We keep hearing about the New South….a South where race is only a memory and industry is changing the face and the thinking of Southerns……(pause here for thought)……..would you like my opinion of that crap? Too bad….you gonna get it anyway……
I live in the cultural wasteland known as Mississippi……we have the mouth of the South…Haley Barbour who champions the New South at almost every turn…he is the governor of the State and the past head of the RNC…..but he fails to mention situations like this one….
The Justice Department accused the Walthall County School District in rural Mississippi of annually permitting more than 300 students, most of them white, to transfer to a school outside of their residential area, shifting its racial makeup.
Further, administrators at three other schools grouped most of the white students into their own classrooms “resulting in significant numbers of segregated all-black classrooms at each grade level,” the U.S. government said in a court filing.
The case comes in a state that was at the heart of the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s. In 1964, three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, an incident that helped prompt Congress to pass a law banning racial segregation in schools, work and public places.
I am sick of hearing these politicos tell me how far the South has come from its racist past….it is totally BS….it is as racist now as it ever was…….stop lying!
Old habits die hard. It probably get worse as the demographics change to where pasty white has less power..
Again – you’re right of course. My only question is, “and this is surprising in WHAT particular way?”
It simply proves the point that I continually make – legislation is largely an utter waste of time, energy and money. How the hell do they think making something illegal, or making new rules about it, will make even ONE person think differently?
It’s arrant stupidy to believe that it will make a jot of difference to those that it is aimed at. Legislation simply makes life complicated, less enjoyable and sometimes intollerable for those that don’t need it and are not its target!
You be surprised that the people that fail to see this for what it is…RACISM……..especially people from the Midwest and Northeast……they make jokes about “rednecks” but do not realize that most of the time it is not a joke but rather a reality……..there was a school bus driver a couple years back that still made black children sit at the back of the bust…..and that is pretty ALL of the Depp South…..Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee……sad huh?
You mean to tell me that there are really people’s mother-in-law that tell the state trooper to fuck off without removing her cigarette from her lips?
Yep…she surely could not hold it with her teeth…..lol
The thing is… people ARE racist, sexist, ageist, whatever. I don’t think I am – I specifically try no to be, but I’m sure I am at times – I don’t MEAN to be, but I’m sure I’m as guilty as the majority. Take racism specifically – I honestly don’t care what colour a person’s skin is, BUT…
I ran a small(ish) business and, if I’d believed that employing a black guy to do a particular job would cost me a whole lot of income, I’d have had to think very long and hard as to whether it was a good idea, however much I wished it was – that, by legislative definition is racism; by mine of course, it would have been nothing more nor less that survival instinct.
Equally, since my employees were often dealt with and instructed on the phone, if I couldn’t understand what a guy from say Asia said on the phone, I wouldn’t employ him, or her. Again, to me it was survival, but according to UK race laws, I think it could have been considered racist.
I repeat, legislation is just plain stupid and frequently only punishes the good guy, whilst leaving the asshole untouched. You simply cannot change people by making a rule about something – you might force them to work around things and even what they say publically, but you won’t change how they think. If they are rabid racists before you legislate, they’ll be so afterwards and they’ll STILL apply what they believe, they’ll just be more devious about it – in fact, they may be even more determined to be so.
Oh Crap! It is that human nature thing…….but you are right…I myself am and like you do not want to admit it….but it is there and I also try not to be…….at times it feels like a losing battle….
The best that ANYONE can promise is to TRY and to MEAN it – that’s being decent and I would always support the rights of another whoever he or she is – but me and mine still have to come first or I’d just consider myself to be an asshole exactly like so many I despise.
Legislation… crap!
There is a New South…the problem is that it has NO chance of coming out for now…the network of “good old boys” keeps the same racist crap year after year…eventually these pricks will die out and then it is possible for a true “New South”…..
Anything’s possible and attitudes do gradually change, sometimes for the better.
I also understand the thinking behind the legislation, but the trouble is that (particularly when it is badly framed – as it so often is) it can often be counter productive. All too frequently, for every one person you persuade or force to behave differently, they annoy and create two or more people who are pissed off at being told WHAT to think, rather than having been taught HOW to think for themselves at primary school where it was appropriate!
Hiya Terrant……sadly yes…….I have been telling people about this crap for years and few out of stater do NOT want to believe this kinda thing still occurs….it does and with more frequency than most realize……it is sad…..it is a good state but the mentality keeps it from going anywhere…..
It’s really only been a few decades since legal discrimination ended in the United States. It’s crazy to think bigotry would be dead when it’s practitioners are still alive and kicking.
That is true….and I was hoping that as they died off they would be replaced with more tolerant people…so far that is a pipe dream on my part…..look at the Tea Party….lots of them are racists they just try to hide behind catch words like freedom, liberty, etc……
Yes, but how much of the continued intolerance is in part due to how annoying and dictatorial previous;ly decent people find the legislation to be.
As we’ve both agreed, even if we are at times inadvertantly what the legislation would regard as “racist”, at heart, neither of us is ever deliberately so, but I don’t need a bunch of inefficient, often stupid and badly framed laws to tell me how to behave – BECAUSE I was properly educated and brought up by decent parents – THAT’S the key, not annoying goddamn inept legislation!
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This is a good comment…..I am with you…..my father is a screaming racist, my mother taught me to be color blind and judge people as individuals…….I did the same with my daughter who I raised from the time she was 5 years old, she is color blind and a rarity these days she reads….that is my crowning achievement to give her an appreciation for books and ideas….