Quote:
Originally posted by Sistermadly
I'd much rather deal with the overt brand of discrimination that exists in the South (and this is coming from a Southerner, mind you) than the more benign discrimination that exists in other parts of the country. At least in the South when people don't like you/don't want you, there's no hemming and hawing. You know it, you know how to deal with it (usually by laughing at them) and then you move on.
Oh, and while we're trading anecdotes about the liberalism of the Midwest, let me tell the story of a good friend of mine who, when his family moved to Atlanta from Wisconsin, was told to "be careful in (n-word) town" and "watch your back, keep your doors locked, and stay away from (n-word)."
Playing tit-for-tat gets us nowhere. Racism sucks. Period. That being said, I often wonder if there's any real purpose in threads like this on GC? We all have our firmly entrenched positions, and y'know, it's great to trade them and all, but do you (we) honestly think we're going to convince someone to change his/her mind based on something they read on a message board?
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I think it's ridiculous to assume that "benign racism" exists only in the North and "hostile overt racism" exists only in the South. I've seen incidents of both all over the United States. One of my African-American teachers said she feared for her life because of her race more in Indiana than any other state she'd taught in. There are plenty of benign racists in the South (and plenty of people who aren't very racist at all!), and there are plenty of hostile racists in the North.
But the fact of the matter is that we aren't seeing nearly as many incidents like this one happen in the North as we are in the South, at least not within the Greek system. Why is that?
The South has race issues. That DOESN'T mean that the rest of the country doesn't.