NCBear, in no way do I believe that all southerners are like this, nor that the north is free from all racial tensions! As in all things, it's a case of percentages, and exactly what is at stake in those less fortunate percentages.
Not being white, there are simply some places where I'm not safe. If you ARE white, then you just don't know what I mean, unless you've been in a rough black neighborhood late at night. The thing is, most white people just don't acknowledge that their white "brethren" are violent or cruel to niggers, when there's no one around to object. YOU may be the most expansive person alive, and your friends know better than to make racist comments in front of you, but there are probably a few of them who would, if they thought everyone around them was okay with it. That's the part you just don't see.
It might only be 20% of the people- let's say it is. What would that 20% do to a woman travelling alone, if they thought the other three guys there would just see it as a little harmless fun? I just took a trip to Louisiana and Texas a couple months ago, I've travelled through the south a lot, and will continue to. You're right- most of the people's manners are genuine, but then, so are mine. The difference is, I can't even get gas without having to "know my surroundings" like I'm in a bad neighborhood all the time. Ha, I spent a night in JAIL in Carollton KY ten years ago for a speeding ticket and some trumped-up claims about my insurance being innaccurate, which I later proved to be untrue. I still got to spend the night in JAIL with some rednecks making comments all night about how all niggers claim to be innocent, and these were cops.
No, it's not everyone. But YOU'RE never going to deal with the 20% who are like that, and I am. Fuck the south, sorry.
Mme. Zora, your experience sounds like a 1930s or 1940s trip through the Deep South. I continue to be stunned by the stories I hear from friends and about friends of friends about
recent experiences. (Side note: I was stunned during my 12-year relationship with my ex how often anti-gay and anti-Black prejudice was conflated and leveled against us [he is Black and Cherokee and I am English and Scotch-Irish]. I have never had so many refusals of service in my life as I did during that period. I have never had to initiate so many public scenes with managers as I did during that period, either. It was an eye-opening experience, as you might well imagine. It keeps me from taking my ability to share in white male privilege for granted. It also keeps me from using that ability only for my own betterment; these days, I share the benefits as best I can in a lot of different ways.)
I hope like hell the percentage of bigoted jackasses is not as high as 20%, but I also know that just 20 minutes from where I live is a little community of inbred KKK sympathizers and members, and at the intersection of I-40 and I-95 the town of Benson (in eastern NC) is another hotbed of KKK activity. I'm sure there are other locations. While I was helping my boyfriend research current racial attitudes in the South for a Humanities 101 paper (part of his photography degree), we stumbled across the Southern Poverty Law Center (
Southern Poverty Law Center), which acts as a barometer of Southern people's bigotry in much the same way that Klanwatch measures that of the KKK.
And yes, your experience is that of a person whose appearance -- through no fault of her own -- makes her a target. I have an alternate experience: I'm safe as long as I look and act like a straight white male. It's called passing.
Yes, I've heard those same jokes and I've been expected to sympathize with those same prejudices. (My passing for a straight white male, and my old-fashioned manners, make some people think I share their prejudices, so they open up around me.) As I grow older, I speak up more often, even though I have more to lose (reputation-wise as well as job-wise). Starting with my responses to certain members of my extended family at past family reunions, I've been speaking out for quite some time -- as do other Southerners who are tired of the bullshit.
And I suppose that's part of my point: I pass, so I hear lots of bigotry that others expect me to agree with, so I speak up and counter the bigoted crap (as do plenty of others I know who are in the same position). This means that the bigots see people like them who refuse to play the same racist (and the other "-ist" and "-obic" cards) they play in order to try to feel superior to other human beings.
Let me give one example. I work at an HBCU (for those who don't know, the acronym stands for Historically Black College or University). I'm on a commission appointed by the chancellor to study what had been reported in the media as a pattern of students (and ex-students) who were involved in violent crime. Yes, eight students in five years -- far fewer than the numbers at majority white schools in the state -- had been involved in violent crimes. We were named "Thug U." in the local media.
The city police captain participating in the investigation said, in a mixed black and white group (he was white), that (I'm paraphrasing here) of course similar methods to the ones that have been used to deal with gang violence in inner cities will be used to deal with the significant upsurge in violent crime at my institution.
Everyone looked at everyone else, obviously wondering whether he'd just said what they thought he said. He went on, oblivious to the glances crossing the room. I thought,
Am I going to have to be the one to challenge this jackass's statement? And raised my hand and asked him, "What did you mean?" I kept asking him what he meant until he saw that I was trying to ask why he was comparing gang violence in inner cities with the record of violent crime at my institution.
I'm not saying this in an attempt to advertise what a good little white liberal I can be. I'm saying this in an attempt to help you understand that each of us, in small baby steps, is trying to make the South a safer place for everyone.
NCbear (who is deeply and profoundly embarrassed to have to admit that, in this day and age, traveling in the Deep South still feels as dangerous as it did prior to the Civil Rights movement for many whose appearance, through no fault of their own, marks them in some way as a minority)
Second, I think Southern women really do something distinctive. They say, "That's nice" instead of "Fuck you."
