Medically speaking, this is a trauma situation. This has nothing to do with slavery. As a native southerner (not a racist) let me explain: slavery in the south was about freedom. Slaves in the south lived in better conditions than many 'independent' Americans do today. While its almost never discussed, often times slaves had plenty food, comfortable housing, and reasonable work hours. All for tobacco and cotton, keep in mind. Here's the clincher: slaves lived reasonably well without any use or need for money. Slave owners kept all the money, but in exchange, slave owners provided slaves with everything that they needed, and many slave-owners taught their slaves how to read and write and they provided entertainment as well, but all without providing money. That's where the problem began. Money was the foundation of our society, and the northerners were upset that a whole group of people (albeit slaves) could live happy lives without any money. Then the northerners blew the whole thing out of proportion and claimed that slaves were being abused. They found maybe one or two cases of abuse and then they claimed that that was the case for all slaves. Then the northerners declared war on the south to 'free the slaves', but it was really to force the south into the money economy. So the northerners won and 'freed' the slaves so that we could all be slaves to the money economy today. Nowadays, we think that we're free, and yet many of us (including caucasians) work long hours for little pay, and its all legal now. During slavery, the majority of southerners lived in mansions and they built houses for their workers. Today, most American workers live in poverty. We still use a definition of poverty dating back to the '60's to hide the actual poverty that exists today. We have not advanced. We have not gone anywhere. We are back at where we started with slavery. Now to clarify the NSM situation: all they want (albeit ridiculous) is to NOT have their race get washed-out by all this 'inter-racial' breeding. Come to find out, all these 'darker races' are stronger, smarter, and more attractive than the failing white race, and that is threatening some white people. The racist think that blonde hair/blue eyes is attractive, but the anti-racists think that dark-skin is attractive, and as facts would have-it, the blonde hair/blue eyes race is shrinking while the dark-skin race is growing. True, many racist go over-board with their promotion of violence and stuff, but that is because they do not even understand that the confederate flag once stood for freedom and they do not understand that they are going overboard because {and I apologize for this generalization but its sometimes true} white people tend to go overboard on things. So once we put this all in perspective, we see that there is no reason to be 'afraid' or 'against' racism because they have their little reasons just as we have our reasons for disagreeing with racism. With that in mind, it would bring me much joy to see Olympia ignore the racists. Silly white people, be a little friendlier and maybe more girls would date you instead of going for the more cosmopolitan other races. Its all relative. I condone no hate. I promote understanding of the other side in exchange for a happy, civil world.

Was it the mention of the Southern Poverty Law Center? That organization just happens to be a good resource for people who are tracking oppression of all sorts in the U.S.

Regarding the status of slaves in the South, perhaps some research is in order:

Historical records indicate that some slaveowners were more cruel to slaves than others. Some slaveowners raped and whipped slaves, and even cut off limbs of slaves who tried to escape, while other slaveowners provided materially for their slaves and were less physically abusive. In many households, treatment of slaves varied with the slave's skin color. Darker-skinned slaves worked in the fields, while lighter-skinned slaves or "house negroes" were made to work in the house and had better provisions. The United States slave population was the only slave population in history that increased through birth rather than importation. The interpretation of this fact has been a topic of much debate.

My interpretation of this quote is that there was universal use of physisical coercion, some more extreme than others. So, how was this a good deal for the slaves?

..."The most radical idea in America is a long memory."

You're arguments sound a lot like arguments that holocaust deniers use. "it wasn't THAT bad", or there weren't "THAT many of them".I consider it racist to say that having human beings as property "wasn't that bad", though I agree that some of the poverty people live in today is comparable to slavery.

However, I don't think that the "white race" is in danger, nor do I think that white women prefer non-white men, nor do I think that people of color are necessarily more "cosmopolitan", nor do I think that racist ideas like those you are expressing are at all similar to how I feel about things. So I don't think we should just say "I'm ok, you're ok". I think racist ideas really hurt people in concrete ways.

I know what you mean about the South. Its true that in many ways it is not any more racist than the North. And it is true that Southern culture is misunderstood by many Americans up North. However, it seems there is also a sort of collective, consensus-based amnesia that most Southerners participate in. It is demonstrated very well in your post. Many Southerners, including black Southerners like to romanticize the old South saying how great it was. I would encourage you to consider that this is some type of propaganda. You may be right that people exaggerate how great today is, but they also do so with the past. (There are a lot of good books on this subject.)

Frederick Douglass disagreed with you about the old South (of which he was a member):

"There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practises more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practises of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival..."

WOW - what a load! I'm not sure where I could start with someone who believes that American chattel slaves had material lives of more liesure and grace than those slaves' modern decendants. I don't like wage slavery, either - but if I had to choose between being chattel and being a wage slave, I'd choose the latter.

Let's start with the happiness assertion. Just what was the level of fear among white people during chattel slavery? Rebellion. Nat Turner. Rape and murder. The origins of policing in the United States - slave patrols - were invented in the 1820's and 1830's in the slaveholding states of the Union. These institutions evolved until they regulated the lives of all the poor, free and bonded alike.

If that white fear gave rise to institutions such as the police, and the National Guard, and the Ku Klux Klan, then why could any serious historian say that Black men and women in bondage had a good deal? How could you call them happy, if the organized body of all free white men had to be placed under arms for the protection of the system? I've seen many photographs of slaves' welts and scars. I've seen the old slave house in Southern Illinois, and looked at the cages where women servants were bred with a man held there, for a fee. That was happening in a Northern State, and it was illegal at the time it happened. But it did happen. They mined salt from a spring in the earth, boiled it down to granular salt.

I agree that we need unity. But more importantly, we need memory. Accurate memory. Not to blame, but to understand.

The North was the home of the largest KKK organizations. Indiana, Ohio, Illinois (in that order if I recall correctly) were the three largest memberships for the KKK in the 1920's. The North did not free the slaves, either - in their own territory. The emancipation proclamation only freed slaves in those parts of the country still in rebellion against the Union. It's short, you can read it for yourself very easily. I know this. But it does not make slavery a nice deal or a utopia without money.