I'm glad I was born in the South. I actually experienced racism hand first growing up. From the High School Homecoming Queen being noticbly white a majority of the time to black students being screwed out valedictorian and salutatorian honors (going so far as to change the weight of certain courses to give the edge to other students), racism is nothing new to me.
What makes me a bit more upset with the Ferguson situation is that oftentimes, we as Southern Blacks have tried to tell these "high maintenance" urban blacks FOR YEARS that racism was not dead. We tried to tell them if it was not contained it would spread to the upper Northern Cities. But we were considered Bamas, Hicks, Blacks who know nothing, etc. It's a weird feeling for me. Every time I see this happen in Northern cities, I feel sympathy for the families but at the same time, I feel this emptiness inside because Southern Blacks have been trying to tell these urban blacks FOR YEARS this was still happening.
One event that I found particularly upsetting was an appointment in a DC Barbershop after the night Obama won re-election. This black guy with an NY accent walks in and celebrates like the rest of us were. However, he said something that made me internally angry. He said that Obama did not need the votes of the Southern States to win the election because those states don't matter. If only this idiot had the taken the time to do his research and realized that the districts were the victims of gerrymandering and that Mississippi is a majority African-American. Those states do matter because African-Americans are not fairly having their voices heard.
Being from the South I feel gives me an edge.
