Just for the record

[Stinky The Clown]

I have lived in the deep south and currently live in the northern end of the south.

I grew up in New England.

I have traveled a fair bit and know lots of people from everywhere.

Racism is NOT the sole province of the south. It is alive and well everywhere. It isn't geographic.

[uppityperson]

1. Some places it is more open, others more hidden. But it is all over.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. But the acceptability of racism is greater in some places; denying that makes it harder to fight.

Yes, there's plenty of racism in Maine and Oregon but it pales in comparison to racism in much of the south and southwest.

[tk2kewl]

2. most definitely not

i had a "friend" and neighbor threaten to burn down my house when I spoke to him about a prospective tenant who happened to have a Jamaican boyfriend.

I also had an Iranian neighbor tell me he was glad I wasn't a n***** when I moved to a new neighborhood.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. indeed. I've personally observed it in NH, RI, MA, WA, and PA (places I've lived).

It may have different nuances, offenders, and styles - but it is rampant.

[Tipperary]

5. No it is certainly not. I have seen confederate flags on trucks, cars and flying on poles

in the north on more than one occasion.

[rhett o rick]

6. I agree. Thanks for the post. nm

[Martin Eden]

7. Plenty of racism in Chicago where I grew up ...

... but the state and local governments don't sanction the display of overtly racist symbols like the confederate flag.

[Sam I Am]

8. /

Wrong. The south is simply a racist institution. The Civil War ended 150 years ago. If they haven't gotten over it yet, they never will. If they want to secede NOW, then go for it. All you racists go to hell. I'll stick with the non-racist north any day.

[tk2kewl]

9. when you say "the non-racist north" are you talking...

santa's workshop or something?

[Jamastiene]

11. You are living in a fairy tale land if you think the north doesn't have racists too.

Where is this magical fairy tale land you speak of? I want to go live there too.

[csziggy]

22. The North was racist before, during and after the Civil War

Just because they did not have slavery does not mean that they were willing to accept blacks as equals.

I'll repeat a previous message I posted to you in another thread - which you apparently did not read or are incapable of understanding:

Many in the North, even those who supported abolition of slavery, still did not regard blacks as being equal to whites. A predominant attitude in the North was that if slavery were abolished, the blacks should be sent back to Africa, specifically to Liberia. They did not want to share the rights of white men with blacks or even allow them to remain in this country even as they advocated elimination of slavery.

Excerpt: 'The Fiery Trial'
October 11, 201011:00 AM ET
Eric Foner

Hostility to slavery did not preclude deep prejudices against blacks. The early settlers wanted Indiana and Illinois to be free of any black presence. John Woods, an English farmer who settled in Illinois, wrote in 1819 of his neighbors: "Though now living in a free state, they retain many of the prejudices they imbibed in infancy, and still hold negroes in the utmost contempt." Like Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois did everything they could to discourage the growth of a free black population. The constitutions under which they entered the Union offered liberal voting rights to whites but barred blacks from suffrage. Laws in both states prohibited blacks from marrying whites or testifying in court against them, and made it a crime to harbor a fugitive slave or servant or to bring black persons into the state with the intent of freeing them, as Governor Coles had done. The public schools excluded black children.

Before the Civil War, Illinois was notorious for its harsh Black Laws, "repugnant to our political institutions," said Governor Coles, who tried unsuccessfully to have the legislature modify them. One law declared that young apprentices must be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic "except when such apprentice is a negro or mulatto." Another required any black person who entered Illinois to post a $1,000 bond. "In consequence of these salutary arrangements," a periodical devoted to attracting investment and immigration to the state proudly declared, Illinois "has not become a retreat for runaway slaves, or free negroes." Later, the 1848 constitutional convention authorized a referendum on a provision empowering the legislature to bar all free black persons from entering the state. It received 70 percent of the vote, and five years later the lawmakers enacted a "Negro exclusion" law. Although the legislature eventually restricted the use of indentures, in the 1830s and 1840s it remained legal to bring blacks under the age of fifteen into Illinois as servants and then to sell them. "Illinois," declared the abolitionist weekly The Liberator in 1840, "is, to all intents and purposes, a slaveholding state."

http://www.npr.org/2010/10/11/130489804/lincolns-evolving-thoughts-on-slavery-and-freedom

The concept that the North was prejudice free is absurd. Many Northern states had similar bars to settlement by blacks as Illinois did and few if any were openly welcoming to blacks and freed slaves. Even after the Civil War, states and communities in the North as well as those in the South and West added more bars to block settlement by blacks. Red lining existed in the North as much or more than it did in the South. (If you don't know what red lining is, research it here on DU - there are plenty of examples, among them: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014885998 about red lining in Buffalo, New York in this century.)

Yet again, you are smearing an entire section of our country - and using ignorance to justify those smears. Stop embarrassing yourself and learn some facts. Or just STFU.

[fizzgig]

12. i'm in northern colorado and see plenty of racism here

i see trucks flying the confederate flag from time to time.

[madamesilverspurs]

19. Indeed.

I'm just a few miles east of you, and I moved out of my last apartment when the landlady bragged that her entire family are proud klan members.

[kcr]

13. So, point out the the northern states that refuses to remove their confederate flag

over their state capital.

[IVoteDFL]

14. I think racism thrives most where white people are isolated

I've lived in the city my whole life, but a few years ago I started spending some time in the country area. I was shocked how many people freely used slurs.

[kentuck]

15. Stinky, you are right. The problem is not geographic.

The HQs for the KKK is in Indiana. Michigan probably has more white supremacists per capita than just about anywhere. I was born and raised in Appalachia and I never saw an advertisement for KKK meeting until I moved to Colorado. And Idaho has its reputation, as do the "Southies" in Boston. Tennessee is infested.

It does seem that the racism is usually more open in parts of the South. But it is not limited to one geographic area.

[lpbk2713]

21. I've been to parts of Europe where people are openly bigoted ...

against Black people. So it's not strictly just something left over from the US Civil War.

[madamesilverspurs]

23. It IS everywhere.

What varies, at least in my experience, is the degree of visibility/power it is given.

I've lived in places where inter-racial dating is no big deal; I've also lived in a place where I got fired for serving mixed race couples.

I've worked jobs where qualifications got you hired; I've also worked in businesses where job applications were printed on different colors of paper for different races (to get around the law prohibiting asking a person's race).

I've lived where racism's existence is acknowledged but not promoted; I've also lived in places where it was not merely accepted, it was expected.

Racism does exist everywhere, even in cemeteries.

[BKH70041]

24. The most racist cities I've lived in were Boston, MA and San Francisco, CA.

Fully agree.