As a pentagenarian, I don’t love the fact that my shit stinks, but I’ve come to terms with it, and don’t expect it to change anytime soon. Same with racism in the South.
Because no one expects any better of them. Everyone expects Alabama to be full of KKK cousin-fuckers. The result is that it’s only notable when they aren’t.
Unfortunately the US as a political entity does not care about racism and the general public doesn’t care to hear about racism especially in a place known to be racist. If the general public doesn’t care, then the US government isn’t going to do anything
I don’t like it either, especially when I see people passing off all of [state] as bad. The problem is that many states, especially southern ones like Alabama, have the issue that the people believe the propaganda they’re fed, so they vote the way the propaganda tells them to, so the people spreading the propaganda gain power, allowing them to spread propaganda to the people. It’s a cycle.
The question is, when a cycle like that is so deeply entrenched that it’s become part of someone’s identity, how do you fight against that? You could forcefully remove the people responsible from power, but now you have a bunch of very angry people. You just removed the person they believe in from their position of power!
Additionally, how do you identify when someone should be forcefully removed? Doing so sets an extremely dangerous precedent. You may believe that anti-trans laws are bad because they encroach on people’s human rights (and I agree with that), but they believe that being trans is morally wrong and worth banning at the cost of human rights. If the precedent is set so that forcefully removing politicians is acceptable if it’s for the common good, they’ll remove all politicians who support trans rights (because they’re eroding the moral fabric of society or something).
Alternatively, you could pump money into education, especially in regards to critical thinking skills. However, now you’re having to find a way to work around the politicians who’ll block you because education diminishes the effect of their propaganda.
In the meantime, headlines about racists doing racist things in a place known for being racist won’t get clicks because it’s so common that everyone’s already aware of it.
Because it’s normal for people who live there, I would venture that a lot of the parents either don’t have a phone and only watch TV, and their kids follow their parents example. (Even when literally everyone living outside the state has a polar opposite belief)
There was an example before the 2016 USA elections that some liberal colleges wanted “segregated” toilets thinking it would was somehow “more equal”; a case of pure ignorance. (But I haven’t read the rest of what’s his names replies so idk)
Edit: Don't know how I stumbled into such and old discussion. My bad. Point remains though.
I always laugh when people hold such bigoted beliefs when they act like they oppose bigotry
I spent about 3 years in Alabama, Birmingham area, during the 90s.
Before I found my first apartment there, the first property management office I went to after calling about an ad in the paper refused to rent to me after I came through the door of their office. Within 30 secs of meeting the (white) woman who was supposed to be showing me a list of places to go look at, she started telling me I wouldn't want to live in the properties they had available. As she hustled me out the door I realized everyone else in the waiting area was black. She gave me the card of another place - that woman spent the entire drive over to the apartment she wanted to show me probing my religious views. (And I never saw a black person living in that complex.)
Within the first few weeks I had new friends I'd made telling me "you'll understand after you've been here awhile" regarding how they felt about black folks.
It only went downhill from there.
You might try to tell me how it's changed since then. But recent headlines don't support that, as best as I can tell.
Yeah but they think "racism" is "saying 'colored' instead of 'African-American'". Like they totally fail to grasp the severity of Deep South racism. They think hardcore racism is something that happened in the past, that we as a species have moved on from it, and surely (surely!) hysterical accounts like this are just gross exaggerations.
Probably because it’s expected, it’s happening “somewhere else” to “minorities,” and the people being racist aren’t always using slurs. Same reason news outlets don’t really report on crime in known high-crime areas. Many people do not understand that these issues also affect them because it normalizes racist behavior, which in turn hurts the economy.
A few reasons (which I pulled out of my ass. I’m not a social scientist. I am a person who fled some pretty ass backwards areas in the US):
Feelings of hopelessness. Maybe it’s the people in power. Maybe it’s the culture. Seeing cops act a fool and get zero punishment, or voting and watching some corrupt folks refuse to accept the results really does a number on people.
Allowing morons in charge. During the pandemic, I watched the neighboring state put a lot of COVID denial policies in place. Psychopaths were literally running into hospitals making demands. Healthcare professionals left to work somewhere less hostile. Expand that to other industries, groups of people. You now have real smart people who are leaving - shrinking the conversation pool even more. I didn’t even bring up police.
General culture. I was told to “Go back home” or “This place isn’t for you” just walking around living my life. That country song “This won’t happen in a small town” which is filled with inaccuracies just strengthens the belief that small towns are for a certain “type” of person.
There’s a lot of other factors.
So you have all those issues, followed by being pretty low/the lowest in ranking for many things like education and quality of life.
The shining stars are college towns who are much more active at change. But I’m not going to expect much
If I had to hazard a guess people are becoming desensitized to all of the doom and gloom because it keeps being shoved in our face for advertising dollars by mainstream media.
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