In Georgia, 30,000 people have signed petitions urging that Georgia secede from the Union and become an independent country. (The "Georgia" in question is the American State of Georgia.) And other nonsense petitions to secede from the Union are on display in many other States, in the wake of Barack Obama's re-election to the Presidency.
You may not have recalled that Barack Obama is Black, but that might be a coincidence, just as racism just happens to survive best where ignorance is most prevalent. We don't want to jump to unwarranted conclusions here, but the smell of rotten racism does seem to be most obvious where slavery died slowly. But just to be fair, racial arrogance is a slippery stupidity, something like trying to get a grip on a slimy fish.
At the time of the Civil War, the Old South was Democratic territory, politically, and Abraham Lincoln was one of those new Republicans, from up North. When the Civil War ended, and slavery was officially ended, former slaveholders found new ways to subjugate Black people, almost as effective as slavery itself: "Jim Crow". Poll taxes. Separate bathrooms. Separate schools.
So, for years, the South remained Democratic, even though the Democratic Party in the North was as opposed to racism as the Republicans in the North. When Democrats gathered in convention or in Congress, their Southern members were known as "Dixiecrats", and they, in fact, had more in common with the Republican Party than they did with other Democrats. Democratic majorities in Congress were fragile and fictitious things, since the members from the South were often allies of Republicans,when it came time to vote on issues.
In the 1960s, Richard Nixon urged a "Southern Strategy", which was to appeal to those Southern voters to vote Republican by using language that everyone recognized as an appeal to old racial prejudices, and it worked. Today, the South is heavily Republican, and where there are party differences, they often can be delineated along racial lines.
So the Republicans, today, own racial prejudice. They do not speak of it as racial prejudice. They speak of "States Rights", and of "traditional American values", but they mean White, Christian, male superiority. And since Black people are not the only large racial and cultural and ethnic group today, the "Old, White, Christian male" attitudes apply to Hispanic and Asian and Native American peoples, too. All one has to do is look at the most recent election. A mere figurative handful of Black people supported Republicans. A huge majority of Hispanics and Asians supported Democrats.
And now, with the election results in, with a Black man still in the Presidency, people all over the Old South, and in a few wannabe Southern places, are signing petitions for their States to secede from the Union and to become independent nations.
Good luck to them! They have not a chance in hell of seceding, but if there is a God and a heaven and a hell, they may still get their wish, and have a chance in hell.
Racism by any other name reeks as rankly.
You may not have recalled that Barack Obama is Black, but that might be a coincidence, just as racism just happens to survive best where ignorance is most prevalent. We don't want to jump to unwarranted conclusions here, but the smell of rotten racism does seem to be most obvious where slavery died slowly. But just to be fair, racial arrogance is a slippery stupidity, something like trying to get a grip on a slimy fish.
At the time of the Civil War, the Old South was Democratic territory, politically, and Abraham Lincoln was one of those new Republicans, from up North. When the Civil War ended, and slavery was officially ended, former slaveholders found new ways to subjugate Black people, almost as effective as slavery itself: "Jim Crow". Poll taxes. Separate bathrooms. Separate schools.
So, for years, the South remained Democratic, even though the Democratic Party in the North was as opposed to racism as the Republicans in the North. When Democrats gathered in convention or in Congress, their Southern members were known as "Dixiecrats", and they, in fact, had more in common with the Republican Party than they did with other Democrats. Democratic majorities in Congress were fragile and fictitious things, since the members from the South were often allies of Republicans,when it came time to vote on issues.
In the 1960s, Richard Nixon urged a "Southern Strategy", which was to appeal to those Southern voters to vote Republican by using language that everyone recognized as an appeal to old racial prejudices, and it worked. Today, the South is heavily Republican, and where there are party differences, they often can be delineated along racial lines.
So the Republicans, today, own racial prejudice. They do not speak of it as racial prejudice. They speak of "States Rights", and of "traditional American values", but they mean White, Christian, male superiority. And since Black people are not the only large racial and cultural and ethnic group today, the "Old, White, Christian male" attitudes apply to Hispanic and Asian and Native American peoples, too. All one has to do is look at the most recent election. A mere figurative handful of Black people supported Republicans. A huge majority of Hispanics and Asians supported Democrats.
And now, with the election results in, with a Black man still in the Presidency, people all over the Old South, and in a few wannabe Southern places, are signing petitions for their States to secede from the Union and to become independent nations.
Good luck to them! They have not a chance in hell of seceding, but if there is a God and a heaven and a hell, they may still get their wish, and have a chance in hell.
Racism by any other name reeks as rankly.
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