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There is a caste system in The South, but I disagree with the idea of abandoning The South.
I grew up in the D.C. suburbs, and my first exposure to The South came around 1977. We visited my oldest sister and her husband in Columbus, Georgia. We were there for a day or two, and my Dad very unexpected commented, "I would not want to be black and live here."
I was only 10 years old, but I had some rudimentary understanding from my public school education of America's past vis-a-vis slavery, the Civil War, the battle for civil rights, etc. However, my Dad's words set me back on my heels, and I was uncharacteristically speechless. All I could muster to ask was, "Umm, why?" He talked about behavior he had observed in which a black person walking down the street would cross the street to the other side so as not to pass a white person walking the other direction on the same side of the street, and he noticed this after just a day or two. At 10, it was hard to fathom and process this reality, and I had no words, but a thin veneer of what I was seeing around me crumbled. There was more there, but I didn't really understand it. I vividly remember this today at age 43.
From 2001 to 2003, I lived in Burlington, North Carolina for about 18 months. A couple weeks into work, a couple of coworkers and I were talking. One of them asked whether I ever went over to Greensboro, and if so did I take the Interstate or the back roads. I answered both, but usually the back roads since it was more scenic. He asked me about a specific location with a gas station on one corner and a generic looking white building across the street. Yes, I had seen and knew of that location. Don't ever stop there he told me. When I asked why, he said the Klan meets there. I was once again rendered speechless as I stared intently at him trying to figure out if he was pulling my leg in a perverse attempt at humor. He was absolutely serious. I had to ask if he was serious a couple of times, and I had to ask my other coworkers if he was right. Yes, everyone confirmed it, including some long time residents who weren't at all proud about this reality.
Fast forward about a year. We were in line at Costco in Durham. I heard a little girl in line behind us quietly say, "Mommy, he's cute." I looked back, and there was a family in line: Mom, Dad, son about 10, and a girl about 8. Little girls like babies, and my son was about 16 months old sitting in the cart just quietly but intently watching everyone around him. The Dad said, of my son, "He's just checking out his environment." They were watching him, he was watching them, and I watched him just scanning from one person to the next taking in everything. The Dad and I chit chatted briefly in line, and as we left I waved and wished them a good day.
It was only after we got outside to the parking lot that it hit me. That family was black, and they talked to me. A series of these insignificant encounters with strangers in line at stores was mostly with black people. The white people by and large would not talk to me.
There is a condescending Southern expression, "You ain't from around here". "Yankee" is often used with the venom that accompanies the N-word. More than once, I got a dismissive look followed by someone turning their back or walking away from me. They did not speak the words "Yankee" or "You ain't from around here", but their actions said it.
In the caste system of The South, black people who would talk to me were in some way saying, "Oh, you ain't from around here, so you're not part of the white aristocracy. We can talk." This was an epiphany for me to realize I was a second class citizen living in a caste system. If it were Apartheid, then I might be "Colored".
South Africa was not abandoned because of Apartheid and neither should we abandon The South because of it's caste system.
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