And yet black people were treated, in general, much better (both before and after slavery) in Northern states, even though they were often treated terribly. I think there was some difference in the attitudes.
It’s hard to imagine anything doing more harm than Southerners did in the century after the Civil War. It’s not realistic that the incredible racism that existed could have been totally stamped out, but the idea that the Confederacy fought for an honorable cause might have been.
The north happily profited from slavery…and a cite please to show the north wasnt as racist. BTW…during the reconstryction period in the south when blacks were elected to Congress…how many blacks were elected in northern states?
There was a lot more lynching in the South, and a lot more voter suppression of black people, and the anti-miscegenation laws in the South weren’t repealed/struck-down until much later (and needed a Supreme Court decision to do so), and a lot more support for segregationist politicians… as bad as many Northern states were for black people, Southern states were even worse, and usually far worse.
Cites please that black lives were better in the ghettoized north. Seems like lots of this debate is part recreational outrage and part we are better than you. The study of the history of racism in the USA has to embrace all of the USA. The northern bankers and ship owners were just as guilty as southern plantation owners.
Segregation was defacto all across the country. Remember the Boston busing demonstartions in the 70s? Miscegenation was also defacto all across the country. Sure you could technically marry across racial lines you would also be shunned and lose your job/professional status. This whole what is worse is really silly. It was bad everywhere. And it was almost only those pesky northern christians that fought against the racism.
Yep. For most of American history until quite recently, America was the enemy of black people. But for most of that history, the Southern states were even worse enemies of black people, and treated black people even worse than non-Southern states.
Your statement altered into this is equally true: “The people trying to deflect the most attention from racism in the north are the same people who are often trying to downplay racism in general.”
This is somewhat analogous to debates about the Nazi past in Germany and Austria. Germans were forced to confront its Nazi past as has moved on; Austria was allowed to deny its deep involvement in the 3rd Reich and its crimes and can pretend it was forced into the Nazi regime.
And nothing is stopping you from starting threads on those subjects, but you can’t just say “Don’t talk about that-this is more important.” What are supposed to do-have one racism thread in GD limited to whatever you think is the most important topic?
The right strategy for pointing out other forms of racism and oppression is “this stuff in the South was horrible. When we’re done talking about this for now, let’s take a look at this other thing – maybe it was pretty bad too…” as opposed to “stop harping on the South for racism!”.
No, it is not equally true. We have one party that is constantly attempting to downplay the effects of racism. That same party is largely associated with an attempt to downplay the racist underpinning of the Civil War and the post-Civil War South. These things appear to be linked, though whether the linkage is ideological or political is a good question.
Never said you couldnt talk about it and never said stop harping on the south for racism. Some posters are using broadbrush language to tar and feather an entire group of people…why, isnt that a tactic of bigotry??
I said that American racism has to be examined in its entirety and it does no good to fingerpoint. No one here is innocent. This ‘outrage’ isnt making things better and sure isnt going to open any closed minds. Slavery in the south would have been impossible without northern finance and shipping. Time for us to grow up and focus on what all of us did to make this situation so terrible.