Special Prom

[GNTLGNT]

I had no idea that anything like this could still exist in the America of today.

....a town in Ohio, where I was a broadcaster not that many years ago-still had a very active branch of the KKK...they met in the coffee shop next to the studio...and I thought what I put out on the air was ignorant...

[staropeace]

I showed this to Germaine last night and he did not know what to think about it. He is a black man who was born in Quebec.....he lives with me. It is so strange to think that some folks would not want his company because of the color of his skin. We do not care...we are going to enjoy a Newfoundland Jigg's dinner this evening and give these folks the finger. lol

[Todash]

Friend, in my relatively short lifetime, I've driven through Sundown Towns. The signs are all gone now, but the same people still live in them.

I was raised 15 miles from one. (Although I had no idea until my high school BFF, who happened to be black, and her sister and cousins were casually discussing it one day ... but then I wouldn't have to be worried about it, would I? I'm white.) Disgusting.

The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. And it's not like it was a case of reparations, or of making something official that was already the de facto standard. There was significant opposition. The National Guard was involved. There was civil unrest. I wasn't alive then, but I'm sure some of you were. To think that in a few generations, we have come from that to a point where racism does not exist is just ... it's naive. Most, if not all of us, carry around a little bit of that inside of us, too. (I know people who would claim they are not racially prejudiced, and yet, their children wouldn't feel comfortable bringing a boyfriend/girlfriend of another race home. What does that say?)

And for people from the South who don't like their region stereotyped, all I have to say is look that the numbers of the CRA vote. I got this from Wikipedia. The first number is the "for" vote; the second is the "against."

Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.
The original House version:

• Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%)
• Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%)

• Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%)
• Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%)

The Senate version:

• Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5–95%) (only Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
• Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0–100%) (John Tower of Texas)
• Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98–2%) (only Robert Byrd of West Virginia voted against)
• Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84–16%)

[Sepia and Dust]

And for people from the South who don't like their region stereotyped, all I have to say is look that the numbers of the CRA vote.

Might I ask, Todash, what unfair (even barbaric) ideas your great-great-grandfathers held? I ask because I'd love to be able to stereotype you.

If the people who voted in your list were as young as thirty--and most were considerably older--they'd be eighty today. 1964 was a different world. Say that the average age of those who voted was fifty. They would have been carrying around still older ideas, the ideas they were brought up on, formed during anything from Billy the Kid's era to Al Capone's.

[Todash]

Might I ask, Todash, what unfair (even barbaric) ideas your great-great-grandfathers held? I ask because I'd love to be able to stereotype you.

If the people who voted in your list were as young as thirty--and most were considerably older--they'd be eighty today. 1964 was a different world. Say that the average age of those who voted was fifty. They would have been carrying around still older ideas, the ideas they were brought up on, formed during anything from Billy the Kid's era to Al Capone's.

You're completely right. Certainly 1964 was a very, VERY different time. But I still say it's unreasonable to assume that 1) EVERYTHING has changed, and 2) there are no regional differences. Just as you will find differences between rural communities and cities, between the Midwest and the coasts--heck, between the East Coast and the West Coast--the attitudes that were endemic to the South are ones that cannot be dropped wholesale in just a few generations. They're quieter now, yes, and certainly more prevalent among the aging population. But they're still there.

Now, it's completely and totally unfair (and wrong) to assume you know the attitudes of a particular person based on their geographic location. My point was that in general, racial prejudice is still more prevalent, society-wide, in the South, though indicators of it are decreasing. I think you can fairly extrapolate that from something like interracial marriage statistics, which are increasing nationwide but still tend to be quite a bit lower in the South than in other areas.

As to my ancestors? You don't have to go back that far. Heck, the attitudes of some of my siblings are pretty abysmal. Doesn't make me happy, but it's the truth, and there's not a thing I can do about it. All I can control is myself.

[Sepia and Dust]

You're completely right. Certainly 1964 was a very, VERY different time. But I still say it's unreasonable to assume that 1) EVERYTHING has changed, and 2) there are no regional differences.

No, everything hasn't changed, and (I believe) those cultural differences are directly due to the regional differences between "North" and "South". In the South, there have been internally imposed segregations based on... well, everything. The Haves don't mingle with the Have Nots. That may refer to money or to social contacts or to standing in the community, and it applies to everyone, white and black. When the slaves were freed, they had literally nothing, but the social order was maintained--the various groups continued to not mingle. Eventually, communities formed and re-formed with their own social rules, until "everyone knew" that Blacks are like this and Whites are like that and Businessmen are this way and Farmers are that way. Everybody else became The Other, and you could always tell The Other by their... Negro skin, Irish boozing, Spanish accent, Catholic last name, whatever.

I imagine that Mama and Daddy would be almost as upset if Princess brought home Bubba Joe Cleetus (you know, of the Cleetus clan who all live up on Cleetus Hill in those rusty old trailers).


The North, though, was different. For one thing, there was no antebellum ideal to look to--no ideas of sitting on the veranda in a white suit sipping mint juleps with Mizz Scawlett, where a gentleman's word was his honor, and his honor was his life. For another, the various segregations weren't as rigidly enforced. In a Northern manufacturing town, you worked shoulder-to-shoulder with whoever was on your shift; in a Southern agricultural region, you worked with your family and whoever you hired to help bring in the crops. Similarly, northern cities were more tightly packed, in general, than were southern ones.

What is seen as racism in the South very often is exactly that. The underlying cause of it is classism, though--Don't mingle with The Other--stay with your own kind.

[fljoe0]

I was born in 1961 in Florida. So I guess I started elementary school around 1967. Even in my area of 1967 Florida, it was nothing like 2013 Wilcox County. There was no segregation of any kind that I remember from that period in Florida. I remember some racial issues with the adults, but for the most part, the kids got along just fine from what I remember. I can't wrap my head around the fact that in 2013, there are still places like Wilcox County.

[Todash]

No, everything hasn't changed, and (I believe) those cultural differences are directly due to the regional differences between "North" and "South". In the South, there have been internally imposed segregations based on... well, everything. The Haves don't mingle with the Have Nots. That may refer to money or to social contacts or to standing in the community, and it applies to everyone, white and black. When the slaves were freed, they had literally nothing, but the social order was maintained--the various groups continued to not mingle. Eventually, communities formed and re-formed with their own social rules, until "everyone knew" that Blacks are like this and Whites are like that and Businessmen are this way and Farmers are that way. Everybody else became The Other, and you could always tell The Other by their... Negro skin, Irish boozing, Spanish accent, Catholic last name, whatever.

I imagine that Mama and Daddy would be almost as upset if Princess brought home Bubba Joe Cleetus (you know, of the Cleetus clan who all live up on Cleetus Hill in those rusty old trailers).


The North, though, was different. For one thing, there was no antebellum ideal to look to--no ideas of sitting on the veranda in a white suit sipping mint juleps with Mizz Scawlett, where a gentleman's word was his honor, and his honor was his life. For another, the various segregations weren't as rigidly enforced. In a Northern manufacturing town, you worked shoulder-to-shoulder with whoever was on your shift; in a Southern agricultural region, you worked with your family and whoever you hired to help bring in the crops. Similarly, northern cities were more tightly packed, in general, than were southern ones.

What is seen as racism in the South very often is exactly that. The underlying cause of it is classism, though--Don't mingle with The Other--stay with your own kind.

Aye, and I think those Southerners who idealize that good old antebellum ideal and don't understand why everyone doesn't share the dream don't realize that it was only ever the ideal for a rarefied few. "Way down South in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten," right? Sure. Unless you were black. Or poor white trash. Or ... <shudder> the classless nouveau riche. (The HORRORS! )

When people are thrown together closely, they tend to realize that there's not so much of The Other in the others as they might have otherwise suspected.

Really it's good to see progress. It is. But I think the privileged among us tend to forget that there is still plenty of racism (and classism), though not as institutionalized. After all, we're all raised by our parents--who were raised by their parents. My mom (she's a bit older than most of my contemporaries' parents, seeing as I am #6, and she didn't start having kids till her mid 20s) was raised in a town that included segregated schools and segregated pools. Same town I was raised in. But of course, by then, the "black pool" had been filled in with concrete--nobody talks about it, but my mom took us to see it once; talk about blowing a little kid's mind--and we all went to the same schools. But there was segregation. It was just ... softer, less formal.

[Todash]

I remember some racial issues with the adults, but for the most part, the kids got along just fine from what I remember.

How it usually is, innit?

[guido tkp]

S&D..you had me near mesmerized in the first paragraph of post #826...

then competely lost me in the next few...

sorry...racism is racism...and it was not the same thing...similar, but the same...

and momma and deddy might not've liked bubba joe...but, whether in the north or the south...he'd'a been ded inna second if he wuz black...jus' sayin'

..and, having spent an inordinant amount of time growing up the south...it was not classism that drove the hatred i saw...it was the color of the skin...

i don't know of an economic class called n!@&ers...the rebel flag is not a source of economic pride, unless you count all the free labor (profit !!) you got when you flew it up on the plantation

just as today, it is not obamas economic 'class' that enflames the idiots who think they're in safe company with this ol' white boy when they spout off the stupid (but, apparently, honestly felt (for them)) things right in front of me; after all, last i looked...there are no monkeys in the white house house to even have a class distinction...