In The Heat of The Night

[Feanor]

My question to this response is why is racial tolerance better than racial neutrality (those that do not care an ounce about skin color). Anyone that is tolerant of something is quite frankly being superior in attitude (I tolerate this because I can, or it is beneath me).

I don't think there is any question of tolerance being better than neutrality. But tolerance is a better than intolerance and tolerance can lead to neutrality. There is something of my personal journey in this.

Poverty in and of itself causes race neutrality. If a white person is on welfare sitting next to a black person on welfare(food stamps or medi-whatever your state is) then it is very difficult to look at yourself as superior. Everyone is in the same pot, same place experiencing the same spirit degrading circumstances.

History clearly shows that economic equivalence doesn't necessarily lead to racial tolerance much less neutrality. The US south is an excellent example of this.

As I explained, people like to feel better than other people and when there is no objective basis for this, they will look else where. In the case of the South, it was easy for red-necks to say, "I'm ignorant and dirt-poor but at least I'm better than those black slaves". It was an attitude well cultivated by the wealthy plantation owners.

I suspect the Civil War would never have happened if the non-slave owning farmers and tradesman who made up the large majority of the Confederate armyhad realized the the whole "Southern way of life" and "States rights" thing was bull****.

Let's face it. Racism is most prominent in the south. The south also is the poorest part of America. The irony is poor black folks and poor white folks are in the same pool. But poor white folks in the south vote extensively for Republicans, who would like to keep them poor, ignorant, and out of the mainstream. Just take an honest look at southern governors policies, and you will clearly see that poor white people are dismissed entirely in favor of rich folks, and corporations(fair wage laws that are not fair at all). The midwest does not fair better in this area.

Let's take a look at Kansas. Their Republican governor cuts taxes for the wealthy and big businesses. The state coffers took such a big hit, that schools and state infrastructure took huge cuts. Who does this hurt the most? The poor who rely on education to get them out of poverty, and the poor who have to pay more in taxes because of an unbalanced policy. Roads don't get built or repaved, schools are underfunded, and the middle class and poor suffer. In spite of this, Kansas is controlled by republicans, and keeps sending republicans to the governorship. Kansas is apparently not voting in their self interests, or they would they would not send those that do not support their beliefs or interests to the state house.

I chose Kansas becuase i just watch a documentary called "What is the matter with Kansas"(I think that was the title name) on Netflix. Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas, Arizona all have this same problem, and nobody seems to get it in those states.

Déjà vu all over again. Racism, religious dogmatism, and ethnic identity are tools of oppression of everybody, not just the targets of these attitudes. Look at the Balkans in the post-Yugoslav era. The current situation has a lot of similarity with the pre-Civil War era in that the wealthy foster regressive attitudes to gain the support of the ordinary people.

People with insight realized that the agenda of the Republican Party favors the top 1% (or maybe more like the top 0.01%) ... BUT you don't win elections with 1% of the vote. The GOP has with huge success by verbally catering to, and stoking, the conservative biases of the gullible majority Americans in the South and Mid-west even though its policy a patently against the economic interests.