about 166,000 blacks living in poverty. Even if ten percent of the white population of 2.2 million in Arkansas live under the poverty line, that's still a whopping 220,000 people that are poor. But guess what? More than ten percent of whites do live under the poverty line in many southern states.
My point being, there are rural places in this (WV, MS, LA, AR, GA, KY, TN) country where the BLACK population is less than 1%. Guess what genius? These areas are typically dirt poor, filled with bible thumpers and very very conservative. See the trend here! Do some serious research before you throw an entire race under the bus as an excuse to the south's pitiful problems.
Because of your ignorance, people like myself will always have a negative perception of the south as a backwater place. BTW - I'm not gay, but who am I to say that two gay people can't form a union under god?
The majority of blacks live in the south. The poverty levels for blacks are higher than that of whites. While there are poor whites, the percentage of whites living in poverty is dramatically smaller than that of blacks.
I'm not "throwing anyone under a bus". I'm tired of the political correctness towards reasonable reasons for the south having greater poverty. It's a verifiable statistic and it is legitimate. There's no reason to get on my case.
There are zero counties in Georgia where the black population is less than one percent, and the ones who have black populations in the single digits aren't what I'd call dirt poor. Most are fairly average, economically speaking. You see, Appalachian areas in GA, NC, SC, TN, and VA aren't exactly what you'll see in KY and WV.
Have to take exception to comparing Northern racism to the South [no way near as much & never institutionalized like South was.
Noting as preface, a lot of your points were addressed (assuming my own rebuttals count for a fiddlers damn! LOL) in the one to IrishTom. But anyway, the focal of it being that while, true, the institution of segregation was never so institutionalized in the North as the South, that the reason was NOT that northerners were more inclined to be racially tolerant...but rather that they could, and did, pass laws, forbidding black residency at all. Or, by the same token, that there were very few living there to begin with.
There was an old line I always thought had some truth in it as concerns the historical reality of race relations (and it can apply to all people of all races and still be true). Went something like "New Yorkers don't seem to have anything against Eskimoes....but where in New York are the Eskimoes..??" LOL
Point is, it is EASY to parade under a banner of "tolerance" if one has the luxury to do so. But the reality in other realms is not so pleasant to confront. And again, the biggest differerence in the North and South were that Southerners were just less hypocritical about it all.
Quote:
Yes, there has been ugly racism all over our nation but there is one major difference. Mexicanos were not brought to the U.S. as slaves but rather actually lived in the Southwest [including Texas] before these areas were annexed. Some Chinese were brought over to build the railroads & nearly lived like slaves but quickly assimilated into the nation. African-Americans are here historically due to slavery. This issue has become less divisive over the years.
Just as a note in passing, Texas was/is part of the South, not the SW as defined as NM and Arizona (which did not even become states until the early 20th Century). It's annexation was very different...
But anyway, if we can go back a bit to why African-Americans are here as in the context of who brought them here to begin with and the issue of North/South "guilt"...it comes from the northern slave trade (and of course, it was Africans who sold their own into slavery at all).
There was not a single slave-ship chartered out of a Southern port. So who is to blame, if such terms can be used, for the slaves having ever been brought over to begin with? The North or South?
Quote:
I saw a thread that pointed out that the only states to allow school corporal punishment are all in the South. Most executions occur in the South. These and other issues show that the South is essentially behind the rest of the nation in progressive thinking\ practice.
Well, all you are doing here is making a smug (intentional or not) value judgement that these things are by definition a negative quality. It also demonstrates a certain supercilious mindset which takes for granted we in the South need to apologize for it.
While I personally appreciate your very civil reply, I also have to say that the way you word this is extremely indicitive of the cloistured viewpoint all too many non-Southerners have.
What exactly is "progressive" thinking? Great emotive phrase...but what does it mean, exactly? By dictionary definition, progressive means moving forward, I guess.
But in terms of social policy it also seems to lead to falling off the damn roof or into a chasm of no return. No thanks, I will stay with the tried and true. That is, be sure of your footing before blindly sticking your foot out just because some ivory towered feller declared it "progressive" to do so!
Quote:
For some Southerners there's an anger toward the North that lingers from the Civil War [now, it is understandable to react when your home region is criticized] but the South has advanced considerably. As I wrote earlier, the best way for people to grow is in diversity & why the migration from northern/western areas into the South has been a good thing.
First of all, thanks for the true notation. It is today people in the Southern states which express the most optomism on race relations.
As to the last part, there is a flip side to what you say about the "anger" Yes, the legacies of Reconstruction thru the generations has imparted (understandably, IMHO) some bitterness, but as you allude to, that is fading and has been for quite a while.
On the other hand, the real reason why the "anger" exists today doesn't have a whole lot to do with the "Civil War" per se. But rather, what many have expressed, in one way or another, what is called a "yankee attitude."
Sorry, but some of your writings have illustrated it. That, somehow, for gawd-knows-why-unfathomable-reasons, that it is presumed the South needs some sort of infusion of transplants from other parts of the country to bring us out of the horrid netherworld and backwater existence, which many just airily take for granted we live in. But seems not to ever occur that maybe we like ourselves the way we are. That we love our home. And we will will decorate it as we please.
I guess I will NEVER understand it. Nor the absolute....hell...I can hardly come up with a term for it....uhhh, blindly patronizing and condecending notion, maybe?....that those who come down here have even a semblence of the moral/historical credentials to do so ala' lecturing us!
In a nutshell, can it even be within the realm of consideration to that ilk (if the shoe fits, wear it) that there is NOTHING more ludicrous to a Southerner than for a yankee to move down here, fleeing a land so ruined, and trying to transform us into the same gawd-blessed mess they U-hauled trailer out of???
Ok...I am outta here for a while. Before I have an apoplexy! LOL
Sorry, my friend, but it did (slavery). Read this and associated links, and I hope others will too, as to the truth as concerns slavery in the northern states and all the laws which stemmed from it, even after abolished.
In summation, IrishTom, while I very much respect your knowledge and intelligence and us amiciably having civil exchanges, I really do think you make a big mistake by trying to present "the north" as some sort of bastion of enlightenment and tolerance as compared to the South.
I don't need websites, I have the United States census. Let's take the year 1840, 21 years before the Civil War. There were 331 slaves IN Illinois, total population 476,183. Across the river in Missouri there were 58,240 slaves, total population 383,702.
If we go to older states in that year we find 64 slaves in Pennsylvania, total population 1,724,033. A little ways to the south Virginia with a population of 1,239,797 had slaves in the number of 449,087.
Now you said there were slaves in the North "in great abundance". Evidently not unless you have a different definition of abundance than I do.
I haven't claimed the north as a bastion of enlightenment but compared to the south, yeah, on this issue it sure was.
I don't remember the governor of Illinois standing on any steps down in Champaign either, know what I mean? Never saw any Freedom Riders up north, wonder why? Was it because Blacks could vote? Never heard of anybody getting buried under a dam here for trying to vote either, not in my lifetime anyway, I was born in 1949, I remember lots of things, I remember going to an integrated public high school in Chicago in 1964. I remember brawling with Egyptian Cobras and Vice Lords at that school. I remember the killing of Fred Hampton but I also remember that the killing ruined the political career of the man responsible, an Irish guy no less.
I don't need websites, I have the United States census. Let's take the year 1840, 21 years before the Civil War. There were 331 slaves IN Illinois, total population 476,183. Across the river in Missouri there were 58,240 slaves, total population 383,702.
If we go to older states in that year we find 64 slaves in Pennsylvania, total population 1,724,033. A little ways to the south Virginia with a population of 1,239,797 had slaves in the number of 449,087.
Now you said there were slaves in the North "in great abundance". Evidently not unless you have a different definition of abundance than I do.
I haven't claimed the north as a bastion of enlightenment but compared to the south, yeah, on this issue it sure was.
I don't remember the governor of Illinois standing on any steps down in Champaign either, know what I mean? Never saw any Freedom Riders up north, wonder why? Was it because Blacks could vote? Never heard of anybody getting buried under a dam here for trying to vote either, not in my lifetime anyway, I was born in 1949, I remember lots of things, I remember going to an integrated public high school in Chicago in 1964. I remember brawling with Egyptian Cobras and Vice Lords at that school. I remember the killing of Fred Hampton but I also remember that the killing ruined the political career of the man responsible.
Many northerners opposed slavery because it put their family farms in competition with slave labor. They didn't want that. Much has been said about this issue. You might want to research it.
Many northerners opposed slavery because it put their family farms in competition with slave labor. They didn't want that. Much has been said about this issue. You might want to research it.
Exactly right, SE. The same reason many northern politicians opposed slavery in the territories. NOT out of moral opposition, but because they didn't want blacks in the said territories (same as they passed laws forbidding black residency in the same northern states).
Do you think whites have a monopoly on racism? Do you think black people are incapable of racism? You must be hiding under a rock to think that only white folks can harbor racist thoughts or act in racist ways. Neither a majority of blacks nor whites is racist, but unfortunately there are individuals of both races that are prejudiced in their thoughts and actions.
It's wrong no matter who does it, but as they say...admitting a problem is the first step to solving it.
I don't need websites, I have the United States census. Let's take the year 1840, 21 years before the Civil War. There were 331 slaves IN Illinois, total population 476,183. Across the river in Missouri there were 58,240 slaves, total population 383,702.
If we go to older states in that year we find 64 slaves in Pennsylvania, total population 1,724,033. A little ways to the south Virginia with a population of 1,239,797 had slaves in the number of 449,087.
Now you said there were slaves in the North "in great abundance". Evidently not unless you have a different definition of abundance than I do.
I haven't claimed the north as a bastion of enlightenment but compared to the south, yeah, on this issue it sure was.
I don't remember the governor of Illinois standing on any steps down in Champaign either, know what I mean? Never saw any Freedom Riders up north, wonder why? Was it because Blacks could vote? Never heard of anybody getting buried under a dam here for trying to vote either, not in my lifetime anyway, I was born in 1949, I remember lots of things, I remember going to an integrated public high school in Chicago in 1964. I remember brawling with Egyptian Cobras and Vice Lords at that school. I remember the killing of Fred Hampton but I also remember that the killing ruined the political career of the man responsible, an Irish guy no less.
Do you not see the point I have been making, IrishTom? Sorry, my friend (and I mean that sentiment truly) but you are only digging the hole deeper.
You are the one who originally brought up what you consider differences in the North and South and then, when confronted with obvious refutations of the saints vs. sinner argument, try to excuse it by drawing distinctions that don't hold water. And neatly sidestep to avoid confronting the same.
Tell me, right out front, for instance, what is the difference in a state law forbidding black residency at all, as in the North, and those on the books in the South?
Keep in mind, it is not US (that is, Southerners) who started out to righteously condemn the North on this issue. We down here figure we all have monkeys on our backs and try to mind our own business. The point being that we didn't pick the fight in this realm and comparring stats. Y'all did.
So when making a splash?...well, getting wet works both ways!
As to the splash and its specifics? I stated it already. What Dr. King and Andrew Young said.
And are you making the case that because slavery was not so prevelant in the North as the South that it is excusable in relative terms? Not a single northern state emancipated slaves outright. And then when done over a period of years, they passed extremely harsh laws against the "freed men". And how about that slavery would not have existed at all in the Southern states if the slave traders in the North had not brought them into the country (many cities in the NE of which built their economic success on it)?
And yeah, I am going to post this link often because so many folks have never heard of its facts:
OK...time to have supper and settle in a read and watch TV for a bit! And again, IT, I enjoy our exchanges and don't take it personal in the least. It is a discussion/debate between folks of good will, far as I am concerned!
Then why is it that so many are on this forum begging for info to move down here cause they got it sooo sooo bad elsewhere ( moreso from up north wanting to get away from their troubled states )
Fact. TN can't make everyone elses life better as sooner or later TN will end up a craphole like the places folks are leaving to come here. It's a matter of time.Oh,,that'll be our fault to right? It's our fault we are getting flooded with folks who care less about the ways we have and have always been used to.The kindness of TN will be lost. Then see who wants to keep heading here after all the good has been destroyed.
Goodness?great life?I saw this thread and as educated well traveled southern gentlemen of African descent.I am proud to be southern.Most of the American culture originates from the south.You just don't realized you make the point why some people detest the south.No matter how much beauty, manners,"Christian values" you have,it mean nothing because of prejudiced ,hateful,ignorant people such as yourself.Have you noticed that the places that are slowest to accept change are those that are left behind socially,economically , and way behind in education.Most of those dying cities are in the South.AL,MS,TX, have many cities near the bottom poorest in the nation.
There is no "good" in a place if it cannot be enjoyed by all its people.Hate is something most normal people don't want to be around.No matter if black ,white or whatever.Every race in history has dark patches so none can claim superiority.You're just another "simple-minded, good ole boy" racist just like the other dying breeds out in the south wishing things were the way they used to be in "the good ole days".Seems like your heaven on earth gets smaller every time you leave your house
Even though there are still people like this guy.I still think that most stereotypes overall are not indicative of most people in the south.The rest of the country can learn many good things about the south.They do themselves a disservice to accept such things as fact.Here in Georgia,we have Our chief Supreme Court Justice is a black woman(elected statewide for the last 10years,2 other Black supreme court justices as well,she Labour Commissioner,State Attorney General.These are the highest position in State Government.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
