Posted on 03/06/2013 6:43:04 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In the wake of last week’s Supreme Court arguments over the Voting Rights Act, the geography of racism is once again a topic of debate. None other than Chief Justice John Roberts kicked things off when he asked the act’s defenders—that would be the U.S. government—a 20-word question that brilliantly framed the entire debate: “Is it the government’s submission that the citizens of the South are more racist than the citizens of the North?” Roberts asked, pinning a very ragged tail on a very ugly donkey.
Unlike most debates about this question, this one has real implications. The landmark act requires that areas of the country with a particularly virulent history of racial discrimination must receive federal approval before making changes in their voting laws. To no one’s surprise, the majority of the states covered by Section 5 are located in the South. If the answer is “yes,” then a reasonable case can be made for upholding the existing law.
But I can’t help thinking that no one is going to be convinced. People see the words “racism” and “South” and, whatever their level of social enlightenment or position on immigration reform, their view is already fixed. It doesn’t matter whether it comes from doctrinaire northern liberals convinced that the entire South is one federal restriction away from launching a wistful, slave days lynch-fest, or if it’s shouted from the ramparts by hayfoot rebel martyrs who know in their hearts that New York, Detroit, or Chicago are the true racist hellscapes and that everyone north of the Ohio River who ever opened a perfidious Yankee textbook has been tricked by a litany of briar patch falsehoods and trailer gentry stereotypes.
Last year, I wrote a book about the South. It was not what you’d call a warm, loving embrace....
(Excerpt) Read more at newrepublic.com ...
s/b "AND Chicago" ... Sheesh. Other than that, great sentence.
No.
Racism in Detroit led to Michigan’s first gun registration boards. They were a direct result of Dr Ossian Sweet being acquitted of murdering a white man who was part of a mob trying to force Sweet out of a “white neighborhood”.
Who cares what the traitor Roberts asks? It’s all a sham and he’ll toe whatever line Elmer Fudd tells him to toe.
I attended my first "black" shower here in SC for a soon to be bride.
His argument boils down to symbolism being more important than substance.
That is, a Confederate flag is more racist than encouraging black women to abort their babies. Voluntary segregation is more damning than denying black people the right to own guns.
He cites no northern racism at all, but would assure us, no doubt, that “code words” *implying* racism by Republicans, at least by his interpretation, are far worse than Democrat policies that actually, quantifiably deny black people an education, self-sufficiency or prosperity.
Big Labor is the new slavemaster wielding a whip to keep workers in line with their extortion racket. Unionism and its partner, the minimum wage, inflict more damage than any plantation overseer did centuries ago. Union thuggery is the 21st Century form of segregation and bitter racism. Thankfully Dixie is free of forced unionism.
Umm. Ok. Where's the other half?
Interesting this idiot can write an entire article on the South's history with racism and not even mention political parties.
I grew up in the North (NY) and lived in the South (TN, GA), and overseas too.
Excepting the bleeding heart leftists one has in public office in the North, who give a false public facade, I find the average northerner, both black and white, more race-conscious, and segregated, than the average southerner.
Bingo. I’ll echo your observation having lived both in the Northeast and down in N. Carolina. I’ve found the N.E. far more segregated.
The Thompson article quotes the Southern Poverty Legal Center as its main authority. But the Center is itself a liberal hate group. It hates conservatives. It even calls the think tank Family Research Council in Washington DC a hate group for being opposed to the radical homosexual agenda.
Liberals who hate conservatives and conservative beliefs — that’s the worst kind of hate in this country.
The worst racism is in the DoJ offices in DC.
If you can not quantify it as compared to the North, it must be the same or less than in the North.
We in the South got over it years ago. We lost the battle of segregation and discrimination and that was a good thing. If you want to find racism, go North not South.
A writer in the Economist once said that “Northeners hate blacks as individuals, but love them as a group, while Southerners hate blacks as a group but love them as individuals”.
I was raised in Nancy Pelosi’s home territory - Baltimore. After college, lived at the beach in Los Angeles, then a few years in Boulder, Colorado and Richmond Virginia before I settled in Alabama.
I can tell you - the only state worth living in is Alabama where I’ve observed 20 years of people of all colors getting along. Everyone says please, thank you, and excuse me.
I grew up in Oakland, Ca. and lived throughout the South and the West subsequently. At a personal level, I found the residents of Oakland to be far more racist than any in the South or the Greater West.
The Southern Poverty "Law" Center hates conservatives, but they hate southerners more. Black, white, democrat, republican. It is straight from the communist manifesto to divide the races and conquer.
Yep. That’s a story that blacks rarely know. It needs to be told. Gun control is largely aimed at black people. Urban liberals don’t trust blacks with their own lives. Who in their right mind would arm their pets?
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