General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The South was not sufficiently punished after the war [View all]Igel
(35,320 posts)Any more than there is a single "Xianity" or a single variety of English.
Embrace the diversity. Get past the stereotypes and prejudice.
I've run into some intensely bigoted and racist white Southerners. Also black Southerners. And not a few Central Americans.
I've also run into white Southerners who make Obama look backwards and racist. Same for black Southerners. And not a few Central Americans.
Most are in between. Not a few vary by context and by which group they're interacting with at the time.
There is no single "South" any more than there is a single "North." All Northerners are educated and prosperous or solid, prosperous upright hard-working working class. Right? Dream on. Notherners are hard working and lazy, educated and high school drop outs, progressive and conservative, non-racist and deeply racist, Jewish and Muslim and atheist and Xian and Buddhist and Sikh.
So are Southerners. The frequency and distribution are a bit different. The racial dynamics are different. But the hardest thing for all the groups I interact with is for people to stop seeing those in other ethnic groups as members of hostile ethnic groups and see them as people. Which, oddly, was the same problem I saw when I was a kid ... up North. And a young adult in Oregon. And a slightly less young adult in Los Angeles.
To speak of a virtuous North is as prejudiced and stereotyping as to think all Southerners are waving Confederate flags and trying to find a black family to enslave to restore the Old Dominion to its glory days. (Esp. the S. Asian Muslim families, the Korean immigrants, and the 1/3 of Houston that's Latino. Other large Southern cities have similar but different mixes of immigrants.) Heck, a lot of Southerners are transplanted Northerners. Or, in my case, a Marylander--Baltimore being culturally Southern and the most northern Southern port economically until the Civil War, at which point it culturally, economically, and even linguistically swung Northern.
Yup. Martin O'Malley ... one of those Southerners that so many complain about. Right?