Racist attitudes you experienced in "Northern" states as a kid

[Cyningablod]

@bump

You just don’t see that kind of thing in polite company down here; the only times I’ve heard it in Texas has been among the very trashiest of rednecks.

I second this.

I’m 35. Lived in rural east Tennessee 'til age 25, and have spent the last 10 years in the San Antonio, TX, area. (Well, there were a few years there living in GA and NC while in the Army, but I don’t really count those.)

I have seen very, very little racism in the last few decades, either in Tennessee or in Texas. It could be that it’s at least in part because down here in the south Texas Hill Country, whites are in the minority (the population of San Antonio, for example, is ~65% Hispanic). I live near and work closely with many Hispanics, and have never heard a disparaging word out of any of their mouths about anyone.

Or it could be–and this is what I prefer to believe–that we younger Southerners have “learned our lesson”…at least a little bit. Both my wife and I come from long, long lines of white, racist, slave-owning families (with roots in the Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee), and pretty much all of our elders were GHASTLY racist. But without a single exception, all of us 50 years and younger in both sets of families are thoroughly and totally anti-racist. And so are pretty much all of our friends.

So I hope it’s a learned sensitivity. It wouldn’t surprise me if nowadays, the North were generally more racist than the South.

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[boring historical-political comment]

Where I grew up in the southwestern Appalachian mountains (east TN), there had never been any plantation agriculture–way too hilly. So that land had generally been settled by poor white yeoman farmers, and very few blacks had ever lived there during the slavery era. In fact, during the Civil War, most of east Tennessee, especially where I later lived, was STRONGLY pro-Union. It was only due to pressure from white landowners in the Nashville and Memphis/Delta region that TN even seceded.

Anyway, there’s some historical irony at work, because now, in east TN, pro-Condeferate sentiment is relatively strong amongst young redneck kids. They have the Conf. battle flag on their pickups, etc. They don’t seem to realize that hillbillies are a very different subculture from rich white Southern planters.

[/bh-pc]

[Koxinga]

@Cyningablod

I have seen very, very little racism in the last few decades, either in Tennessee or in Texas. It could be that it’s at least in part because down here in the south Texas Hill Country, whites are in the minority (the population of San Antonio, for example, is ~65% Hispanic). I live near and work closely with many Hispanics, and have never heard a disparaging word out of any of their mouths about anyone.

In Austin, I worked in a lumberyard in college, and coworkers were divided pretty evenly between whites and Mexicans, with one or two black guys. I’m sure that in the privacy of their homes they might have said one or two things about the other group, but among ourselves this poor working class bunch was probably the most racially integrated group you’ll ever see. There was a lot of joking back and forth (one time I heard a police siren in the distance, and turned to my coworker and said, “It’s the INS, Beto! They’re coming for you!” and he played along, throwing up his hands and saying “oh no, primo, don’t let them take me back to Mexico!” – and there were other times they made fun of me for being white, too) but we visited each other’s tiny apartments and met each others’ families. The only sense of racial hostility I ever encountered in central Texas was among the better educated, upper middle class crowd.

[Cyningablod]

@Koxinga

In Austin, I worked in a lumberyard in college, and coworkers were divided pretty evenly between whites and Mexicans, with one or two black guys. […] but among ourselves this poor working class bunch was probably the most racially integrated group you’ll ever see. There was a lot of joking back and forth […] we visited each other’s tiny apartments and met each others’ families.

Yeah. I totally know what you’re talking about. I don’t know how to explain* it, but I’ve experienced it, too. And it’s really quite beautiful.
*I’m tempted to say something about a neighborly live-and-let-live Texas communal ethic, but I don’t have any real evidence for such a thing besides these kinds of anecdotal observations. Having said that though, I DO think that the hardworking, “pioneer-ish” simplicity and broad ethnic and racial diversity that has historically characterized Texas has something to do with it.

Throughout the past 400 years, Texans, be they Spaniards, Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, African-Americans, Germans, Czechs, Jews, or any of the many other ethnicities/races/creeds that have made up this country (Texas, I mean), have most all had to work hard to eke out a living in a land that has at times been harsh and unforgiving. So I think both the climate and the rather blue-collar historical character of Texans has been a force that has helped suppress some kinds of racism.

The Bushes and Roves (and other “Tea Partier” neo-con types, who didn’t even really take power in Texas 'til about 40 years ago) give this state a bad name. It really is a great place.

[Koxinga]

I tend to agree – on all points – and even for GWB, I don’t think anyone can really say the guy’s a racist; at least not that I’ve ever heard, and he did have a pretty integrated cabinet. And the biggest bastard Texas politician of them all, LBJ, pushed strongly for progressive racial legislation through his whole career.

There are some real old school n-word using racists down there, make no mistake – including some family members I hardly ever see, with good reason. And those freaks in the piney woods of East Texas, in little towns where blacks still best leave before nightfall, is nothing to sneeze at either.

But (more germane to the OP perhaps), it goes to show IME that racism doesn’t necessarily have a positive correlation with “ignorance” or poverty or what have you, and the “South” is a pretty varied place.

[missred]

Growing up in northern Indiana in the sixties and seventies, casual racism was pretty common. I recall my second grade teacher explaining that the proper term (at that time) was Negro as opposed to what most of us heard at home. It wasn’t even like most of us had ever known any black people personally, given the geographical segregation that was common in that part of the country.

I remember that my aunt by marriage wasn’t allowed to try on clothing in most department stores because she wasn’t white (she is Native American). In the eighties, my sister and her black boyfriend were turned down several places for housing until they made an agreement that she would be the one who toured the place alone and dealt with management until the paperwork was signed.

Even at my age, I can remember when the Klan still had a sizeable presence in Indiana.

Like some of the other posters, I have encountered less noticable racism living in the south than I did growing up. I do know that even now, living in rural Tennessee (but not far from Nashville), that I live in closer proximity to other ethnic groups than I ever did up north.