Black Dopers, do you do this when watching the news, too?

[Jaade]

TWDuke said:

What about Southern presidents of the United States? Say what you want about Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton, but only people on the tattered fringe would characterize them as ignorant racists.

White girl born and raised in GA here. I’m afraid that we southerners are stuck with the image of being backwards, hillbilly, incestous, uneducated racists. People love to hear my “cute little accent” but can hardly believe I can string together a full sentence without using the word ain’t.

Like other southeners here, I DO cringe whenever I see that 4 white men dragged a black man behind a truck…whenever they “feature” KKK members on the news (or worse, Jerry Springer), whenever a tornado trashes a trailer park and they bring out a blubbering, toothless, fat, curler wearing woman that speaks worse than my 5 year old.

People don’t care that two of the most recent presidents were from the South. Only we Georgians seem to remember Jimmy Carter, and well, regardless of how well or badly you think Clinton did, NO ONE wants to be associated with him.

[labboy]

I think OOC had it right when he said it depends upon how you self-identify. I’m a catholic-french-american (cajun) and my wife is a catholic-french-afro-american (creole). So I’ve always identified with this group and focus instead on the persons last name. I’m hoping that the criminal dosen’t have a french-catholic name. As far back as I can remember I’ve always identified french-catholics (black, white, or mixed) as us, and protestants (black or white) as them.