Is this true or is it that the South has never recovered completely from its choice in the early 19th century to concentrate on agriculture rather than industry?
Oh, certainly it counts for quite a lot. Likewise, the current flag isn’t the same as the one that flew over DC in 1865, so is that a different flag?
I saw something today, and I’m not quite sure what it means, if anything.
A pickup had a large sticker in the rear window:
WWBD
(a picture of a Confederate flag)
What Would Bubba Do?
Any ideas?
I’m no expert, but in my opinion it wasn’t really that bad a decision. And now, there’s no shortage of industry. Or money, for that matter. The largest banking center in the world outside of New York City is Charlotte.
Good question, dz. I am very weak in any understanding of economics and am pretty much repeating what I’ve always been told. I can tell you that the South is very industrial and that agriculture itself has become more industrial. In many cases, the farms are large and the farmers are wealthy. I don’t want to generalize too much about this though.
But for some reason, salaries and wages remain lower in the South. Real estate is cheaper than in a lot of areas, but I don’t know about the price of other goods and services. A good gage, so I’ve been told, of how well states are doing economically has always been teachers’ salaries. They have traditionally been lower in the South, but I haven’t checked in a long time.
Some rednecks and even non-redneck Southerners like to make fun of the redneck image – like Jeff Foxworthy. (I don’t see the stand-up comics use the battle flag much, though. Not very funny in most eyes.)
When I say “rednecks,” I’m using another label that I don’t like just because it is a quick image. I think that originally it must have been used to describe farm workers. In that case, I have technically qualified with an offical red neck earned the hard way. I used to pick cotton. (Some of our area schools let out six weeks in the fall for “cotton pickin’”.) I hated the work, but it was worth a day’s work just to ride on a wagon full of cotton to the gin.
That’s why I hate the flag and love the heritage.
About the mural in the post office of the slaves picking cotton: Is it wrong to portray history? I have mixed feelings about this. I don’t like destroying art, but maybe it’s time for something more contemporary or unifying.
<Arms up to the sky, swaying back and forth>
“All we are saaayyyyiinng…is give peas a chance”
Sorry for the back-track, just had to be said.
Zoe, I appreciate that you might not run into too much racism (as if any was okay, but you get what I mean). I see it almost daily. I here the ‘n’ word several times a week - and it is spoekn by white people in a derogatory fashion. Mostly by the middle class. Usually by the educated. Often by students at the university.
Your experiences obviously differ.
But racism is alive and well here. And tolerated. 
You’re welcome, and you too.
Anyhow, I’m going to take a step back here, because I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m trying to say. Which is NOT any of:
-Southerners are all racists
-Southern racism is a huge massive problem
-Southern racism taints everything associated with the south
-Southerners are idiots
-Southerners are blind to their problems
-The “right” way to react to racist incidents in the South is to bring up ancient history and use the phrase “Old South” and reopen old wounds (note that I did not start this thread, nor did I initially choose the phrasing therein)
-Anyone who claims that they go thorugh life in the South without seeing much racism is a liar or an idiot
I also will accede that the point I was trying to make is a rather minor one, compared to the actual import of incidents like the one covered in the OP. But it’s one that gets into my craw, and hey, what law says that only Very Important Topics can be discussed in the Pit?
Anyhow, here’s the point I’m trying to make. I believe that racism, specfically anti-Black racism, is still more of a problem in the South than in any other major region of the country. What I mean by that is, to explain it in a completely impractical fashion, that if you raised 100000 black and 100000 white people, of precisely equal innate ability and talents, in isolation, then inserted them, in family units, into society through the US, then came back 40 years later and measured their overall level of happiness/contentment/success, the white people would, on average, be more successful (and thus, generally, happier) (and no, I don’t mean “richer” when I say “more succesful”, I mean something more nebulous which I’ll expound on if you’re curious, although to a certain extent, it’s a know-it-when-I-see-it kind of thing) than the black people, because of the racism that exists in society today. And I also claim that disparity would be greatest in the South. (Note that this does NOT claim that no black person can be happy in the south, that every black person will be happy outside the south, that all southern people are racist, etc, etc, etc. It’s just a broad statement about averages.) (Note also that I’m willing to revise my opinion if someone does a study which indicates that it’s wrong. It would not be an easy study to do, however, although it certainly does not need to be as preposterously contrived as my hypothetical example.)
Anyhow, as I said, I believe the above to be true, and I also believe that it’s clearly enough true that it would be hard for any neutral observer to come to any other conclusion.
HOWEVER, I don’t think that it’s a particularly productive thing to go around waltzing through threads, randomly bringing up this point over and over again. What’s that going to accomplish? What, I’m going to hear someone talk about how nice the weather is in Atlanta, and say “ahh, but Atlanta is part of the South. Have I mentioned my claim about the South? Here it is…”.
BUT, even though I don’t see it as anything other than divisive and insulting to randomly start bringing this (as I see it) unpleasant truth up at random, when I see people espousing the position that there is equal racism across the country, particularly when I believe they are doing so out of bristly pride and defensiveness, THAT is when I speak up, because seeing what I view as clearly false statements espoused for basically political and cheap purposes bugs me.
Phew.
(Would I have been better off never opening my (virtual) mouth in the first place? Probably. But, hey, if everyone subscribed to that philosophy, what fun would the dope be?)
Well, I’m with you until the part about “bringing it up at random”. The story that caused this thread to start SHOULD be talked about–it should have been nation-wide front page news, IMO.
How else to educate people on the fact that 1. racism still exists and 2. it should not be acceptable?
All the rest, the “old South” label etc–baggage and opinon (including my own)–but the story and the outrage needed to be told.
Absolutely. When a horrible incident like this occurs, it definitely needs to be discussed. What I think is a not particularly clear question is to what extent it is worth discussing the incident in a vacuum, vs. the incident in the larger society of the south, with its history, etc.
What I was talking about about bringing things up at random would be randomly using “the south is racist” as either an insult or some kind of general-evidence-of-southern-inferiority during an entirely unrelated conversation.
gotcha–I agree.