Why do people vote against their economic interests? Take a look at some threads here.

[antigone382]

19. I live in the South and I consider myself part of the "they" the OP is talking about.

You don't insult your enemies when you paint the South with that brush, you insult me, and thousands of others like me who are working to create change here. The South is my home, my culture, and full of people who I love and causes that I care about. There is all kinds of suffering and lack of access to education, healthcare, and decent working conditions here, and while I understand the political causes for that, it doesn't help anyone for me to alienate people who are my friends and neighbors, and who have needs that should be met regardless of our differences. There are a lot of people suffering in the South, and dehumanizing them because of their dominant but NON-homogenous political beliefs helps no one. To me it is like rejoicing in hunger, poverty, and disease in Uganda and other areas, because attitudes towards non-heterosexuality are so vile there--ignoring that those attitudes have been fostered by an exploitative international elite.

I get to the point of detesting the lectures on race relations by "enlightened" Northerners who have no idea how to deal with a person of another ethnicity on an individual basis, who don't know what an interracial relationship looks like, who don't really know anything about the music, food, or culture of other racial and cultural groups--things that a lot of my Southern friends don't even have to think twice about. There are major structural and ideological problems in the South...but in my experience, the parts of the North that are the most sanctimonious only understand diversity as a concept, not as a day-to-day lived reality, as I have experienced it in the South.

Add to that an ugly reality of North/South relations that Northerners refuse to acknowledge: racial tensions were *deliberately stoked* after reconstruction by *mostly Northern* business leaders in order to stifle union organizing in the South. At a critical time in the history of U.S. race relations, the seeds of continued hatred were planted in a calculated efforts by Northern business interests. Ultimately, these efforts tended to fail--for a little while, workers in the South were able to recognize their common economic interests despite the efforts of the economic elite, but then the "red scare" conveniently popped up to break the unions' backs for good. But the point is this: the North benefited economically (in ways that continue to this day) from racism in the South, and developed a deliberate strategy to capitalize on that. Until *that* shame is acknowledged, I just can't stand the smugness any longer.