I don't blame another Kossack for throwing up a diary defending the South. What I don't understand is why he/she felt it necessary. I hadn't noticed any Dixie bashing on this site, at least none that was undeserved. Was it a preemptive strike?
Yes, I have a different point of view. I'll explain below the croissant.
For my fellow Kossack to insist the USA's other regions are just as bad is frankly disingenuous. Yes, there are unmitigated racists in the north, midwest, west coast, etc. etc., just like in the South. That's not news. But...
Only the SOUTH seceded from the Union in order to maintain "their way of life" which was supported almost entirely on the backs of black slaves.
Only the SOUTH still flies the Confederate Flag above some its statehouses. Other states might toy with the idea, but only the SOUTH is willing to throw the worst symbol of hatred in the history of THIS country in the faces of its black citizens, as if to say "Yup, you're still Ni**ers, and we want you to know it."
Only the SOUTH installed a system of peonage to re-enslave black Americans for 80 years between the end of the Civil War and the start of WWII, a horrific system described as worst than slavery by federal observers of the day, and captured eloquently and densely in Donald Blackmon's Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction book "Slavery By Another Name." And, by the way, Blackmon is a white son of the South.
Only the SOUTH voted overwhelmingly against Barack Obama in 2008. While lily white states like Maine and Vermont voted easily to elect the first African American president, he couldn't win the states with the largest black populations in the country. Why?
Only 11% of white Mississippians voted for Obama, making it impossible for him to win the state with the largest number of black residents in the entire country.
Only 14% of whites in Louisiana voted for Obama, and only 10% of white Alabamians voted for Obama.
'Nuff said about the so-called "new South."
Only the SOUTH has a Republican Party (Mississippi) where 46% of its members (99% of whom are white) believe that marriage between blacks and whites should be ILLEGAL in 2012. Not just discouraged. ILLEGAL! Only in the SOUTH do such huge numbers of people still think that way.
Anybody want to bet me top dollar which region of the country will be last to have one of its states legalize same sex marriage? No? That's an easy bet for me to win.
My parents grew up in the South, in Georgia and North Carolina. Everybody in the South isn't evil. That's obvious. Some of the best people on the planet are natives and residents of the states in the old Confederacy. Donald Blackmon is one of them. Heck, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which I revere, is in the South. And I do love southern cooking.
But please don't tell me, with diaries or anything else, that the south is no different than any other part of the country. It is. Your opinion vs. My facts. And when it comes specifically to American history and relationships between whites and blacks, the South stands out. And its not for the good.