geezus....you have swallowed the kool aid and the pitcher it was mixed in.
Without these people you are refering to your party has ZERO. You can imagine that they are not Republicans but the fact is, THEY ARE. Masses of them in the south. They defected from the Democratic party with The Civil Rights Movement. They left the party of civil rights because they were racist. You're exactly right. They had to find a place where they felt comfortable and that place was the Republican party. Jessie Helms, Strom Thurmond.....you must be proud! About as proud as the Dems are of Byrd. That old bastard just won't die or change parties!
Fact is, the Republican party is comprised of a ton of these idiots. You understand that the racist and the religious whackos are an overlapping group? You understand that they like your party because it's policies play up to their racist agendas? You maybe don't like affirmative action because it doesn't seem fair. The masses of Republicans down here, in your strong hold, don't like it because....what?....you said it.....they are racist. I have to admit, you are about as honest as anyone I have spoken with about where the racist are. Absolutely, they used to be in the democratic south, but that was decades ago. Now, the Republicans damn near have a monopoly on the southern racist. Congratulations! These people won a bunch of elections for you.
To make a long story short, you aren't from the south, are you? You should come meet some of your fellow republicans. It's your strong hold. The representative majority of your party.
WOW Pj, you throw that racist label around pretty loosely. I have found that people who avoid the reality of their inner feelings, find it necessary to accuse everyone else of what they themselves are guilty.
gb
Maybe so for some. I was raised to be a racist. That's how it was, and still is for much of the south. Some of the things I could tell you about growing up in rural NC. One of my Dad's favorite things to say when I would make a mistake or break something when I was a kid was "a damn ****** can tear up, it takes a white man to fix up." I must have heard that a few hundred times growing up. Even my beloved grandmother, considered a kind and devout Christian in the neighborhood, would say things about "*******". Anything second rate, anytime there was an appearance of laziness, ignorance or a crime, that was what was immediately referenced. I can recall my teachers, folks that went to our church, all of my Dad's Masonic brothers (still one of the most segregated fraternities on Earth), our Police Chief, all of them, in the correct company and at different times explaining to me about the "*******" or asking me if I wanted to grow up to be like them. Oh yes, I am intimately familiar with racism. There is one thing that made a difference for me and many in my generation: intergration. Racism was and is alive and well in private America. However, in our public institutions, intergration was a forced issue. It still is. If you want to see how people in the south interact when free to chose, just pick a church. Any church. The Church is one of few public places untouched by forced intergration and being left to chose, Sunday is the most segregated day of the week. At any rate, intergration put me and my peers into school with all children. The violence of civil rights was largely over and we were beginning to understand each other better. The things I heard at home and at church didn't ring true in a young, open mind. My school was 65% black, Middlesex, NC. I was the minority. My black peers were not dumb or slow or ignorant. In fact, being the majority, there were more black kids that I had to keep up with academically than white. This did not go un noticed by a young man who heard racial slurs, down right biggotry and slander, regularly from the respected white people in the community. My family. My friends. My Church. Despite knowing a lot of black kids that were every bit as capable as me, they were noticably poorer. They lived in houses about to fall down. There clothes were ragged and too small. They wore ill fitting shoes. Being educated in this post civil rights era gave me a clue as to why my friends parents might not ba as educated, might not be paid as well, might not have as good a job or decent opportunity as my parents. And I knew it was so. After all, I was white. I got to hear what white people thought about black people. There was no denying the history, the circumstance, the reality. It all made perfect sense by the time I was a teenager.
One of my first jobs was at Durham's Garage in Kenly, NC. Some of my relatives owned it. I was changing oil and doing brake jobs. Jack Durham was the owner, he had semi retired and his son Richard, my cousin, ran the place. They were both typical, rural southern racist. That's just how it was. They would rant and carry on from time to time if there was a burglary in the neighborhood and say it was surely a "******". Jack was the worst, being "old school". Often he would go on and on about welfare and food stamps and how "a ****** don't want no job". Then, at one point, we lost our top mechanic. We had desperately been seeking a new guy, especially someone with diesel experience. One day this guy walks in. Slacks, loafers, obviously looking for a job. Black guy. 12 years experience and a degree from Wilson Tech in diesel mechanics. Before he could hand over his resume, Jack says "sorry, we don't need nobody." Yeah right Jack, "****** don't want no job." Fact is, for the longest time, white people wouldn't give a black man a job. Wonder why a black man might need welfare to feed his kids eh?
I could go on and on about the racism I see everyday, as a white man, born and raised in the south. I can tell you about my experience here in Whitmire, SC since a black man ran for and won the presidency of the United States. And that's the thing: I WILL TELL YOU. I can tell you because these good ol' boy, racist, damn near exclusive republican ass wipes commonly mistake me for a member of their damned good ol' boys club, just because I'm white and I sing country music with a southern accent. I don't challenge them with this. It's useless. It's worth more to keep my mouth shut so I can see who these people really are. And I know who they are. Not only do they speak to me in the right company, openly, but I speak there discrete code too. Jessie and Strom spoke that code well. They could stand before the Senate and say things that may have seemed a little off to the rest of the country but the good ol' boys knew who their men were.
In short, don't pretend to know my inner feelings, what I know or feel about racism. Just ask. I'll tell you. I am not ashamed of my circumstances, for I have risen above them. So you wonder why I might make a little joke about black people swimming? Because I know what real racism is. And that ain't it.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, asshole.
