Grad Student Humanist

Well, I've never lived in the North, but I imagine there are racists in every region of this country. I think the reason the South gets a bad name is because there was such an incredible resistance here to integrating blacks into mainstream society and it happened less than fifty years ago.

I spent most of my life in Miami which is a very unique city in terms of race relations. But I've lived in Hattiesburg, MS for the past three years. It's definitely not a hick town, although not your traditional college town either. Generally I think the people here are fine but I've noticed that as soon as they've gained your trust they feel very open in revealing their dislike of black people.

I live in a townhouse in a diverse block: families, college students, older widows, one black family. The other day the woman who lived next to me asked how long I would be staying. She seemed overly concerned about it. I told her it would be at least a couple of years. She was relieved and said she feared for who would be moving in after I left. Naively I thought she meant college students, or a family with rowdy kids. Then she quickly explained that she didn't want any more blacks in the neighborhood.

I wish I would have had a mirror handy so I could have seen the expression on my face. This woman just tells me this as if she were telling me about the weather; or worse, assuming that since I'm white of course I must agree with her. But she's an older woman so I wasn't about to get into an argument with her or what have you. Interestingly enough she has no problem with my mother who sometimes visits me. We're Cuban and my mother speaks English with a noticeable accent. I guess it's just a color thing with her.
I'm a bit more shocked when fellow graduate students who've been raised in Mississippi act as ignorantly.

So I guess if anything perhaps the people in the South are more honest about their feelings on race. I really don't know if I like that though. The one thing that really bothers me though is when Southerners try to deflect claims of racism by saying that they "really understand" black people more than Northerners do. Now while I may be convinced that Southerners are no more racist than Northerners, I don't think there are really any white people in this country who really understand black people, or more importantly, what it's like to grow up as a black person in this society.

[ November 16, 2002: Message edited by: Grad Student Humanist ]</p>

theyeti

The best quote I've ever heard about the differences in regions of the country in regards to race relations comes from one of the leaders of the civil rights movement (Stokely Carmicle maybe?). It goes something like this:

"In the South, they hated us as a group but loved us as individuals. In the North, they hated us as individuals but loved us as a group."

That rings pretty true to my experience. I've grown up in the South; it was in a rural area, yet it was a college town that was relatively enlightened. Our schools were well integrated, and there were little or no race problems, though there were certainly the occational racist rednecks. But even the racist types would always have at least a couple of black friends, as ironic as it sounds. They didn't have anything against every black person, just most of them.

When I went to college, a lot of the people I met were from up North, who were coming to the South for the first time. They liked to rag on us about the South's reputation for racism, but as it turned out, most of these guys had never spent time with black people or gotten to know any of them. So when it came time for them finally to interact with black people, they wouldn't know how to behave. They showed a mixture of fear and discomfort, and seemed to prefer not having to interact with them. In the end, it became clear to me that they were happy to denounce racism, and accept black people as a group, just so long as they didn't have to be around any of them. Of course this isn't true of everyone, but it's an interesting trend that I noticed.

theyeti

bluefugue

Well, speaking as someone who has never lived in the South (unless you count Hawaii and L.A., which are actually pretty far South ) I must admit that there's probably a grain of truth to what Yeti says. In the abstract I abhor racism, but I'm pretty uncomfortable around black folks. This in spite of the fact that many of my next-door neighbors are black, and so is my brother-in-law!

ZiprHead

I went down to Nashville a couple years ago to visit a friend who had moved down there many years before. He was driving down the street and a black guy was crossing the street in front of us. He yelled, "Get outta' the way, Nigger!" I was appalled and really taken by surprise since my friend hadn't displayed such feelings when he lived here in Michigan. He told me, "Down here, we treat our niggers right."

That was the last contact I've had with the guy.

wildernesse

Wow! It sounds as if someone from up north is just begging to be beaten into a bloody pulp! I assume you were inside a vehicle and that the windows were partially (at least) rolled up and that you were in a good part of town. Otherwise, I would assume that you were witness to a nice fight.

Even in my very Southern family, the "n word" as it seems to be known nowadays was uncommon--even within insular family conversations. I was taught that it was a bad word and that we didn't say bad words (including "butt"!--and I was punished once for saying butt, too!). People who used words like that were ignorant and low-class.

--tibac

RufusAtticus

By "we" he meant idiot carpetbaggers, right? Otherwise I don't know what "we" he is refering to.