I gotta say, I am really fed up with people hating on the South. I'm a left wing liberal and sure -- I would much rather everyone down there (and everywhere) voted MY way in both Presidential and Senatorial races. And I sure wish race never entered the picture.
But this business of characterizing the South as stupid, illiterate and hateful is a mile wide and a quarter inch deep. The Ku Klux Klan is alive and well...in Indiana. The Church of Jesus Christ, Christian was getting along swimmingly through the 1990's...in Ohio. Radical hate groups, skinheads, neo-nazis and others have vomited their ugliness in places like New Hampshire, Idaho, Illinois and Michigan...as well as down south.
Just today, in church, a lady asked that we remember President Bush in prayer as he leaves the White House and President-elect Obama as he enters. I was touched. But then she added, "I'm afraid some crazy from down south will try to kill Obama just because he's black."
I had a polite word with her afterwards.
Sure, there are ignorant SOB hatemongers in the South. There are also men and women committed to the struggle for freedom and dignity. Morris Dees is a Southerner. Jimmy Carter is a Southerner. Dr. King was a Southerner. And there are plenty more Southrons who are just living day to day, not hating anyone but not particularly committed to any specifc kind of social justice. Getting the bills paid, the kids raised and staying healthy and happy pretty much take up all their time. Can any of us blame them? I hope they eventually join the struggle, but if they don't -- they are neither stupid, nor racist.
The story of ignorance, hate and racism is an American story. We recoil when we see the Confederate flag -- claiming it is a symbol of hate. Really? The KKK and various Nazi movements use it, to be sure. But they also use our beloved stars and stripes. Does that make our present flag a hate symbol? We wring our hands because the Stars and bars and other incarnations of the Southern flag flew over slave states. True. So did our precious flag. New York was a slave state once.
If we are to be one nation, we need to dispense with nonsensical regional stereotypes. When we see race hatred, confront that for the stupidity and evil it is. When we encounter ignorance, superstition and urban legend, we need to educate. But where the person spewing hate or ignorance is from has nothing to do with it.
Sorry for the long rant. But just as I get sick and tired of hearing how liberals, New Englanders and Californians "hate America" or come from "fake America"...so I get bone-weary of being told Georgians are inbred dupes and Arkansans are unenlightened hate merchants.
for some reason this thread reminds me of this song, by a great American rock band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COGY0mJYGtc"talk about neil young, I don't like to talk about the gentleman"
