Southern Racism vs. Northern Racism
July 31, 2010 in Opinions
Seems like whenever racism in the south is brought up, a counter is made declaring that there’s racism in the north too, as if that somehow makes it all right. Can’t deny that racism finds a home in places other than the south but these notions got me to thinking.
Are the motivations for racism the same for everyone, or is it possible that it’s a very personal thing? Based on what I’ve seen, I have to think it’s personal rather than logical in that there seems to be no factual evidence deeming one race as superior to another.
Not to belabor a point I’ve made many times about how black people were used by white power brokers who owned slaves as wedges between them (power brokers) and the poor oppressed white. Whites were handed the notion of black inferiority on a silver platter, and this made it easier for whites to ignore how badly they were being treated…but it’s a point I have to make now in order to flesh out my thoughts on this.
The above statement pretty much explains my theory as to how southern discrimination and racial hatred started, but it doesn’t explain the hatred against blacks in the north. I think hatred and discrimination are based on two entirely separate issues: 1. Slave owners needed to divert poor whites’ attention. 2. Northerner were left to deal with a mostly uneducated population of blacks that migrated south to north. While in the south, racism seemed truly based on a notion of inferiority because of color, in the north it seemed to be based on an immediate and huge influx of poverty-stricken, uneducated people that brought havoc to the cities of the north.
Of course, we have the Federal Government and the south to thank for this sorry state of affairs. Southerners didn’t see the need to educate blacks, and in some cases made it illegal. The Federal Government gave blacks freedom on a silver platter without giving them the necessary tools.
Don’t think the U.S. government has learned its lesson yet…goals of war almost never include goals for mitigating the bound-to-happen consequence of a culture rendered destitute.
