The South

I said:

Actually - this is my final comment from my initial post on the subject. I thought I was saying that one cannot generalize- but maybe it was interpreted differently by other people.

I make a conscious effort never to generalize and I wouldn't have spoken on the subject at all, except that I thought I'd had a lot of experience in the matter from both perspectives.

And I have heard much more racist talk in the south than in the north.
Bottom line - I wouldn't raise my black children in the south - we tried, because it was home to their father and a place I loved - but the subject of race was just so much more pervasive on an everyday basis - that it felt as if there was never any escaping it.
But we have wonderful, wonderful friends born and raised in North Carolina who are not racist at all. So, as I said, in terms of friends and family it's certainly worthwhile to look at it and take it on a case by case or individual by individual basis.
But as far as the institutions are concerned - especially schools - there's just a very different vibe - and kids seem to separate themselves more in the south than in the north.
I've taught in southern and northern highschools and in the south the cafeteria may as well have a line drawn down the middle as far as where the black and white kids sit. It's much less obviously divided in the cafeterias in the northern states I've taught in.

And Europe, actually has been the best. We've lived in England for four years - never an issue. We've traveled in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, and Greece so far - never an issue.
But we're American - and Americans of any race seem to be looked at more favorably than travellers (or gypsys) for sure.

All I can speak from is personal experience. When I lived in Brooklyn, I heard racist sounding language wherever I went. Once I was a bit long faced over something, and a passing guy must have assumed I was spanish, "Aw, poor Tony," he said at me as I passed. Another time I was in a hurry, going down the sidewalk. "Make way for big Louigi," a man said to his wife. Once, crossing the street, a car full of young black males began taunting me for being white. At a showing of the Dylan film, Don't Look Back, guys watched me come in and began quetioning, "What's the spic doing in here?" Many black people I met were very anti Jew. These type examples were not isolated. They occured daily. When Martin Luther King was killed, the young man I had been sitting with, playing a board game, heard it with me from the radio. He grinned broadly and jumped up, making a kiss-off motion and running to the door. "I've got to tell some friends," he said. I don't think there is less racism in the north.

Okay. I accept that.
But I think there is a lingering atmosphere of separatism in the south that is not so pronounced in the north.
Whether you want to call this racism or not is anyone's call.

I also think it's important to talk about when you lived in Brooklyn and heard the things you described.

I lived in the south as recently as 2004. Every day whether at school or in the newspaper or on the news - there was some politico/racial wrangling going on. This simply is not and was not the case when I lived in the north.
They wrangle about other ****.

But just to reiterate - I am from a southern family. I had a fairly traditional southern upbringing by two born and raised southerners.
I love the south in a lot of ways. I always will.
But I won't deny what has been my experience- and of course by the same token I won't ask anyone else to deny theirs.
The fact remains that from what I've observed living in the south and living in the north - I feel more comfortable raising my specific children in the north.
And as I said, Europe trumps both in terms of what I've experienced in terms of acceptance of racial differences.
But I'm not a traveller and I'm not Pakistani - and neither are my children. Maybe if we were - I'd feel differently.

A friend of mine told of being raised in Mississippi. He said he and the other black people had to stay indoors at home after dark. There were roving bands of white people out to grab any of them they could. But, he said that now when he visits with family back there, he can go into a grocery store or whatever, and he gets treated politely. He told me there is a world of difference since his childhood days there.

That's good and I'm hoping it only continues to get better.

The South:



A suspect has been taken into custody in the fatal beating of a prominent cancer researcher, found dead in her 20th-floor luxury Midtown condo this week.
WSB's Jon Lewis reports Jamal Thompson, 22, is charged with murder in the death of Eugenia "Jeanne" Calle.


http://wsbradio.com/localnews/2009/02/prominent-cancer-doctor-murder.html

you really are a pathetic excuse for a human being aren't you

Found this on pinterest and wondered if it was relevant. But I didn't wonder enough to give it its own discussion.