South Bashing--Hypocritical?

[Captain X]

The ones I have to roll my eyes at are the ones that drive around in big 4x4s with big battle flags flying from the back of it and a rifle or two in the back window, who go on about how the Confederacy should have won the "Second War of Independence" or the "War of Northern Agression" and how Lincoln represents pure evil, and that "The South Will Rise Again!". And that's just an eye roll and a scoff. The ones that draw my ire are the obvious bigots, reguardless of where they happen to live.

Oh, BTW, the pickup I described above was seen at the mall in Grand Forks, North Dakota, so it's not limited to southerners persay, though I imagine they wanted to be from the south.

 

[RoJoHen]

And minorities can be racist, but sometimes I wonder how many people in a majority have actually experienced it.

I have. You get to see a LOT in customer service, and I have seen that. I had a woman unload on me at work, in the store, because I made a mistake, and she accused me of screwing up because she was black and I was white. Which was completely wrong--I screwed up because I wasn't paying attention, not because I was somehow a racist. In my book, the automatic accusation that I MUST be a racist because I'm white is itself...its own form of racism. I have also had cases where I've seen the same person treat people of their own ethnicity well and then be nasty to me the next minute.

I work in the restaurant industry, and I run into the weird situation where my black co-workers are racist against other black people!

It's bizarre.

 

[Augustus]

Yeah, in school, I had a black friend who was more afraid of a black gang at the school than I was.

It just occurred to me are there any blacks or any minorities at all on this board? Seems like we are talking mostly from the white perspective here...

 

[RoJoHen]

I know there are some, but I think they are (as the name implies) the minority.

 

[kimc]

My sister married a Southerner who gets the coffee going first thing in the morning (even though he doesn't drink it himself) and makes a great jambalaya - great qualities in a brother-in-law, imo.

Consequently I've spent some time in places I probably wouldn't have otherwise like Richmond, VA, Jackson, MI and Birmingham, AL. On these visits while my sister and her husband were at work I'd go exploring. I've talked to Civil War re-enactors in search of a "period rush" as well as more "normal" people.

For warmth and hospitality the South has a lot going for it. Yes, there's still anger over the war but then this is a conquered land. In fact, my sister once dragged me to see "Gone With the Wind" at an old theater in Richmond. When Scarlett shot the Yankee the whole theater erupted with cheers.

I think it's important for people to move on while at the same time remembering the lessons these events have for us. That's not just true with the South but many other areas of the world as well.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Are Southern state troopers as mean as everybody keeps saying?

 

[B.J.]

I've personally never encountered them, but I'd say they're more intimidating than mean, especially with the cars and paint jobs they maintain. When I lived in St. Louis and traveled back & forth to the Southeast, Illinois seemed to have by far the most number of troopers on the road, coupled with an attitude. Of course, the cars they had and they way they looked just didn't strike any fear into offenders (IMO).