Racism and geography
I lived for a while in Hell err New Jersey (which is why I refer to it as Hell err New Jersey) but I am from Tennessee. A coworker of mine is from New York and now lives in Tennessee. She’s going through that transplanted yankee thing even after ten years of living here. I tried to tell her that no matter how hard she tried or how long she lived here, she’d always be a transplanted yankee.
We were talking about stuff and somehow got on the subject of racism and geographical region. This is all anecdotal, of course, but I don’t care. We both (based on our experiences living in the north east and the south east) concluded the same thing. In the north, we both observed more racism. And by more, we both meant that we met more individuals who were racist. In the south, while we met fewer racists, the racists we did meet were more racist than the racists in the north, i.e., in the north, people seemed annoyed by people of other races and had names for them but southern racists wanted to hurt people.
We felt as though in the north racism was kept more of a secret attributable to lots of people. And in the south, it’s no secret (heck, we still read about the occasional cross burning here) but there’s less of it.
I found it interesting and thought I’d share it.
December 20th, 2003 at 2:40 am
Man, that is profound; explains a lot of things,codifies and organizes my incoherent intimations on the subject. But there are always counter-examples, like the Irish in South Boston getting physical over school bussing a few years back. (Wait; school bussing is sexual harassment, I meant busing)
One of the (maybe) good things about the South is that you can live near someone for years whom you don’t like very much at all, but nonetheless feel compelled to be polite to him. Of course the real rowdy badasses who don’t care what anybody thinks can just crash right on through that social spiderweb, like one of Voltaire’s bigger flies.Well, I reckon that means that evil badasses need to be restrained by virtuous badasses like Cincinnatus, and Rienzi, and Washington, and Garibaldi, and Juarez.
December 20th, 2003 at 7:22 pm
Uncle
I grew up in upstate New York but now live in Georgia. Your post is 100% correct, IMHO.
December 22nd, 2003 at 12:12 pm
I don’t really think that, when it comes to individuals, either the North or the South is “more” or “less” racist. Speaking anecdotally, as you did, I’ve found racists everywhere I’ve lived, and it’s just a matter of how it manifests itself. I can’t back this up with numbers, but it seems as though institutional racism is somewhat more prevalent in the South.
But regardless of geographical region, we’ve got a long way to go.
December 30th, 2003 at 1:25 am
Volunteer Tailgate Party XVIII
2003 was a good year for the Rocky Top Brigade. While other run-of-the-mill blogging federations fell by the wayside, the RTB grew bigger and better. That brings us to 2004, which is but hours away (as many as 47…
December 30th, 2003 at 1:25 am
Volunteer Tailgate Party XVIII
2003 was a good year for the Rocky Top Brigade. While other run-of-the-mill blogging federations fell by the wayside, the RTB grew bigger and better. That brings us to 2004, which is but hours away (as many as 47…