What the real reason the South''s so fucked up?

Unconscious shame over slavery/racism/misogyny and yet overwhelming defensive denial, in the aggressive Narcissistic/Authoritarian pattern? sort of like how the Islamist males know they're 3rd world losers, jokes really, but they cling onto their "manhood" and pride by terrorist intimidation and treating women and children like dirt, with an AK47 across their chest? Or is it the ignorant, superstitious Fundamentalist Christian Protestant upbringing that keeps them from questioning authority (or reason?) And makes these losers think, that no matter how stupid they are, they're "God's chosen" and are the natural rulers of women, children, and "lesser races." Or perhaps the redneck, rural quality of life here - a man's not a "man" unless he has an arsenal of weapons, drives a racecar (or at least attends Nascar and cage wrestling), etc., to cover up his impotence and lack of virility? (and like the Islamist, using guns and abusing the vulnerable to cover the embarrassing fact that he's a ignorant loser, right here in the rich 1st world) Or is it just poverty and the bad schools that go with that (since local schools are funded by the local population), along with a national lack of appreciation for intelligence (in fact, there's an belligerant defensive hatred of logic or intelligence, because deep down the rednecks (and their ilk) know they're ignorant and they're envious of Obama and west/east coast eggheads - fucking ivy-leaguers who use big words and think they know better than the average truck driver or used car salesman?) Never mind that they do, but it's a blow to the ego to admit it. Somebody help this left-leaning true-Blue resident of the hopeless "Deep South" -- can there be any real hope for the USA, as a whole, if this mess just keeps getting worse down here?

• The South''s problems are a result of an anachronistic class system. There''s a good book about this called "The New South" or something like that which explains it very well. If I go to the library today I''ll look it up and post the title and author. It''s really fascinating.

• And as much as I dislike the South, they''ve yet to abandon a city rather than live among black people.

  http://mllenoelle.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/detroit-central-station.jpg

• Damn, R1, I''ve got that book around my house somewhere and need to dig it up. It''s an endlessly fascinating subject to me, growing up, as I have, as a far-left Democrat in Mississippi. It''s maddening and fascinating, all at the same time.\ \ And I think talk radio and Faux News has gone a long way towards setting us back, as a region, for a fucking 100 years or more. Pisses me off no end. They''re the Nazi Party, circa 1930, with far greater reach than Hitler and his henchman ever hard. I''m terribly worried.\ \ And as R2 points out, it ain''t just us crackers down here that are worrying on the racism/xenophobia front.

• A deep resentment at suffering invasion and military conquest. Yes, really. I live here. If you are a white southerner, then you know what I am talking about.%0D\ %0D

• [quote] A deep resentment at suffering invasion and military conquest.%0D\ %0D\ At first I thought the op''s comparison of the South to Islamic militants was way off base, until I read R4''s comment. Very interesting.%0D\ %0D\ So you''re saying that even 150 years later, this still affects Southerners? That''s pretty sad.%0D\ %0D\ My answer to the op''s question is simple: ignorance. Ignorance towards other races, ignorance about other points of view, and a lack of education, in general.%0D\ %0D\ People can''t move forward without a broader knowledge of the outside world. And even with that broader knowledge, a stubborn adherence to outdated beliefs is the downfall of any society.

• Slavery certainly gave the South a caste system and an antagonistic attitude towards race that doesn''t exist in the rest of the US. The fact that it was one of the earliest areas to be populated is also a factor. Consider that most Northerners are descended from immigrants who entered the country long after slavery had been abolished and just don''t have the same passion for racial gamesmanship as Southern whites. You don''t see a lot of Italian or Pakistani Americans driving pickups with Confederate flag stickers.

• [quote] You don''t see a lot of Italian or Pakistani Americans driving pickups with Confederate flag stickers.%0D\ %0D\ Italians are much more subtle. They''ll be friendly to your face, but behind your back to other Italians, they''ll cut you down to nothing. And I''ve heard pretty much every Italian I''ve ever known to use the n-word.%0D\ %0D\ And don''t discount Pakistanis, because they come from a real, codified caste system. Whites are always at the top of every caste, and blacks always at the bottom.%0D\ %0D\ Every single culture has its share of ugly racial, religious, cultural, and color coded caste system.%0D\ %0D\ That''s not to say that the Southern mentality isn''t fucked up. I think I''m more so getting at the fact that we''re all fucked up. In some way, shape or form, humans are just fucked up.%0D\ %0D\ It''s pretty sickening.

• Still fighting the war, but Northerners, immigrants and native born alike, ain''t so hot either.

  coming to you from segregated NY/LI

• "an antagonistic attitude towards race that doesn''t exist in the rest of the US."\ \ Bwah-hahahahahah!\ \ \ The South is pretty fucked up when it comes to race, but the converse is not true: that racism does not exist elsewhere in the US. How on earth could someone think that?!? The differences are present, but not nearly as great as what r6 imagines.\ \ Here are some non-racist Bostonians reacting to school integration via busing:

  http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2009/01/30/1233359914_4347/539w.jpg

• Don''t forget the economic side of it. The economics of The South are based on a mass delusion.\ \ The poor blacks still have a plantation mindset where the Master (now the Government) will take care of them, the poor whites still think like sharecroppers always looking over their shoulder waiting for The Man to cheat them or take their patch of land away, and the rich folks think that the glory days of The Old South will come back and they''ll be sitting on the porch drinking mint juleps again just anytime now.

• Yeah, the south has some major cultural differences than the rest of country, just like any region. New Englanders aren''t like the rest of the country either. In my few years on this planet I''ve learned these things about race in this country; black people have a deep, deep mistrust of white people and white people have a deep, deep fear of black people. In the South racism is more subtle and not as in your face as the North. It is cloaked by good manners and tradition and the idea of knowing one''s place. In the south, you are either black or white. There is none of this German, Italian, Polish stuff. In the North it gets complicated because race gets caught up in the ethnic and religious battles. But in the North, the Irish may hate the Italians or the Catholics may hate the Jews, but a Catholic family would rather their daughter bring home a Jewish boy, than a black boy.

• [quote]Unconscious shame over slavery/racism/misogyny and yet overwhelming defensive denial, in the aggressive Narcissistic/Authoritarian pattern? I agree with this, but I'd call it sociopathic / authoritarian. I'd add that the culture of violence is a huge problem. Everyone thinks it's ok to hit their children. In fact, parents (especially fathers) seem to think they are entitled to do dominate their children in every way. Children are viewed only as an extension of the parent. Parents focus a lot of energy making sure their children don't embarrass them. There's a heavy emphasis on other people's opinions being the most important thing in the world; the child's needs are absolutely unimportant. A good example: when I was about 20 years old, I inherited some property from my grandmother. (My mother's mother.) Now, it wasn't worth very much. But my father blithely told my uncle he could "have it." They had gotten into some kind of pissing match over something. He then informed me "we're giving that your uncle" and basically told me it had already been done. The idea that it wasn't his to give away didn't seem to compute. And I was an adult when this happened, but still in college so I can only assume my father thought he was still "in charge." About 15 years later, we got back in touch with my uncle and much to my surprise the property issue had never been resolved. Of course this is probably because my father was not permitted to convey my interest. I can only imagine the rage-a-holic meltdown he had when some lawyer told he couldn't just do as he pleased with someone else's property. But, to circle back to OP's question: the constant violation of boundaries and parenting by domination create good little drones mostly suited to the military or factory work.

• Y''all are crazy. The South''s no more fucked up than any other place.

• Sure there is racism in the north. But it was never codified into law. %0D\ %0D\ Look at voting patterns. The south and the north don''t vote the same way. There really is a red US and a blue US, and race is at the core of it. Racism exists in the north, but it is more deeply ingrained, more sadistic, more accepted by the society amd more treasured as "tradition" in the south.

• [quote]I''d add that the culture of violence is a huge problem. Everyone thinks it''s ok to hit their children. %0D\ In fact, parents (especially fathers) seem to think they are entitled to do dominate their children in every way. %0D\ %0D\ Sounds like heaven!%0D\ %0D\ Saucy, impertinent children must be taught proper behavior at an early age, or they''ll become out-of-control hellions.

  Mrs. Patsy Ramsey, formerly of Boulder, CO

• R10''s observations are correct, but I would add that the humidity saps your energy & rots your brain.

• [quote] And I think talk radio and Faux News has gone a long way towards setting us back, as a region, for a fucking 100 years or more. %0D\ %0D\ And the two men responsible for this - Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes -- live at the very top of society. Their families go to the finest schools, live in the best neighborhoods, go on the most luxurious vacations and reap loads of wealth and power from their beliefs and actions. %0D\ %0D\ BOTH men have been enriching and empowering themselves through propaganda far longer than any Nazi. The Third Reich only lasted for 12 years. Rupert Murdoch, who is in his 70s, was born into a wealthy family who made their money through right wing propaganda. His children are the third generation of wealthy rightwing propagandists, no matter what they claim to believe politically. Their livelihoods are entirely funded by the dissemination of lies. %0D\ %0D\ Roger Aisles has been a wealthy and powerful propagandist far longer than Joseph Goebbels was.

• [quote] And the two men responsible for this - Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes -- live at the very top of society.%0D\ %0D\ I think that both of those cunts should be beheaded in a public square by a guillotine, as an example to all future greedy corporate pigs.%0D\ %0D\ They profit from destroying our country, and they''re not even Americans!%0D\ %0D\ They should not only be beheaded, but then quartered and left to be eaten by dogs. And even THAT''S too good for them.

• [quote][R10]''s observations are correct, but I would add that the humidity saps your energy & rots your brain.\ \ And let''s add the curious tradition of tolerating massive political corruption at every level while we''re at it.\ \ The OP asked why the South was so fucked up, but the real mystery is how it functions as well as it does.

  R10

• Roger Ailes is American. He is from Ohio.%0D\ %0D\ Interesting fact - he is a hemophiliac.

• You know, I copied the info that Ailes is hemophiliac from wikipedisa. I did a search and found a few mentions of Ailes hemophilia. But I sincerely doubt he is a serious hemophiliac. He probably has von Willebrands or a very mild Type A Factor VIII deficiency or mild Factor IX deficiency. %0D\ %0D\ He was born in 1940. I have never known someone with moderate or severe hemophilia to survive from 1940 to the present day.

• The South is pretty fucked up, but i always think it odd that some northerners point to it as if racism, political corruption, poverty, poor education, etc are problems totally unknown in their part of the country.\ \ Yeesh, someone on this thread said that racism didn''t exist outside of the south!!

• It is pretty funny that Nazi Germany''s propagandists had a much shorter heyday that the propagandists in the US.

• [quote] The OP asked why the South was so fucked up, but the real mystery is how it functions as well as it does.%0D\ %0D\ It''s because everybody knows their place, sweetie! Now be a dear and get me another glass of sweet tea, would ya'', darlin''?%0D\ %0D\ Thanks evah so much.

• religion.

• It''s religion, yes. Also boredom and heat. As for the racism and misogyny, there''s plenty of it here at the DL.

• Dear Editor Sir,\ \ do kindly remove Mr. OP''s indelicate thraid and forever banish him to the nawthon secshun of Flames and Freaks with the other rivahboat mashas and scoundrels. I will also, most kindly, begin preparations to have his name removed from the Junior League''s late summah invitation list.\ \ Yours Kindly,\ \ Sissy (Cheryl''s Cousin from Vicksburg)

• Yes, the authoritarian culture makes them particularly susceptible to religion.\ \ Religion in turn replaces an interest in education-- thus the shitty schools. (How I wish I had spent Sunday mornings as a child in Spanish class instead of at church.)\ \ It''s a vicious cycle.

• Fundamental Christianity. That is all.

• [quote]The South is pretty fucked up, but i always think it odd that some northerners point to it as if racism, political corruption, poverty, poor education, etc are problems totally unknown in their part of the country.\ \ Of course all those things exist everywhere. Individually, some are more common in the North than the South (Chicago for example).\ \ But it''s like Taco Bell--there''s just a few basic ingredients, but it''s how they''re combined that makes the difference between a taco and a burrito.\ \ The South has a unique mix of the common ingredients that you won''t find anywhere else. Now don''t get me wrong, I''m not saying the South is better or worse than anywhere else, just different.\ \ I''ll take a Southerner over a Utah Mormon any day of the week.

• The South is becoming a magnet for Indians like Bobby Jindal of Louisiana or Nikki Haley of South Carolina because they share the South''s same caste instincts.

• "The OP asked why the South was so fucked up, but the real mystery is how it functions as well as it does." %0D\ %0D\ Yes, that''s what I want to know too. %0D\ %0D\ Aggressive Narcissistic/Authoritarian pattern,political corruption, poverty, poor education, culture of violence, energy sapping & brain rotting heat/humidity are the main characteristic of my country and yet, despite being oil rich, it''s INFINITELY worse than any Southern US state. %0D

• How DARE you subject the charms of our beloved Dixie to the degradations of your phosphorus lamps and harsh dialectics. You cannot know us if you presume to investigate with a STICK. You cannot presume to understanding if your notion of any culture comes from driving through, watching cable television and considering every ugly, uninformed judgment to be a paragon of your superior morality.

• People in the South simply delight in being backwards. There is this odd aggressive pigheadedness-that I suppose is left over from the days when the region was almost completely agrarian--that delights in scoffing at logic and authority and anything foreign to personal experience. When you get into the really rural parts of the deep south, this attitude is endemic. (I saw a note on someone''s facebook page complaining about the sort of rural southerner who would grab their gun if you looked at their potato chip bag the wrong way. That just about describes the attitude I''m talking about.) I''d guess that a lot of the US was once like this; since much of the South is still provincial, it''s a lot more evident.%0D\ %0D\ Michelle Bachmann is from Minnesota, isn''t she? George Wallace was a lot of things, but he was extremely savvy and could think circles around her.

  Alabammy

• They're in an economic hole due to having a war fought and lost on their land. They then had to deal with the indignities of a new round of rich invaders stealing everything they could get their hands on. As a result, they don't have rights to their resources, their schools suck, generations grew up malnourished and with all of the other social problems a shitty economy brings with it. Yes, there was Jim Crow (if you beat a people down ie white southerners, they're going to take it out on someone else ie black southerners) but ask yourself why the great migration is turning back to the south. Black people would rather live in Atlanta then in Milwaukee (the most racist city in America) or Chicago. The south is learning from its mistakes. The south is also tired of the north acting as if it's some sort of tolerant oasis of open minds when it's simply not true. The south also resents the rewriting of history. Not too many white northerners wanted to end slavery. Slavery was the "Searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction" of its day. The war was over resources and economics.

• My ex-partner''s family was from the South and I remember asking one older relative, who was grousing once again that the South should never have lost the war, if the South had prevailed, exactly how long Blacks should have been enslaved. I mean, did he think that 10 years later, 20 years later or never should slavery have been abolished. He gave me some bullshit answer about systems of labor and the family environment on plantations, but basically he would be very happy if Blacks were still enslaved and his family still ran the plantation.

• [quote]My ex-partner''s family was from the South...\ \ I can see why he''s your ex-partner. You sound like a douche bag.

• So let me get this straight, R37: I relate that an old Southerner is sorry that slavery was ever abolished and I''m the douchebag? What crawled up your ass and died?

  R36

• I had a friend at work from Phenix City, AL whose granddad, the same age as my father, had to quit school to go to work in the coal mines at age 13 to support his momma. Then his daddy had a blue collar railroad job. Still everything in the South was better than everything in the North. I pointed out to him that if his granddad had grown up in Pennsylvania and not Virginia, he would not have had to quit school at 13 to go to the coal mines, and that his daddy made enough to put him through college, unlike most people in Phenix City, because a Yankee rail union set the pay scales. %0D %0D In other words, the South works because it is part of a more liberal area which pays some of its workers well and builds the South's infrastructure and employs its youth in the army and sets it an example in schooling. Without all that, the South would be no different than Guatemala or Peru. %0D %0D I think it is instructive to compare the South with the Afrikaners of South Africa. Both lost a war to their fellow whites. Both nevertheless won considerable political power after the war, enough to create a system of segregation. But the differences ended there. Because the Afrikaners were the majority of the whites, not the minority. So they were able to impose their system on the whole country and follow a socialistic industrialization program to benefit only themselves, so the Britih colony of 1940, so like all the other British African colonies, became by the 1980's an entirely different, industrial power thanks to the socialist command economy imposed by the Afrikaners and their gigantic schemes. Whereas the South was never able to impose its way on the rest of America so even though it had numerical ascendancy over the minority races, they were elevated to equality much earlier. The result was majority rule eventually in South Africa, but the Afrikaners themselves made out relatively well because of their entirely self-serving bigoted rule of 50 years; whereas the South continues to be the undeveloped part of America, and the deliberate transfer of wealth to the Sunbelt by the military and government over the past sixty years has still left it the most impoverished region, chiefly because Southerners cling to their antigovernment, self-defeating economic ideology.%0D %0D

• I''ve lived in the South my whole life and never once have I had a conversation that focused on how sweet life would be if only the south had only won the war. But apparently everyone else down here, judging from DL, talks about this sort of thing day and night.%0D\ %0D

  ancient white southerner

• R2 & R4 speak the truth.

  They tried to tell us THEN so they wouldn''t have to tell us NOW

• R12 has a beautiful and correct analysis.\ \ White southerners are not so much angry about being militarily invaded and defeated, as they are about Reconstruction. That''s where all the anger and hate was born, not the wahrrr itself.

• R2 does not speak the truth. Lots of southern cities have experienced white flight. New Orleans for example. Some quite severe: e.g., Belle Glade, Florida. Indeed during the 1960''s much of Florida''s black population was driven from the state, as was true in deep south states in the 1950''s.%0D\ %0D\ As for their 150 year old resentment for losing the war, it seems pretty childish considering most of them don''t even know anything about their relatives of that era.%0D

• R35 gets the brass ring!

• Blacks are not as impressed with Atlanta as you are. They know perfectly well it is more firmly controlled by uneducated racist whites economically than any northern cities, including chicago and milwaukee. And the black upper class in Atlanta are one of the mostly vile, as you would expect from a group of people largely chosen for success by their enemies.

• People from all over the U.S. are moving to the South in droves because that''s where all the jobs are. The Southern states have the best economies, strongest housing markets and lowest taxes. Large corporations are also moving their companies there. %0D\ %0D\ Nothern and coastal states are drowning in debt and excessive taxation.

• r35 is wrong, perhaps a typical product of Southern "education." Most Yankees did want to end slavery. They had outlawed it in their own states by large majorities. If the war were fought for "economic" reasons, it would be the reason that the South was increasingly outvoted on economic issues like the tariff, and of course on slavery, so they were outraged. Nor is is true that Reconstruction was a time of mass theft from the South. Today's southern upper class was born in that era, and it was largely those southerners who had betrayed the South by stockpilling cotton or smuggling it to the union for gold during the war, who were able to establish themselves on top after the war (such as the Inmans of Atlanta). The south did decline economically after the war, due to blacks withholding their labor and the breakup of plantations into uneconomic units, and the growth of sharecropping. But very soon Yankees were taking advantage of the low wages to industrialize. What stopped them was pass laws and Jim Crow and antibank legislation, as well as the Southern attitudes against education and infrastructure. The South has nobody to blame but itself for its poor performance.%0D %0D

• And ambitious people from the South are also moving out in droves because it''s clear decision-making is done elsewhere in this society.%0D

• True. Many people with any sort of ambition or curiosity are forced to leave the south if they want opportunity. \ \ Not all of these people leave, of course. But many do.

• I''m with R40. Have you people ever even been here? Maybe this was an early 1900''s issue, but not now, unless you talk to a nonogenarian.

• What R40 said.

• Nice try R35. The real reason why a lot of southerners either won''t leave the south or return is that they hate the cold. I''ve lived in the south 7 years now and have spoken to a lot of people about this. They simply can''t stand it.

• quote[What the real reason the South's so fucked up?] Who says the south is fucked up? Memphis, Charleston, NO, ATL, south beach, are great personality metro areas with lots to see, eat and do. I am black and I can tell you, many blacks are moving back to the land and homes left to them by grand parents or are just investing in homes in the south. If you have a degree or savings or a trade of some sort, the south is a great choice for some people. Families and or couples do well. Not so much if you are single. The standard of living for a couple of gay guys or women who have the ability to make a living either from home or in the local college or some type of trade is phenomenal. I know of a black gay couple who moved to South Carolina near the shore who have built their own home, have a boat, 2 acres of land, grow their own vegetables, and are thinking about horses. I fucking love their life. Whenever they want for night life and a little more gay 'affectation' then they fly to NYC or DC. However, they don't get much chance to get lonely since most of their friends, including me, are always visiting.

• [quote]What the real reason the South''s so fucked up?

  there

• [quote]Blacks are not as impressed with Atlanta as you are. They know perfectly well it is more firmly controlled by uneducated racist whites economically than any northern cities, including chicago and milwaukee. And the black upper class in Atlanta are one of the mostly vile, as you would expect from a group of people largely chosen for success by their enemies.\ \ But, Atlanta certainly is a black mecca. Blacks move there from all over and they have success at all levels. You find so many black doctors, dentists, professors and other professionals. You''ll find tons of gay/lesbian blacks, and simply a lot of black anything. Part of this is simply the enormous population.\ \ I don''t know anything the about the true black upper class in Atlanta, not simply the well-off black professional class. \ \ I thought blacks had a decent amount of power politically, but I wouldn''t be surprised if whites actually run the show.

• Moonshine.

  Satan''s Jizz in a cup

• Lots of reasons why people don''t leave the South, both white and African-Americans (and others), and not just the fear of cold weather.\ \ Housing prices are generally much lower; there''s a friendliness that people who grow up here are accustomed to (yes, even between the races) that you don''t find elsewhere. Well, there''s friendliness elsewhere, but there''s a special gushy sugary accepting kind of thing going on that I haven''t found as much in my travels

• r53 and r46, please do not entice these Yankee queens into liking the Southern lifestyle. They are the ones who get a taste of warmer weather and a less stressful life. They contribute to the horrible urban sprawl and usually bring their rotten children with them to overcrowd schools. And if DL is any indication, Yankees are probably more racist, prejudiced, and segregationist than most white and black Southerners but they tell themselves they are not.

• r45 doesn''t know what he''s talking about.\ \ You are correct in your assessment of his post, r55. \ \ Southern cities like Atlanta and Nashville are enormous draws for black college graduates, so much so that researchers have begun referring to a black "brain-drain" to the south and away from other regions of the country. White college graduates tend to disperse to the different regions of the country: black college graduates overwhelmingly choose the south.\ \ Researchers even refer to another "Great Migration," migration in reverse to the way it happened a century ago.\ \ And nearly the entire city of Atlanta government is African-American. If the show is really run by whites it must be in an office higher than mayor, chief of police, school superintendent, most of city council, etc etc.\ \ I think r45 passed through the airport here once, if that, and now feels qualified to hold forth.

  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_10_35/ai_n13819857/

• [quote]I thought blacks had a decent amount of power politically, but I wouldn''t be surprised if whites actually run the show.\ \ Certainly true in New Orleans. The white elite is more than willing to walk away from political office and let people like Former Mayor Ray Nagin be the front man. They just run whatever they think is important behind the scenes.

• I''m Southern bred and born, and R40 is telling you the truth. My grandmother was born in GA in 1896, a sharecropper''s daughter. When she was widowed in 1933, she and her good friend Bama, a black woman, started a laundry business together in Magnolia Springs, AL. They remained very good friends until Bama''s death in 1985. I never once heard my grandmother or her friends and relatives refer to slavery as anything but an abomination.%0D\ %0D\ For that matter, I never heard any Southerner bemoan Reconstruction or regret that slavery ended.%0D\ %0D

• Hate much, OP?%0D\ %0D\ What do you think is "fucked up," and how do you define "the South."%0D\ %0D\ There are good people (and jerks) in all parts of this country. If you search for the negative, you''ll find it, but I guarantee you if someone took the same attitude towards your state or region, they could do just as good a job.%0D\ %0D\ Among the great things about the South (and here I mean states that were in the Confederacy) is that they are much more racially tolerant, have wonderful food, by and large are friendly (even in big cities),enjoy friends and family, love the outdoors and America. If you find that "fucked up," I hear Canada might take you. I know Iran would.

• This is OP and I grew up and have lived in Mississippi most of my life (stints in Florida for 6 years, Ireland for 6 months, China a month, a fair amount of overseas travel besides. I still think the South is "fucked up" in many ways, especially politically and the religious Fundamentalism crap. Alabama had politicians trying to out-ignorant each other with their commercials insisting that evolution is ridiculous. Only 11% of white people in Mississippi voted for Obama - when the candidate was Kerry, the white vote was 14%. Only Alabama was worse - only 10% of the whites voted for Obama. As a lifelong liberal and junkyard-dog Democrat, I consider that "fucked up." WHY are poor white people supporting the rich man's party? Because they've been co-opted by the Goldwater/Nixon plan to use racism and "family values" to scoop up the former Dixiecrat supporters. I could go on - and yeah, I could probably give a lot of reasons why other regions are fucked up - hell, the whole gun-loving shallow country. There's something seriously wrong with a people who can't criticize themselves - and that's true whether it's the Deep South or America, as a whole. Oh, and I just got back from China, and it's a big problem there, too - you're not supposed to say anything negative about China, but let me tell you, there's plenty I could say, but I won't - maybe for another thread one day...

• I''m not an American myself, but maybe some northerners are having a different experience than r40 and r61 because elderly people react to them differently than fellow southerners? I wouldn''t be surprised if some of these old folks felt defensive or combative about what they assumed northerners would be thinking of them and the south.

• I grew up in suburban NY. There were no blacks in my grade school and there were on two blacks in my high school graduation class. There were certainly no blacks in my neighborhood.%0D\ %0D\ There might not have been laws codifying segregation in the north, but the unwritten rules were pretty clear and as far as I could see never broken.%0D\ %0D\ I have lived in the South for awhile now and there is much more intermingling of the races than there is in the North.

• It''s true, r65.\ \ And there have been studies that show as much: Northern cities are actually more segregated than southern ones! It''s hard to believe, but it''s true. The most segregated cities are in the northeast and midwest--with NYC ranking pretty high; the least segregated cities are on the west coast.\ \ I''ve tried to assert this point on DL, and even posted links to the data and studies, but it only makes some people blow steam out their ears and kick their denial into high gear.

• The Southern aristocratic elite has been very successful in convincing the poor white trash masses that their enemy was the Black man.

• The Southern aristocratic elite is interested in making sure that their daughter pledges KD at Alabama and that their son gets into W & L. They don''t give a damn about the poor white trash masses aside from ignoring the fact that their second cousin from Opelika just got arrested AGAIN in Panama City for drunk driving.

• R53\ \ South Beach?\ \ Its a neighborhood, not a metropolitan area. \ \ That is kind of like saying Turtle Bay is a cultured, progressive area that does not fit the stereotype of the Northeast.\ \ Except that it is a neighborhood in a larger city that is perhaps not at all like that particular neighborhood.

• shes 1 reason

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB7eMBnZ35E&feature=player_embedded

• they fear change and lack self esteem.

• Thanks for posting exactly how I feel about The South. They lost the fucking war. Get over it.

• Thanks to whom, r72? Did you actually read the thread?

• The ignorance and lack of knowledge of some posters in this thread is staggering. Many of you have been watching FAR too many movies and TV shows. And those of you who actually live in the south should be ashamed for perpetuating these ludicrous lies and half truths.\ \ There''s a reason millions of people have fled from the north into the south over the last 2 decades and it''s not because the south is such a shitty place. But hey, if you don''t like it, feel free to keep your nasty behinds where you are. We don''t want you. We don''t need you. We don''t like you.

• You just don''t get it, r62; we love America, we just don''t like y''all in The South.

  Rest of America and the rest of the planet, too.

• Want a look at New York? Think Archie Bunker and block busting.

• I'm black and grew up in Virginia. Even though Virgina is culturally different than the lower south, it is still considered a southern state. Blacks and whites went to school together, were friends, worked together and any racial issues that may have happened were few and far between. For whatever reason, the vast majority of my friends were white, well the truth is we had tracking in our school system and I was in the gifted and talented track and there weren't many other blacks kids in that track. So the GT kids were friends. We had sleepovers, birthday parties and there were never any problems, other than usual kid stuff. The only real racists were rednecks and their only real racism was using the N word, but they had no problems playing sports or hunting with and being friends with black people. The only real line, and this was the late 80s/early 90s, was dating. Interracial dating didn't happen often and it was usually a football player and a white cheerleader. There was some interracial hooking up, but dating not as much. Well after going off to college and visiting each other you would learn that, the northern kids especially, were always shocked that we didn't grow up in some racist/segregated backwater and that the races got along just fine. There is racism in the south, but for what it's worth, you always know where you stand with southerners. I have learned many, many times that isn't always the case in other regions of the country. Just my two cents to this discussion.

• We don''t like you, either, r74, and wish you''d lost the right to vote in national elections after the Civil War.

• With all do respect R78, they fought a war to secede from the union. You can understand why it took a little while to restore their voting rights. The ironic thing is, those same white southerners turned around and did the same thing to all the newly freed slaves.

• I''m black and weirdly enough when I took a trip down to Savannah a couple of years ago with my Italian-American boyfriend it was amazing how well we were treated there by everyone. I don''t know if Savannah is some anomaly of Southern society but I got the impression that it was a creative, liberal place from the people I met while there.\ \ My boyfriend got more comments about him being a "New Yawker" than anything else which we both laughed about.

• People are going South because they''re growing old and it''s warm and relatively cheap. You still have to go North if you really want to make a name for yourself in this country.

• Oh, it''s just the South baiting troll that happens ''bout twice a month. Didn''t ya''ll''s grannys tell you to ignore such people?

• .

• You wanna know why the South is so fucked up? Look in the fucking mirror. If you live "up North," and would NEVER move south, who do you think is gonna live here???%0D %0D %0D I've spent the entire time I've lived here (13 years, BTW) wondering why the "smart" people live in barely habitable places with pollution and crowds and HORRIBLE weather and leave the beautiful warm places with palm trees and beaches to the ignorant assholes who live here.%0D %0D %0D WTF is wrong with you people?? You should be coming down here and taking this place over!! It wouldn't take much, and it wouldn't take too many of us. These southerners are the most pathetic souls I have ever been around in my entire life, and could easily be dominated by anyone with half a brain, a work ethic, and a decent education.%0D %0D %0D Then YOU could be living a life of ease, with always a place to park, the sun shining every day, a palm tree in your yard, and the beach minutes away. And I wouldn't have to deal with these ignorant southerners day in and day out.%0D %0D %0D OTOH, perhaps some of you are just too stupid to come in from the cold. That's the only reason I can think of... Otherwise, why would you allow such a beautiful place to be controlled by such stupid people, while you put up with the c-c-cold and the snow and the ice and the perpetually gray skies of the northeast...?

  Curious Florida denizen

• Guess you''ve never been to Chicago, r6. It''s one of the most racist and segregated cities in the world.

• We should have let the South go when we had the chance.

  Former Northern Yankee now a Californian

• Interesting fact; racists live all over the US not just the South.\ I don''t know why OP is obsessed over the South but for the most part it''s still a part of the US and is indeed a part of the 21st century. If you''ve got issues with what you''ve read in the history books and have never visited then just stfu OP.

• r86, is that same illegal in California troll that "thinks" he''s American and therefore qualified to comment on the goings on in this country.

• Never hear of institutional racism, r14?\ \ Perhaps the South was codified but there was and still is - in many non-south areas of the country - "unofficial" codification of racism - i.e renting, getting a loan, job, etc.

• R84 is an idiot. THERE ARE NO SOUTHERNERS IN FLORIDA! The fucking hook-nosed woppy looking yankees took over Florida decades ago. Now they''re all hook-nosed, gray haired, leather skinned, woppy looking creatures who drive around in their 3 ton cars at 10 mph.\ \ Of course I''m smart enough to know that the only northerners who feel the way many of you here do are the queers on chat boards. Normal people up north aren''t nearly as pissy and petty as the typical DL queen.

• "You still have to go North if you really want to make a name for yourself in this country."\ \ Living in the south never hurt Faulkner''s career.\ \ I''d say what was true then is even more true today in the internet age:\ \ If you produce interesting work that''s of value, people will come to you. If you don''t produce interesting work that''s of any value, living in Chelsea won''t magically make the work better, more interesting, or more valuable.\ \ Word.

• I''ve lived all over the USA, and the most amazing incident I ever witnessed was at a Suburban Chicago BBQ hosted by a partner in a rather prominent Loop Law Firm.\ \ We''re in the backyard, and everyone (attorneys and their wives) are just chilling. A guy walks into the yard and says, "Hey Frank! There''s a Ni**er walking down the sidewalk!" Instantly, there''s a dozen guys heading for the front yard where they stood and watched the guy walk down the street.\ \ I was horrified. Don''t tell me racism is a Southern problem.

• Southerners.

• The Southern electorate is dragging the rest of this otherwise great country that I love downward, resists change, votes against its better interests.

• Uh, no one''s going to answer my question...?? Why do all the smart people live in the ugly north, when we could be ruling the temperate south?

  R84

• The two most racially polarized cities in America are Chicago and St. Louis.%0D\ %0D\ St. Charles County, Missouri had one of the fastest rates of population growth of any county in the nation in the 80''s and 90''s and into the 21st century, yet the metropolitan area of St. Louis (of which St. Charles is a part) had stagnant population growth. The reason: whites fleeing previously all white north St. Louis County en masse.

• You shush r84. The "smart" Yankees can stay in the cold where they belong. They are all undoubtedly old farts who haven''t picked up a history book or visited the South in at least 25 years. And they are ugly and overweight from staying nine months out of the year.

  6th generation backwoods Floridian

• I''ve always wondered that, too, r95 and often wished that the retrograde conservative slavery-mentality thinking could have been in the north, and the south could have been the progressive, laid back, genteel part of the country. Why not?!\ \ IN a perfect world the south would be progressive, to match its beauty and warmth.\ \ And believe me I''ve tried. It just ain''t gonna happen in this lifetime.

• Please stay where you are. We have enough. Thank you kindly.

  Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill

• [quote]Well after going off to college and visiting each other you would learn that, the northern kids especially, were always shocked that we didn''t grow up in some racist/segregated backwater and that the races got along just fine.%0D\ %0D\ This has been my experience as well. Yankees are also shocked to learn about the diversity of religions in the South.

• [quote]Well after going off to college and visiting each other you would learn that, the northern kids especially, were always shocked that we didn''t grow up in some racist/segregated backwater and that the races got along just fine.\ \ This is a fantasy you have, not reality. I never had anyone be "shocked" that I didn''t come from a racist/segregated backwater with racial hostility. Even if they weren''t familiar with Birmingham, they seemed to readily understand that it was a major city in the South and not a cultural backwater.\ \ You project too much.

• R101 read the thread. Its not a projection, there are a great deal of people who feel that the south, even the major cities are hotbeds of racial intolerance and ignorance. You just had a different experience, it doesn''t mean one is right and the other is wrong.

• As long as y''all vote the way you do, all this talk of a progressive South is just so much balderdash. College town or big city liberalism is not evidence that the South has changed if it makes no perceivable difference. I just can''t buy that racial and religious harmony logically translates into votes for Haley Barbour. Liberal southerners are either lazy or liars.

• OK, 103...

  NC

• R79, you do realize that if you oppress a people they in turn oppress others. See Scalia, O''Reilly and Hannity. \ \ The south is just an area of the country. Sorry if it''s more cultured and interesting than Ohio.

• R102, I''ve read the thread, thank you.\ \ Your perception is off. Most people I''ve encountered outside the South don''t see it as a "hotbed of racial intolerance and ignorance." \ \ Your reliance on "read the thread" is weak - items posted on an anonymous message board are no substitute for real world experience.\ \ While there is a lack of knowledge about many aspects of Southern culture in areas of the US, the same exists for Southerners, i.e., they have misperceptions of life outside the South. It''s a two way street.\ \ Your attempt at playing victim of accusatory Northerners is misspent. You''d do better to travel outside the South and learn about regional culturalism from sources other than your made up fantasies of what you *think* others are thinking. There really is no substitute for travel and an open mind when it comes to knowledge like this.

  R101

• R103, You know the south is rural, right? Give the religion time to die out.

• R106, stop looking at everything through your own lens. There are millions of different experiences. Just accept that not everyone''s experience is yours and stop being a jerk. You said like a total bore.

• R108, what part of \ \ "You''d do better to travel outside the South and learn about regional culturalism from sources other than your made up fantasies of what you *think* others are thinking. There really is no substitute for travel and an open mind when it comes to knowledge like this."\ \ do you not understand?\ \ You''re myopia and need to be a victim of mean outsiders is not healthy.\ \ Get out and "stop looking at everything through your own lens," indeed.

  R101

• Gee, R61. My grandmother thought she was visited by Arcturans and folks from Venus. I never heard anyone tell her she was wrong.\ \ Therefore, they exist.\ \ When will you stupid, gap-toothed Southern shits stop using "Well my me-maw nevah hated niggers, she called them pickanninnies with affection" as an excuse? \ \ You all need a history lesson.

• R101 really needs to be institutionalized.

• Why did the South, in general, stop electing Democrats after the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed, and why does the South, in general, continue to elect Republicans?%0D\ %0D

• OP already answered r112''s Q.

• R96, don't confuse things with suspect demographics and bad conclusions. Neither St. Louis nor Chicago is "the most racially polarized city." What absurdity. Your statements about St. Charles' growth are glib and simplistic as well. If somewhere in your confusion and tripe you're trying to say that the North is worse than the South somehow, please at least be aware that (1) St. Louis is as much a Southern city as a Northern one, being in a slave state until the Civil War and having a long tradition of Southern cultural tendencies overlaid across its Northern manufacturing base. (2) Chicago experienced a substantial influx of Southern blacks throughout the post-Civil War period extending all the way to the present. Also, the complexity of Chicago's racial profile with other groups deserves consideration, such as its waves of Hispanic immigration. It's not just a matter of racial mixing in residential neighborhoods, of course. One needs to consider how well integrated populations are across all SESs, and that gets complicated. Plus the existence of historic enclaves (Italian neighborhoods, for example) hardly is the same in most people's eyes as "racially polarized" areas. Sheesh. Amateurs and liars don't help their own causes, do they?

  A Professional Demographer

• This is obsessed OP again, and thanks R113 - I think I sort of answered R112's question, but it's a complicated (and imo, sordid) story. BTW, R112, it was a Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, who was largely responsible for the Civil Rights Act and he's quoted as saying "We've lost the South for a generation." (sadly, an understatement) There was a brand of Democrat up till Johnson, and to an extent, even afterwards, often called the "Dixiecrat". Think George Wallace. Extremely conservative and racist Democrats who controlled the south, at least since the time reviled Republican Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. But the desertion of Southerners from the Dem Party started even before '64. In 1960, Mississippi and Alabama's electors pledged most of their votes to arch-segregationist "Democratic" (i.e., Dixiecrat) Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, even though he wasn't even a candidate. And in the '64 election (before the passage of the Civil Rights Act), the following states went for the Republican Goldwater over their fellow southerner Johnson: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina. There's a book, whose name escapes me, that explains the Republican "southern strategy" to attract disenchanted racists and religionists - I think the plan was hatched either by Barry Goldwater himself or his advisors, and it was successfully executed by Richard Nixon in '68.

• Chicago has given the country its black president and has a larger black leadership and business class than every city in the South and Southwest added together. It is not the most segregated city in the country, R92 is clearly making that up, and as has been pointed out many times before, the segregation measurements made by census districts are too broad to capture the phenomenon and overstate the segregation in places where blacks are more recent arrivals. The South is worse by every legitimate measure. I''ve lived all over the country and actually the place the blacks felt worst off was California, despite the fact that everyone busted their asses on the diversity front. But it was because they were really a small minority and all the other minorities had higher incomes. So southern blacks saying they experienced more racism in the north is the same kind of thing. The North has provided far more opportunity for blacks every decade since the 1920''s and continuing to this day.

• Notice that the segregated neighborhoods of Northern cities have complicated, convoluted, sociological, historical explanations but they're NEVER due to racism. Hmmmm. The most segregated cities in the US are in the northeast and midwest, r116. The least segregated cities are on the west coast. Make of it what you will, but it's a fact. Racial segregation by neighborhood is a measurable thing like the length of a street or the distance between buildings. "Racism" itself is not really measurable and comes in many different forms--overt, subtle, institutional, hidden, historical, cumulative, subconscious etc. "The North has provided far more opportunity for blacks every decade since the 1920'" Then why do recent black college graduates overwhelmingly choose to migrate to southern cities like Atlanta and Nashville? Why are demographic researchers now referring to a Reverse Great Migration? Hmmmm? It must really burn your ass that black people themselves aren't really cooperating with the version of reality you're trying to sell.

  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_10_35/ai_n13819857/

• Who is the troll on this thread trying to sell us on the South? Who are you trying to convince, queen? Us or yourself? Give it a rest. You aren''t going to change any minds here.

• "Chicago has given the country its black president"\ \ And Atlanta had one of the first black mayors in the country, along with many other historic firsts: black leaders in the realms of politics, business, law, academia, science, etc. Virginia had the first elected black governor (Illinois has yet to break the color barrier with its governor btw).\ \ But even so, I would never dare to suggest that it absolves an entire city or state or region of a racist past or present. \ \ That''s just plain retarded.

• I live in North Carolina and you are wrong. You are obviously more trash than most of the people down here because you swore with no reason because you didn't have a better word too say. I can promise you a lot of the people living down here would never once swear in there life. Also you used incorrect grammar with "What the real reason the South's so ****** up?" , correctly you would have said 'What is' or 'What's'. Maybe you should reflect on yourself before judging others and live in the present instead of the past where we were racist but it is now over. - A 13 year old in NC

• I live in the South in a very large cosmopolitan city and, while there are some pockets of white trash racists, most of the racism is much more subversive and many people don't know they're racist. It's kind of weird. At the same time, I worked for a large Norwegian shipping company and encountered far worse racism from them than any white, Southern counterparts. The word "nigger" was casually dropped in the office and they had zero blacks working for the company. Yes, I still encounter old white men who talk about the War of Northern Aggression. I also think that they're is a difference between "rednecks" and "white trash". Rednecks are good old boys who hunt, fish and like their beer but are generally kind, down to earth people (thing Sordid Lives-types) and will do anything to help out neighbors. White trash are the ones who are still really racist and nasty.

• They're should be there. Yikes.

  R121

• They still consider the south the heroes of The Civil War, so it's not a surprise they still want to secede and set up a new all white governemnt.

  http://www.blog4history.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/kkk_flag.JPG

• I live in Philadelphia, once known as "The Birmingham of the North", and rightfully so.

• There's none of that in the North. LOL. Wasn't it Boston where school buses were burned and rolled over because of desegregation in the 70s?

• It's the Mothers of the South who are to blame. They bring their boys up to be douchebags.

• I saw that movie Easy Rider and decided I would stay away from the Deep South. I still haven't been to many of the states "down they-uh." My parents retired to NC, an area with lots of successful, Northern retirees. I remember the town had about 8 churches but they had to bus the kids to the next county to go to school.

• I'm as Yankee as it gets, and don't consider the thread topic especially constructive.

• R11: Then I'm a conundrum because my major ancestral groups are Italian and Irish. And yes, in the northeast. So try again!

  LuciferTheLightBringer

• I think a large part of it that the south was and continues to be very agrarian. I've traveled around northeast North Carolina quite a bit and I've noticed this: There are too many churches and not any other outlets for people, E.g nightclubs, bars, malls, etc. So God looms large over that part of North Carolina. The other thing you have to remember is that the south was UTTERLY smashed in the U.S. Civil War. It never had a chance to develop away from agrarian.

  LuciferTheLightBringer

• [quote]I've traveled around northeast North Carolina quite a bit. That's where my folks retired to. Washington, NC. It was a "country club" setting for people with boats. I had been in the same area about 20 years earlier and there was a big, fully-lit "Support Your Local Klan" billboard up in a farmer's pasture. Nowadays, it's all car dealers and chain restaurants.

• The worst of the southern people, namely the Republicans, the racists, the trash, need to feel someone is better than they are or they will have to face the fact that they are better than NO ONE. They need to blame their lives on, thinking oh this one and that one gets free stuff and only I, the white, "Good" Christian" "Good" American should be getting. On top of that we took their slaves and then gave their slaves the right to vote so now black people actually get a say in this country. I wish they, including TX would be allowed to form their own country. I'd love to see how they do without any help from the Federal Gov. or the blue states. You can't have so many people like this around, so much hate around and not be fucked up. My dad didn't speak badly about anyone, especially not against any group of people. The only ones my dad always told me were horrible people were most white southerners, the KKK kind. As a child I saw what they did to little kids my age, only they happened to be black. Unlike the right wing owned media today in those days we saw the truth on the news. We saw dogs and hoses being turned on children just for wanting to go to school. We saw children burned in their church. We saw evil vile white faces filled with hate against people who only wanted the same rights as they have. It was very easy to know my dad was telling me the truth.

• If the South is so fucked up, why do so many of you Yankee bastards move down here?

• Archie Bunker personified New Yorkers, what about the block busting and name calling?

• Hey OP, what's with all the hate, bigotry and judgmentalness?? Oh wait, did you just become a republican and not tell us?

• There are ignorant, prejudiced, fanatical white trash all over the U.S., not just in the South. The Southern stereotype is just an easier target.

• Red states in the South and Midwest. That's a fact.

• Here's how whites voted for Obama by state. Of course most of the lowest states are southern except for Utah and Wyoming.

  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/10/1159759/-Percent-of-White-vote-won-by-Obama-2012-by-state

• They're still fighting the civil war. They haven't gotten over it yet. And most of them think Jesus was born in Alabama.

• Originally from the South now living in a suburb of Detroit. It is way more racist here than in the South? I was never taught to dislike anyone but it is a different story here. Code word being the " suburbs" for whites.

• I lay the lion's share of blame on the Southern Baptist Church for making the South fucked up. You have to be from here to understand the subtle layers of that statement.

• I was born and raised in Eastern CT. I witnessed and personally experienced much ethnic hatred there. I mean truly petty things as well as vicious stuff more appropriate to the 19th century. One memory stands out concerning ethnicity. Fellow classmates in middle school would come out with slurs and firmly held beliefs of stereotypes of races and ethnicities that they could not possibly have had any contact with, ever, in their brief, sheltered, spoiled little lives. And, yes, there was slavery in the north, in CT at one time. New London, CT had a slave population at one point, as well as laws controlling the movement of freed blacks.

• Most of the big cities in the South went for Obama. On the other hand, many of the so-called blue states are made up of red rural counties with strong patches of blue around the urban areas. The divide isn't as much South/Midwest vs. everyone else as it is rural/urban.

• People in the Northeast quite comfortably use the term "ghetto" to mean poor, urban and black. It's extremely racist yet it's never questioned. They just think it's cute, funny, and charming.

• People generally want to live among their own kind. PC crap aside, this is a basic fact and will never change.

• I'm a leftist ex-Southerner. I grew up in Atlanta, then also lived in 4 other southern states. I've been trying to figure the South out for 50+ years. I thought in the 70's that the South was moving quickly towards overcoming its horrible legacy... but then along came Reagan, rightwing talk radio, the Republican "southern strategy" and Fox News ... and we were set back 100 years again. I speak Russian and have been fascinated by similarities between Russia and the South. Both places are run by nationalist thugs who somehow manage to maintain control. Poor education has hampered both places immeasurably. And they bth have groups that like to terrorize Jews or blacks or other groups in the bizarre belief that they deserve to be at the top of the ttem pole.

• I live in a very Russian neighborhood and most of them hate black people with a passion. That is something I just don't get. Every Russian neighbor that I've asked, that's many, voted for Romney. Most of them are on government programs, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Section 8, etc. so they have to be the stupidest people around or so ruled by hatred that they'd cut their own throats.

• Now, R114, don't be petty. It's good to have a professional on board.

  DL%20Improvement%20Committee

• [quote]People in the Northeast quite comfortably use the term "ghetto" to mean poor, urban and black. Well, poor, urban and black is a mouthful. I grew up in SW CT. Yes, there was a lot of ethnic stereotyping and I belonged to one of those groups. A lot of our parents and grandparents were immigrants. While it certainly still exists, there is much less of it now as the older generations have almost all died off. It takes time but as MLK observed, "the arc of the universe bends toward justice."

• oh, for heaven's sake, R115, get a fucking clue. Lee Atwater was the architect of the southern strategy and it was for the Reagan campaign in 1980.

• Ugh. OP used every stereotype of the South. I've lived all over the US: MidAtlantic, New England, and the actual South. I've met as many bigots in New England (esp. NH) as I ever did in West Virginia or Virginia.

• I think earlier posters are correct: rural vs urban and not South vs rest of the country. It is just in the South - there is more rural areas. I am from the South and do not like the racism. But also annoying when folks from the NW like Portland and Seattle complain about Southern racism when they have a homogenous, mostly white population

  anon

• People like R151 are unable to observe, notice, and analyze. If they think NH is as bad as the South, they might as well be blind.

• Personally, I am racist myself and I JUST CANNOT STAND MEAN WHITE TRASH- NASTY, DIRTY, LAZY., METH HEADS. There I said it. I am mixed black and white.

  anon

• Originally from Richmond which is culturally different from the deeper South. More associated with our colonial heritage. Still the occasional white trash racial slurring but all in all much more civilized than much of the North. Lived in Chicago for 10 years and this place has white trash, black trash, yellow trash and brown trash. Trash doesn't discriminate by race. It's caused by ignorance. Education is the issue. I found that most Southerners love their home state and are happy to welcome people to it. Of course, if you come down there with the OP's attitude, you won't get very far.

• Richmond is not associated with our colonial heritage since it wasn't founded until the very end of that period. It was the capital of the Confederacy. Who can take you seriously after that.

• Richmond was founded in 1737, 130 years after Jamestown; and did not become capital of Virginia until 1780, that is to say, after the colonial period was over. Richmond has no real associations with the colonial period. NONE.

• Enjoy your Muslims lol

• Lee Atwater’s infamous “n*gger, n*gger” interview. The man sure knew how to play to southerners.

  http://americablog.com/2012/11/audio-of-infamous-lee-atwater-interview-its-a-matter-of-how-abstract-you-handle-the-race-thing.html

• r155 here. Allow to to clarify. When I said we are more concerned with our Colonial heritage, I meant Virginia's colonial heritage. We all know when Richmond was founded, of course. Many of the First Families of Virginia trace our ancestry to Jamestown and then Williamsburg. I know mine landed in 1622 on one side of the family and 1628 on the other. Well before there was a North or South for that matter. Sorry if I confused with my earlier post.

• [quote]People generally want to live among their own kind. PC crap aside, this is a basic fact and will never change. What does this mean, exactly? People want to live with others of the same skin color? The same values and beliefs? If people presume "own kind" is relegated to skin color then, sorry, these people are *racist*. And it has little to do with "PC".

• [quote]Well, poor, urban and black is a mouthful. Honey, "ghetto" is not just convenient shorthand. It's a racist slur, and it occupies a blindspot for Northeasterners. That's the point.

• [quote]Honey, "ghetto" is not just convenient shorthand. It's a racist slur, and it occupies a blindspot for Northeasterners. That's the point. Honey, ANY one word that describes poor, urban and black is going to sound racist.

• But ya didn't Blanche R160, ya didn't. And that's a big reason for the South's being fucked up. They really don't know anything TRUE about their own history.

• [quote]Honey, ANY one word that describes poor, urban and black is going to sound racist. Yeah. That's why you shouldn't use it, dipshit, And particularly in the way Northerners do: as a winking, derogatory reference to black people. For some reason it always slips under the radar, even for the PC-Shriekers. I bet OP uses it all the time and thinks it's just funny and cute. Odd, no?

• I moved from a college town to a city in the South several years ago. I was appalled at the ignorance and religiosity here and I had been raised in a republican household where my parents attended church weekly. The other thing I discovered is that the surface southern charm and friendliness hides a backstabbing clannish orientation. It's not pretty. It isn't just me, though. A colleague moved here from Texas with his wife, and she hated it so much that he worked to get transferred to North Carolina to save their marriage. Both like it really well there in the north central part of the state. But, as far as the south, I started thinking about the Southern Poverty Law Center, which opened here because of the obvious problems with racism, ignorance and hatred. It has gone after plenty of white hate groups in other places like the northwest, however, so ignorance and racism certainly aren't unique to the south.

• [quote] that he worked to get transferred to North Carolina to save their marriage Still in the South, no? Odd place to move if the south is destroying their marriage.

• What I don't get is the class deference. The same rednecks who get in the face of Yankees and act like they are Super Proud and Not Afraid of Anybody are "yes sir" and "No, ma'am" to any pasty faced plutocrat in a pink polo shirt, khakis, and a fake Rolex.

• [quote]People generally want to live among their own kind. PC crap aside, this is a basic fact and will never change. My! how enlightened!

  *rolls%20eyes*

• WHY does "ghetto" automatically mean "black" in the US, when in Europe it means "Jewish"?

• stubborness