Reply #64: I am 41 [View All]

[renie408]

There is racism here still, of course. But I think it is almost worse than the outright 'yard apes' kind of racism. It is a subtler, closet kind of "we are better than THEM" racism. Also, in an ironic twist, blacks and whites have found that they are united in their racist attitudes towards hispanics here. Sort of a 'enemy of my enemy' sort of a thing, as it were.

Here is an example of the 'new Southern racism': My son's girlfriend happens to be black. We are going out of town this weekend, but my son is staying because he has school commitments. He is staying with some friends of ours who also have a 14 year old son and that kid and my kid are taking their girlfriends to the movies tomorrow night. The mom called me last night and somehow wandered her way into a ten minute explanation of how she didn't have a problem driving my son's girlfriend to the movies. She REALLY wanted to impress on me that she didn't have a problem with the girlfriend being in the car. REALLY. It was FINE. NO PROBLEM. She thought it was GREAT that they were dating. REALLY. GREAT. "You guys are such cool parents"???

Anyway, she never talked to me like that over the summer when he was dating Mackenzie.