Blaming rural southerners for all of America's problems is probably not a good idea, IMO.
Leviticus 19:34Perhaps, but they and whatever negative parts of their culture that leaked into the rest of the country's regional cultures and pan-national culture are part of at least some of the problems in question.
edited 20th Sep '15 11:11:45 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.They're not the entirety of the problem but they hold an extremely disproportionate amount of political power. As a result their toxic attitudes make up most of the background noise in American culture and politics despite actually being the vast minority.
And there is nothing more damaging to a culture than background noise.
edited 20th Sep '15 11:12:54 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?As much as I'd like to blame some other part of the country for all our problems, the South doesn't hold a monopoly on these issues. I'm sure most of us have seen the racial tension with the NYPD. And going back even further you have the Draft Riots of 1863, where Irish - many immigrants, mostly Catholic - rioters responded to the draft by hanging and beating innocent black bystanders and torching a black orphanage.
Go the the Midwest with it's German and Scandinavian immigrant populations an you have states that tried to "solve" racial problems by banning black people from entering altogether.
And over here in California we've had racial riots all throughout the last century; Directed at the Black, Hispanic, Chinese, and Japanese communities. It wasn't even until midway through the century that I could even go to school with white kids. Even if places as famously liberal as San Francisco today, there are damning reports of the police singling out black people.
No doubt some of this was carried over by people immigrating from the South, but the fault for perpetuating these discriminatory problems is our own.
Ironically the case has been made that the Frontier was much more egalitarian than the civilized cities back East. Cowboys, business owners, lawmen, these position all had a share of black or women partakers. Apparently racism takes a secondary place to money and survival.
edited 20th Sep '15 11:42:25 AM by Parable
Funny that you don't see that last bit reflected in fictional works set in a more realistic depiction of the Wild West. I don't remember the last time I saw a woman or African American man holding such positions in such a setting.
edited 20th Sep '15 11:45:08 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.It's also worth mentioning that the post-Civil War US Army's troops in the frontier largely consisted of a funny blend of destitute ex-Confederates, newly freed uneducated blacks, and newly arrived immigrants struggling to speak English - most of the officers of the Civil War had been promoted upstairs, while the majority of the enlisted veterans had returned to their civilian lives.
Anyone can adapt to a culture, though. The negative culture comes from the people who became rural southerners, the scotch-irish borderers. They cultivated distrust for authority and distrust for outsiders (and not just in a racial-sense, anyone out-group, which creates the bad-neighbor tendencies in Americana).
In the case of the New York Irish it was one group who felt like they were being abused for the benefit of another group, so directed violence against them.
Part of the difference is that *some* groups got over this...
X6 I can think of one fictional work that did depict the Wild West as a society that would take anyone and include blacks in positions of authority. It was however British made.
So if the US is such a hive of racism, xenophobia, toxic individualism, hypocrisy, and stupidity, especially compared to Europe and indeed the rest of the world, how did we manage to gain such wealth and power. And yes I know about how the Second World War destroying everyone's industry, but we were a rising power even before that? By all rights we should have ended up like the third world shit hole's we keep invading.
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.Because, compared to the rest of the world, it has been very open to immigration. With a steady supply of workforce, new ideas,and coupled with a distinctly ENORMOUS FUCKING TERRITORY AND POPULATION, it means that the U.S historically has seldom have had a lack of resources, human and natural, to do their shit.
War? No problem ship in the famished irish immigrants. We need technology? Thousands of german immigrants incoming. Economy? Goodness look at all these Chinese immigrants setting up shop everywhere. Massive tech? Hey Germany. Russia. You dont mind me nicking some of your greatets minds do you no of course you don't. Goodness we need someone to do work? Thankfully we have latinos and blacks for that.
edited 21st Sep '15 2:07:43 PM by Aszur
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesForum ate my post, but basically.
- Genociding an entire continent opened up a lot of natural resources and eliminated the competition.
- Dumb luck with stuff like the Lousiana Purchase.
- The fact that Europe at the time was actually worse, we were even bigger assholes and even less tolerant (see the 30 years war). You started out at a much higher point then Europe was at the time, since then you've only improved a bit, we've improved a hell of a lot and overtaken you.
While every country in the world is racist, US is one of the only counties to have large numbers of all of them inside it really and we are more than willing to exploit em when needed, currently it's illegal immigrants and slaving them away in farms, which is why everyone seems to be up in arms at Trump including the farm industry and a lot of republicans.
In addition to land that was previously unexploited, while Europe and such have been exploiting their land for 3000+ years.
@Jack O Lantern: I don't see why a racist nation can't become super powerful.
Having said that:
@Aszur: If immigration is what's been powering American success this whole time, then I do believe that would partially counteract the claim that America is racist.
Leviticus 19:34The argument I'd use against the claim that America is racist is that far too many of America's most famous and well-loved figures were anti-racist (at least for their time). For example, Lincoln, JFK, MLK, and so on. I do not believe that this would be the case if America was significantly more racist than other nations.
Leviticus 19:34Also, with the civil war it depends on how you look at it. On one hand, a big chunk of America tried to secede to keep slavery. On the other hand an even bigger chunk was willing to fight and die to end slavery.
Leviticus 19:34

@ Ogodei: You mean "Rugged Individualism", Frontier culture and The American Dream?
edited 20th Sep '15 9:57:09 AM by Greenmantle
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