Since we had Civil War here in the U.S., doesn't that mean half of this country is a racist?

Question

Just because the Union won the war doesn't mean the Confederate mentality ever went away right? It's not like we killed off all the Southeners so this country must be the most racist country of all? Am I right? Isn't that why we had red states during election? Can you think of another country with 50% racists or more?

Answer 1

First, the war wan't fought over slavery. Try a US History class.

But I agree that probably more than 50% of Americans are racist. Not all of them live in the South, though.

Answer 2

your reasoning here is just a bit off. remember that the way a lot of people are today is because that is the way they were raised. slavery was around long before we ever became a country. the reason it was so deeply rooted in the south is because they were mainly an agricultural area, whereas the north became industrial. there was no need for slaves in an industrial area, although there were a few. so when it came down to getting rid of slavery, the southerners were obviously unwilling to give it up because it was so economical to have them. it had become a deep part of their culture as well.
so in the south, yes, there is some racism that has never gone away. but realize that parents are still teaching it to their children. but you can see that anywhere in the US. i dated a guy who has lived in Washington all his life, but was racist until the past year or so. he still has some tendencies to say racist comments, but he has actually learned that there are good people and there are bad people regardless of race. what's even bigger about it, is that I'm Hispanic. so for a formerly racist person, who still hasn't completely gotten over it, to date a Hispanic, it was a teaching experience for him.
for the most part we are a tolerant country. yes there are some areas that are less so, but that is to be expected in most countries. there are different forms of racism all over the world, they're not all like ours. as the centuries go by, we will become less and less racist. i hope at least. it is extremely difficult to remain so in a country where everyone has mixed backgrounds regardless of how pure they think there ancestry is. if you look at mine, I'm Hispanic as Hispanic can get without being born in a Hispanic country, yet I'm still part Irish.
to have red states in the election doesn't mean that those states are racist. being conservative is not being racist. that right there is really flawed thinking. read about what it means to be democratic and what it means to be republican. personally, i lean towards the liberal side, but i still have conservative tendencies. I'm a moderate. you need to educate yourself a little more before making such claims. i hope this has helped.

Answer 3

The war wasn't started over slavery. The union states held slaves well after the end of the war. Slavery was a partial propaganda tool used after the war was underway. The southern states were fighting for independence because the north (washington dc) was taxing the south into ruin. During that era the south was an economic power that the north utilized and taxed in a manner that was considered unfair by southern politicians. There is still a big misconception over the war and blacks fought on both sides. Slavery would have ended either way in a similar manner as women's sufferage ended about the same time in america and europe. Lincoln wasn't the hero that history deems either. You can look up his own writtings today and his thoughts on blacks were terrible. He believed that blacks deserve freedom, but could not coexist with whites and should be relocated to Africa!? Slavery was on the way out regardless, but history is written by the victors.

Answer 4

The civil war had v. little to do w. slavery, it was a side issue. W/out slaves the south had no economy so it was a good thing to push for while the federal government pressed for presiding control over the state governments. Centralization of power and the advantageous trade agreements that the southern states had negotiated w. Europe were the cause and driving forces behind the war. The British Empire and most civilized states had abolished slavery v. early in the 1800's; so it had become inevitable regardless. Racism is about hatred, religion is the opiate of the people, hatred is the methamphetamine. The modern boundaries of tribes are metaphorical.

Answer 5

The Civil War was not all about slavery; it had more to do with the South seceding from the Union. Also, at the time of the Civil War, not all current U.S. states had become states yet. There's no way that 50% could be racist.

Answer 6

I would call it Competitive Complex, rather than just racism. The Civil War was, as all wars are, about one group trying to maintain their control over resources, vs. another group, which wanted control over the entire country. There weren't THAT many people in the North who weren't racist, either. They just wanted to maintain the status quo of the northern industrial states controlling the economics of the whole country, while the southern states wanted to maintain the status quo of exploiting cheap labor.
Truth be told, we pay less for labor in China than the south used to pay for the upkeep of slaves.
Everyone has been conditioned to compete with anyone or anything that is 'different', especially thanks to our mentality of trickle-down economics and 'free' markets, which aren't free, but are Competition-Enhanced by the government through patents, copyrights, and subsidies. This system keeps everyone at each other's throats, under the pretenses of Labor vs. Management, Property rights vs. Social Needs, Sports, Team Efforts, and Globalization.
We are all African in the end, and that's the irony of 'racism'. We have no identity as a species, except to consume everything.

Answer 7

You're presuming a lot of things that just aren't true. For starters you're presuming that the Civil War was over racism, when it wasn't. It wasn't even really about slavery...that just HAPPENED to be the current issue. What the Civil War was really about is how much freedom individual states had to make laws, and how much power the federal government had over the states.

The fact that we had a civil war has nothing to do with how racist or not people were.

Answer 8

Red states are colored for Democrats, not racists. Its part of their symbol. Just like Republicans are blue.

And the Civil War, while much of it had to do with slavery, also had to do with a lot of other things.

I used to live in Louisiana and there still is a lot of racism, but its not like white people there are hoping some day to get slaves or something.

This isn't the most racist country of all. Every country has a form of racism, not just the US.

Answer 9

The Civil war was not about slavery. It was about federal control, and discrimination against the south's agrarian economy. Think about it a minute. When was the "emancipation proclamation" passed? Did it free slaves in Maryland or Delaware? Which side had more blacks fighting on it? Do you suppose that if slavery was as bad as you say it was, that southern whites would trust blacks with a gun? The first casualty of war is the truth, and that war was no exception.

Answer 10

Just because someone is Southern DOES NOT make them racist. That's as ignorant as anything I've ever heard. And trust me, there are racists everywhere. It sounds like you need to get out more.