The article I am basing this off of is included at the bottom of this post to keep from interfering with the text.
How often do you hear people talk about southern racists? All the time, right? It’s on the news, in the movies, and in the gossip. After all, that’s what the Civil War was fought over, right? In fact it almost seems like folks for the north brace for contact with a racist when they speak with someone from the south. Did it ever occur to anyone that the only reason there are more problems down south is because there are more diverse people and therefore more opportunities to be prejudiced against each other?
This issue was brought back to my mind recently, when a friend of mine who lives in Washington made a comment about not caring if her son had a black dog and a black car as long as he didn't have a black wife. As you can imagine, the conversation suddenly died. I was outraged to think that a friend of mine, much less a northern friend of mine, would make such a comment. It reminded me of the fact that, despite all the comments you hear about the south having problems with racism, it's very rampant up here as well; it’s just not as obvious.
The article I picked out is one about a little town called Rainy River in Minnesota. You really can't get much farther north in the continental US, but this little town was having a problem. The football coach from the local community college was recruiting a bunch of boys from Tennessee and Arkansas for the football team. The town was having problems with it because a large portion of these recruits were African American. As a result of this recruiting, the coach's contract wasn't renewed. How do I know this? The coach was a man named David Ward, my brother.
You see, about half my family is from the south, and though I am an Air Force Brat and have never lived anywhere very long, I am more southern than northern or eastern. Yes, I have family members who are ardent racists, much to my dismay, but as time goes on their numbers are shrinking, largely from the influence of the younger members of my family. Furthermore, my brother, the David Ward who got in trouble for bringing African Americans north, is a southern boy through and through, and he is completely color-blind socially speaking. My mother (southern) was about ready to slap our friend when she made her little comment, and one of the best friends I had when I was younger was an African American girl who lived next door, we lived in North Carolina at the time, in the south.
It seems so strange to me, hearing all the derogatory comments about racist southerners, to see and hear direct evidence of northern racism. It's here; it just doesn’t show itself as often because the north doesn't tend to be as diverse. Even more frustrating, is the fact that, not only is there racism in the north, but there is also unfair prejudice against the south due to racism. (533)
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=MN&p_theme=mn&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_field_label-0=Section&s_dispstring=allfields(Rainy%20River%20Football)%20AND%20date(2004:2003:2002:2001:2000:1999)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=2004:2003:2002:2001:2000:1999&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=("Rainy%20River%20Football")&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no
Friday, February 16, 2007
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