Fairly large apology

Hi,

A few blogs ago, I said something about the South being about as racist as the North. Well, I ate crow along with my turkey a few days ago.

An article appeared in the Washington Post about hate crimes being more prevalent in the South. It had that horrible ring of truth, that oh-shit bell tone to it. I'm guessing they're right.

I've found a lot of racism in New York. I'm not sure what to call the 99 44/100 % pure white offices at The New Yorker. I've also found a lot of classism. Kinda blows my mind when I hear a person dressed as an unwashed E. Village hippie start on the tacky evils of the middle class. For those of you who live outside NYC, the translation is that the young man is a trust-funder slumming it, but this phenomenon is confusing the artistic scene to no end. Translation: I don't trust the well-off to save the world through money, art, or good deeds.

But yes, racism is in the South. I only have to hear my mom talk to her black house-cleaner to find it. I love my mom, and I love Ms. M, and it's vaguely entertaining to hear them do a Jeeves and Jim or rather a wily-black-servant and gracious dim massa routine. Ms. M. gets huge amounts of furniture from us each year, donations her partner, Mr. F. would rather not arrive "She's a damn pack-rat, I'll tell ya!" And mom feels more comfortable having an older black woman around. Some white people in the South, if they're of a certain age, the only tenderness they received was from black people. And the line between love and pay discretely buried.

Love, clean floors, and a guilty conscience,

The Red Pooka!