the north discriminates more than the south?

[Anja]

i went to visit some relatives in indiana (usa) this past summer, and i came to a strange realization...the place was incredibly white. there was not a black person in sight and the largest amount of non-whites were the hispanics in the city (indianapolis). now, i realize i was out in the country-suburbs, but it really hit home when my grandma described a black woman she talked to as "colored"...i was like wow. i later found out this area i visited was 99.9% white. i'm from north florida: confederate redneck country, but what i realized on this trip to indiana was that people in the north seem to be further behind in the road to diversity. only about 13% of the US population is black, and a large amount of them live in the south. whites and blacks, along with large here in the south. funny, during the civil war the north was always portrayed as the bulwark of freedom and acceptance, but lack of contact with other cultures in parts of the northern and western US (primarily in the country) is reversing that idea.

[Afro]

calico said:

i went to visit some relatives in indiana (usa) this past summer, and i came to a strange realization...the place was incredibly white. there was not a black person in sight and the largest amount of non-whites were the hispanics in the city (indianapolis). now, i realize i was out in the country-suburbs, but it really hit home when my grandma described a black woman she talked to as "colored"...i was like wow. i later found out this area i visited was 99.9% white. i'm from north florida: confederate redneck country, but what i realized on this trip to indiana was that people in the north seem to be further behind in the road to diversity. only about 13% of the US population is black, and a large amount of them live in the south. whites and blacks, along with large here in the south. funny, during the civil war the north was always portrayed as the bulwark of freedom and acceptance, but lack of contact with other cultures in parts of the northern and western US (primarily in the country) is reversing that idea.

Indiana is probably one of the most racist "northern" states. A matter of fact, its one of the KKK's biggest "strongholds". Its obviously different then any New England states or New York or Pennsylvania.

I don't know what you mean by more hispanics in indiapolis then blacks, that city is a quarter black.

www.city-data.com/city/Indianapolis-Indiana.html

Races in Indianapolis:

White Non-Hispanic (67.5%)
Black (25.5%)
Hispanic (3.9%)
Other race (2.0%)
Two or more races (1.6%)
American Indian (0.7%)

Regarding which is more racist, well when do you think more problems will start, when there is ten blacks in a room with ten whites or when there is 5 blacks in a room with 15 whites???

[Melnorme]

Afro said:

Regarding which is more racist, well when do you think more problems will start, when there is ten blacks in a room with ten whites or when there is 5 blacks in a room with 15 whites???

The best thing is to be a very small minority ( so you 'fade into the background' ) or a very large minority ( so you're too numerous to mess with ). African-Americans are unfortunately in the midway point.

[gbloco]

i dont think you can blame the people of indiana for the fact that they didnt have slavery there, and the subsequent move north of blacks passed them by. the same is true of all pretty much all the midwest with the exception of detriot and chicago. just a quirk of history rather than a sign of discrimination.

[Afro]

Melnorme said:

The best thing is to be a very small minority ( so you 'fade into the background' ) or a very large minority ( so you're too numerous to mess with ). African-Americans are unfortunately in the midway point.

Yeah I agree.

[Anja]

i don't blame them...it's my relatives i was thinking about...it's just an interesting observation.

[Dodona Underground]

Maybe this will interest you. Treatment of blacks in the North prior to the civil war:

…throughout the North, discrimination against blacks was universal and often enshrined in statutes. In Pennsylvania, for instance, special measures were taken to guard against black crime, the governor of the state insisting that blacks had a peculiar propensity to commit assaults, robberies, and burglaries. Both Ohio and Indiana had a legal requirement that, on entering the state, a black must post a bond of $500 as a guarantee of good behavior. In 1821 New York State’s constitutional convention virtually adopted manhood suffrage: anyone who possessed a freehold, paid taxes, had served in the state militia, or had even worked on the state highways could vote—but only if he was ‘white.’ … [John Quincy] Adams was well aware that in Europe the North’s color bars already shocked educated people.

A History of the American People Paul Johnson p318

[gbloco]

unless of course that refusal to introduce slaves in the first place was a racist one. certainly there is a lot of evidence that the main reason the union states opposed slavery in the first place was because they didnt want any more blacks in the country.

[vela]

How do you reconcile Lincoln's philosophy about race, as depicted in the quote below with his historical stance regarding slavery??

"I will say, then, that I AM NOT NOR HAVE EVER BEEN in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races---that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters
or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and black races which will ever FORBID the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race."

— 4th Lincoln-Douglas debate, September 18th, 1858; COLLECTED WORKS Vol. 3, pp. 145-146