You have missed his point that "the South" is not one monolithic place, that the southern area of the US is and always was made up of many different states with different cultures, mores and laws and, within each state, many different communities with different practices. As there was rampant, though less explicit and codified, discrimi…
You have missed his point that "the South" is not one monolithic place, that the southern area of the US is and always was made up of many different states with different cultures, mores and laws and, within each state, many different communities with different practices. As there was rampant, though less explicit and codified, discrimination and racism throughout Northern and Northeastern states, there were areas of "the South" like the one Ken describes. And to acknowledge that past racism and discrimination still reverberates in societal systems today does not equate with guilt and complicity on the part of people who have never carried out racist acts, who have in fact proactively worked against racism.
The issue is that the negative consequences from racism continue to plague the black community. The huge racial disparities that exist in economic and educational outcomes are a direct result of hundreds of years of brutal oppression. As inheritors of these institutions, we all bear responsibility to ameliorate the harm they've created.
I hear you. At the same time you must see that it is impossible to say people who blithely lived according to the brutal racial caste systems “never carried out racist acts.” The racism and complicity that broke generations of blacks and privileged generations of whites went way beyond active membership in the KKK or White Councils, or calling black people out of our names , or beating up and spitting on civil rights protestors.
You have missed his point that "the South" is not one monolithic place, that the southern area of the US is and always was made up of many different states with different cultures, mores and laws and, within each state, many different communities with different practices. As there was rampant, though less explicit and codified, discrimination and racism throughout Northern and Northeastern states, there were areas of "the South" like the one Ken describes. And to acknowledge that past racism and discrimination still reverberates in societal systems today does not equate with guilt and complicity on the part of people who have never carried out racist acts, who have in fact proactively worked against racism.
The issue is that the negative consequences from racism continue to plague the black community. The huge racial disparities that exist in economic and educational outcomes are a direct result of hundreds of years of brutal oppression. As inheritors of these institutions, we all bear responsibility to ameliorate the harm they've created.
I think we're back to Thomas Sowell here.
I hear you. At the same time you must see that it is impossible to say people who blithely lived according to the brutal racial caste systems “never carried out racist acts.” The racism and complicity that broke generations of blacks and privileged generations of whites went way beyond active membership in the KKK or White Councils, or calling black people out of our names , or beating up and spitting on civil rights protestors.