has "the south" gone south?

Yeah, ok, but I'm still not throwin' out my shoe-box full of Confederate $$$s.

Very wise.

The states here are sized according to population. Rhode Island is twice the size of Oregon....

The NY Times obviously believes that the South has been enhanced by an intrusion of Northerners fleeing the messes they made up above the Mason-Dixon Line.

I moved to North Carolina from New York in 1985 and I had the classic trepidations of any Northerner (and especially a New Yorker) moving South. Within six months, however, I realized I had found a better place for myself and my family and that nothing would get me to return north.

The North I left had no integration to speak of. There were white neighborhoods and there were black neighborhoods. The kids from white neighborhoods went to white schools and the kids from black neighborhoods went to black schools.

My school (in 1970) was a radical pioneer in that it invited kids from the "black schools" to visit us and talk. It was a worthy effort, which I as a student leader championed, but we all knew that the black kids would eventually get back on their buses and go back to "their neighborhoods." The Chairman of the History Department who arranged the program was eventually fired by the school board because a history teacher, without his knowledge or consent, presented a film strip (remember them?) which depicted birth control devices.

When black families had the nerve to move into white neighborhoods they ended up having to put bars on their windows and requesting police patrols on their streets.

Northern bigots didn't have a lot of opportunities (unless they were cops) to demonstrate their racism because they rarely came into contact with blacks.

This was the environment I left.

When I got to the South I found real integrated schools, and neighborhoods.

Our next door neighbors in our first home in Charlotte were black, and they were accepted by the entire community, and they were only one of numerous black families living in our affluent neighborhood. Believe me this would never have been the case in the New York I left.

Meanwhile my kids went to public schools where black kids made up 25% to 40% of their classes. Unthinkable in the North.

Were there and are there bigots in the South?

Of course.

It is a great mistake however to assume that Northerners moving South are forces of enlightenment.

The fact that an influx of Northerners in Virginia and North Carolina may have tipped the scales to Obama doesn't mean that these states were purified by Yankees.

I'm not a black who has lived in the North and the South and so I can't say what such a person's perspective might be, but I am a white who lived in both places who, despite what my detractors on A2K might believe, has always been a champion of racial equality, and from my perspective, if I were black, I would rather live in North Carolina than New York.

The North will continue to look down its nose at the South long after everyone has moved south, and that is, more's the pity, the demographic trend.

Why are so many people moving south?

It sure isn't solely because of the weather.

Where would you rather live?

The "Rust Belt" or the "Sun Belt?"

The Northern immigrants of 1985 assimilated. The waves of 1995 and 2005 have not.

If you want what is best of the South you need to live in South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and Tennessee.

25 years ago I would have choked before saying such a thing, but I was parochial and ignorant then.

And, to be clear, the "best of the South" is not racism.

It is civility, community, respect for the individual, moderation, and the value of work.

Obviously it has its flaws.

In a city of 10 million, New Yorkers are afraid to make eye-contact let alone be friendly, and yet when they do, generally, it is a very deep bond.

In the South one can be "friendly" with everyone but good friends with few.

Personally, I find the latter much more civilized.

I have enough close friends in the North.

generally speaking I find anecdotal evidence less than convincing.

Finn, have you spent any time in the South?

I have, in numerous places for extended tours.

(it ain't like the NY Times says it is...)

Generally speaking, I find anything you say less than convincing.

Read my post.

I have lived in the South since 1985 and it surely ain't what the NYT says it is.

Ow! that hurts.