Jegsimmons said:
hear me out now, the north....is actually FAR more racist than the south. oh they wont admit it, they'll flat out deny it, but i personally know it and experienced it. everytime ive gone farth north than kentucky, sure enough you're going to run into some hate.
they may not be more racist, but they are more open about it. and this mentallity has lead blacks to stay in the south. now granted its a bit more convoluted than that, but its the basics and i dont have the time to discuss the whole thing.
also, next time...go to Orange Beach in Alabama, way nicer and less people. Miami is a hell hole.
When I went to college at Bama my first roommate, Cornelius--yes, that was his real name--turned out to be a wannabe walk on football player from Minnesota. He was a big black jock and I was a small white nerd. I remember when his girlfriend, Jennifer, walked into our dorm room and how relieved I was that she was white: A white girlfriend indicated that my new roommate wasn't racist.
Sound odd? Like you expected me to be the racist or bothered by interratial dating? This is where it gets interesting.
Both Cornelius and Jennifer repeatedly commented on how much less racism there was compared to where they came from. They weren't the only ones either, and that goes for lots of folks I've met over the years all over--not just at college.
What doesn't occur to most people is that blacks and whites have been living together in the South since the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. Aside from Hispanic immigrants the South hasn't gotten anywhere near the sizable waves of immigrants from all over the world that the North and west have.
This is pertinent because new bodies of immigrants often bring their own prejudices which tend to require 2 to 3 generations to blend away.
Blacks and whites apparently get along better in the South than elsewhere in the country. Like everywhere else there are some ugly racist asses who pull crap, sure, but the fact remains that we do get along better down here.
Go figure.
It was a real eyeopener when I realized that the majority of Southerners, blacks and whites, were less racist than people from other parts of the country. If others have trouble believing me or other Southerners--especially the others who may come from areas where there is serious racism still--I won't be surprised.
Like I said, I've lived here for years and I believed the stereotype, too.
Cornelius, Jennifer, and a lot of others from up north, however, they're the ones who convinced me otherwise.
