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From: jwb@mcnc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: racism and hi-tech
Message-ID: <1688@mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Jun-83 14:18:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcnc.1688
Posted: Wed Jun  8 14:18:04 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Jun-83 19:11:56 EDT
References: hou5e.539 rabbit.1540
Lines: 42


I'm a little tired of some of the stereotypes of the south.  They aren't
direct but are such things as "We all know racial prejudice doesn't only
occur in the South."  I am white, anglo-saxon and love the south for its
good characteristics.  I don't try to apologize for its truly bad
historical or present aspects.  My parents both graduated from a college
founded in the 1850's by abolitionists (Berea College, Kentucky).
My school was integrated when I was in the second grade (1952).  The
teachers made such a deal about how fortunate we were to be able to
understand another culture (which then it was, more than now) that some
children cried because we didn't get a black student in our room.

I then watched integrateion forced only on 7 southern states.  This
seemed hypocritical to me then and still does.  Later events in Chicago,
Detroit, Boston, etc. bore this out to me.

Although there were sitins etc and undoubtedly deplorable violence in
the 50's and 60's in the south, it was not all that way.
In about 1960 the lunch counter at the Corner Drug Store in the small
southern town where I was raised was integrated in the following manner.
Blacks had always been able to purchase hamburgers to go and stood
patiently at the end of the counter (or sat on a stool if there were
empty ones).  This particular day an imaginative black ordered a
hamburger to go and then sat down on the stool and ate it.  From that
day on this lunchcounter was integrated and I think EVERYONE was happy
that a silly prejudice had fallen.

I am sure I am prejudiced about some things.  I am sure everyone is
prejudiced about some things.  I don't think I am prejudiced about race
but maybe I am.  I cannot be objective enough.

This is long and rambling, but my messages are really two.  1 Please
don't stereotype the south or any other group.  2. The federal
government's attempts to enforce racial equality depend in the final
analysis on the people and the interpersonal relationships involved.
I would like to think that most people would like NOT to be prejudiced.
Positive reinforcement of this characteristic is more fruitful than
ramming somthing down anyone's throat, as history should make obvious.

Jack Buchanan
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
duke!mcnc!jwb