I want to talk frankly about the south hate here

[tblue37]

159. I don't recall anyone on DU ever claiming that "everyone" in the South is

guilty of the prejudice and ignorance that are, nevertheless, more openly on display by large majorities in certain parts of this country than in other parts of this country.

I am a far-left liberal in Kansas, but I am not personally offended by people who mention that Brownback and his Christian Taliban supporters are more common and more influential here than liberals like me, even though liberals like me are in the a majority in the college town I live in.

I was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, and raised mostly in the deep South, until I was almost 13 years old. Yet I do not assume that comments about racism, Religionist extremism, and Republican know-nothingness in the South are directed at me. I know perfectly well that they are directed at those who have such attitudes, because as of this moment in time, those kinds of people are more representative of the attitudes and behavior that characterize the South and those who have more power and influence in the South are as wrongheaded as the critics say they are.

I see no reason to feel personally insulted about criticsm of people who deserve criticism, even if they happen to live in the same part of the country that I live in. And if their numbers and their power in that part of the country clearly outweigh the numbers and power of those who think as I do, then it seems logical to direct such critiques geographically, too.

Yes there are badly behaved, dishonest RW fundie people in my city, but we liberals outnumber them. Similarly, there are liberals in other parts of Kansas, but in most of those other parts of Kansas, those liberals have relatively little influence, because their voices and their public presence are obscured by the numbers, the power, and the public behaviors of the RW fundies.

Why do people look for reasons to be insulted by comments that are not directed at them?