> The shades of gray are that slavery hasn’t been a thing for 150 years and nobody in the south today, or even when those pictures were taken, had anything to do with it. Racism, meanwhile, is universal everywhere that different people live alongside each other.
The American south is unquestionably better today than, say, the 1950s or 60s. But as a child I lived for a few years in the Deep South (specifically, east Texas) in the early 60s, and then again for a few more years (northwest Florida) in the late 60s, due to my dad's duty-station transfers. It was very racist — and changes in culture can often be slow.
A new New York Review of Books piece reviews a book that studies some of the ~1,000 racist murders — largely unpunished — that took place in the South between 1930 and 1970, in the teeth of federal Reconstruction-era legislation intended to protect Blacks. The piece brought to mind a tweet by an anonymous Army officer from awhile back: "[General] Sherman should have mowed the South like a lawn. With multiple passes." (Quoted from memory and so might be a bit off.)
The American south is unquestionably better today than, say, the 1950s or 60s. But as a child I lived for a few years in the Deep South (specifically, east Texas) in the early 60s, and then again for a few more years (northwest Florida) in the late 60s, due to my dad's duty-station transfers. It was very racist — and changes in culture can often be slow.
A new New York Review of Books piece reviews a book that studies some of the ~1,000 racist murders — largely unpunished — that took place in the South between 1930 and 1970, in the teeth of federal Reconstruction-era legislation intended to protect Blacks. The piece brought to mind a tweet by an anonymous Army officer from awhile back: "[General] Sherman should have mowed the South like a lawn. With multiple passes." (Quoted from memory and so might be a bit off.)
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/04/06/a-regional-reign...