Southerners are all racist? News to me. I didn't think the South was populated by only black people and Democrats. Aren't there some Republicans there?

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The challenge is to follow a consistent plan despite inconsistent prices - Sarah Palin, State of the State of Alaska speech

Southerners, the new black!

Who would ever believe that a "history professor" at a very liberal private school would espouse that all Southerners are slave loving racists?  Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi is a very liberal school.  However, I would assume that the good professor has had at least some contact with people in Mississippi.  I would further expect that if they read that they are racist and in favor of owning slaves based solely on where they live, those very same Mississippians will be something less than cordial to the good professor in the future.

I am from Mississippi.  I know no people who are in favor of owning slaves.  I do know some racists, but they are few and far between.  The majority of people I know and have known are the kindest, warmest and friendliest people I have ever been associated with.  The article the good professor wrote is a direct slap in the face to all those people.

Perhaps the good professor did not acknowledge that the people who did not vote for Mr. Obama perhaps did not agree with his proposed policies and that race had very little to do with their decision regarding for whom they voted.

True with the Plantation. The Democrat Party keeps telling black Americans they can't improve themselves without ol' massah givin' 'em a helpin' hand. If it wasn't for the dems pushing quotas, affirmative action, generational welfare,subsidized housing, just how would all those poor blacks make it? Every good Democrat knows they aren't capable of cutting it in life without the beautiful Democrat handouts. God forbid America stops considering "race" status on goverment forms truly implementing what MLK Jr. was fighting for in the first place:EQUALITY..............

I was born and raised in North Carolina, and the fact that N.C. carried Obama flies in the face of this nut's drivel. His implications are insulting to all Southerners, black and white.

BTW, check out this idiot's homepage: http://home.millsaps.edu/mcelvrs/

It comes complete with pictures of him and BHO together. One is even autographed, for Pete's sake.

He's a typical lib college professor, which explains why our county's educational system is screwed from K-Graduate School.

slander or libel we can sue this fool for?  I think a nice class action suit against this person would be a good idea. 

The good people of Mississippi ought to tar and feather this stupid SOB and run him out of the state. I hope that the Conservative Crawfish and Conservative Belle are seeing this.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. RWR

Of course McCain won big in the south ... we're more conservative down here. Obama is a socialist, along with over half of his party, that's why we don't support them. On the other hand, blacks and democrats voted for Obama because he is black (raised by white folks mind you).

Obama is nothing like Lincoln. Lincoln didn't associate with terrorists, he wasn't a druggie, he wrote his own speeches (without a tele prompter no less), he practiced what he preached, and he believed in America. How's that for audacity?

McCain won his largest share of the white vote in the five states of
the Deep South that most fiercely opposed the civil right movement --
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina.

This obviously suggests to McElvaine that whites in the south still hate blacks.

The truth of the matter is that McCain winning more of the white vote is Southern states has nothing to do with the civil right movement.  It has to do with a strong, unwavering support for republican values, especially in regards to taxation, abortion, individualism, and yes, gay marriage and also judicial appts. to support these values.

I have never understood "independants".  Either you believe in something or you don't.

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE.  Black or white, we don't care.  Just uphold the values we believe in and you will be voted into office. 

This man obviously knows nothing about true Southerners. 

This is not news to Southerners. We have lived with this all our lives. Ever since Reconstruction when the Northern Carpet Baggers were in charge we have had to live with this. The majority of people in the south are a lot more open minded than thier northern bertheren. We are know for our hospitality. We greet everyone we meet, northerners find this behaviour odd. When it comes to defending this country it has always been a majority of Southerners that have filled this role, even in times when the draft was in place. I am not confident that I will see any change in this prejudice in my life time. Racial attitudes in the South are probably better than most places in the country. The simple reason is that if a larger portion of your population is from minorities than anywhere else it has to be. This is not the old days of Democrat Jim Crow style racial control. Yes, Southerners are more conservative. That and that alone is the reason for most of the HATE directed at the South.

If racism was the only reason to vote against Obama, then two alternative exists. Either southerners believed his agenda was better and those who voted against him, voted against the better alternative in favor of our racial ignorance, or what a person stands for means nothin' to us rednecks.Welcome to academia.

from Birmingham, Alabama.

Here is my point:

There will always be nut-cases who spout off crazy opinions to get attention and recognition so they can further their agenda.  The best example I can think of is KO on MSNBC.  The problem with Professor McElvaine's viewpoint isn't that he has it, it's that his viewpoint is being propalgated by a "mainstream" publication like the Washington Post, instead of on a wack-job blog or a yellow sheet leaflet.

WAPO publishing this guy's nonsense is no different then when "esteemed publications" of the 1800's and early 1900's used to publish "contraversial....wink-wink" opinions that black people where intelectually inferior to other races.

It sells newspapers, it creates controversy, and it grabs attention.  The Washington Post can always find a nut-case.

I sent this note to the good doctor...got the email address from the website in the post above.  Wonder if he'll respond?

"Good morning...
 
I just read your suggestion that Southern whites favored McCain for racist reasons.  Are you basing your conclusion on anything other than the vote itself?
 
If not, then your conclusion is turned on it's head.  It is reported that 95% of black voters voted for Obama, a much higher margin than whites voting for McCain.  A margin of 95% in an election is unprecendented and suggests a monolithic vote by the blacks.
 
These numbers suggest that the blacks were the racist voters in this election, not the whites.
 
Your thoughts?"

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Truthfully, McElvaine is quite possibly the most inane moron that you could ever meet.  He occasionally writes opinion pieces for our Jackson, Mississippi dog trainer, The Clarion Ledger.  He is by all definitions, an imbecile.  If you want to know from where his philosophy stems, read Bill Minor's columns in the Clarion Ledger.  Even though Minor actually covered all of the civil rights news back in the 1950s and 1960s, he is a card carrying Democrat and always has been.  Minor actually tries to write from the standpoint of being a hero, even though he is exactly like Robert Byrd and is still friends with all of the racist Democrats from that era that are still living.

I am not kidding when I say that McElvaine needs to wear a helmet.

I'm so tired of this ongoing slandering of the South. It's not only dishonest, it's ignorant.

Here are a few facts:

1. Only a small percentage of Southerners ever owned slaves, even at the height of the institution. Slaves were expensive: correcting for inflation, they cost about as much as a mid-range BMW does these days. 

2. Most slave-owners were about as inclined to mistreat their slaves as contemporary BMW owners are inclined to mistreat their BMW's. There were and always are exceptions, of course, but by and large slaves were treated as the valuable property they were.

3. Slaves--again, generally speaking--had it better than poor whites (the bulk of the white population) in the South. Slaves had free room, board, and medical care. (Some slaveowners even paid their slaves a small amount, with which to buy personal sundries.) Poor whites had free nothing.

4. Many slaves, after emancipation, longed to go back to slave days--not because they were unable to live free, but because they didn't want to. As a former enlisted member of the military (which is every bit an institution of slavery), I can attest to having this longing myself once in awhile. In any case, it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to return to a situation where they were as horribly mistreated as is commonly alleged.

5. Whites and blacks have always been closer, on a personal level, in the South than in the North. You can't live and work side by side with people and not come to care about them. In the North, blacks were scorned and socially, if not legally, segregated. In the South, blacks (particularly the house slaves--maids, butlers, etc.) were often considered part of the family.

Well, I could go on but I'll stop there. The fact is, the reason most Southern whites are opposed to blacks holding political power is the same as it is for Northern whites: political-minded blacks tend to be (so-called) "liberals." They tend to favor an all-powerful central government headquartered in Washington, they favor confiscatory levels of taxation and tons of social programs to be administered for them by their new masters, they desire preferential treatment in practically every aspect of society, etc. Southern whites, on the other hand, are conservative for the same reason Northern, non-city-dwelling whites are: they oppose all these things. Hence, not surprisingly, Southern whites, who are overwhelmingly conservative, tend not to vote for the liberal candidate, who in this case happened to be black. Big whoop. Big surprise. It's also no surprise to anyone but liars in academia or the press that Southern whites would vote in a heartbeat for a genuinely conservative black man, just as Northern, conservative whites would. (I, being from California, voted for Alan Keyes in the last election, as the Constitution Party candidate, for whom I normally vote, was not on the ballot here.)

Yes, slavery was a big issue with the War. But what isn't taught is that the North didn't care about the slaves welfare.
1) The 3/5 rule was enacted not because Southerners wanted to count the slaves a whole person but the North didn't want to count the slave as a complete person. The 3/5 rule was a compromise for the South's representation in Congress. By counting the slaves as part of the state's population, the South would have had a greater representation in the House of Representatives.
2) The slaveowners wanted to take the slaves out West with them. The North didn't want to let them, not because they cared about the expansion of slavery but because the North didn't want the new white immigrants to have to compete with the very cheap slave labor.
3) Racism was more prevelant in the North than in the South. Most people of both regions had racist attitudes but the South was used to being around blacks. A prime example of the racist attitude is to study Reconstruction. The southern states were forced to accept the 13th Amendment to be re-admitted into the Union, along with giving blacks the same rights the white man had. BUT in the North at the same time, there were only about a dozen Union states that had the same priviliges. Most of the Union states still barred blacks from voting, owning property, serving on juries, etc. There were even some Union states that would not even allow blacks to legally live in those states, much less travel through them.
4) The slavery issue could have been solved and the War could have been prevented if not for the Radical Abolitionists. All civilized nations that ended slavery up the the start of the Civil War had ended slavery peacefully. It was called Gradual Emancipation. The slaveowners were compensated for their slaves. The slaves were educated about what they were to expect and taught basic skills to help them survive once freed. The Radicals forced the Northern leaders to accept "no compensation and free the slaves immediately!!".
5) Lincoln didn't issue the Emancipation Proclomation until halfway through the War. The Proclomation was more of a military decision than humanitarian one. It caused England and France from siding with the Confederacy. Because if they did, it would unofficially look like they supported slavery, which they had previously abolished.
Lincoln knew that at the time, the Northern people didn't care about the plight of the slaves, and the Union soldiers didn't enlist/drafted to fight for the freedom of the slaves. Just look at what happened after the Proclomation was made public. Riots occured in the major Northern cities. Also read the diaries of the common soldiers to find out what they thought about it (the majority decried the Proclomation and didn't want to risk being killed for the black man).
6) ETC., ETC., ETC.

I could go on with even more examples but I'm running out of room. So yes, slavery was an issue with the Civil War being fought. But it was not just the South that had an issue with slavery. There wouldn't be so much frustration from us Southerners if only the complete story of the Civil War be told!!! Not just the revisionist history. For more revisionist history, just look at the Indian Wars from 1830-1890.
I am very proud of my Confederate ancestors (which were poor farmers and didn't own slaves). Other than the big politicians and the large plantation/slave owners, the citizens didn't care and soldiers didn't join the Confederate Army to keep and preserve slavery.
I also currently have or have read and sold several hundred books in my Civil war library, and have quite a few artifacts and replicated items. I consider myself educated with the Civil War, also.

I'm a born-and bred Southerner (from Pensacola, FL) who has lived in Michigan for the past several years (too many years...). People are the same all over. I've seen just as much rascism up here as I ever saw growing up in Florida.

The biggest racists I've ever seen have not been conservatives, by the way. The most intolerant, most rascist group I've ever known are liberals. For instance, what other group would say such nasty things about folks like Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice, that "they're not really black because they are conservative"? That to me is very arrogant, condescending and, yes, racist. On a related point, what other group would say such mean things about Christians, or slam folks like Bobby Jindahl? Only liberals. Conservatives left rascism behind long ago.

Perhaps the main reason so many Southerners did not vote for Obama is because they still have some common sense and can see past all the media bias and hype. No one in my neck of the woods would go for all that socialism, or vote for someone who downs the right to bear arms and slams traditional values.