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I find it interesting how much overt racism is evident in all these areas outside of the deep south. I have heard similar anecdotes about the north east too.I'm from Troy, NY. The entire north half of the city proper was almost 100% black. The south end of the city proper was almost 100% white. Up on a hill to the east is a technical university campus, with an awful lot of Asians.
St. Louis used to be fairly integrated about thirty years ago, it has steady become much more segregated with an exodus of whites to the counties north and west of the city.
I also lived briefly in New Canaan, CT (home of Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck) in the late 1980s, where I experienced the most vicious, pervasive, and ingrained anti-Semitism I've ever encountered: I often answered the phone to "Get out of town, you dirty Jew!", and my mother actually received death threats. The thing is, we're not even Jewish -- just have a Jewish-sounding last name.
I find it interesting how much overt racism is evident in all these areas outside of the deep south. I have heard similar anecdotes about the north east too. I also believe all the national socialists I know are from the west coast too.I dunno. A lot of my neighbors are black folks who moved here from Georgia and the Carolinas, and what I hear of their experiences before they left doesn't make me think the deep south is a paradise of perfect race relations. :) Then again, the anecdotes one hears from the people who are disaffected minorities who have left a particular place is going to be very different from the anecdotes one hears from people who stay in that place, whether the people who stay happen to be minorities or not. Perspectives vary widely, obviously.
Also, I would certainly classify the part of West Virginia where I grew up as 'Southern', though I recognize it's not the 'Deep South'. Hell, I know families there who STILL have schisms in them that date back to the Civil War, and a few folks of my grandfather's generation who still refer to it as 'The War of Northern Aggression'.
I still call it the War of northern aggression. ;)
I've heard Jacksonville Florida has quite a bit of tension too. I don't know why west Texas would be so much different.
Colorado Springs is a military town so it's pretty diverse.
I don't know why west Texas would be so much different.
I do a lot of work out in Midland-Odessa, Andrews, and Colorado City, TX. I've yet to meet or even see a single African-American or Asian-American person in any of those places. Caucasians and Hispanics? Yes. But that's it.
I still call it the War of northern aggression. ;)
I know a lot of people who do.
I still call it the War of northern aggression. ;)
I've heard Jacksonville Florida has quite a bit of tension too. I don't know why west Texas would be so much different.
Colorado Springs is a military town so it's pretty diverse.
Huh. Interesting. The folks I've known who talk about the 'War of Northern Aggression' are pretty blatant about yearning for the 'days when slavery was still the norm and the darkies knew their place'*. Given the interactions we've had, you don't strike me that way, so I'm guessing there's something of a cultural disconnect going on here.
*That's a direct quote from my grandfather, by the way.
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I don't know why west Texas would be so much different.I do a lot of work out in Midland-Odessa, Andrews, and Colorado City, TX. I've yet to meet or even see a single African-American or Asian-American person in any of those places. Caucasians and Hispanics? Yes. But that's it.
In Odessa, the black population is pretty much all south of 2nd Avenue and west of whatever that road that winds up going through Gardendale is called. Probably about 10% of the population, in total.
apparently from WV too!
Yep, I am a West Virginia native too, though I've often joked I came from the "good part of the state" - the eastern panhandle. Though the paper mill Henry Louis Gates wrote about was (and still is) there (although when I attended the family picnis the integration seemed to havepassed through the awkward stage).
The central and southern parts of WV were quite a shock to me. I had never seen a coal mine until my college years, and I once dated a girl who told me she was from "Niggerless" County (Nicholas), since if a black family moved in they were soon driven out.
Of course my neck of the woods had its own share of ignorance. I recall my grandmother using a nursery rhyme when I was a kid that begain "Come in if you're white, stay out if you're black..." At the time, I thought (quite logically to my little mind) that it meant I had to clean up before coming in the house so I wouldn't track dirt inside.
I do know that things (in my neck of the woods) have improved over teh years. I remember being stunned by youth so willing to hang out with other races when I went home from college one summer. The younger generation, so long as they do get out, do seem to become more and more tolerant, at least until there's competition for resources, i.e., the economy sours.
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I also lived briefly in New Canaan, CT (home of Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck) in the late 1980s, where I experienced the most vicious, pervasive, and ingrained anti-Semitism I've ever encountered: I often answered the phone to "Get out of town, you dirty Jew!", and my mother actually received death threats. The thing is, we're not even Jewish -- just have a Jewish-sounding last name.
Glen Beck is from Seattle, actually. He may live in New Canaan now, but he hasn't been there more than eight years or so.
Glen Beck is from Seattle, actually. He may live in New Canaan now, but he hasn't been there more than eight years or so.
So after coking and boozing, he found God at the home of the Discovery Institute (a nice bunch of folks who want to "overthrow scientific naturalism" and replace it with Christian theocracy), and then jetted over to where he wouldn't have to deal with any non-Goyim.
I meant to add that I now live in the South. Some places are very well integrated, like where I work. Other places... not so much. My wife and I were excited to make friends with the other mixed race family in our neighborhood (and they were just as excited to meet us too), though we are two-thirds of the non-white faces I've seen in a four block radius.
To return to the West Virginia of my youth, I should comment that sometimes familiarity really does breed contempt. I recall that my family hosted visitors from Africa to share farming techniques. It was pretty amazing to think that my grandparents and parents invited an African to come stay with us and play with the children too, in the 1960s and 70s. Of course, perhaps that was because he was African adn not African-American.
On a related note, I have seen quite a bit of tension between Africans and African-Americans, mainly do to different philosophies of life.
apparently from WV too!The central and southern parts of WV were quite a shock to me. I had never seen a coal mine until my college years, and I once dated a girl who told me she was from "n~#&#!less" County (Nicholas), since if a black family moved in they were soon driven out.
Yup. Mercer County native here, though I left twenty(ish) years ago and have only been back for brief visits since. And up until the mines shut down in the 80s, nearly every male member of my family was a coal miner. (Just call me Loretta. ;))
Nowadays, I just accept that I'm entering a different world when I go back to visit, and try to keep my head down and not shock the residents there too much. Actually blending in is out of the question, unfortunately. Given that people stare at me for the vibrant red color I usually dye my hair, I hate to imagine what they'd do if I went back during one of my purple hair phases. ;)
WHY is raceism not ok?
I missed this a little earlier, but I think this is a very important question and finding answers to it can certainly help us understand our own humanity.
I think 'individual' racism, while distasteful to many and limiting to those expressing it, is not "evil'. People should be free to think as they please, and if that includes hating others for their differences, weel, that's part of the price of a free society. I believe we absolutely should not censor thorught and speech, though we are certainly free (and some could argued obligated) to censure that same thought and speech.
Personal racism is 'fine' in society. Institutional racism is not. When racism transcends an individual's thoughts and begins to affect others in tangible ways (can't buy a house here, or get a job, or go to a certain school, etc.) then it is taking away freedom from those that are the target of the racism. Without constructing a huge argument, my personal conclusions are that that is bad for society at large, when segments of the population are excluded or denied freedoms. Do as you please as an individual, but do not let government (or business) act like an individual.
I still call it the War of northern aggression. ;)
I've heard Jacksonville Florida has quite a bit of tension too. I don't know why west Texas would be so much different.
Colorado Springs is a military town so it's pretty diverse.
Huh. Interesting. The folks I've known who talk about the 'War of Northern Aggression' are pretty blatant about yearning for the 'days when slavery was still the norm and the darkies knew their place'*. Given the interactions we've had, you don't strike me that way, so I'm guessing there's something of a cultural disconnect going on here.
*That's a direct quote from my grandfather, by the way.
For me it's kind of tongue in cheek, but It's more of a libertarian political statement than a cultural statement.
You make a good point though. Quite a few people automatically assume differing views on Civil war history are racially motivated.
In Odessa, the black population is pretty much all south of 2nd Avenue and west of whatever that road that winds up going through Gardendale is called. Probably about 10% of the population, in total.I don't know why west Texas would be so much different.I do a lot of work out in Midland-Odessa, Andrews, and Colorado City, TX. I've yet to meet or even see a single African-American or Asian-American person in any of those places. Caucasians and Hispanics? Yes. But that's it.
I haven't been back to Odessa in many years, but it sounds like very little has changed. My sister graduated from Permian so I think the black population was a bit less than 10% in my area. By 7th grade I was in Midland so I'm sure it was even less there, but I recall very little black versus white tension in either town, and not much more on the Hispanic side. Maybe my recall is colored by my upbringing, or my experience is shaped by interaction in football and the military where merit is placed higher than many other settings. I know there were some racists and racism, but there was a lot less in my recollection than folks tend to associate with the south.
WHY is raceism not ok?I missed this a little earlier, but I think this is a very important question and finding answers to it can certainly help us understand our own humanity.
I think 'individual' racism, while distasteful to many and limiting to those expressing it, is not "evil'. People should be free to think as they please, and if that includes hating others for their differences, weel, that's part of the price of a free society. I believe we absolutely should not censor thorught and speech, though we are certainly free (and some could argued obligated) to censure that same thought and speech.
Personal racism is 'fine' in society. Institutional racism is not. When racism transcends an individual's thoughts and begins to affect others in tangible ways (can't buy a house here, or get a job, or go to a certain school, etc.) then it is taking away freedom from those that are the target of the racism. Without constructing a huge argument, my personal conclusions are that that is bad for society at large, when segments of the population are excluded or denied freedoms. Do as you please as an individual, but do not let government (or business) act like an individual.
Very well said and I agree completely with you. That was my feelings on the subject also. It's the only logical way to deal with such a sensitive topic.
Racism is a complex issue, and very rarely do I find it discussed beyond macros anywhere. Thank you for a very interesting discussion above.
Racism, as most people think of it, is defined along the lines of "drawing baseless conclusions about someone's behaviour due to what race they are perceived to belong to, and acting on those conclusions to the detriment of the person in question". I am sure someone will object, but for the time being, it's what I'll use.
Racism has many faces. It comes in the form of slurs, actual discrimination in various laws, it shows itself in all sorts of situations. This has lead to a response in many legal systems, namely the legal principle that all should be equal before the law. If tensions between various groups cause problems, then the law should recognize no groups; colour blindness, as was discussed above. Before the law, you should be only an individual. This is a system that works, but it doesn't solve the equality question. As was previously noted, few of the "500 richest" list belong to an ethnic minority. There is, understandably, a desire to even the playing field, to give positive treatment to groups perceived to be disadvantaged.
The danger is, of course, that what you're doing then is STILL discrimination. People are still treated primarily as representing a group, not an individual. And if you're making sure enough people of ethnic group X get the chance to go to university, for example, that means fewer non-X people do so. And, sadly, some people who are personally less well-to-do than some who did get selected when the playing field was leveled. At that point, it becomes a race. Whoever belongs to the biggest number of disadvantaged groups wins. It's not what society should be about. Equality of opportunity is far more important than equality of outcome, indeed the latter is in itself destructive to many facets of life.
Another danger is that the epithet "racist" is used as a reason not to discuss certain things. Drawing an example from Sweden, it becomes very clear. Sweden, up until WWII, was a country that lived off extensive traveling and trade. Immigrants were generally welcomed, and most swedes today are descendants of immigrants, usually 3-5 generations off. However, after WWII, we had a policy about "the people's home" that was very isolationist. The 60s and 70s were booming, and a lot of people immigrated. They were generally successful in establishing in swedish society. However, sometime during the 70s, our social democratic party instituted a new law, that allowed immigrants only if they were refugees.
Since then, we have had refugee immigrants, and they were all set in a bad position. They were placed in "temporary housing" until all their papers were in order. They got to learn swedish, but our migration office took their sweet time about deciding if they could stay. Getting a permit to work took at least two years. In swedish class, they had few demands on them, and the quality of the education was not impressive, not least because analphabets and professors were put in the same class. Many were sent back after hopeless waiting for years. Very few of these people actually established themselves well in Sweden. It has been some time, and it seems that their children and grandchildren have a better situation socially and economically, but the situation is more or less unchanged for the ones who immigrated. Many are isolated in poor areas, surrounded by their countrymen and -women. Crime is a daily problem, and so on.
I do not think swedes as a group are more racist than any other group. We understand that these people have had it rough, and we're generally glad to have them. However, to combat earlier questioning about the system the refugees are put through, the government made a clear media policy. Immigration is never to be discussed as a problem in the news. If a crime is committed, the ethnicity of the perpetrator is not to be discussed. Statistics about the immigration system are not to be made public. And of course, anyone who questioned this system was branded a racist in the public debates. The immigration policy, while utterly failed, was and is a no-go area.
Swedes learned this, and learned to read between the lines. If someone was described as a "swedish citizen" in the news, everyone knew he or she was an immigrant, otherwise he would be described as a "doctor", "technician", "politician" or other title.
The situation may be on the verge of a solution now. At least the macabre failure is widely known now. I can only hope.
My point is that if the racist epithet is being used to silence people who are not racists, society runs a severe risk of creating a policy area where the politicians will allow no insight or accountability. Once that happens, you can guess how good the situation in that field will be.
My point is that if the racist epithet is being used to silence people who are not racists, society runs a severe risk of creating a policy area where the politicians will allow no insight or accountability. Once that happens, you can guess how good the situation in that field will be.
Very well said! I think one of my biggest frustrations with AMerican politics and society is that there are an increasing number of topics that people are actively dissuaded from discussing. And I agree whole-heartedly that that is a shame to society and likely to lead to negative results rather than positive. Thanks for a great post!