Question for Ohio residents about racial divide...

[old timey villain]

Hearing people talk today in the south, you'd think we're all a rainbow coalition of peace, brotherhood and fuzziness! Everybody in the south claims to be colorblind nowadays. Jim Crow? Segregation?? That was years ago!! We're so past that, I'm not racist at all- why just yesterday me and my black friend at work went out to lunch! Would I do that if I was racist??

I think a lot of people are stuck in the mindset that racism only comes in the form of white hoods and lynchings. So if you live and work with people of other races and subscribe to general platitudes about racial equality, like "we're all god's children", then apparently you're in the clear.

I think that's setting the bar way too low. Because, from my experience, these same people will also say terrible things about other races and make really unfair generalizations. A common topic that comes up among whites down here is welfare. Apparently, every person on welfare is black and they're refusing to work or keep their legs closed in order to keep those checks coming in. Every problem in America seems to come back to this. And it's never, "some people" or "some black people on welfare" it's always, "the blacks on welfare." But then they'll compliment their black friend at work who (miraculously) broke the cycle in order to save face.

So, in the end, they seem to use their apparent colorblindness as a crutch to defend their racist attitudes. Things are better now, segregation is over, and any problem in the black community is not a residual effect of the racial hierarchies that have been in effect for centuries, but is instead a moral failing or weakness that black people are solely responsible for.

And for the record, I'm not entirely blameless either. It would be wrong to make this indictment yet exclude myself from blame, since this is exactly what many of the people I'm talking about do to escape criticism or self evaluation. Also, it's weirdly comforting to know that other areas of the country are dealing with this same attitude. The south always has to carry this burden of racism when it really exists everywhere.

[old timey villain]

For the guy who said that black neighborhoods are always bad-

Come on down to Atlanta and you'll feel pretty dumb in about 5 minutes. I can't even name all the neighborhoods in the metro that are majority black and also really nice. Yeah, we have some bad black neighborhoods too, but enough upscale ones for someone like you to really take notice.

Your comment insinuates that either a) all black people are poor and prone to crime, or b) black people can't keep up a neighborhood. Both claims are untrue.

And Krazen ^^^ Yes, PG county is actually the wealthiest county in the US with a black majority. Dekalb County, GA is second.

[old timey villain]

For the guy who said that black neighborhoods are always bad-

Come on down to Atlanta and you'll feel pretty dumb in about 5 minutes. I can't even name all the neighborhoods in the metro that are majority black and also really nice. Yeah, we have some bad black neighborhoods too, but enough upscale ones for someone like you to really take notice.

I have been to such suburbs and they really are very nice. But I have to wonder, if crime is low (which might not actually be low I suppose) then why don't white people live there?

Because many have the same attitude as timothy and assume they must be ghetto. And in Atlanta, as well as most other places, people tend to self segregate. My point however was that there are enough educated, upper income black people in Atlanta to populate some very nice suburbs.