On your disdain for poor southern, white, rednecks ....

kdpeters

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Wed Feb-21-07 09:31 PM
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On your disdain for poor southern, white, rednecks ....

YOU ARE WRONG!!!

I'm sick of my poor people being disparaged by the rest of the country and victimized by the true racists who establised a separate system of education during integration. We are poor, we are white, and we could not send our poor childrend to racist, whites-only, private schools during integration. We integrated with poor black folk during the 60's, and 70's. Sometimes peaceful; sometimes not. But in the South, there arose a private school class of white children who knew they didn't have to attend school with niggers. That was for us farmers' children -- poor white trash -- as you called us. Rednecks who were teammates, classmates, and friends with our black classmates. We couldn't afford the racism of the middle class, so we adapted and learned. Yet, the private, privileged education afforded them racism, privilege, and a political philosophy that always started with, "Why do I have to pay ...?" These are the people you give a pass, because they are better educated and maybe "sound" less racist -- they are not. I LIVED on the black side of the tracks because my mother was single and poor. My neighbors were wonderful black families who had less than we did. I was a total nerd at school, but I could join in the black side of the playground no questions asked. And I went to church and scouts with some of those private school whites whose parents had every excuse for sending them to the academy. Let me tell you, whatever their parents' excuses, their children knew better -- they didn't have to attend school with niggers!! They actually said so.

Though I hated them, I still felt inferior. Goddamnit. They had no right. My second best friend was black. We were both nerds. Public school or private school, when you make stellar grades -- you just don't have that many friends in a rural community. My best friend was the cootiest of the cootie boys. Even the cootie girl would beat up my best friend -- the cootie boy. But Burly was the third nerdiest kid in school, but the nerdiest black. He had a really tough time.

What you people don't understand is that after integration, poor whites were left behind with black southerners. While it wasn't called such, there was a 'seperate, but equal' education system set up where middle and upper class whites could send their children to 'private' academies which meant -- 'no blacks'. So during the 60's and 70's, while us rednecks were learning how we were now on the same rung as our black friends and neighbors, -- the really racist among us were feeling special and privileged to attend all-white 'private' schools.

So there you have it. Racist whites in a parallel education system are admired by you for being educated Southerners. Poor blacks are met with sympathy and empathy for living in a racist environment. But us poor white Southern rednecks, are punished by you for having to attend the same dysfunctional public school system as Southern black folk -- while better educated, much more racist, middle and upper class Southern whites are admired by you people.

Screw you all. You don't know crap. Cozy on up to the racist white genteel who have you mesmerized -- they are the Bushes, the Ken Lays, and all the remnants of the Plantation owners. The rednecks you hate are not the racists and were just as much victimized by the negligence of public education as are our African American neighbors. You wouldn't dare attack uneducated Southern blacks, while you gleefully savage uneducated Southern whites -- products of the same public education -- and cozy up to racist, educated, separated, cultured Southern whites -- whose moneyed grandparents prefered to establish a whites-only private education system rather than allow their heirs to attend school with niggers -- yes, that's how it was. That's how it is.

Those kids at church and scouts who attended Woodward Academny, First Presbyterian Dayschool, or Hampton Roads Academy -- I hated them. Yesterday's racist spoiled brats; today's young Republicans. They weren't rednecks. They weren't poor. And those of us who were -- in their eyes, we were just as well niggers -- same attitude as all of you DU folk.

I've had it with poor Southern whites being pitted against poor Southern blacks. The real power in this region doesn't care about any of us and we have nothing to gain allowing them to make us enemies of each other. And I've had it with outsiders jumping on a belligerent, antagonistic, bandwagon of superiority. Here's a hint --- YOU'RE NOT HELPING ANYTHING!!! Some of the most urgent priorities among us liberals are most needed in the South -- you all want to antagonize and alienate those who should be our most ardent allies. Just who do you you think you are???

Sorry for the rant, but yet again, I've read a New Englander's account of what a white, Southern, redneck is like. I want to tell you, if you grew up knowing those charming Southern genteel folk attending your Ivy League universities -- you'd hate them as much as I do. Come down and spend some time with us before you think you've got us all figured out.