"Royal" and "elitist" and "snob" are the adjectives they use to describe Obama.

None of it makes any sense, until you realize what they are really intending to criticize is the fact that he (and Michelle) are "uppity."

Barth covers some of the territory in his "Hope" blog. I was concerned that the occasion of electing the first black President would unleash some of the pent-up racism and bigotry and hatred, even though Obama so keenly tries to stake his position as a post-racial President. I just never realized how deeply ingrained this racist hatred was, nor how widely it would be spread among even the more educated and otherwise "responsible" members of our society.

In ways we can't even begin to fathom, I fear we - as a society - are about to be punished for our sins of hatred and bigotry. It ain't going to be pretty.

i've been trying to stay out of this whole 'all opposition to Obama is racism' issue. Sorry, but there is no sign that racism has any statistically significant influence on approval or disapproval. Obama compares favorably to both Reagan and Clinton when you look at comparable points in their administrations and comparable economic fundamentals. I'll be happy to change my mind if anyone can show any hard numbers on this score, but just spouting 'I personally know some Southern Racists' is just plain stupid.

All of which is not to deny that (i) racism exists, and (ii) racism is unacceptable. All I'm saying is that (iii) racism is not DRIVING any of the opposition to this administration.

Over the last year at the Café, it had become quite a sport on some blogs to rant against ‘Southern white bigots and racists’.  One of the most popular diarists often led things off.  A few of us would notice, and try to speak some sense to the issue, and the efforts proved pretty quixotic and divisive.  The rebuttals were so stupid I can’t even remember how they went.

The many rants against the Tea Partiers have struck me the same: attempts to create monoliths that simply aren’t true; after all, it’s easy and fun even if the thinking is a bit lazy and not very helpful.  Hate's easy.

Here’s one thing I think lies at the bottom of both: it feels good to feel superior.  We can show how much smarter, more liberal, more moral, etc. than the bigots, the Chrisitanists, anti-evolutionists, gay-haters, Jew haters, whatever.

We can all tell stories about Southern racism; it really doesn’t prove the ‘Southerners are racist (slime) point.  Flavius quotes the number that Obama got 17% of the Southern, white male vote.  If we were honest, we’d have to allow for unaffiliated voters (they’re the ones you need to look at in this race differential, IMO) voting for McCain who loved a military man, who thought Obama was too green, voted with their loins because they thought Palin was hot, or a host of other issues.

There is a theory, and I should remember what the process is called, that early learning is stored in memory packets that are very hard to unlearn.  For instance, if we learned in school that the Civil War was about Lincoln freeing the slaves, it’s harder to accept other information later.  Many of us have been involved in those raging discussions on the boards, and I for one have been dismayed at the failure of so many to accept even verified factual history to the contrary.  Wanting to even discuss the possibility that the South should have been allowed to secede is loaded beyond my imaginings, for both white and black commenters.  Crazy, but it seems like we can sure be wedded to our beliefs.

I’m glad that some Dagbloggers have weighed in to object to this bigotry; there are quite a number of Southerners here.  And yes, I mean Southern-born-and-bred; others who migrated to other parts of the US or world later.  I can imagine, and have heard some of them say, that it was hard living in a culture that often embodied bigotry against blacks and other people of color or ethnicity.  Some may still carry some vestige of that toxicity, and need to fight it when it comes up; I don’t know. 

But I know they shouldn’t have to keep paying for that flawed stereotype forever, and they would want us to remember how many parents taught their children better than that, and worked for equality and justice for all.

I've fought this southerner-as-evil-incarnate stereotype for almost three years on the boards, and I am weary.

Why can't good people see that: a) times change; b) people change; and, c) the subject being examined and evaluated changes? Not a rhetorical question, btw.

The attitudes good Democrats have towards southerners just might be one reason why, in a pinch, many vacillate between their own principles and party loyalty affiliation as it is affected by denigration.

In this context, I'm glad that my parents, my aunt and uncle and all of their friends are dead ... for it would grieve them to think they had stood for principle, dared their neighbors to criticize their liberal views, only to be scorned and excoriated by people from off who are too willing to accept outdated stereotypes when the current numbers do not support these outdated views.

I've posted link after link: tables, pie charts and maps that delineate the true picture of current prejudice as defined by INTOLERANCE. Not least of which are these:

http://www.nraila.org/maps/rtc.jpg

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/.a/6a00d83451b4ba69e20120a6a2c734970c-pi

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map

But that data-based update has fallen on blind eyes and deaf ears. Why? Because: a) there are still the braying asshats of the south who draw fire, even when their day is done, or almost done; and, b) it is comforting for people from off to cling to these stereotypes, because it is easier to cite past transgressions -- 40-50 years ago --than it is to examine change we actually can believe in -- because it is documented, vis a vis shifting attitudes in the South -- when an accepted, if falacious "truth" is at hand.

Personally? I'm done with this topic. I live in the South. Breath southern air. Know the villains and the heros personally in more than one state. And I am tired, mightily tired, of being an easy target... in the sense of decoy ... for the fire that is, today, actually earned elsewhere. '

Study the maps I have provided -- visual aids for visual learners that offer proof that, yes, the South is, overall, still conservative (and frightened) but.....

the South's voting patterns -- in presidential elections, in its incidence of hate crimes, in its affiliation with the NRA, in its Nate Silver-indicated voting patterns in 2010 -- are, ta da,  NO DIFFERENT than the patterns in Montana, the Dakotas, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Missouri,  and even Pennsylvania and NEW JERSEY....

It's time to give up this easy demonization of the South. Instead, consider the country as a whole. Really. And see where the affiliation for state's right, Second Amendment obsession, "small government" et al are actually located. 

IS the South part of this picture? Yes. But if you were to be more careful, looking at population figures versus geographic areas, you just might have to alter your opinions.

Or not. If the South serves your whipping post, whipping boy need.

1) that the 2008 white male voting pattern was the same in -- gasp -- Utah, the Dakotas, Nebraska et al as it