"There's a saying about basically northern racism and southern racism, there's different versions of it but, in the North they don't care how high you get as long as you don't get too close. In the South they don't care how close you get as long as you don't get too high, right? So the idea being that in the North you can be a a black doctor but don't move in into my neighborhood. Whereas in the South they're like, ‘I’d rather you live next to me than be a black doctor’.” - W. Kamau Bell on racism in the South vs. the North.
There's probably a lot of truth in that, and maybe an answer to something I asked here 18 years ago.
Whenever you see an old movie or read a story about white folks back in the day, they treat the black people as beneath themselves - particularly with slaves, who they can treat like animals. (Obviously some are worse than others; we're not talking Calpurnia here.) Even if friendly with the "house negroes", they're seen as obviously inferior and repulsive to the whites.
But they have no problem with the black people cooking their food. If you're repulsed enough by a race to put them beneath yourself, treat them like animals should you wish, never allowing their dark skin to touch your own, why are you okay with them touching your food in the kitchen? Or washing your clothes by hand? Always cracks me up. "Hope you learned something from this whip....now make me some crab cakes."
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