[xoqem]

This particular point has always been a bit funny to me.

I mean, sure, there are super racist areas in the south. I grew up and lived in mostly rural Alabama for the first 20+ years of my life, and there were some rural areas that were just as terrible as people imagine (cross burnings, open Klan meetings, etc, though that was starting to die down in the last 10 years or so I lived there).

That said, a lot of cities in the south are 30% - 50% black (sometimes more), and people who live in those cities, generally speaking, coexist and interact with many black and white people on a continual basis. It'd be kind of hard to do that and be super racists to the level people imagine the south to be.

[ido]

I talked to a lot more black programmers in meetups in Atlanta than I have in San Francisco (I'm not American and was a visitor in both places) & was surprised by how biased against the former people in the latter were, despite evidence to the contrary.

[placeybordeaux]

In Atlanta race is not a special issue, it's a fact of daily life. Interacting with black people isn't an unusual event where you get to pat yourself on the back for 'not being racist'. It's simply what happens everyday.

Or maybe I am just bitter about a 70% white city talking about how racist a 53% black city must be.