Posted on 12/08/2005 9:31:47 AM PST by hiramknight
KNIGHTDALE, N.C. -- Within a year of moving to the Boston area toward the end of 2000, Raymond Johnson began lobbying his wife, Idella, to leave a region whose coldness -- in every sense of that word -- had baffled, frustrated, and ultimately alienated....
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
A black man in New York (who was originally from South Carolina) once told me that he was far more comfortable in the "segregated" South than in the Northeast. I got the sense that for a lot of people in the South, segregation ran both ways -- where people were simply far more comfortable living "among their own."
I lived all over. I found the North to be far more racist than the South- Bostonians in particular.
Not to long ago, my company hired a man from Jamaica. He spent a month trying to get someone to train him. No one would give him the time of day let alone work with him. Finally, after a month, he left on a Friday and never came back. He had an electrical engineering degree, and a long list of qualifications. He would have been a valuable asset.
Get the fuggoudaheah! Come back when you grow a pair!
(Not you, Hiram...them.)
I'm originally from the Northest and have sttled in south Mississippi. Up north, they tend to bend over backwards to let Blacks know how much they care; "Why, some of my best friends are Black.", and end up embarrassing themselves and the targets of their "largess of tolerance". Down south, we just tend to get along and take each other's measure by what a person does or does not do. No special efforts to "right terrible wrongs, real or imagined". I guess one might call that treating everyone else as equals and with due respect.
Not perfect by any means as there are racists and "dogooders" everywhere, but us southerners (even the transplanted "damn Yankees" like me) seem to have a better handle on this "problem" than the "I feel your pain" snobs up in the Northeast Blue States.
When I attended Boston's city wide schools in the 1960's, blacks could attend if they passed the exams. Some did, albeit not in as great as proportion to their population, 12 percent. Now they are the largest single ethnic group in Boston, 40 to 45 percent, and the schools are about 90 percent black.
Racial segregation is alive and well. My liberal neighbors live in the white neighborhoods. who are they kidding?
I agree. I lived in NJ all my life and moved down to South Carolina last Spring.
NJ is FAR more racist than South Carolina, both in outright racism and "hidden" racism, like not wanting to cross a street for fear of offending a black man. All they SEE is color.
But, I am not sure if it is ALL racism or if it is partly classist and snobbery. my husband's job (warehouse work) was sneered at in NJ. People would look at me all sympathetic (??? why? It is an honest day's work) once they heard my husband's job and then ignore me pretty much. And it was often the FIRST question asked ("what does your husband do"?"). Then, "What do you do?". Also got funny looks when told I stay at home with my child.
Here, there is none of that hypocrisy and nonsense.
but..but..the MSM insinuates that stuff only happens in the South since we're backwards and all...
The South is, and has for a long time, been much more harmonious racially then the northeast. There is today more segregation in New England then in the most of the South. Definition of a hypocrite.
I too spent years down south. Tennessee for a year, Jax and Titusville Fla,. I found the same to be true. If a black man walked into the room, he was treated and addressed like any other man. Up here, everyone gets ultra politically correct, condecending, and the atmosphere turns very uncomfortable. Some of the best racial jokes I ever heard were told by my black friends.
Having lived and worked in the Northeast for nearly 20 yearsas a transplanted midwesterner - I can assure this family there is nothing racial about their treatment. NO New Englander is EVERY 'warm and friendly' to anyone except someone with a clearly European accent. mASSholes fawn over Europeans, especially the Euro-trash that frequents Newbury street and its environs.
No one will ever know if any of the incidents mentioned had race at it's base, but the Race Animosity Lobby has done a good job indoctrinating minorities into perceiving every trivial negative interaction with caucasions as a racial insult.
"but..but..the MSM insinuates that stuff only happens in the South since we're backwards and all..."
Lol, meanwhile they are all moving down here...
I guess all those liberal northeasterers are moving down here to try and "fix" the south.
This has little to nothing to do with these people being black. This is exactly what I ran into in Boston.
In the south, outside of the larger urban areas, black people go back generation upon generation, in the same place. They've been here as long or longer than anyone else has, centuries in fact. As a result, there is a sense of place and belonging that transcends any war or past transgression, real or mythical, which is the very same sentiment that the white (and native) residents share. We've settled back into live and let live, that is, where the professionally aggrieved will permit. No place is perfect, but the reputation for racist attitudes is greatly exaggerated, for political purposes no doubt.
It's more relaxed here, for good and for not-so-good ... mostly good, in my own perception, but I'm more than a bit biased, because I'm proud to be a tenth generation southerner. In the same vein, it could be said that all the striving and concern over appearance that this couple witnessed and experienced in Boston has both positive and negative sides as well. They certainly kept their houses and farms groomed, painted and pretty, at least for the most part, while down here it was not exactly picture postcard perfect, other than the wealthy plantations. I've seen letters written by Union soldiers passing through the area, dismayed at the lack of paint or whitewash on houses and barns. They thought it showed a lack of civic pride at best, and was slovenly or lazy at worst.
Everybody has different standards and expectations.
I lived in the North for two years on the border of New York and Pa. I had moved from North Carolina and the culture shock was unbelieveable. For the first time in my life I saw a Klan rally. I saw racism run rampant and nobody saying a word about it. I was also a victim of that bigotry not because I am a minority but because I am from the South. I was treated worse than the minorities as the hatred for my kind was both evident and open. At work I was openly called "boy" and a "racist" (because we Southerners had owned slaves not due to anything I said or did) and was continually harrased due to my accent and place of origin. These attacks were open and hostile. (I even have a tape recording somewhere that I made secretly after my complaints were ignored) After two years of this and the horrible weather I had had enough and moved to Georgia. I haven't seen the kind of hatred anywhere like the hatred I experienced in the North.
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