Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Southern racial attitudes
We all have impressions of white southerners going back to pre-civil war days. These were the non-slave owning whites who resented the blacks effect on their earning capacity. They were competing for jobs against a work force that wasn't being paid.
The common idea is that the slave holders used race baiting as a way to distract these people from the economic issues. There is lots of contemporary evidence for this going back to Frederick Douglass.
After reconstruction the same tactics were used to eliminate black political power. This was the rise of the KKK and the Jim Crow laws.
So, it is commonly assumed that the residue of all this persists in the southern red neck profile.
My question is this: there has been a great deal of influx to the south by whites from other parts of the country. Do these newcomers develop red neck attitudes? What about their children? If not, why is this group still in control of the political machinery? The moderate white southerners and the blacks would seem to have a majority by now.
The common idea is that the slave holders used race baiting as a way to distract these people from the economic issues. There is lots of contemporary evidence for this going back to Frederick Douglass.
After reconstruction the same tactics were used to eliminate black political power. This was the rise of the KKK and the Jim Crow laws.
So, it is commonly assumed that the residue of all this persists in the southern red neck profile.
My question is this: there has been a great deal of influx to the south by whites from other parts of the country. Do these newcomers develop red neck attitudes? What about their children? If not, why is this group still in control of the political machinery? The moderate white southerners and the blacks would seem to have a majority by now.
