About 3% of Canada’s population self identifies as black.
Regarding your point about native peoples - well, there is certainly an issue with native peoples in Canada and it’s very regional. However, that being said, I can’t imagine a couple of native women being refused service in a restaurant simply because they were native. I really can’t fathom of that happening and I can imagine the outrage of the other patrons if it did.
That that happened to boofuu and her friend is shocking to me.
I worked for a company that shipped me off to “The South” for a few days every couple of months.
It was like going to another planet, another age. I’m the most Un-PC guy I can think of, and even I was shocked at the attitudes and vibe of the place. It blew my tiny mind, baby!
boofuu hasn’t quite cleared up exactly what she meant. She said that happened in the “Durham of 54.” I can’t make sense of that unless she is referring to a year. If it is a year, please take into consideration that it was not unusual to deny service to people of color in the 1950s.
The South and parts of the North were segregated in many ways. We did not stay in the same hotels, eat in the same restaurants, drink from the same water fountains, use the same restrooms, sit in the same parts of movie theaters, go to the same schools, sit in the same waiting rooms at the bus station. This was true regardless of how we felt about black people. We didn’t have any choice.
Once I accidentally walked into the black waiting room at the bus station to use the phone. This was in the early 1960s when the country was in a lot of racial lturmoil. I didn’t realize what I had done until I looked up and every person in that waiting room was staring at me including the people who would normally have had their backs to me.
I was never sure of why what I did was so displeasing, but it was. I left as quickly as I realized that I was in the wrong. I always wondered if they thought I was trying to make trouble or that I would get them in trouble. Or was this their way of showing me that I was not wanted because of my race?
For the record, Alice, Waffle House was founded in 1955. IHOP (International House of Pancakes) which boofuu said that she had rather have gone to was not founded until 1958. So I’m not certain what “54” she was referring to.
Waffle House is known for its mixed crowds and poor folks fare, so I can’t imagine their turning anyone out these days because of race. It wasn’t illegal to do that in 1954, but it certainly is now!
Heyyyay! Life long southerner here. I eat fried green tomatoes, grits and fried okra. (My diet is my cred)
**
Caveat **said what I wanted to say, except I heard it as “Southerners like blacks as individuals, but hate them as a group, Northerners hate blacks as individuals, but like them as a group.”
I don’t know who upthread that said the black people here aren’t like they are there, or similar, but I understand what his friends were talking about. I have no idea what it is like in other parts of the world, but from my perspective, I think this is what he means. Imagine this scenario, you are walking down a sidewalk by yourself. There are three black girls coming towards you. You move to the right to make sure they have room to get by, they continue walking straight through you. It isn’t because they don’t see you. That isn’t an isolated incident, it happens a lot. And mostly with a certain “type” of black person. There is an anger present and what seems like an attitude of, I’m not sure, like, reverse racism. I remember black girls in my school being so terrible to a super nice teacher, the teacher used whatever the politically correct term for black people was in those days, and a girl flipped out. It got so ludicrious, to this day I remember her saying “I’m not african american, I’m pecan tan!”
Now, my last job, as a poker dealer, I dealt with everybody. I mean everybody. We had quite a few black players that were regulars. It was rather funny actually, because we had ONE black guy that played tournaments, he was a quite handsome, well built black guy and about as friendly as a person could be. Folks would bend over backwards to try to describe him without saying he was black. We all thought it was hilarious. You see, him being black was a part of him, just how he was. He wasn’t all “I’m black bitch, you betta respect me!” I don’t know what black folks like him, think when he sees the other type. I know he probably gets treated poorly at times because they expect him to act like that.
My friend from Nigeria would always be dumbfounded when people were afraid of him, or were rude to him. He didn’t grow up being thought of as a no’count.
As a 40 year old, in my youth, it was unheard of to date interracially. I mean, basically only the overweight, blonde white chicks did it. Now? I see it all the time, I see mixed babies, hell, we got ourselves a mixed Presidential Candidate, but the fact is, the younger generation doesn’t seem to give a shit at all, that or they give way too much of a shit.
Don’t forget, us Southerners are the ones that coined the phrase “Poor, White, Trash.” As a white girl, I have a dreaded fear of being labelled that.
I will add that my husbands Grandfather, who’s parents were from Spain, when selecting the details of my wedding, asked me what color I wanted the waiters to be. I laugh at him and asked him to show me skin swatches. That sort of thing is definitely more common with the old folks.
Oooh, just remembered. My Grandmother said that she used to be around black people all the time, they babysat her kids, tended her garden, cleaned her house, but after desegregation she really wasn’t every around black people for a very long time. She knew more of them, and more about them before.
I said that, and I agree with your scenario. It is a perfect example of what I am referring to.
Earlier today, I saw two black girls crossing a four-lane major street in my town. There was a fire truck coming down this road, sirens wailing. They crossed (I say crossed but they weren’t at a crossing section) in front of the fire truck and never sped up or slowed down, kept their pace, causing the fire truck to have to stop. I saw the driver throw his hands up like WTF?! They never even looked up at him, and they never acknowledged the emergency vehicle’s existence. This happens all the time. I thought of this thread.
I’ve lived in this town for 36 years. I’ve had people attempt to cut in front of me in line more times than I can count, then look back at me after like they were daring me to say something. Never has this person been anything other than black. Does that mean that only black people cut in line? Absolutely not. Several times there were black people present that got on there asses before I could.
And on and on and on…
If I’m so far off the mark, how come I have black friends that make statements like, “I hate niggers!”? How come I have friends that moved from up north and were initially appalled by racist remarks only to be completely turned around in respect to a large portion of the African American community? How come Chris Rock has an enormously popular skit in which he addresses this exact issue?
And again, I am certainly not referring to an entire race of people, and I’m not even referring to a particular geography on the whole considering that I know many black people in my community that are appalled by this behavior.
I’m not trying to be silly here. I would genuinely like an answer (and I’ll take any acceptable answer as education and ignorance fighting at its finest).
I’ll toss this out for fodder. Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama aren’t who I was thinking of when I read your post. I knew exactly what you meant.
I can’t believe that people don’t understand what you meant. It boggles. Haven’t they ever heard of someone being shunned because they weren’t “black” enough? My class Valedictorian was a black guy that was completely shunned by his family. His brother attended our school and would deny he was his brother. The brother of course, had a record, got into all sorts of trouble, dropped out, etc, but he WAS accepted by his family. The Valedictorian got a scholarship at Univ of Penn. He joked that he was the token black. He didn’t care, he escaped the projects. Last I heard, he was a professor at a college in Texas.
I hope pride in being stupid is fading. Although with the baggy pants and gangsta stuff, it is hard to tell. (GET OFF MY LAWN)
I may have to modify my stance on southern race relations, I’m currently in Tampa where the fear is the town is being taken over by Hispanics is pretty prevalent. Maybe when I get moved to North Carolina, I’ll have a different perspective.
FTR: My known molester of children Father called me (the last time I spoke to him) and told me the whole family was humiliated, my cousin was gonna have a black baby. Oh, ok, a family full of dirtbags and no’counts, welfare sucking, ignorant, child destroying sleazoids don’t think their bloodline would be dramatically improved by even a drop of ANYONE else’s blood? They could breed with pond scum and be elevated.
I have lived in South Mississippi all my life except for the ages between 2 and 9 years old where I lived about an hour and a half away from Atlanta, Georgia. I am a white woman who is 31 years old. In my experience no one would ever yell racial slurs at at a black business man or any black person. As some people have stated in their replies, “some people would however make racists comments behind closed doors.”
Racism exist every where and is in the hearts of some of all races. To put a label on a particular region is a form of racism itself. I live in an area called Kiln, Mississippi. It is considered the country. 20 minutes away is Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi which is considered the city. I went to a high school in Bay Saint Louis for one year which was equally numbered with whites and blacks. During this time I witnessed racism in both the white and black race. There were riots a few times (this was in 1994). It seems strange that their would be a riot that late in life after slavery and segregation. The sad thing is I witnessed more racism from the blacks than the whites in that school. But all the other years of high school I went to the high school in Kiln, Mississippi. At this school the majority was white kids, and you would think that would cause more controversy and racial problems. But that was not the case; we all got along great, were good friends, and remained friends.
In my experience I have met more Northerners that hated black people than I have with Southerners I have known all my life. Now I am not saying that I don’t know Southern people who vary between extremely racist, mildly racist, and just don’t believe in bi-racial relationships/marriages. Some of these people have had it burned into their minds from birth by their parents and grandparents. I am ashamed to admit I have immediate family that are racist in some shape or form. For instance my 82 year old grandmother (her grandfather owned slaves in the slavery days) has a horrible habit of using the word nigger and does not believe in inter-racial relationships (Her theory is that people should marry their own kind and that their children are the ones who suffer). After slavery she also remembers when black people had to go to the back door of white people’s houses if the wanted to talk or needed something. I don’t think she intentionally means to be hateful by using the word nigger ( I think it is just because of the time she was raised in and habit). However one of her best friends was a black lady named Mrs. Ada who lived across the street from her. After both of their husbands died they would help each other out by things such as loaning money to each other when they got in a bind, and I remember how my grandmother always saved scraps for Mrs. Ada’s dog. My grandmother was raised in Enterprise, Mississippi which is close to Meridian. The first time I ever visited this place was after Hurricane Katrina when my grandmother, aunt, and mother moved back there. The town is so small if you blinked while passing through you would miss it. It reminds me of the Andy Griffith show. It is very different from Bay Saint Louis and Kiln, Mississippi. There are two gas stations. One station is the black store and the other is the white store, although whites and blacks will stop in at both stores. But blacks mostly go to their store, and whites mostly go to their store. There is one grocery store. One day my grandmother was at the grocery store with my aunt when she got tired and decided to go sit outside on the bench. There was a old black man sitting out there and he told her “you know they might shoot us for sitting next to each other”. She preceded to tell him well I guess in the hell they are just going to have to shoot me because I am tired and I am sitting here I don’t care what color you are. I found it strange that in this day and time somebody would say that, but if you see the town and hear the people talk you can kind of see the reason. It is just weird to me because it is not like that here where I live and I live further south than Enterprise, Ms. She doesn’t believe in mistreating someone for their color,and she agrees that slavery was wrong, but she still has that habit of saying nigger and doesn’t believe in inter-racial dating and marriages. I don’t understand why old people are so shocked and disgusted by mixing because the slave owners/masters slept with and impregnated their slave women. I remember in high school a black guy friend of mine asked me to homecoming as friends because he needed a date. I had to turn him down because I knew my father would have a fit. I always felt horrible for that, and hated having to tell my friend no, and having to explain to him it was because my father would have had a fit. He was a nice and intelligent guy, and thankfully he didn’t hold it against me. My father has black friends and shows mutual respect to black people, but it was programmed into his mind as well that mixing was wrong. He would of said that if I went with Albert to the dance just as friends that it would have sent the wrong impression to him and other black guys. Now neither of my parents had a problem with my black friends staying the night with me or me staying the night with them.
Now one thing I hate and ticks me off worse than anything is how white people(no matter where they live) that are racist will automatically call another white person a nigger lover if they defend a black person in any way. I for one have never had any relationship with a black man other than friendship ( it would of never lasted because of my family) but I have been called a nigger lover because of defending black people against racism. My brothers have always got along great with black people in Mississippi and Georgia. My older brother of the two has more black friends than any other color person because he just feels more comfortable with them. He is a little wild and out there (very hyper and ADD) and I guess black people just accept him and like him better than white people. Both my brothers also have dated many black girls (really every color girl). My point in telling about my family is to show more experience in knowing about racism in the south. My mother was with a man from the north for 5 years, and he was one of the most racist people I ever seen. He left my mother in a club one night because we were all out celebrating New Years and we were invited by some friends to stop in at a predominately black club. While we were all dancing and having a good time he left without even letting my mom know. His reason was he couldn’t stand that nigger music and being around all those nigger thugs. My point of that is my mother, my husband, and I were raised in the south, and her boyfriend was raised in the North. He left and was saying all the racist things, and we thought nothing of hanging out and having a good time with the black people ( We were of the very few whites in the club I might add).
To label people by their skin color, their religion, or where they are from is just pure ignorance. Now I have to say in ways I am shamed to be a white person because the white man is known for invading people’s land, lives, and freedom more than anyone I know of (correct me if I am wrong). If I am wrong well then I am ashamed of what my ancestors did to the Indians and Africans. I don’t understand how so many white people of slavery time called themselves christian but participated in such a hateful thing as slavery. They would sit there and say black people had no souls and God meant for whites to be superior to blacks (What part of God created all men equal did they not understand about the bible?) How could those white men slave owners father those children and then sell them off? I will never as long as I live understand what was going through white people’s mind during those times, how they could of been so evil, and how they thought they could justify what they were doing. Another thing I don’t understand is if the Northerner’s were fighting the war to end slavery and didn’t approve it then why are any of them racist? Why did all those white women sit back and stay married to their husbands that were sleeping with and raping the black women slaves. White people brought Africans over here against their will, made them work like farm animals without pay, (mentally and physically abused them or killed them), humillulated them, made them breed like they were animal stock, and as if that wasn’t enough sold their children and families off as punishments or because of inconviences. I remember seeing the Roots Saga on TV the first time as a very young child (probably some where between the age of 5 and 8 years old cant remember) and I cried uncontrollably and could not believe what I was watching and that it was true. I still watch it every once in a while to remind myself when I am ticked off by a black person acting racist that is the reason (even though it is not right for black people to hold hatred against white people that had nothing to do with what their ancestors did to their ancestors). It still is understandable. It is so hard for me to perceive that my ancestors were capable of such horrible acts of violence, hatred, and heartlessness. People who know me well know that I am telling the truth when I say if I lived in that time I would of been beat and hanged right along with the slaves because I would been considered a nigger lover because I would of never participated in any of it. I would of defended them and let the whites know they were the ones who were animals with no souls that would rot in hell. I really don’t believe that the whites thought blacks were not intelligent enough to learn, I know they wanted to keep them from learning because of their own fears of them being smarter than them.
As a couple other people have mentioned, I have seen some black people do things such as try to walk straight through white people on the street or not move out of the way of the road out of meaness and hatred. I am not saying that I have seen a lot of it, but I have seen it. I have been called a honky and a cracker. Racism comes in all shapes and forms, and it is in some of the hearts of people of all color and regions. You can’t call yourself a christian and hate people because of the color of their skin. One day we will live peacefully in heaven with people of all color and walks of life. I personally can’t wait for that day.
I’m 37. I’ve lived in the South all my life. I’m curious where these people are going where they hear racial slurs and the feeling of being “in another world”. Are you hanging out in trailer parks?
These threads always leave me irritated. People have the idea that it’s still like Mississipi Burning all over the ‘South’.
I’m still curious if the guy who mentioned the bad incident in N.C was referring to 1954 or off Route 54? Because if he’s adding his experiences of 1954 to this discussion it deserves a big eyeroll.
Very nice post, slevron – thanks for sharing your experiences, and welcome to the SDMB!
I don’t mean to deny that maybe there is more racism here. I haven’t personally seen it, but i’ll take peoples word. But I also think that many people’s views are colored by the South’s not terribly distant past.
That being said, keep in mind that the people who first attended integrated schools are approaching middle age now. People who lived under Jim Crow as children are approaching retirement age. I think any remnants of overt racism are rapidly dying with my grandparents generation.
Holy freakin’ wall of text Batman!!
I’m also not black, but brown. This is from years ago, so who knows, maybe things have changed drastically. I admit, it’s colored my perception of the “South”. I put South in quotes because the area I speak of is Nashville, TN.
My family moved there when I was thirteen, which would put it in…1988 or so. We spent six months there and it was awful. People were cruel right to our faces. After six months I had one friend, and people mocked him for being friends with me.
I don’t remember too many of the details, but none of the nurses at my mom’s job liked her. Eventually the head nurse got to like her because Mom used to come in no matter what during the snow - we’d come from Michigan, and snow in TN is a joke compared to snow in MI. But all of the other nurses would stay home.
I was miserable and so was my mother at our treatment. I’m sure my dad might have been but he didn’t talk about such things. My uncle also moved near us, and I used to hang out with my cousin because no one else would talk to me.
But, like I said, that was years and years ago and things are most likely different now.
I’ve lived in the South my entire life. Half of it spent in a small town, the other half in Atlanta. I’ve never seen anyone refuse service to a black person. Though I’ve heard people use the word “nigger” behind closed doors, I’ve never seen or heard anyone use it in the presence of African Americans. In fact, I’ve probably heard more racial slurs from Northern transplants then I have from Southerners.
I have, as a white man, been stonewalled in a couple of situations. Most builders in the city of Atlanta, myself included, hire AA “expediters” to get permitting approved in City Hall.
None of the above is used to suggest that there isn’t plenty of racism in the South. There is, but I don’t think it’s any worse than what you would see in NYC, Boston, or Detroit.
I’ve lived in the South for about 10 years. I’m a white male, so not being a target of racism myself may color (sorry) my perspective, but I haven’t noticed that racism is worse here then the years I lived in New England and Chicago.
One time I was with a bunch of older guys (in their 50s and 60s) and one made a comment about “niggers” and a few others laughed. That’s the only occasion I can think of that I’ve seen overt racism. Both offices where I’ve worked have had a good number of black people who worked there, including management, and I never saw any of them treated differently. One of my son’s kindergarten friends is a little black girl who lives on our street and she LOVES my boy (she told my wife she wants to marry him) and plays with him and his other friends.
Really the only place I’ve seen folks segregate out by race is at church. We have a few black families at our church, but only a small handful out of 500 families. There is also a Sudanese immigrant congregation that worships at our church, but they have their own services in their own language and the two congregations do not mix much. I don’t think this is a Southern thing, though, most churches are segregated in the north too in my experience.
I’ve never lived in the South, but I’ll chime in.
I live in a majority white suburb of Philadelphia (city itself is majority black). I see and hear worse examples of overt racism than most mentioned in this thread, all the time. Even though people know that I get very offended by racist remarks and that I will often start fights with people over it, they persist in rubbing it in my face to get a reaction. Racial ‘humor’ (basically just using slurs and repeating stereotypes) is a big form of entertainment. A lot of it is the people I associate with - I work service jobs and with contractors, my coworkers don’t feel the need to censor their worst thoughts. It’s really appalling, there is so much anger even though it’s usually presented as just a ‘joke’. It’s not just white people against black people of course. There is a fairly large Korean population in the Phil. area (some 5% of the city is Korean) and there seems to be a lot of racial tension on every side. Black and white people target Koreans; many Korean people I know are extremely prejudiced against black people in particular. I see a lot of interracial dating, marriages, and children and it’s usually a major problem for everyone involved. I’ve heard more disgusting comments about white girls with black boyfriends or mixed children…:mad: People seem to have the most issue with black/white couples.
I used to be innocent. I moved to this area when I was 14 and attended a fairly racially and ethnically diverse high school only a mile from where I live now. Before that I lived in up state NY and in South Dakota, and I had trouble even grasping the concept of racism. There were only a couple non-white families in my town, so it just never came up in daily life. My parents talked to me about it a fair amount, because they grew up in Hawaii where white people are a pretty big minority, and they were proud not to be hateful towards non-white people.
That’s dedicated racism right there. In my experience a racist guy will be a guy before a racist. This crass and NSFW poster holds for most cases I’ve seen.
I’ve lived in Virginia for most of my life and have seen plenty of racism of various kinds. Heck, I lived through the 60’s when my city was fighting so hard to keep from integrating the schools. When they lost I was bussed to a former “black” elementary school. That place was a pit because it didn’t get the same kinds of resources as the white schools and hadn’t been maintained for years. That’s separate but not equal. I won’t get into it but my dad was extremely racist. I don’t see his kind anymore.
These days the racism is more subtle but still there. My kids have many friends of many different races and ethnic groups and seem to get along just fine. But … they still mention race. “The black kids are doing this”, “The Asian kids are doing that”, “the whole soccer team is Hispanic.” It is in our nature to generalize and we are more likely to make statements about people when we actually interact with them.
The most open displays of racism I see these days are from people who apparently live where everyone is white. Those people who just know that all white people in the south are evil and all black people in the south are noble. I’ve met a few, one who refused to travel into Virginia because he seriously believed there was some kind of race war going on and it wasn’t safe for a friend of the black man (himself) to be seen there. Another who asked me once why we make black men wear “those things” on their heads. She meant doo rags. Turns out she had met a black man before and HE didn’t wear one.
[Mod Note]I’m going to let this stay open as long as people realize that all posts before #67 are from more than two years ago-some of those posters are not here any more, and others might not have the same opinions they previously held.[/Mod Note]
A good thing about the current south is that an interracial couple displaying mild pda could walk through any mall and not get hassled or jeered. A bad thing is that a same sex couple displaying mild pda would likely get hassled or jeered by members of both races. But I doubt that’s just the south.
I remember some of the days of the past. As a child in 60s I’d seen KKK billboards and Whites Only signs, and special entrances marked Colored. In the 70s I remember segregated hospitals (by custom, no longer legally sanctioned), and attitudes of ‘white superiority’. Those who remember this, or are exposed to the cultural memory may see the current situation differently than those who don’t. My own observation based on travel through the south now, is that overt racism has greatly diminished. Racism still abounds throughout this country though.
Growing up in Maryland, a southern, but Union state, racism and bigotry was abundant, and I’ve recently been reminded that it has never left entirely. But it is no longer predominant there, or through the rest of the south in my experience. In the northern states, racism has diminished as well, but also still lingers. Several recent experiences here in the north tell me that the problem is not over, and once again bad economic conditions exacerbate the situation. I doubt racism will ever die off here, or there.
