Conservative Southern Values Revived: How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule

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50. I grew up here. Do you want to tell me you know more about it than I do?

And as I said, I was raised by a liberal northeasterner, and I did indeed spend much of my youth feeling out of place in the South, until I grew older and developed a deeper understanding of the people here. I have also traveled in the Northeast. I envy many aspects of the culture and politics that dominate the region, but I can also say that Northerners, particularly those who spent "some" time here and think that gives them a complete picture of a very large and multifaceted place, tend to have a very reductive and condescending understanding of problems that have a far more complex character than Northerners want to admit. In my experience they had amazingly simplistic understandings of race relations.

For that matter, a lot of Northeastern states don't begin to touch on the actual diversity that places in the South have; I know far more people in interracial relationships here than I do there. I recall an editorial in Vermont patting themselves on the back for having the kindness to allow the underpaid exploitation of undocumented agricultural workers. Nothing beats getting lectured on race relations by the whitest state in the union!