There were some "good ole days" growing up in the South. Sometimes I get upset when I read things that people say about southern people and about the southern culture. A lot of it comes from exceptions to what southern living truly is. I am an older Southern Boy (and I capitalize that because my roots are that important to me). I would like to paint a very different picture of the South here than is normally painted. Sure, people can present stories that show a difference to what I am saying but my intention is to help people know that most of the racist culture the South is believed to be is mostly exaggerated.
I miss our farming families spending time together. Many white and black families were involved in working tobacco. Many of us also had cows and chickens and grew our own vegetables that "momma" put up to last us throughout the year. Almost everything we ate, we raised ourselves. Families helped each other. When the tobacco came in on each plot of land the families were involved in, all of the families got together and got it done. Black families and white families worked together as families, not as blacks and as whites. We kids played with all kids black and white. We had "best friends".....and many of we white kids had black kids as "best friends" and vice versa. Our families ate together. We helped rebuild each others barns and we cultivated each other's fields. We rarely worshiped together, however. I never understood that.
So many of us worked in the textile and furniture mills scattered all around the South. We worked for as little as a few dollars a day and there was no such thing as a nice retirement. My aunt and two of my uncles retired from the textile industry and got $2 per year in retirement for every year they worked at "The Mill". And, blacks and whites worked together doing exactly the same job making the same wage with the same benefits (or lack thereof). We went to lunch together, we went to the weddings and funerals of family members of our friends regardless of color. No, we didn't marry each other and no, we didn't worship together. But today? We marry each other and we worship together.
I left the South and spent 10 years in the Air Force. I was injured and got out of the service rather than to make it a career. I lived in 4 different countries and spent time in all but 13 states. I met people from all over the world and made many friends from so many different cultures I have lost count on how many that was....both from other countries and from different areas within the United States. And trust me, there are many different cultures right here in our own country that a great many people don't have a clue about.
I mention this because I can say without any reservation that the South is one of the LEAST racist parts of our nation. And, America as a whole is by far less racist than any other country I have either lived in or visited and spent a lot of time in. I am writing this diary without putting a bunch of links and pictures in it like many people that post diaries here do. This is just a "perspective post" that needs to be said from someone that has first hand knowledge of what is being said. We have too many people that are using race to further their particular political beliefs or cultural advancement expectations in America and they are doing that by stereotyping the culture of the South in a disingenuous and incorrect way.
The good old days are still here in the South. We have many people from all over the nation that come here to retire or to relocate for the weather or for other various reasons. I have talked to so many of these people that are absolutely amazed at how accepting whites are with other races here. They had expectations of seeing hate and discrimination and KKK chapters and bombing of black churches and everything else they were led to believe from unfair and biased sources.
I miss the good old days when people didn't see race as a means to an end and as something to be used for political or cultural or economic advantage. I would love to once again see people from different races sit down together for a meal or a wedding or a social gathering without people making it out to be anything and everything except friends being with each other.
