A False Racial Narrative & The Southern States
In what cities are blacks most likely to thrive or fail economically?
The dividing line between “northern and “southern” states was often referred to as the “Mason-Dixon Line.” The surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon established the line at approximately 39°43’N latitude in 1767, dividing Pennsylvania from Maryland and Delaware. The line, which extended westward upon the same latitude, has informally divided the northern states from the southern ever since.
At different points in our history, dividing north from south was a meaningful distinction. During the Antebellum Period, the line was a shorthand way to differentiate between states that did and did not allow slavery. But it was never anything more than generally true, as many places south of the line, such as East Tennessee, could be found supporting the abolition of slavery and the Union cause, while the opposite was true at some places in the north.
In the aftermath of the Civil War and through the Civil Rights Era, it became a truism seized upon and never since relinquished by progressives, that the southern states were a bastion of racism, whilst progressives in the north were the enlightened. In 1965, that had some basis in fact. For instance, in 1965, southern states were put under court supervision of their voting programs because of their attempts to disenfranchise blacks. When the question of removing those same controls came before the Supreme Court in 2013, progressives bitterly contested Chief Justice John Roberts’ conclusion that what was true in the 1960s had no basis in fact today. Indeed, it is fair to say that progressives today live in toxic, dark fantasy world today where all of non-progressive America is and will always be nothing more than 1950’s Selma, Alabama writ large.
The myth of southern racism has become both a canard and a caricature today. My experience, having lived and traveled throughout this great land, is that the best of race relations over the past 40 years in this country are to be found in the South and in places that Republicans control. I live and worked in a fully integrated society in the “deep south.” Conversely, if you want to see race relations and discrimination at their worst, just go to any Democrat-run city north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Today we have more anecdotal proof of my sense, thanks to a Daily Mail article showing that blacks are faring best economically in the south while they fare the least well north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
What a surprise, eh?
The image is a contemporaneous rendering (cropped) of the culminating battle in the months-long campaign at Stones River near Murfreesboro. Almost 1,700 of the ultimately victorious Union troops gave their lives there, while another approx. 7,500 were wounded, and 4,600 were captured or missing.
