Thursday, August 10, 2006
Topic: “What Commonly Held Ideas About The South Seem To You Most
True or Untrue?”
Before making the migration back to my ancestral heritage approximately four years ago from Ohio, the commonly heard phrase that Yankees have often heard for generations and perceived about the south was its “…southern hospitality.” The two-word phrase in actually gave northerners a misconceived notion that southern folk are generally friendly with their arms always opened wide to receive strangers at the dining room table; and when the meal is over, a traditional arm-and-hand flapping-in-the-wind Beverly Hillbilly send-off “…now, yawl com’ back, ya hear” is heard bellowing from the threshold. Contrary to popular belief, mistrust and suspicions are still deeply imbedded in the minds of southern people of northern people.
In fact, when it comes to skin color and appearance, the general consensus is southern blacks are more racists than the whites of yester-decade’s civil rights era. A sad reality is that the huge divide between northern and southern blacks is goliath. For example, after speaking to several grassroots southern African-Americans, the one statement that may have awakened the sleeping giant within my own mind was from an IT professional. He said, “I think northern blacks think that they are good looking or better because they are fair (relatively speaking of course) and tend to associate darker southern people of the same skin tone and appearance, in the same intellectual class - not that there is anything wrong with that.”
However, I felt it essential at that point to defend the general-consensus position of northern blacks. And in order to do that, it was necessary to dig through and re-open the wounds that may be deemed as scars of martyrdom - just to make a point. At that moment, a clear presence of confrontational defiance threatened the common ground of mutual understanding between us. But, no matter how high the risk, I still had to take it. My question to him was, “After all the battles fought to end inequality and segregation, after all of the lives that were savagely lost during the struggle to get the Voter’s Rights Act passed – during which both black and white women were beaten nearly to death; homes and churches were bombed; our nations children were brutally killed; unrestrained police attack-dogs bit out large chunks of flesh from grandmothers as they held peaceful protests on the same southern streets where they paid taxes; black and white leaders at that time were jailed and killed in the peaceful struggle to combat injustice at lunch counters, water fountains, and voting booths. After the huge bloody price paid for southern blacks to own the right to vote, why is it that – still – only about 20-40 percent of all registered grassroots southern African-Americans vote?” Subsequently, he could not argue that the numbers were embarrassing small.
While the Civil War of 1861 is documented to have ended in 1865, civil liberties and equality for southern equality did not really happen until the Civil Rights Act was signed and passed one hundred years later, ironically, in 1964. And, one of the most commonly held ideas about the south that most northern blacks generally deem as true is southern blacks are strong and resilient. However, a general consensus amidst northern transients is that the opposite is true. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. was not needed to free disenfranchised blacks in northern states for the simple reason that northern blacks had already, early on, stood their ground against inequality of any kind. And it is still commonly questioned by northern blacks why, one hundred years after the Civil War supposedly ended, that southern blacks were still accepting all factions’ of century-old racial segregation in all aspects of their daily existence? The answer to that question is yet to receive a response and it’s forty-plus years later.
The position arrogantly presented to my IT professional counterpart was northern blacks did not need a liberator; northern blacks did not need a self-effacing seamstress to start a revolution on a public bus.
However, we did agree that a divide is there. But what strength of that disconnect was never determined. And, I have since concluded that the common believes that I had personally about southern hospitality have long been banished. How do we place a value on how true or untrue those believes are, is better left to be validated from individual experiences. But, the wide-range conflict that stubbornly hovers as a wall between the two, especially after the deadly and brutal uncivil mayhem that resulted in the passing of the Voter’s Rights Act of 1965, most transient northern blacks perceive most grassroots southern blacks as colored and befuddled people.
Contrary to his original argument, my counterpart had no other choice but to set aside the weak and unfounded notion that northern blacks “…think they are good looking or better because they are fair…” And after reviewing the results of the turnout at the voting booths on Tuesday, he had no other option but to grit his teeth and said nothing.
Stan-Joseph Jennings, Author
"Articles: What's News Is News"
True or Untrue?”
Before making the migration back to my ancestral heritage approximately four years ago from Ohio, the commonly heard phrase that Yankees have often heard for generations and perceived about the south was its “…southern hospitality.” The two-word phrase in actually gave northerners a misconceived notion that southern folk are generally friendly with their arms always opened wide to receive strangers at the dining room table; and when the meal is over, a traditional arm-and-hand flapping-in-the-wind Beverly Hillbilly send-off “…now, yawl com’ back, ya hear” is heard bellowing from the threshold. Contrary to popular belief, mistrust and suspicions are still deeply imbedded in the minds of southern people of northern people.
In fact, when it comes to skin color and appearance, the general consensus is southern blacks are more racists than the whites of yester-decade’s civil rights era. A sad reality is that the huge divide between northern and southern blacks is goliath. For example, after speaking to several grassroots southern African-Americans, the one statement that may have awakened the sleeping giant within my own mind was from an IT professional. He said, “I think northern blacks think that they are good looking or better because they are fair (relatively speaking of course) and tend to associate darker southern people of the same skin tone and appearance, in the same intellectual class - not that there is anything wrong with that.”
However, I felt it essential at that point to defend the general-consensus position of northern blacks. And in order to do that, it was necessary to dig through and re-open the wounds that may be deemed as scars of martyrdom - just to make a point. At that moment, a clear presence of confrontational defiance threatened the common ground of mutual understanding between us. But, no matter how high the risk, I still had to take it. My question to him was, “After all the battles fought to end inequality and segregation, after all of the lives that were savagely lost during the struggle to get the Voter’s Rights Act passed – during which both black and white women were beaten nearly to death; homes and churches were bombed; our nations children were brutally killed; unrestrained police attack-dogs bit out large chunks of flesh from grandmothers as they held peaceful protests on the same southern streets where they paid taxes; black and white leaders at that time were jailed and killed in the peaceful struggle to combat injustice at lunch counters, water fountains, and voting booths. After the huge bloody price paid for southern blacks to own the right to vote, why is it that – still – only about 20-40 percent of all registered grassroots southern African-Americans vote?” Subsequently, he could not argue that the numbers were embarrassing small.
While the Civil War of 1861 is documented to have ended in 1865, civil liberties and equality for southern equality did not really happen until the Civil Rights Act was signed and passed one hundred years later, ironically, in 1964. And, one of the most commonly held ideas about the south that most northern blacks generally deem as true is southern blacks are strong and resilient. However, a general consensus amidst northern transients is that the opposite is true. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. was not needed to free disenfranchised blacks in northern states for the simple reason that northern blacks had already, early on, stood their ground against inequality of any kind. And it is still commonly questioned by northern blacks why, one hundred years after the Civil War supposedly ended, that southern blacks were still accepting all factions’ of century-old racial segregation in all aspects of their daily existence? The answer to that question is yet to receive a response and it’s forty-plus years later.
The position arrogantly presented to my IT professional counterpart was northern blacks did not need a liberator; northern blacks did not need a self-effacing seamstress to start a revolution on a public bus.
However, we did agree that a divide is there. But what strength of that disconnect was never determined. And, I have since concluded that the common believes that I had personally about southern hospitality have long been banished. How do we place a value on how true or untrue those believes are, is better left to be validated from individual experiences. But, the wide-range conflict that stubbornly hovers as a wall between the two, especially after the deadly and brutal uncivil mayhem that resulted in the passing of the Voter’s Rights Act of 1965, most transient northern blacks perceive most grassroots southern blacks as colored and befuddled people.
Contrary to his original argument, my counterpart had no other choice but to set aside the weak and unfounded notion that northern blacks “…think they are good looking or better because they are fair…” And after reviewing the results of the turnout at the voting booths on Tuesday, he had no other option but to grit his teeth and said nothing.
Stan-Joseph Jennings, Author
"Articles: What's News Is News"
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