But as @kennykb indicated above, you can see the same dynamics in the mid-west and I’d argue in just about any other place across America, the rural-urban divide.
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I’m from South Louisiana. I consider Lake Charles to be deeply rooted in racism.
I’m from the United States. I consider the U.S. to be deeply rooted in racism.
Comments attacking the racism of the South in my experience are primarily about people outside of the south trying desperately to hide the glaringly obvious problems of white supremacy and racism in their own area.
Biggest issue right here. Like in all things when the opinions of something are dominated from the outside by people without personal experience in the matter you get slanted 2-dimensional views.
It is if the central reason to do so is to deflect that the dominant culture of other geographic locations are also racist to their core.
This shit is fucking infuriating! This is one of the most critical and most damaging aspects of white culture. The constant othering of undesired people/places and then saying see I told you they’re bad, while appropriating desired people/places and saying see I told you we’re better. You’re post boils down to the South is racist because you declare racists to be southern.
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Thanks for your thoughts here, @anon61221983. As the OP (sort of), my comment was ultimately about the common and lazy stereotyping of southerners (usually by non-southerners) as a bunch of backward, redneck, ignorant, NASCAR-watching, gun-totin’ white christian racists. I was surprised to see subsequent comments defending this.
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All of this! 
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I can see how my hyperbolic(*?) statement would make it look like I see it that way (though I realize you were responding to others as well). I absolutely do not believe that all racism in the US derives from the Confederacy. In high school I got beaten up for being a white boy in the wrong part of town on a Saturday night, and I grew up on neither side of ye olde Manson-Nixon Line.
I’ve spent a bit over half my life now in NC. First in Wilmington, then in the Triangle since 2012. I call this corner up here The Klein Bottle Of The Confederacy: seemingly still within it, but very obviously and undeniably outside of it in every measurable way. From what I gather The ATL is like that as well, but I’ve no firsthand knowledge there, as the closest I’ve gotten to finally visiting Atlanta, ironically enough, was a weekend at Stone Mountain for an archaeology conference.
And all that is to say that yeah, I stand behind that inflammatory shit I said. I believe it to be accurate. I’m not saying that every white person in the South is ready to follow General Cartman to march on Washington again. (Should go without saying that I don’t assume too many Black folks from the South will follow him, either.) But culturally speaking, I absolutely believe that the Confederacy is still very much the home team for a plurality of the white southerners residing outside of RDU and Atlanta. Hell, I’ll even spot ya those with a BA, so long as we sort aggressively enough by population density at their primary residence.
I’ll add to this that much of the racism perpeptuated in the south (at the roots at least) come from the more refined cultural elites. This is not to say that poor whites can’t be racist or don’t benefit from racism. But to some extent, they are part of a system that was imposed on them and that then gave them one means of preserving some privileges for themselves.
Maybe that wasn’t the intent, but it’s enough of a problem that I generally feel the need to push back when people talk about “letting them have” the south… like, what happens to Americans of color down here? Or those of us who aren’t on board with segregation? Are we acceptable casualties? Alice Walker probably said it best when she said she should be able to go back to the place of her birth and live as a free and equal citizen.
Right? If you’re view of the south is from the movies, then maybe take a road trip sometime…
This is especially infuriating when some of the parts of the south that are the most stereotype often resisted the very southern elites who were responsible for maintaining the racial/class systems. Are some of those people also racist? Sure. But some of them come from pockets of pro-unionism (in both the sense of staying in the Union and the sense of having Unions) in the south.
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Huntsville, AL is rocket scientist central.
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I just got back from a road trip to NH and I have never seen more trump swag in my life. Probably more than around here in Virginia. Spent some time on the lakes to get away from it all and what do I see but a pontoon boat full of bikers in full biker gear flying trump and confederate battle flags.
Fuck racism wherever.
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As has been pointed out above, yes, racism is central to the American experience regardless of where you live. However, I have found the racism and general bigotry encountered in parts of the South to be louder and prouder than that found in many other parts of the US. This may not be your experience. But as someone who also grew up in the deepest of the deep South, and has lived in many other places from which I can draw a comparison, it has been mine.
Can you read my comment four posts after the quoted one and update your hypothesis to account for my perceived lack of personal experience?
Also note that I grew up in Appalachia. This was not a passive choice made without knowledge.
Grandmother (RIP) from Alderson, Mother is from Logan county; Parkersburg and Charleston living under my belt.
Soo happy not to be there any longer.
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You’re making a leap that I surely didn’t intend.
The racism that expresses itself in a suburban matron clutching her pearls and calling the cops at the sight of a Black face in the neighbourhood (and in the cop whom she calls, who is out to bust a few heads) is just as evil as the racism that expresses itself by waving a Confederate flag and toting a gun to a protest.
They express themselves differently, and they have to be engaged with differently to fight them effectively.
Southern Illinois or central Pennsylvania have more in common with the Confederate flag waver. Chicago or Philadelphia have more in common with the pearl clutcher and the violent cop.
Logan County!! Man, I applied for a job there. Took about 30 sec to figure out that I was not gonna fit in there at all. That is the WV of WV.
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You heard the mouth harps didn’t you? 
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Never been to South Boston, then? Hard to get louder or more obnoxious racism than Southies. Heavy recruiting area for BPD, too.
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Feel free to visit Ohio sometime; any part that isn’t a major-ish city will do.
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It’s accurate for the rest of the country, too. That’s my point. The more we pin the blame on one region or people who have less political and cultural power than others, the more we entrench the problem.
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I really think you missed my point. The key factor is who gets to decide what is “Southern.”
Personally I grew up in a predominantly Black (~70%) city. I consider it Southern.
If asked to name a Southern leader, MLK would come to mind first or close to it. MLK said the most virulent racism he ever saw was in Illinois.
This is the key to me. Many people, including you apparently , seem not to think of MLK as Southern culture (he was fighting against Southern culture). Confederate flag waving Illinois nazis, however, somehow are part of “Southern culture.” It is completely directed logic whereby “redneck, racist, rural, conservative, confederate, …” “other” traits are assigned to be southern while “progressive, urban, educated, anti-racist, …” traits are not southern.
This is part of the larger problem of white American culture whereby white “Middle America” gets to define all cultural and ethnic boundaries, and constantly shift those to whatever dividing lines make them the good guys.
As a Southerner, I’m of the crazy notion that I should have some say in what Southern culture is.
As a human I think the same goes for all groups; they should get to self define who they are
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Absolutely it is.
I’ve lived & visited all over the country, and racism exists EVERYWHERE.
Again, it’s baked into the very foundations of our society, regardless to whether some places are more blatant about it or not.
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This is what we mean by intersectionality. It’s putting race and class (and gender) into a conversation when looking at how events unfold historically and today.
Right? And does that include some racism among some of our culture. Of course. Is it somehow different than the rest of American racism or exclusively the prime feature of southern culture? Of course not!
Right? And here’s the thing about the south. Plenty of refined white people who aren’t flying rebel flags and doubling down on redneck culture are just as, if not MORE racist than the working class whites who do all that. What’s more, they have historically acted as cultural gatekeepers. Honestly, it’s a whole mess of race and class issues that aren’t so simple to untangle as people seem to think. It only really becomes apparently when you have to engage with it on some level.
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