The South nowadays - Mississippi Burning (1989) Discussion

[–] toddo11 14 years ago

Whether people want to admit it or not, the south has changed tremendously; however, racism is still alive and well in the south as well as the rest of America. If you want to find a real, old school racist and segregated city, go to Boston, Massachusetts. Boston is easily one of the most bigoted cities in America. Plus, the Red Sox (which coincidentally, were the last MLB team to desegregate) are from Boston, so everything sucks there.

reply

[–] vintage67 14 years ago

I just watched this film last night on television. I have seen it many times over the years, including in the theatre when it first came out.

It makes me very sad that someone overseas in the year 2010 would see this film and wonder if there were segregated bathrooms in the U.S.

I am a lifelong southerner, though only 43 years old. I did not live in the
times depicted. I was a child in the 1970's and I have never seen a segregated water fountain or toilet. The county that I grew up did not have that many
black people but I do not recall any trouble. In fact a black girl was elected
prom queen when I was in high school and NO, not like some scene out of Carrie.
She was very popular.

My tiny little town of 200 people did not have any black people, but we did have a Japanese woman who ran a little grocery with her husband. He was in the military and they had met and married overseas. They raised 3 kids in our town.
I do not recall any trouble, and in fact my next door neighbor married one of the daughters.

I live in the largest city in a southern state now, and we have problems, sure.
But absolutely nothing like depicted in this film. Everywhere has problems. People will probably never all "love one another", but I think we can live together without lynchings and seperate bathrooms!

If you live in the north and have never travelled south, I can see how you could get distorted views based on television and films. A lot of different types of people get sterotyped in films and television. It's unfortunate.

reply

[–] thoth-ibis 14 years ago

well stated Vintage67.
We must face it that people outside of the Deep South know very little about us. Traveling out and about in the world it is surprising how few can even find Mississippi on a map. Oh but they see this film on the movie channel and suddenly they THINK they understand everything.
nullo facere opinari omnia in serium convertere. vitae ad eundem modum jocari

reply

[–] miserycounty 13 years ago

From my experiences the deep south hasn't changed that much. But no part of the world has changed that much in the last 50 years. Hopefully, change will come with each new generation.

But the couple of months I spent living in the south was ridiculous. Lots of religious bumper stickers, and a few crazy racists but not everyone is like that. There was one guy down the street with a huge cross in his front yard who would scream at me every time I jogged by. He would yell at me, "If you want to exercise then come exercise your religion and kneel before the cross of god!! Kneel now before his second coming!" The South is one hell of a region.

reply

[–] Kieselguhr 13 years ago

Misery:
Come to where I live. You can run through the city parks and no one will shout at you.

reply

[–] the_new_indie 14 years ago

I live in South Carolina, born and raised. But I was raised in a city area, which is different than the country. Anyway, there are definitely still stereotypes here, but a lot of it is in good fun. I don't know a single racist person that is in my age group, the young adults. Sure, there are plenty of stereotypes and some prejudice attitudes, but no one is actually racist. However, the older generations still have a significant amount. They are not overtly racist or anything, and they're nice to minorities and everything, they just complain about them. There's no separation, because as I believe, that's illegal anyway.

I'm sure some smaller deep, Southern towns are still heavily segregated, but I couldn't imagine it being terrible. Pretty much all racism nowadays is just prejudiced thoughts. There's pretty much no KKK anymore.

The one incidence with the KKK that happened some time ago was a faction in one of the towns was trying to enter a float into the town's parade. The town obviously didn't want them to be in it, but because of freedom of speech they were legally bound to let them into the parade. Because of that, the town decided to cancel the parade, and they got a lot of positive feedback for that.

reply

[–] thoth-ibis 14 years ago

Large cities across the USA are segregated. Not just in the South.
nullo facere opinari omnia in serium convertere. vitae ad eundem modum jocari

reply

[–] Apollyon_Crash 14 years ago

I'm from Meridian, Mississippi, where Chaney, Goodwin, and Schwerner operated from, and were returning to from Philadelphia when they were killed.

Race relations: These days, it's more or less the same as everywhere else. Most people never talk about it or think about, apart from when the media attempts to hammer into our heads how racist we all supposedly are. As far as I know, there is no local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan anymore, and hasn't been for all of my 27 years.

The only big local racial controversy I can recall is from a couple of years ago, when a Lauderdale County supervisor named Ray Boswell got drunk and unruly at a local gin joint, then got into an argument with a black patron and started hurling racial epithets at him. Police got called over the fight, and the resulting video is still on YouTube, last I checked.

Then again, people making racist comments is not exclusive to the South...Mel Gibson and Michael Richards are not southern, though I'm sure if either of them were, we'd have never heard the end of it.

reply

[–] vintagevalor-2 14 years ago

This an excellent picture. As a film it depicts a time and a place most of you have never known. I not only grew up in the South when segeration was the norm, I also went to a Military School in Georgia. Most all southern towns have the same "square" depicted in Mississippi Burning, the Court House in the square with the town around it. On some Saturdays when we went to town, there were KKK gents in their sheets handing out flyers, asking people to come to the Cross Burning. This happened in 1964, the same year that this picture takes place. Water fountains, bathrooms, motels, were all segerated. There were some restaurants that would not serve Blacks inside. They had to go to a seperate window and order what ever it was they wanted and eat outside at a picnic table. Growing up in Florida in the 50's there was a seperate part of town in which they lived.

I moved to New England, where my parents were origineally from, later in the 60's and in 2005 I was doing a movie in Monroville, Alabama. Though it looked like the towns I remember from my Military School days, the attitudes toward blacks was completely different. Does Racisim still exist? Sure it does, but I belive it is an indivuideal thing and no longer belive it is part of the "culture" of the south. I believe once my generation is gone, there won't even be anyone who can remember it....The "cultural" of racisim towards blacks will exist only in the History books....having said that, I also believe that there are many Blacks, who, through lack of education, still view the White man as racist and thereby become racist themselves. I no longer see a "Black Man", as I did when I was a child, today I just see a man.

reply

[–] roger-395 14 years ago

Many people living in the deep south are angry, racist, and homophobic for a reason. They live and breath it 24/7 all their lives. Their leadership has spent a considerable money and time keeping the flames of radical racism alive and well in 2010. The great majority of the American electorate doesn't share fundamental racist values with the south...that's been shown in poll after poll...and so today, there are strong political and social wedges existing between the Old South and the rest of the states. Republicans worked hard to develop new hatreds in other regions: Wedge issues such as gun laws, homophobia, women's rights....and others that can generate intense fear of the unknown, which may then be used by dishonest political leaders to control human motivations.

I've spent considerable time working in Europe and while there certainly social and ethnic hatreds in the EU regarding Islam and the different cultures of eastern Europe, they do not represent that nature organizations such as the American KKK and other hate groups. Given time however, one would expect that such grounds could develop. Even in Europe cultural difference may be twisted and turned into race hatred...its happening before our eyes.

reply

[–] you_savvy 13 years ago

The crap about Obama's birth certificate should give you an idea of how racism is in the United States today. It's still there, but people are more careful with how they express their racism. They find more indirect but nonetheless still obvious ways to show the world how bloody stupid they are.

The American south isn't as bad as it was in the '60s, but it's still a backwards place with droves of people driven by ignorance, paranoia, and hatred of anyone who isn't exactly like them. The nation as a whole would probably have been better off letting the south secede in the Civil War; since then it's done nothing but drag the rest of us down. The Teahadist movement -- in fact, the whole militaristic, anti-democracy, pro-theocracy, corporate-sucking plague that's been destroying the U.S. for the last thirty years -- wouldn't be much of an issue without the south.

reply

[–] crooked_spoons 13 years ago

I live in Los Angeles as I have all my life so (thankfully) I have never once seen any actual instances of racism. However my uncle took one of those 'Discover America' cross-country road trips recently and he said some of the things he saw left him depressed for a very long time.

According to him, in some places racism is not only rampant, it's the absolute norm. He says he walked into a head shop (more like a cigar store actually) and rather than the typical 'Cigar Store Indian' in the entryway there was a 5ft tall monkey statue with Obama's head atop the body. This was in like, Nebraska or Iowa or something. In his own words, 'Living in out here (in L.A.) you get spoiled, you think everybody's screwed on tight enough. You would never believe how stupid some of the white people are in America. Just dumb as s* and proud of it. It's embarrassing'. He described a great many other instances; confederate flags pasted on cars, proudly displayed in front homes and businesses, pro-Kinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinism) groups passing out fliers, the rude treatment of black customers in some shops, bars and resturants etc.

Savvy above is spot on about indirect racism. Because it is so shunned by the general public, outright bigotry is rarely expressed, but covert racism is alive and well among some. And there's a lot of people out there who even then try to pretend it isn't, then they left by turning it into an argument about the 'victimization of Whites' or how everyone is saying that only White's can be racist, but of course, this is America we're talking about here. How many hundreds of years have the whites been the aggressors.

I'm not going to go all political but in my heart of heart I believe that a a good deal of the outright hostility and animosity towards Obama stems from racism. I didn't not say all, or most, I just said a good deal.

The South, and America as a whole has improved tremendously on this front but racism is indeed alive and well and there's no good in pretending it doesn't because it makes people uncomfortable to talk about it.

As to the original question, no, the South is not segregated because that is illegal, but there are in fact still some places where minorities 'know their place' and don't deviate from it an inch.

__________
Don't you die on me Violet. VIOLET!!!!.

reply

[–] rachael709 13 years ago

I live in south Mississippi and have been based here my whole life (20 years) though I have traveled extensively, especially after college. (Yes, though many would like you to think that we're all illiterate here, some of us do actually finish university a few years early.)

I know some racist, homophobic, anti-science bigots, but I know ten times as many progressive thinkers who are completely colorblind, especially people who are in my generation or younger. Most of the people around here who do harbor prejudice do so for two reasons. One, they had it ingrained in them from childhood by prejudiced parents. Two, people who were raised in small towns and never saw a reason to experience anything outside of their little personal bubble of life are terrified of anything different from themselves. There are plenty of those people here, but there are just as many in small towns in the north. I've found that small towns in the US are all very similar; the people just have different accents.

I think it is important to note that most prejudice in the south these days manifests itself as bigotry, not racism. I have heard people - usually older people - make derogatory comments about "those negroes," but these people would never result to racial violence. Most of these people would probably actually defend a victim of a hate crime. That's bigotry. Racism is the thinking that another race of humans is not human at all, but sub-human. That's what causes hate crimes. I'm not saying those don't happen, but they're certainly not as common as they were 50 years ago. Even the violence towards gays (and I'm ashamed to say that there are a LOT of homophobes here, mainly because this part of the country is so religious) doesn't come close to the violence towards African Americans during the segregationist period.

Bottom line, there are hateful people everywhere, but there are great, progressive thinkers everywhere too. Even here. I don't think we've made as much progress as visionaries like Dr. King would've hoped, but we have made some progress. Call me an optimist but I think we're slowly but surely making more.

reply

[–] Kieselguhr 13 years ago

A few years ago, one of my university professors was driving in the south with his family. He was low on gas, so he pulled into a small town off the freeway to fuel up. The station would not take credit cards or debit cards. The owner would not accept a cheque, but directed my prof to the local sheriff.

The sheriff looked the prof in the eye and asked, "How much gas you got in your tank, boy?"

"About a gallon"

"Well you git in your car and you drive till you run out of gas. Cause if'n you don't, I'm gonna run you in".

The prof left town and found a gas station that took credit cards. He never went back.

I myself met a few Americans. One I will never forget was a drunken 250-lb cowboy in Iowa who threatened me with some incoherent gibberish because I was wearing a corduroy jacket. He thought I was a communist. I don't ever want to go back to the USA, unless it is in a tank or as a bomber pilot. It is getting worse, not better.

reply

[–] DawgatAuburn 12 years ago

I am quite certain the first story is a complete lie. And not even a good one at that.

As for you not coming back to the USA....thank you.

reply

[–] user-322-326156 9 years ago

Yeah, what's the last war Canada won? 'Nuff said.

reply

[–] froggyandtoadie 9 years ago

Lol why would you go to iowa?!

reply

[–] bear022013-588-696101 12 years ago

You are European,then you know less about the South then and now than ,so called Americans,who know nothing about the USA.
Blacks in the South were never treated as poorly as Jewish/Hollywood filmakers
would have us believe,via the filthy,lying T.V;Radio and Newspapers would have us believe.
Almost every ethnic group in the World/America have been enslaved.The Irish Catholicsfor 2,00 years,thousands murdered as well.Russians and Eastern Europeans murdered in Siberian deathcamps...but all you hear about over and over again is the Holocaust/Jews.
America since 1960 has been a place where blacks rape,murder,loot,burn and beat Whites to death every 45 seconds and it has reached "epic'FBI ratings.
Check the FBI ratings under NewNationNews and see for yourself.
Who sold black slaves to the Brits,Spaniards and Portuguese?Black African Chiefs
White Americans have armed themselves so well,that a Race War here would not last very long.
Read about South Africa and the daily murder of White Babies in South Africa?

reply

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] fatrb38 12 years ago

Like most places, the South is not homogeneous. I was born in San Diego, CA and currently live in Arizona (I'm white, for the record) but spent 4-5 months in Monroe, Louisiana during the first half of 2012.

First of all let me mention that I was working / staying with engineers and generally educated people. When they mentioned the issue of race, which is still definitely a big issue in the south, they were well-spoken and chose their words carefully. Disdain toward black people based on race has been replaced with disdain due to the welfare state. This company I was working with employed several African Americans and I wouldn't doubt that they'd give any hard-working person, regardless of skin color, a chance to work for their company. Their issue is with the people who are *not* working, the people who are dragging down the system.

As a disclaimer let me say that there are probably plenty of white people who are a financial drag on the community of Monroe, Louisiana. When you drive through the poor area of town, however, you don't see a ton of sloppy-dressed white people sitting out on their porches... the poor parts of the city seem to be chock-full of African Americans who don't seem to be working but definitely seem to be living in HUD housing (government-subsidized housing).

Legal / enforced segregation has been replaced with de facto economic segregation. Some will say that African Americans are getting addicted to the free 'stuff' that the government gives them (paid for by taxpayers), others will say that African Americans need this assistance because of the terrible way they've been treated in the past. Regardless, there didn't seem to be much interaction between white people and black people in Monroe, Louisiana.

Just my .02. It is my personal opinion that things would be better off without the government creating a divisive environment. What people often forget is that segregation used to be enforced by the government, Jim Crow laws are called 'laws' because they were carried out by the government, and even in the 1800's the Federal Government helped support / subsidize slavery (Google 'Fugitive Slave Laws') for a long time before they ever started opposing slavery. Now the welfare state is creating animosity between the people receiving the help and the people paying for it. I should mention this situation is re-created among many other demographics as well (ie illegal immigrants vs. legal citizens, poor vs. rich, etc.).

_
Check out http://www.FreedomainRadio.com for the only credible modern philosophy show.

reply

[–] druss44121-1 12 years ago

The so-called 'welfare state' has been hijacked as a way to attack people for their social standing and culture. It has been built up into something that drains more from the system than it does, it's been portrayed to be a minority-only thing (personally the only people I know taking money from the government are white as white gets), and as a whole it's used as a way to attack the poor (and by poor I mean non-white) for choosing such a lifestyle and harming the middle class. I cannot think of any society throughout ALL of human history that was brought down because the so-called "poor" drained too many resources from their society and nation. It's just a fallacy. Many people who take from the state are working as well, and classified as working poor. If you work 50 hour weeks at minimum wage without any weeks off you make less than 19k a year. In many places or depending on the size of your family that's not enough to break even.

However, throughout history we see many nations that have been ruined either by the rich abusing the system and destroying any semblance of middle class, from military states, from corrupt leaders, from corrupt wars, from overreach, and from a general sense of "us vs. them", almost always based on misrepresentations of truth, and that leads to internal destruction.

The reason I'm tired of hearing about the welfare system is because that card is always overplayed, moreso than any race or sex card. Of course there are abuses, but in the big scheme, there are 100 other things that lead to abuses that harm this country far more. To focus on that like THAT'S the top problem, when in fact it's just a result not a cause, that blinds us and our country just sinks further down the hole. If you cut off all government money to "poor" people overnight, the overall shape of America and its situation would be about the same. I really do believe America would be better off if it split up as a country and let different regions try their thing. The amount of people in this country who know nothing about economics or any social class but their own (ie the poor know about the poor, the middle class know about the middle class, and the rich know about the rich) is astounding, and it leads us to constantly attacking straw men because the truth is too complicated and messy for digestion.

reply