Reply #17: It is ironic that the Gates-Crowley racial profiling incident occurred in the North, not the South. [View All]

[pampango]

Why did this happen in the North (less racist police and populace?) and not in the South (where most DU'ers could have just opined "there go those Southern racists again")?

There was an OP here a few weeks ago to the effect that African American students in the South have narrowed the test score gap with white students more than has occurred in Northern and Western states. Some of that may have to do with the fact that bussing in the South combines urban and suburban school districts, so that there can be more effective desegregation than in Northern cities where bussing is restricted to students who live in the city itself.

Residential segregation, which exists everywhere including the South, is actually worse in the North.

http://www.censusscope.org/us/rank_dissimilarity_white_black.html

The top 14 urban areas for African-American residential segregation are all Northern cities, before Birmingham comes in at #15.

The South has plenty of problems (they elect repubs, for one thing :) ), but is not the caricature of the antebellum or Jim Crow South that was true in years past.