Been under that rock for about fifty years, eh?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I was gonna post this on CS, but it's just too much like something that will devolve into fratching. So here it is. I don't mean it to be controversial, but it will be, I'm sure. I just howled with laughter when I heard it, so to me, it's just a funny (if squicky) story.

So, this woman from up north is trying to chat with my sister at her son's gymnastics class the other day. There are sort of a bleacher section where the parents hang out. This is in Georgia.

The layout of the gym is like this: little kids nearest the bleachers, teenagers learning to do jumps and flips along one side strip, younger kids on parallels, and way down the other end is cheerleading class.

The entire cheerleading class is, not suprisingly, all black. This is important. Most (but not all ) of the kids in the other classes are white or asian. Given the racial and economic demographics of this particular city, this is pretty much normal.

Anyways, this woman who is trying to talk to my sister and is curious that the cheerleading class is black. She says "What's up with those kids back there in the back part of the gym?"

And my sister says "That's the cheerleading class."

And the woman says, and I quote, "Well, I know that down here in the south there is a lot of segregation."

And my sister was just like :eek::confused::(

And then refused to get sucked into the conversation further. I can just picture her, cringing, while this idiot prattled on. Man, I wish I'd seen that. :D

I mean, seriously? Segregation? I keep trying to think she meant to say some other word, but then I can't imagine what word she could have meant that would have been all that much better.

Pure gold. I couldn't make this stuff up, folks.

[JuniorMintz]

:eek: :D

Holy Fuck-ola, Batman!


Sorry, I have only my laughter to contribute to the conversation. That totally had me rolling. :p

[AdminAssistant]

Kudos to your sister for taking the high road and letting it be. I don't think I would have been able to.

[HYHYBT]

We can be a bit backward here, but not THAT backward.

[Rapscallion]

And then refused to get sucked into the conversation further.

This is the only bit that bothers me. Badly incorrect assumptions such as that need to be corrected. She's going to go back home and tell everyone what they saw, and then they'll believe it as well.

Other than that, I have to wonder how some people cannot open their eyes.

Rapscallion

[daleduke17]

That would have probably been my first thought as well, that the groups were segregated. That's a proper term. If you see a group of a certain race all together with few in the other groups, wouldn't that be your first thought?

[BroomJockey]

wouldn't that be your first thought?

No, I'm pretty sure my first thought wouldn't be hey, they're keeping all the blacks together! Segregationists! It would most likely be Huh, I wonder if it's some form of club, or group...

[Rapscallion]

Oddly enough, the 'window ladies' in Amsterdam segregate themselves by nationality - different nations on different alleys. Just happens like that.

Rapscallion

[joe hx]

A couple days ago I walked into one of the cafeterias on campus. After I quickly scanned the room, I noticed that all the black students were sitting in one corner. They took up about 1/4 the cafeteria. Everyone else - mostly white people with some asian here and there - was, well, everywhere else.

Was this segregation? Maybe, but it was self-imposed. Really what it was is that everyone was sitting with their friends. Black people befriend black people, and white people befriend white people. And yes, thankfully, this is a trend I've noticed declining in the last decade or two.

[powerboy]

Honestly, I myself with probably a hell of a lot of people would not think anything about it.

[Greenday]

It's just generally what I see here. Most of the black people at my school won't associate with the white people on campus. We have frats on my campus and the only frat minorities will join is the all-minority frat. They refuse to join any other one so they can preserve their culture (I know this as I'm the only white guy in my 5 person apartment and the other four are in the frat and say so). I don't know many people that would outwardly ban someone because of race, but we segregate ourselves based on how comfortable we feel.

[AdminAssistant]

Yes, but the point is that this person thought, "Well, the South is just so backwards and awful that they're still segregated and discriminating against black people while whistlin' Dixie and drinkin' moonshine". It wasn't that there was some kind of self-separation going on.

[Boozy]

Before someone inevitably pulls out a dictionary definition of "segregation", I think we can all agree that the word as used in the United States very strongly implies de jure segregation (mandated by law). Racial divides still exist (and are indeed more prevalent in the South) but "segregation" just isn't the right word.

[Greenday]

Yes, but the point is that this person thought, "Well, the South is just so backwards and awful that they're still segregated and discriminating against black people while whistlin' Dixie and drinkin' moonshine". It wasn't that there was some kind of self-separation going on.

Perhaps the person had just never been put in a situation where there were large populations of different races. I mean, look at where I'm from. I live in New Jersey, fairly north in the country. But my town itself is, as of 2000, 94.22% white. Until high school, we had ONE kid who wasn't white, and he was half white/half black. Then, in high school, where four towns combined for one school, we had maybe...10 black kids? So if the person is from a town like mine, I can see why they have no experience with people willingly separating themselves by race.

[AdminAssistant]

But she made the qualifier, in the South. Hence, the problem. Racial divides exist all over the country, especially in big cities. I wouldn't say they exist anymore in the South than they do up here in the Midwest/Plains area, from personal observation. Kansas City is a poster child for it.

[Flyndaran]

But she made the qualifier, in the South. Hence, the problem. Racial divides exist all over the country, especially in big cities. I wouldn't say they exist anymore in the South than they do up here in the Midwest/Plains area, from personal observation. Kansas City is a poster child for it.

Big cities are far less bigoted than rural areas.

[BroomJockey]

Big cities are far less bigoted than rural areas.

Got anything besides your own experience to back that up? After all, you swear by the scientific method, and I'd hate for you to make a statement of fact based on just hearsay.

[smileyeagle1021]

well Broom, it's not quite scientific, but Democrats tend to be less bigoted (they tend to vote in favor of anti-discrimination bills and equality laws) and big cities tend to have more Democracts (just look at election results), therefore, if we accept both premises to be true (that democrats are less bigoted and big cities are more likely to have democrats) then we can accept that big cities have a less bigoted population.

And my personal experience has backed that up... with the exception of salt lake, the larger the city, the more people have been open and welcoming to homosexuals... and salt lake has the excuse that it is a cult headquarters city (my apologies to SIGE, but after my experience in the so call church, I can never again show it respect).

[AdminAssistant]

Seriously, go to Kansas City and drive down Troost Avenue or State Line Road. There is a clear delineation between the 'white' part of town and the 'black' part of town. Blacks and other minorities live east of Troost or in KCK. Poor whites live downtown, south of Bannister Rd., or in certain corners of midtown. Richer whites - Brookside or any of the many "white flight" suburbs. There is an extreme amount of racial prejudice and tension there. Moreso than the smaller, rural towns in the South that I'm familiar with. A friend in St. Louis has told me there's a similar problem there. Other cities...I don't know.

But, of course, it's just easier to sweep all of the South and every rural neighborhood with the same brush. We're all just stupid, racist, NASCAR-lovin' rednecks.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

That would have probably been my first thought as well, that the groups were segregated. That's a proper term. If you see a group of a certain race all together with few in the other groups, wouldn't that be your first thought?


It wasn't mine. I was in that same gym the week before to see my nephew do his gym class, and when I saw them, my first thought was that they were a school group or a special club or something. I asked my sister and sure enough, they were pretty much both: cheerleading class from a particular school.

Segregation being, you know, illegal and unconstitutional and all. :rolleyes: I mean, I know that some groups do self segregate in certain situations, but I seriously doubt a place that holds classes would get away with deliberately segregating their classes for long.

RAPS: yeah, I said the same thing to her, actually. I would not have been able to let it go. But my sister is not much like me. She's kind of shy and not much willing to engage in a conversation with an idiotic stranger.

[BroomJockey]

And my personal experience has backed that up...

You're not the one who's said personal experience is not adequate to prove a fact elsewhere on the board, smiley.

[protege]

A friend in St. Louis has told me there's a similar problem there. Other cities...I don't know.

Pittsburgh has a similar situation. We too have a clear distinction between the 'white' and 'black' parts of town. Blacks tend to live in areas like Hazelwood, the Hill District (up behind the Mellon Arena, for those of you who watch the Penguins), the North Side, Lincoln-Larimer, Homewood, East Liberty, parts of Oakland, etc. All of which are high-crime areas compared to the 'white' suburban areas.

Originally, many of those neighborhoods were 'mixed' neighborhoods. Then, after the 1960s race riots, quite a few white people moved out to the 'burbs, and even now, many of the 'burbs are still mostly white. It's not that we don't want blacks out in the 'burbs...but rather we don't want the problems of their neighborhoods to come with them. That is, we don't want the drug trafficking, the prostitution, and other crimes that seem to be "tolerated" in their neighborhoods.

Quite a few people saw what happened to the "Green Gables" housing development over in Baldwin. As soon as that place started taking Section 8 vouchers, and the blacks started moving in...it went from an OK neighborhood to "South Central LA" almost overnight. Since then, there have been several drug busts over there. Bad enough, that there's now a police station in the middle of that development. Eventually, under pressure of surrounding residents, the development lost their Section 8 status, and most of those residents left. No sooner do they leave, when the crime level over there...went back to its pre-Section 8 level. With that said, it's no wonder there's prejudice out in the 'burbs :rolleyes:

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Racial divides still exist (and are indeed more prevalent in the South) but "segregation" just isn't the right word.

Exactly. I have to wonder if she meant to use another word. But even if she meant to suggest some sort of voluntary division of races, I'd love to know where she's getting her information.

I am certainly not going to claim there is no racial tension of any sort here. Of course there is. I imagine you'll find that anywhere there is more than one race. However, Georgia is (to my suprise, actually, I thought the percentage would be higher) 30 percent afro-american, and South Carolina, where I live, is approaching 50 percent, if I have that right. I'd say that overall, we've figured out how to live together for the most part.

We are not perfect here. However, it's not the backwards pre-civil rights cesspit that some folks in other places seem to think it is.

[Flyndaran]

... 30 percent afro-american, and South Carolina, where I live, is approaching 50 percent, if I have that right. I'd say that overall, we've figured out how to live together for the most part.
...
Sorry, but every time that someone mentions that word, I giggle with images of 70s hairstyles gone crazy.
Black people are black. Not colored, because we all have colors. If you see a colorless person get your eyes checked. They aren't any vulgar words. They aren't African Americans unless they damn well personally came from Africa. Charlize Theron is African American and white.

I am not Native-Caucasian--Hispanic-Middle Eastern-Asian-American and maybe other stuff, because that is silly.

[Boozy]

Mod Note

Please start a new thread if you want to discuss the issues that Flyn brought up in his last post. Going that route will get us too far off topic for this particular discussion.

[XiaoTortuga]

My personal experiences from when I lived in South Carolina back in 90/91:
Everybody had figured out how to co-exist. The black teachers and the white teachers sat at different lunch tables, as did the black and white students. There were very few white students in my school because most of the white kids when to a private school where there were NO black students. Our town had the black funeral home and the white funeral home. There were the black churches and the white churches.

The only time students actually bridged the gap and became friendly with each other was the boys who played football.

It was not uncommon to hear white people of all ages openly discuss their dislike/hate for black people in very insulting language.

This was a small town, and it was a while ago, but I really doubt the town has managed to completely turn around since I was there.

(And it was known by everyone that no white girls would get on the cheer leading team.)

My experiences there do not reflect what it is like in all of South Carolina. Not all white people in the south are racist and not all areas are existing in a shared but separated space. But, the spoken and unspoken agreed upon segregation was most definitely in existence when I was there.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

My friend K, from my last job, is black.

Long story short, she had a run in with a salesman from a certain rag publication we have out here geared towards a black audience. She is a media buyer. This guy harassed, cajoled, begged, insulted and belittled her. In truth, I have never seen anyone act in such a professional manner in my entire life as this jackass did. He called her on a weekly basis. It became a years-long running office joke.

He went over the line one day, calling her an Uncle Tom, among other things. Blah blah blah.

She came over to my cube that afternoon and said to me, "You know what? Today is the very first time in my life, in all honesty, that I've actually had to deal with real race-related bullshit in my life. I can honestly say that before now, it has never been an issue for me."

Of course, the irony of it all was that she was being handed this shit by a BLACK MAN.

Her point, really, was that in her dealings with the population at large, race just didn't seem to be an issue, at least as far as it affected her. However, there will always be that small fringe group who sees racism everywhere and tries to use it to their benefit. :(

[protege]

She came over to my cube that afternoon and said to me, "You know what? Today is the very first time in my life, in all honesty, that I've actually had to deal with real race-related bullshit in my life. I can honestly say that before now, it has never been an issue for me."

Of course, the irony of it all was that she was being handed this shit by a BLACK MAN.

Pardon my French, but that's fucked up. Sadly, it's not unheard of.

For example, one of my mother's former coworkers was a black doctor. A * successful* black doctor, who literally started with nothing. Worker her ass off all through school, college, and then med school. Very difficult to do that 40+ years ago. Anyway, she said that when she sees her parents, (who still live in the old neighborhood...which has since fallen on hard times) she has to deal with that sort of shit. She usually tells those people to fuck off. Why should she be made to feel guilty for working hard?

Hell, up until meeting her, I had no idea she was black. Up until then, I'd always dealt with her on the phone, and the call usually wasn't very long. She'd sometimes pick up...and then transfer me to my mother :p

Anyway, what always got me, is that most white people always treated her with respect. Yet many of her own race did not. What's up with that shit?

[the_std]

Anyway, what always got me, is that most white people always treated her with respect. Yet many of her own race did not. What's up with that shit?

One word: jealousy.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Well, in this case, the salesman was having to deal with my white boss until K was hired to handle that sort of thing. When the salesman found out she was black he decided that "of course the sister would help a brother out."

When he found out that shit didn't fly with her, he resorted to saying that the only reason she was hired was so that our (rather large) company could say "no" to him (a tiny little person selling an unread mag ) without looking racist.

I shit you not. He said that to her.

But I guess the point is that yeah, there are a few holdouts here who dearly hope and pray that racism is alive and well because it suits them for it to be true. It's the only thing they have. And of course, I would not be so naive to suggest that there are no bona fide card carrying racists out here. But the vast majority that goes on about their lives day to day? Not that big of a spectre looming over us.

[Greenday]

Anyway, what always got me, is that most white people always treated her with respect. Yet many of her own race did not. What's up with that shit?

There's this sense of "Oh, you're too good to have a job/no job like us and live in crappy conditions." It's like, wait, one second you are supposed to be doing whatever you can to get out of there and succeed, but once you do, you're a traitor? How does that make sense?

[pile of monkeys]

The entire cheerleading class is, not suprisingly, all black. This is important. Most (but not all ) of the kids in the other classes are white or asian. Given the racial and economic demographics of this particular city, this is pretty much normal.

I think I missed something- why was it not surprising that the entire cheerleading class was black? I'm confused because, in my area, the stereotype of cheerleaders is blonde white girls.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Because in this particular city, blacks are a 35 percent minority. Whites are only a 62 percent majority. And in some high schools, blacks are the majority due to where they live and where their school is. So an entire squad of black teenagers from a single high school is a common thing, even without conscious segregation.

The stereotype of blonde white girls is an American stereotype. It's not a Southern Lowcountry stereotype. Down in the Lowcountry, there are a lot of black folks, and some of them are so rural they don't even speak English so you can understand it. We're talking about spanish moss and gullah down here. No lie, there is an African village down here somewhere.

[Flyndaran]

That still sounds like willful discrimination.
If we saw an all white squad, don't you think someone would call foul?... Not a single whitey on the squad sounds like someone is pushing them not to even try out.

[Boozy]

It smacks of discrimination to me, too. But I don't live there so I'm not savvy about the culture. I'm open to being educated about it...

But in an area that is 62% white, it would seem to me that a few white kids would want to be on the cheerleading squad, and of those, a few would be good enough to make the cut. The fact that the squad consists only of black kids leads me to believe that there is deliberate exclusion based on race.

[jackfaire]

That would have probably been my first thought as well, that the groups were segregated. That's a proper term. If you see a group of a certain race all together with few in the other groups, wouldn't that be your first thought?

Not really no. My first thought would be oh that is the cheer leading class. It wouldn't occur to me that they were of a different skin color anymore than if I noticed a class of nothing but blonds.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

That still sounds like willful discrimination.
If we saw an all white squad, don't you think someone would call foul?... Not a single whitey on the squad sounds like someone is pushing them not to even try out.

True, but for that to be the case, there would have to white girls showing up for audition.

I mean, I worked for two different film labs in the district where I grew up. Everyone both labs was white. There were about a dozen folks on the staff each time.

They were not discriminating. I worked there for years and not a single black person applied. There are not a ton of black folks in my hometown chomping to hire on in a film lab. They just aren't. But if you didn't know that, you'd think the bosses practiced discrimination. Believe me, if a black person had showed up to apply, he would have been hired immediatly, simply because my bosses knew how bad that looked.

Here's the thing: My nephew's gym class was all white. This is because there is, let's face it, an economic divide between the races. It's not racism in and of itself, it's economics. It's that poor people down here tend to be black. More whites than black can afford to send their kid to a gym class. A school paying for their squad to attend a cheerleading school might be almost entirely black. Same goes for my daughter's ballet class. She's been through two classes. She had one black classmate, and this is even in an area that is predominantly black. It's economics. Now, you could argue that the economic division is based on racism, and that is another conversation. But I know for a fact that there is so segregation or discrimination going on at my daughter's dance school. I also know for a fact how much it and the gym class costs. Show up with $$$ and you are in, they don't care who you are.

[Boozy]

True, but for that to be the case, there would have to white girls showing up for audition.

Not quite -- read Flyndaran's post again.

He knows there are no white girls showing up for auditions. He's saying that there is intense social pressure not to try out for the squad at all if you're white.

Frankly, that's a no-brainer in my opinion. If the squad is all-black and has always been all-black, it would take one very brave white girl to buck all social expectations and go for the squad. The opposite would also be true if the races were reversed.

This would be called "institutional racism"... except I was loathe to bring that up, since the last time it was discussed here everyone swore up and down that such a thing could never exist. :rolleyes:

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Well, you're right, and nobody can really know what exactly is going on. If there are white girls who want to try out, but don't for the reasons you state, then yeah. I agree.

But if it's the case that none of the half a dozen white girls in the school are even interested in trying out, there is nothing nefarious going on.