photo credit: Wikipedia
The dilemma surrounding discussions of race has less to do with conflict between black and white. It has more to do with the intrinsic value systems inherited by many over generations. Witness a white southern woman discussing race relations and integration in her small Texas county:
Jan Gannaway, a Haskell native who is white, said integration took time.“We weren’t integrated nearly as rapidly as the North,” she said. “But we’ve always had a different relationship with our blacks than the North has, too. It’s often been said, and I think it’s true, we love them individually and kind of distrust them as a group, whereas in the North, they don’t want to get too close to them individually but they embrace them as a group.”
The point of difference between whites and blacks from the North and South seem tragically stark: Southern whites seemed to acknowledge their mistrust and fear, often to rationalize their own beliefs in the face of the perceived hypocrisy and/or faked tolerance of Northern whites. Racist anger cannot be masked by the tacit acceptance of they do it too but it’s covert, even if that’s the case. A pig is a pig, no matter it’s breed or breeding.
To argue the merits of civil rights legislation on the basis of government overreach, is consistent with the subjugation of humanity for a group of Americans. That is unconscionable. It’s un-American. But it seems to be part of the foundation of collective American thought by some in the south. Just ask Jan Gannaway.
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And that seems to mirror some attitues here in South Africa too, with English-speaking whites playing the part of the North, and Afrikaans-speaking whites playing the part of the South.