The South, the North, and Racism
On erasure of the South's Blackness and the North's anti-Blackness
Before winter break at my high school in New Jersey, classmates would ask if anyone was traveling, and I always told them that I was going to Georgia and Mississippi to see my grandparents.
“Yikes, I’m sorry,” some would reply.
“No, it’s fun,” I’d say. “I’m visiting family.”
“Yeah, but in the South,” went the typical response. “Isn’t the South super racist?”
It’s fair to call the South “super racist.” Today, the region leads the nation in racist book-banning, racial voter suppression, and a continued prevalence of Confederate flags. Historically, they’re the home of Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, and slave plantations. Mississippi and Georgia have the highest numbers of lynchings—yet I love going there.
I enjoy walking through the charming city area near my mom’s hometown. I enjoy its pastel colonial buildings, quiet streets, and local boutiques. I like visiting Catfish Alley, a historic center of Black businesses, music, and social life, and “Kid Place,” the Black community settlement established by my family in 1887. I like navigating stores where the shoppers move at a slower pace. I once ordered a pizza to my grandmother’s house, and despite my disdain for its puffy crust, I was pleasantly surprised when the DoorDash courier told me to “have a good night.” I’m used to a brief, wordless handoff without eye contact, except maybe a cold glare.
I don’t spend my time in the South in places with apparent racism. I don’t really see white people at all. I stay at my grandparents’ homes in Black neighborhoods. I socialize with my family and their friends, most of whom are Black. I visit their churches, which have all-Black congregations. When I do see white people—at the grocery store, at restaurants, at the pharmacy—our interactions are friendly. I get a “have a blessed day,” which is a far cry from the middle finger someone gave me at a bus stop in the East Village.
Of course, there are a lot of violently racist people in the Deep South, likely with a greater portion inflicting physical harm than in the New Jersey suburbs where I grew up. But when people say that the South is still segregated—which is true—they forget what segregation means. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any Black people; it means that the Black people reside in different spaces than the white people. It means that if you only focus on predominantly white spaces, you don’t see the flourishing Black communities who have called the South home for just as long as white people have.
Black Americans make up a third of the South’s population; in some areas, more than that. In fact, the South has the largest Black population of the United States. When people envision the region as a racist white monolith, they silence Black existence. Black erasure has been a vicious political tool in this country for a long time—again, consider voter suppression—and it’s used to minimize Black people’s contributions, underserve our needs, and diminish our voices. If you’re “sorry” that I visit Mississippi or Georgia, you’re contributing to that erasure.
Besides, racism remains pervasive in every American state. California, New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Massachusetts are the states with the highest number of reported hate crime offenses. According to the Sundown Town Map, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Kansas appear to have the highest concentrations of sundown towns. When people isolate antiblackness to the South, they allow people in other regions to believe they’re not part of the problem.
During my time in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York, I’ve experienced racist policies at schools, racist microaggressions in conversations, racist insults, racist stereotypes, racist politics, racist beliefs, racist behavior—most of which is covert, some of which is overt, all of which is harmful. I spend more time around white people when I’m at home than when I visit my grandparents’ homes, so I’ve encountered more racist people at home than in the Bible Belt. That’s because I visit predominantly Black communities—but those often-forgotten communities are significant, real, integral parts of the South.
Too many racist people in non-segregated spaces—namely, non-segregated spaces in the North—call themselves “allies” to the Black community, perhaps even consider themselves allies, unbothered by or perhaps unaware of the ways they’ve harmed the Black people around them. They posted a black square on Instagram in 2020, seemingly absolving themselves of the trauma they’ve caused and continue to cause. They can’t be racist; they have Black friends. But false allyship doesn’t create safe spaces or further antiracist progress. If anything, it normalizes everyday antiblackness and prevents racist people from grappling with their words, actions, and choices.
Honestly, I’d rather you just call me a slur. (Niche reference.) When it comes to non-physical attacks, I prefer the overt racism that the South is known for to the covert racism that thrives in predominately white spaces in the Northeast. When someone hurls white supremacist nonsense at me, I can laugh at its inanity, or I can get upset without anyone considering me overly sensitive. But when racism is disguised as innocent or polite, or misread by others as innocuous or light, I don’t know how to respond. I’m hurt that they think it’s acceptable, and I suffocate on the expectation to brush it off or not make it a big deal. I shouldn’t be dramatic, I shouldn’t be angry, and I shouldn’t read into it. That feels worse, and it doesn’t leave me.
Yes, the South has a dangerous antiblack population, but it also has a robust Black population, which shouldn’t be ignored. Yes, there are unsafe people and places in the South, but there are also unsafe people and places across the country, which shouldn’t be dismissed. And there are many things to love about the South, just as there are many things to love about everywhere else. So, no, you shouldn’t be “sorry” when I visit the South.