I’ve read a few of your posts now, and I am starting to observe your on a deep journey to do better. To craft yourself into a true man of God. I can’t wait to hear more about your findings.
In this context, I take your deeper question with this thread to be: we’ve all heard it said systemic racism is the root of a lot of evils and correcting it can make society better. How can we do better in that light.
To respond to that in the American context, I would first like to clarify some history, which is rarely contextualize in regards to this subject.
In the Dixie south, who were the ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’? The establishment was who one might call good-southern boys and belles, by contrast to the north this was an aristocratic sort preferring a democratized old European style court to that of the more humble stuffy puritan-quaker built north. They valued being clever and politically connected. Appearance was everything. Being an outsider often worse than anything. Unlike the north, the Military was a huge institution. In this way, militaristic ideas and solutions were more prevalent.
I'd add that the protestant work ethnic of the northeast also seemed lack, though I'm unsure why.
The common folk(outsiders) to whom this establishment was disconnected one might call hillbillies(Cajun french canadians, southern Irish, cowboys, farm boys, mountain folk) this group cared little about politics. Their culture was the tribe.They wanted to be left alone. Be independent. But they have all the culture, the songs, the stories, the grit, the fighting spirit that made the army strong. So don't think they are not visible or influential.
They effectively had a subculture...but I think there's three things key to remember. Disdain for education and reading, fervently religious, unskilled and poor. As such, their meager lives were adapted to the conditions of the land. If work could be found on a plantation, it was as a petty worker or overseer. Though uneducated, they would have learned and created racist tropes this way. The term cracker literally refers to these folks who probably learned that harshness might find them employment. Largely though, we're talking about a population that knew few trades.
The civil war despite affecting everyone was between southern and northern elites. It was not a southern slave revolt. It was just another call to arms for the southern hillbillies. Because of that, the deeper wound for those ex-slave blacks was being cast out without warning, ritual, preparation, political power or organization.
There was a startling amount of fondness in this time found in the words of some blacks for slavery. Some remember it as a time of few worries or concerns (not unlike being in any institution where you are expected to obey authorities). Others immediately began taking advantage of their new status....having more skill in the basics of farming or other trades than their hillbilly counterparts. I can only imagine it as a deep source of resentment in the minds of those already poor whites.
Millions made homeless/destitute without community leaders, meaningful suffrage or support. A wise America would have given them a state and assistance to grow instead resentment and prejudice over a costly war done in their name.
Ever hear of Liberia?
American blacks are an industrious community despite many barriers they began to build up and make a culture of their own. Their strongest allies in the south, the hillbillies were embraced making a parallel culture due to a politically enforced racial segregation which spread nation-wide. Not all though were so unpolitical, hardened by war with the racist southern establishment another culture emerged in the black south: racial identitarians, who rally against two groups black hillbillies(who make them look bad) and the white establishment(their natural opponent). Others blacks more industrialist than hillbilly culture allows but not interested in the racial black identitarians moved west/north. This culture of this mostly middle-class blacks marked by facing a lie they were told as children about their journey out of the black enclaves into other white-majority cultures: when racism isn’t in the open, it's often still done with a smile.
I can imagine that living in the south and hearing of the "free north" idealized it to show degree. It would have been a disappointment to find out they're racist too....but their arguments more educated.
Meanwhile, the southern power balance began to shift. The old southern democrats were about to get wiped out by the new power bases which rising up from the hillbillies, black identitarians and non-southern immigrates (who embraced southern culture but not her politics - also sometimes deemed the looming republican majority).
Southern democrats are a pragmatic bunch, so they changed their coalition to try and keep power bringing in the black identitarians and shifting their target audience to disaffected middle-classes like the formerly mentioned blacks living white majority-culture. It was easy, republican leadership were dominated by an out-of-touch industrialist class and far from nimble and politically savvy. This is also why you see the democratic swing in the black vote even before the democratic party embraced civil rights and dropped it’s anti-black positions and why you saw republican black support disappear as they ignore even basic poltical concerns from the black community.
I think you're correct about all this...but it's very much an incomplete picture. Wealthy southern whites literally lost wealth as slaves weren't cheap to buy. Poor whites were engaged in land grabs....and resented losing those opportunities to blacks when it happened. Black enclaves formed quickly....and were able to elect their own local and state legislators quicker than many people realized. This slowed down though....because in many cases, it was tantamount to a death sentence.
So…
You see ‘white guilt’ is actually designed to enforce racial divisions.
I think part of the problem is we speak of race at all.
Systemic racism is very much real, but is as much about expectations as any racist action. Outsiders aren’t trusted like insiders and so we have systemic racism which will happen anytime your a racial minority.
I suppose that's possible...but I'll be honest, in-group and out-group dynamics aren't necessarily going to result in widespread persecution.
Regardless...I've never seen systemic racism described that way.
It something to learn, but it really only requires simple awareness the correction is good social skills not being a werido about it, which unfortunately we’re very bad at teaching and doing.
I have always taken the position of being my honest self regardless of being unfamiliar to the group or not. When you change your demeanor to imitate someone else in a noticeable way....I always take it as condescending.
In terms of feeling it in their blood. I doubt that is a historic wound. It’s the fact black children are vividly told they are hunted down by white people on a daily basis. Any child would feel race anger if they were told all the crazy visual and vivild violent things blacks are told about whites on the daily by tv, internet and conversation. In terms of your feelings, your told those same stories bur identify with a different character.
In terms, of the problems of black majority cities. It all steams from that terrible democratic coalition mixed with a feckless and useless republican opposition which makes no effort to incorporate black communities. Single party administration is always terrible be it left/right, black/white, woman/man etc etc.
I can't pin it down to one thing. I've heard Sowell's explanations of the cultural exchange of black and impoverished or hillbilly whites....and I can understand why he sees it. Church, disdain towards education, honor culture....there's elements of these things in certain ways in poor urban black culture. It's just an insufficient explanation....I can't discount the crack epidemic, which followed the loss of manufacturing. I can't discount the full range of the civil rights movement...with it's rapidly increasing militancy and refusal to accept a cultural future with whites. We remember MLK because he was the most successful. He wasn't the sole influence though...and Malcolm X made clear the line being big B Black politically and just black. His field slave house slave speech drew a line between black communities and whites ever since. Since then, it's arguably the worst racial epithet a black man can call another. There's no similar white corollary....and the neo nazi "race traitor" simply didn't have the same effect. The resulting message was that emulating, assimilating, or seeking paths forward by cooperation with whites meant you were in the house....not to be trusted.
In the minds of some black communities...I suspect that to do as white people do is seen as something akin to "selling out" or betrayal to the black community. It's an issue that seems to complicate their self conception the more they get wealthy.
Problems with American blacks in statistics. Hillbilly culture espeically when moved into an urban environment. You move any hillbilly to any city, they don't thrive. The sad thing is this culture isn't even a majority(just more culturally relevant), most middle-class blacks just get painted with that brush by embracing their blackness no different from any middle-class white southerner who embraces their southren-ness.
About half of blacks are considered "middle class", no?
I think the perpetual view of a completely impoverished race is one held by upper middle to upper class whites. Lack of exposure and a persistent media narrative has left them ignorant of reality.
Both my parents grew up in what we'd probably call "extreme poverty" and came from a poorly educated region best described as "NE Appalachian Hillbilly" and despite this, my mother and father along with 4 of their siblings escaped poverty...the other 4 not so much. They moved into urban areas and succeeded by learning a trade that was in demand, regardless of whether they enjoyed it, and worked quite hard.
And btw, I love hillbillies
No particular love nor hatred of them here. I simply cannot relate well to those relatives.
and just as I can easily live in the rural south by showing respect and keeping to my own business.
For some reason, I've always found N Carolinans extremely hospitable and courteous. Noticeably so.
I can thrive in those urban environments with the same norms. Race has nothing to do with it.
I'll be honest....I know it's wrong to feel so....but once I hear that strong southern accent, I instantly assume that person is slightly dumber than average. I have to remind myself it's not a reasonable assumption.
I'm not particularly fond of big cities....or perhaps it's just people in general. I tend to look at anyone who proudly proclaims their birthplace as somewhat ignorant. New York is a dump. LA is a cultural joke. And the only people proud of Texas are Texans. I know you think you can secede any time you want....but you can't.
Anyway, hopefully you or someone else finds somthing useful in my too long overly analytical post. I look forward to this no unforgiveness.
I think you did a good job. Can't summarize 150 years of race relations in one post. I don't think you perhaps realized how it came off....but would I be right in guessing that you deliberately chose to speak about things many US citizens don't know? We all have an overly simplistic understanding of the antebellum, civil war, restoration, civil rights periods.
