All Things Anthropology

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Upon close examination of Southern culture one tends to find the remnants of Jim Crow laws every where, affecting the minds of African American and Caucasian peoples a like. From Ferguson Missouri to Charleston South Carolina the scars left by segregation are blatantly visible in every day life.

From incarceration to execution by police, non-violent drug offenders and unarmed black teenagers and children are all living under the shadow of a white supremacist culture that relegates them to "the projects" and is so ingrained in these areas that real estate agencies will not sell homes in predominantly white neighborhoods to a black family.

This culture produces young white men like Dylann Roof, the self proclaimed "Last Rhodesian" who walked into a majority African American Church, the oldest A.M.E. church in South Carolina, attended an entire sermon, then stood up, said "I'm going to kill all you n*ggers" and proceeded to shoot 9 church members, including a state senator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rhodesia_(1965%E2%80%9379)

The reality of this culture amounts to what can only be described as the equivalent of living in a war zone for members of the black community, and until white white people as a whole are willing to confront those elements within our culture promoting this extremist ethnocentrism, nothing will change.

I recently moved from South Carolina to Washington and I feel the need to document the cultural differences I have left behind, and gained in a series of posts.

As you may know, Charleston was the largest port for slavery in the colonial era, and since then has worked diligently to preserve the history of the morally bankrupt practice with an almost gleeful pride, with many of the elderly white citizens referring to the Civil War as "the recent unpleasantness". However; I would like to focus specifically on the ethnocentric culture of white supremacy that has a strangle hold on the state itself even to this day, as evidenced by the recent raising of 9 A.M.E. churches throughout the state following the act of domestic terrorism committed by Dylan Roof.

This was then followed by a 2 week debate in the state house and senate over whether or not to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capital building, which required the repeal of a provision of an entirely unrelated bill that made the flag's presence on the grounds of the Capital building in Columbia permanent in the late '90's.
South Carolina not only has a past of racial violence and oppression, it is currently mired in it, and proud of it, because "Heritage".

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/15/nikki_haley_its_ok_to_have_the_confederate_flag_at_the_statehouse_because_not_a_single_ceo_has_complained/

9 Comments - Show All

Praveen Baratam, Maven - 3 years ago Edit

@Nicholas - So what do you think we can do to counteract this mindset. In reality, this is not an isolated issue and it is prevalent in one form or the other across the world. If you are familiar with the culture in the Indian subcontinent, here we have the much-criticized caste system which is a living fossil from the erstwhile social system. If you look back, it was a necessity a thousand years back. There were no colleges or schools and skills were passed on from one generation to the next.

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Contd... Now, this created families and communities tied to their respective professions and when they stopped intermarrying it became an inseparable part of the Indian society. Even though this practice is slowly disappearing, it still is apparent because of the economic situation it created for certain castes / professions. And economic upliftment through various schemes and preferential allotment of jobs for the weaker sections of the society made the biggest difference.

Contd... Money makes and breaks things. To begin with economics played a major role in solidifying this social order a thousand years ago and now economics is again rewriting the social order here :-)

Nicholas Bc Shumate, Evangelist - 3 years ago Edit

@Praveen- Very interesting observation. While it is true that economics often begins a cascading reaction, the major obstacles facing this in places within America such as my own home town are inherently woven within the history of our country in much the same way. South Carolina is what is known as a Right to work state, which equates to anti-union legislation. The importance of labor unions in thee past cannot be emphasized enough.

Contd. Concepts such as the abolishment of child labor, the 40 hour work week, federal minimum wage and a two day weekend were all the result of organized labor movements through out the last century. In right to work states we see a steep decline in the middle class, quality and funding of public education systems, higher percentages of those on government assistance. At the same time the opposite effect is observed for corporations, they receive tax rebate incentives, hundreds of deductions

Contd. in taxes, ect. These are just some of the factors that lead to socio-economic disparities afflicting communities of primarily minority demographics disproportionately to others. So what is occurring is a steady dismantling of those achievements that created the worlds strongest economy less than 45 years prior, leading to social injustice becoming systemic to a degree parallel to the 1950's in over half of the nation.

Now this is a gross failure of the democratic process. Citizens brainwashed by media and in turn voting to their own detriment. Saw this funny but true cartoon the other day - http://goo.gl/FxaoYQ . This happens in other democracies too. Media and politicians do their thing and the pundits / critics do theirs'. Arguments and debates galore! Yet the rhetoric continues and public at large fall for the same trap time and again. We need ideas to change the situation; not debate it all over again!

@Praveen- Indeed. I find it genuinely disturbing that we have records of this occurring within every society for as long as the concept of government as we now know it has existed yet we as a cultural species experience this cognitive dissonance to reality. The most well known example, the fall of Athens, came about as a result of transitioning from a democratic republic to a democracy, with that transition corruption became rampant. The US began as a Republic. Contd

Contd. When Benjamin franklin was asked "what have you wrought?" outside of the national convention of 1787 that was convened to establish a system of government after the revolution, he responded "A republic madam, if you can keep it". The differences between the two are very important, look out for a follow up in colors of governance.

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