Boo-Hoo Virginny,
Demographic changes are to come to at least 3 more states in the next 20 years, you had your immoral white supremacist society all throughout the South.
Real big, down speak parts of the country that didn't lynch hundreds of persons they made slaves. That didn't take away voting rights.
And I have ancestry that fought in the Confederacy but some of the hate and lack of logic that people speak is what has led to the present problems.
James Alex Fields anyone?
Actually, when I think of neoNazis, I think of Skokie Illinois. When I think of White Supremacists and Separatists, it is a state west of here that comes to mind, not in the South, but well North of the Mason/Dixon Line.
While I have met people from all over who are jerks, I must admit I have met far fewer in southern states--at least who were originally
from southern states. When you live just down the holler, up the creek, or a couple miles at most away from people in a more rural setting, you interact with them--and have all your life. You see individuals as assh*les, but recognize that not all people are assh*les, in fact, most people aren't assh*les, even if they have troubles from time to time. You learn that real assh*les come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, with the single unifying characteristic being an internal one, not necessarily obvious from casual appearance, namely, that they are full of sh*t.
With that in mind, I have lived among blacks and whites and American Indians, In my family, there are numbered among us those who are characterized as Asian and American Indian and white in just my generation. We'd make lousy supremacists, as we'd have to decide who would kick who out, and I fear that would lead to one of those in family arguments we'd just never settle.
But there are folks who live in the urban cloisters of racially distinct neighborhoods, who relocate when the neighborhood starts 'going', who don't take the time to get to know people as people. They provide fertile ground for people hating on each other over superficial characteristics, and often end up reinforcing the very stereotypes they impose on others they really know nothing about. They respect no one, including themselves, yet demand others respect them.
For every person who participated in a lynching, thousands did not, and lynchings were by no means limited to the South or one racial background, and haven't been, anywhere, unless there simply weren't any of 'them' available to focus the anger of the mob on. Then some poor half-wit was more likely to get strung up because they were not capable of providing an articulate defense, made an easy scapegoat, and were the most different person the mob could find in the heat of the moment.
So the bottom line is simply a question you have to ask yourself.
Are you one of the people who weren't there, who did not/would not participate, or are you the type who would, out of anger or the desire to be important, one of those with the rope and the loud voice calling for the demise of people who you know nothing about? Are you one of those braying the stereotype du jour, calling for heads on pikes of people who have done no wrong, but through accident of geography or genetics fit the stereotype you would impose on them, and thus must be thrown to the wolves as a blood sacrifice for your personal guilt, angst, fear, or desire for vengeance for yourself or some third party, without any of the protections of due process or the verification of evidence or fact?
If you want to end hatred, start here and now by not hating on people, by not assuming they hate anyone, by not proclaiming they are heinous criminals when you can't say what color their eyes are and you don't even know their name. Do not let the actions of a loud and twisted few color your image of the whole, even among those you decry. You have nothing but the hyperbolic propaganda of agitators past and present sprinkled with the grains of truth of some unfortunate incidents, yet you would indict half of the nation east of the Mississippi, along with even more west of it, and everyone who ever lived or grew up there.
Had you grown up with the people you would so indict, you would know the good from the minority of bad, and not be so hasty to call for stringing them all up.
