'It's a complicated time to be a white Southerner' − and their views on race reflect that

[marmar]

‘It’s a complicated time to be a white Southerner’ − and their views on race reflect that
Published: August 14, 2025 8:30am EDT

James M. Thomas
Professor of Sociology, University of Mississippi


(The Conversation) Historian Nell Painter remarked in 2011, “Being white these days isn’t what it used to be.”

For the past decade, wave upon wave of protests against police violence and mass incarceration have drawn the public’s attention toward the continued significance of America’s color line, the set of formal and informal rules that maintain white Americans’ elevated social and economic advantages.

....(snip)....

I’m a sociologist of race and racism. My team of graduate student researchers and I have spent the past four years interviewing white people to understand how they make sense of their white racial status today. We concentrated our efforts among white people living in the U.S. South because that region is seen as more responsible for shaping what it means to be white, and the social and economic advantages of being white, than any other.

....(snip)....

For some, the political rise of Donald Trump and his willingness to traffic in racist rhetoric constituted a crisis, too. “He embodies everything that is immoral,” said Ned, 45, from Vardaman, Mississippi. The town Ned is from is named for James K. Vardaman, former governor of Mississippi who once declared that “if it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy.”

....(snip)....

Resistance to desegregation

Miriam, 61, from Natchez, Mississippi, grew up under the last gasps of Jim Crow. She recalled her parents pulling her from public school and sending her to a nearby private school shortly after the Supreme Court’s 1969 Alexander v. Holmes ruling, which ordered the immediate desegregation of Southern schools. ..................(more)

https://theconversation.com/its-a-complicated-time-to-be-a-white-southerner-and-their-views-on-race-reflect-that-261454

[JT45242]

1. It isn't complicated. You either stand with or against racism

The only complications are that you can't hide behind other rethuglican lies anymore because the entire party is saying the racist things out loud and proud.

It is complicated on that you can't be racist and pretend that you are not and that you are just an "economic conservative."

Reagan opened his campaign in KKK central. They have always been racist.

They just don't have camouflage anymore

[EYESORE 9001]

2. Southern man, better feed your head...

I was 9 when the Civil Rights Act passed, and although I wasn’t in the Deep South, I lived close enough to make plenty of folks around me nervous. They were fully aware of how far these white supremacists would go in order to stay on top. They also saw the potential for escalation of violence and social unrest. They weren’t wrong.

[John Farmer]

3. It's interesting how

the racists and the pro-civil rights crowds all switched parties during the civil rights area.

Now, if someone is flying the confederate flag you know that they're a Republican voter. There are many subtler signs, too.

[Scrivener7]

4. It's not complicated. You're either evil or you're not. The only "complication" is that,

among white southerners, the evil is more open and prevalent and in control.