First of all, before I answer, let me say that I'm a white, Protestant, evangelical conservative from Mississippi. There are some things we'd LIKE to forget, the issues you brought up being the main ones. I'll try to answer as best I can based on white I know as a southerner. Those laws were hideously, morally wrong and only came about as the result of southern resentment towards the response of the North to the "southern question."
"Coloreds" only applied to blacks and maybe (can't remember exactly) Native Americans.
"Whites" applied to non-blacks.
To give you an idea of the reach of these laws, let me tell you this story: I'm 32 years old, which means I was a child back in the 80's. My grandmother took care of me while my parents were at work. Every now and then she'd go to the GP doctor with me in tow. At this particular office, as soon you get past the front door, you're looking at a wall, and there's a door to the left and a door to the right. The room to the left was practically full, so I start to go into the room on the right. My grandmother pulled me back to the other room and explained that "we don't go in there." I didn't think to ask why, but in later years it made sense. We've largely abandoned those funny practices, but people still carry on the habit as late as the 1980's!
I'm not going to defend archaic southern attitudes, but I'll try to explain what's going on. Southerners and Yankees speak a whole different language. Yankees have a pattern of dictating what us backwards Southerners ought to do, yet they don't actually LIVE here or understand the culture. We're accused of being bigoted because the issue of race comes up at all. The reality is that a lot of the post-War of Northern Aggression resentment has faded from the southern mindset, but the resentment from the Civil Rights movement has not faded from the black mindset. That has led to a general mistrust on both sides, and it maintains a hold on racial distinction in the south even today. I finished my education in New York state and had some liberal attitudes towards education when I returned home. My first teaching experience was a disaster because, even though I was trying to be fair in dealing with a minority population, the resentment that these kids carried towards me as a white teacher was overwhelming. My second teaching job (also in a minority school) went a lot better, in part due to the lessons I'd learned earlier, but also the attitudes were a LITTLE more relaxed. The stereotypical idealistic liberal Yankee can't possibly understand this because of the predominantly white population of much of the Northern US. There IS no dialogue about northern minorities because minority populations do not exist in many of those areas the way the do in the south--they only seem (to me) to be concentrated in larger metropolitan areas. Southern resentment towards our Yankee neighbors has much to do with this hypocrisy.
The south of today is much more welcoming than the south of the 1960's. What you're seeing with discrimination against other European groups has to do with what southerners viewed as oppressive groups. Jews in particular shared the northern anti-slavery attitude, which to a southerner seems traitorous (Jews have good reason to oppose slavery). Their religious practices keep them a separate and distinct people, and Southern Jews and blacks as such identify well with each other. I'm sure, with that in mind, you can see where the resentment comes from. I think negative attitudes towards Jews is somewhat exaggerated, though. From the time Jews settled in the South, they mostly supported themselves with peddling (the equivalent of modern-day door-to-door sales). Back in those days, transportation was limited and rural southerners DEPENDED on Jewish peddlers for goods they didn't otherwise have access to, not even in the cities (like the GOOD kitchenware). My opinion is that there might have some prejudice against Jews, but this doesn't appear to be the norm for MOST southerners.
Other ethnic groups were associated with Northern attitudes. The more liberal north struggled with European immigration laws (you think Mexico is bad NOW?), and the concern within the South is that America isn't America anymore. Immigrants tended to settle in the north, so they typically brought their northern attitudes with them as they moved south. After the War of Northern Aggression, remember, southerners are wary of outsiders. You mentioned the Irish and Italians. A large part of the problem with Irish and Italians is the number of Catholics among them that displace other southerners politically.
For the most part, anyone moving to the south would do just fine if they weren't rude and contentious. It's less about race, more about Northern sympathy. In the early 1900's, much of the Mississippi Delta (where I live) was still frontier. Italian farmer THRIVED in this region and still comprise many of the largest families in the Delta (The Fiorenellis are HUGE where I live). Greenville, MS, at one time had large Jewish population during its Golden Age. As the Jewish peddlers settled down and adapted to the changes in the area, their sons and daughters went away, became doctors and lawyers, and never looked back. In the Delta, the same kind of thing is happening across the board now. The Italians don't really care to stay, either, and you have a few boys that MIGHT eventually come back and run daddy's farm. And the whites are all moving to Tennessee and further north! The "nicer" black families (meaning they haven't been tainted by hateful resentment) I've gotten to know are sometimes part of a "reverse migration," many coming back to their Mississippi roots after having spent most of their lives in Chicago.
Anyway... If all you're talking about are drinking fountains, this really only pertained to blacks and possibly Native Americans. A lot of the resentment had to do with what southerners felt was inequitable treatment on the part of northerners, and anyone associated with that (other European ethnic groups) was not to be trusted. Just to give you an example, many of us back then would hold up the Chinese as "model minorities" because of their powerful work ethic and willing (aggressive?) determination to assimilate into white society. Ethnic groups where I live STILL maintain their own sense of community and don't seem to WANT to lose their racial/ethnic identity--has nothing to do with racism. But with few exceptions ethnic groups here seem very friendly to each other.
When you're talking about skinheads, who are typically neo-Nazis, you're talking about white supremacy groups. The KKK would be included here. My opinion is that such groups perceive an irrational threat to racial purity and encroachment of protection of the rights of minorities upon their own rights. There IS no threat. From a Christian perspective, the only threat I can see is the imposition of secular/ecumenical ideas on our children through public education, discouraging and diminishing spiritual growth. Those groups maintain the same post-war attitudes, summed up as mistrust of outsiders. THOSE people might consider Italians to be of an incompatible ethnic group, but that is NOT the prevailing attitude of the south.
24 May 2010, 12:50 am
