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<p>Yes. Especially if the “doing” and “being” characteristics happen to be superficially coincident (e.g. most black voters favor the the Democratic Party over the Republican Party, and some on these forums have commented that white voters who favor the Democratic Party are not very common in some areas).</p>
<p>Another example: a small group of terrorists commits a terrorist attack. Hatred against their ethnic group (Arab) increases afterward.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, what about the other way around (i.e. going from majority to minority)?</p>
<p>Then again, it does appear that many people are uncomfortable with that idea.</p>
<p>I think that must be quite the experience as well. My husband moved here from Jamaica.</p>
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<p>Up until Mainland China started to develop closer relations with the KMT party in the ROC(Taiwan) to counter Taiwanese Independence Activists, the display of the ROC’s flag was completely forbidden in Mainland China except for historical films/museums where it was usually displayed in a highly negative context. Even with some slight openness there’s still a practical ban and the PRC tends to blow its top if the ROC flag is displayed in any international venues…including the Olympics. </p>
<p>Up until democratization in the late '80s, displaying the PRC’s flag was also forbidden as they were regarded as an illegitimate regime they were technically at war with. Even nowadays with full democratization…displaying the PRC’s flag is liable to make its exhibiter not only a social pariah, but also face possible scrutiny by law enforcement and possibly security forces due to national security concerns. </p>
<p>The display of North Korea’s flag in South Korea was completely forbidden during most of its history because they’re still technically the wartime enemy. Even after democratization, there’s still a few national security laws on the books which imposes legal sanctions and allows closer scrutiny by law enforcement for those who display North Korea’s flag. North Korea still maintains a practical ban on any displays of South Korea’s flag as they regard them as a “puppet regime of US capitalists”. </p>
<p>Sri Lanka also bans display of the Tamil Tigers’ flag as they have been regarded as terrorists threatening their national security. Considering the level of carnage involved in their war against the latter ended not that long ago, I wouldn’t be surprised of that ban is still in effect. </p>
<p>Many other countries facing secession movements or internal rebellions in South America, Asia, and Africa have also banned displays of flags of those movements/rebellions.</p>
<p>Yes, but those are specific enemies’ flags, not display of any foreign country’s flag in general, as implied in post #18.</p>
<p>It’s always entertaining to hear accusations of racism directed at those of us in the south by those in the north. I especially enjoy the lectures from those northerners who live in states with a black population of less than 10%. We here in the south are a true melting pot. My particular state enjoys a black population of over 30%. We live together, attend school together, and work together in a much more integrated fashion than many of our northern critics. As with any group of people living in close proximity, there will be incidents, not always racial in nature. The south is a wonderful place to raise a family regardless of one’s race. While many are understandably offended by the confederate flag, many are also offended by casual, ignorant accusations of blanket, rampant racism based simply on a person or school’s geographic location.</p>
<p>^Well said, Sticker. I agree with this. Racism in the north or midwest doesn’t announce itself with a Confederate flag, but it is present nonetheless.</p>
<p>Someone asked why something like the Ole Miss incident happened now instead of after Obama’s election the first time. I think, judging by what I see and hear, that the people who oppose him in part because of his race were (reluctantly) willing to accept the “experiment” of a black man in the White House for one term, but they have been fighting hard to make sure the experiment didn’t continue. The rise in hate groups and racist attitudes as demonstrated by various surveys offers some evidence of this. Look at all the people crying about “taking their country back” and “our forefathers are rolling in their graves” and “Obama doesn’t understand America” and so on. They can’t handle that our country is changing and that they no longer hold an advantage simply because of the color of their skin. Guess they’d better get used to it.</p>
<p>Sticker – I agree. I live in a fairly rural part of NC. My school (in the 1960s, right after integration) was around 40% black, 60% white. Integration in our area went smoothly. Although students hadn’t gone to school together before that, they had lived beside each other and worked together on farms doing the same jobs (yep, there were lots of poor white folks too). I grew up with both black and white friends who came to my home and spent weekends with us. On the other hand, my co-worker who grew up in an area of NY that had a very small black population was constantly stared at, shunned, and told she didn’t belong at her college – because she was black, they said, she must have been a token.</p>
<p>Now, my children go to a NC public high school in a fairly rural area. Among their classmates, I can count several interracial couples and a number of same-sex couples. There is an active Gay-Straight Alliance and some (although not all) of its students are publicly out. (This is, by the way, in a fairly “red” county.) I am well aware of the goings-on at our school and have never heard of ANY incidents that were racial or homophobic in nature. Many of the churches in our area are racially diverse. Within two hours’ driving distance of my house are at least 10-15 churches (probably more) with sizable memberships that perform same-sex union ceremonies.</p>
<p>Is every single location in the South like this? No, but that’s true for the whole country. If I judged an entire region by the offensive acts of some of that region’s people, I would have a lot of reasons to think that every part of the United States is a terrible place to live. I would think that the Northeast must be a horrible place because peaceful Muslims who wanted to build a community center in NYC were met by vehement opposition. The Midwest must be terrible because of racist incidents on the campus of Michigan State and bad race relations in Detroit. The West must be a racist region because the Aryan Nation has its headquarters in Idaho. (Granted, these are only a few examples; each region has had many more problems.)</p>
<p>Sheesh. Racism is abhorrent, whether the people espousing those beliefs are carrying Confederate flags, American flags, or rainbow flags.</p>
<p>I live in the South. I am just as Southern as anyone else in this part of the country, with family that goes back to the 1700s. I sound very Southern. If one of our children walked in our house today and brought home a girlfriend/boyfriend of a “different” race or the same gender, it would not bother us at all. We would just do the Southern momma/daddy thing – give the person a hug and ask, “Now, do we know any of your family?” :)</p>
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I’m sorry, but it’s not a coincidence that these incidents happened at these two schools. They both have long traditions that are attractive to conservative white students, especially white males, and especially middle-class white males who like to think of themselves as good ole boys. Fortunately, neither school is really typical of Southern colleges, and the reaction at both schools shows that even most students at those very schools don’t think this way.</p>
<p>Did anyone notice that in the photo and the video of the incident, there were Black students present? I’m not sure if that is significant, but it might indicate that those particular students did not feel threatened by what was going on at the time. I also re-watched the video, and apparently a reporter asked a student what was being said, and he said he was fairly certain it was “F*** Obama, or something like that.” While certainly disrespectful, I don’t think those words qualify as “racist.” I didn’t see (or couldn’t, due to the poor quality of the video) any violence or rioting. It looked like students gathering and milling around. I’m not saying there weren’t racist and violent things said and done, but I’m fairly skeptical of media stories like this that can easily be sensationalized, and do not provide anything concrete in the way of evidence supporting their portrayal of the events.</p>
<p>Just to be clear – there are many Muslim Centers in NYC that are unopposed and peaceable, valued neighbors. This center was contiguous to Ground Zero.</p>
<p>Now I was in the contingent who did NOT oppose the center, but that was a unique situation.</p>
<p>I think all of us have to be careful about not painting with too broad a brush. NYC is a place where everyone travels the subway together – celebrities, recent immigrants, people of all races, all ordinary folk of any and all ethnicities, cross-dressers, sloppy dresses, elegant high-heeled wearing young women. So NYC is a place where there is a lot of contact with all kinds of folks in a peaceable manner.</p>
<p>The US has a racist history and we are all fed racist images in TV with profiling of characters – the black drug dealer, the white doctor. It’s hard to escape and we all have to work hard to do it.</p>
<p>Because there is racism in the North doesn’t mean that the Confederate Flag isn’t a nostalgic remembrance of a “country” that wanted to keep African-Americans shackled as free labor, nor does it mean that shouted racial epithets are Ole Miss aren’t racist. They are. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that all southerners are racist or that the south is an evil place.</p>
<p>I know it’s only a movie, but I love watching the last scene of The Ghosts of Mississippi when the mostly white crowd is jubilant that a jury has finally convicted Byron DeLay Beckwith of the murder of Medgar Evers. It was a long time coming, but it came.</p>
<p>And Obama is our president and did win a second term whether or not some folks are comfortable with it.</p>
<p>mythmom – It’s unfair to paint ANY region of the country, or even any city, with a broad brush. That was my point. However, people posting on this thread have done just that by talking about how they would be scared to send a child to school in the South or equating Southern with racist. I’ve read posts over and over on CC where students say something like “I’m looking at colleges all over the country, except for in the South”.</p>
<p>It sounds as if there was a definite racist presence at the protest. However, I don’t think it’s that different from the “birther” movement, just in another guise.</p>
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<p>Hmmm. Is the birther movement more prominent / pronounced in some parts of the country than others?</p>
<p>I am missing the part about racism…could you point that out in the articles or which articles say there were racist things going on?</p>
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<p>Indeed, [there</a> were Muslim prayer rooms in the World Trade Center](<a href=“Muslim Prayer Room Was Part of Life at Twin Towers - The New York Times”>Muslim Prayer Room Was Part of Life at Twin Towers - The New York Times) before it was destroyed.</p>
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<p>It is a block away, not contiguous. (Look up 45 or 51 Park Place, New York, NY on a mapping web site.)</p>
<p>Also, the otherwise-unused building at 45 Park Place was being used as an overflow prayer room by the same congregation.</p>
<p>Marsian: Yes, that was my point too.</p>
<p>Sorry for my inaccuracy about the NYC situation.</p>
<p>I’ve had to delete several posts, so I am closing this thread.</p>