Racial Healing and the beautiful South

[Lettow77]

 A Southern regionalist party must grant massive concessions to the South's black population, which has been massively maligned both by yankee governmental policy & the prejudice of their fellow Southerners. Their wonderful and vibrant culture has been dealt frightful damage by the war on drugs and various paternalistic and oppressive policies.

To court our brothers and begin the RACIAL HEALING, the following must be done by any Southern nationalist party:

1) decriminalize drug use and do much to empty out the prisons. The massive prison apparatus must be cast as a horror of northern policy. By setting black Southerners free, white Southerners take a step toward their own liberty. (This will entail a surge in crime, for a time. The South has always been a violent section. Forgiveness and brotherhood should in time work better than the clearly failed policy of oppression. The damage of generations won't be undone in a day.)

2) Self-governance: Black communities deserve black oversight. Every effort should be made to give police more fixed posts, that they might become local fixtures. It is imperative that policemen are picked from the neighborhoods they serve wherever possible. (This may lead to a certain amount of corruption, but that is fine. Corruption and inefficiency are not the greatest evils.)

3) The confederate flag must be replaced for a more universal symbol. The argument over its "proper" meaning is largely academic; it is seen with hostility by too large a portion of the population it represents, and divisiveness is a disaster in a symbol of unity. Give Southerners a flag that they can all be proud of.


The greatest obstacle, of course, is racial attitudes, but Southerners have lived alongside each other for centuries now, and the dark specter of divisive racism is clearly receding. It may seem like a one-sided compromise, but in many ways it is white Southerners who hold all the cards, and have prosecuted the greatest crimes against their neighbors. Should the South manage this reconciliation, it will be generously rewarded; black and white southerners have never enjoyed the respect or good faith of the American government and yankee body public, but working in concert, could surely preserve the wonderful culture they both share, and be a powerful voice for the advancement of Southern interests.

[Valmy]

A Southern regionalist party must grant massive concessions to the South's black population, which has been massively maligned both by yankee governmental policy & the prejudice of their fellow Southerners. Their wonderful and vibrant culture has been dealt frightful damage by the war on drugs and various paternalistic and oppressive policies.

Um dude the South and the Southern politicians are formost among the War on Drugs' supporters.

[Lettow77]

 I know.  They are wrong, though. 

Edit: This deserves expanding on. Southern politicians and the white southern populace support -lots- of policies that are divisive and damaging to the community. There is a strong contrarian tendency that leads to kneejerk policies to oppose what the north (and, yes, the black southern community) support. Much of the South's conservatism is of course genuine and deeply felt, but the black community is also rather strongly social conservative- if society would give it the opportunity to be so.

The absurd democrat/republican split between black and white Southerners is unhelpful. They should be voting for a unified Southern regionalist party that represents their enormous overlapping interests better than either of the other parties could.

[Eddie Teach]

Southern regionalism doesn't exist in great enough quantities to make a viable political party.

[Lettow77]

 Yeah, I know. You'd need the sort of cohesion of identity and political consciousness that doesn't really exist. Since the culture is there, I imagine it could in the future (as it has in the past), but I am mostly just dreaming.

This is just my thoughts on what the South should do, not what it will do. I imagine we'll continue unhappily on as things presently are, but its worse off for both parties involved.

[Josquius]

policemen coming from the neighbourhoods they work in is the opposite of a good idea. it's such a bad idea its against official policy over here I believe.

[Eddie Teach]

policemen coming from the neighbourhoods they work in is the opposite of a good idea.

Saves fuel consumption.

[alfred russel]

Hey Lettow, did you see this?

Apparently 42% of Georgia republicans favor secession, 42% oppose. 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2012/12/07/obama-georgia-secession-public-policy-polling/1753795/

[Razgovory]

They rose up in the same old way and we put them down in the same old way

[Razgovory]

Does this mean that Lettuce is now experimenting with drugs?

[Lettow77]

 I abhor drugs, and absolutely would not. Keep in mind both of my parents were addicts, with one overdosing outright and the other -merely- dying broken down on an office floor with a body ravaged by the stuff.

While being in firm opposition to its use personally, the damage the prosecution of it has had on our poor black folks is easy to see.

[Caliga]

3) The confederate flag must be replaced for a more universal symbol. The argument over its "proper" meaning is largely academic; it is seen with hostility by too large a portion of the population it represents, and divisiveness is a disaster in a symbol of unity. Give Southerners a flag that they can all be proud of.

Like the American flag, for instance?

[Lettow77]

A symbol for Southerners alone, of course 

[Caliga]

Why do you feel that this is necessary?  Serious question.

[Lettow77]

 I feel I have something in common with black folks in the South, but not so much yankees up north. I think it is a separate culture.

History has always cast a long shadow on me, so I feel a duty as well. I am upset by how derelict I am from that duty; I am conscious of a need to serve the South, a transmitted duty from previous generations. (I did a writeup on transmitted duty that I don't believe was ever posted here..)

But also, I am in love with the South. It is home and it is what I am comfortable with; my associations with it are happy ones. 

(On the other hand, a lot of the sins in the world are sourced, however inaccurately, to the north, and the kneejerk reaction to northern things is a wary hostility.)