I thought you were directing that to me. As far as your 'in the south' comment, I would disagree. Getting my undergrad at a prominent southern university we discussed race and racism openly in tons of classes, esp political science and af-am studies classes. I found that very different from my life in the north, where racism is swept under the rug. Many professors in af-am studies programs have told me that they personally prefer teaching af-am and/or lecturing on racism/race relations in southern classrooms because people aren't afraid to talk about their racist beliefs, therefore you can make progress. One, who taught uc berkeley before coming to my uni said that teaching there and lecturing in the north 'was like talking to a group of agreeable head shakers.' Everyone just pretends there's no problem and ignores the elephant in the room that all of the blacks were at one side of the room and the whites were at the other side and therefore nothing is learned. In the south, people tend to speak their minds no matter how stupid they sound and because they do this progress can be made, understanding can be reached. Of course this is only anecdotal evidence, so it's not scientific and doesn't fit every situation, and it's not meant to. It's just based on personal experience.

The civil rights movement would have never made the great progress in the north because people weren't willing to go on the record like that. There were schools that weren't desegregated in the north, restaurants etc. Some of the schools were technically 'desegregated' but unless a black family was sold a house in the 'nice' part of town, the school was going to remain 100% white. The SCLC and the other organizations picked the south skillfully, relying off of the flagrant racism of the south to forward their platform. It was a skillfully executed political operation. They didn't pick cities in the north because it wouldn't have caused any trouble, in fact in places in the north where black college students went against SCLC and SNCC's wishes and demonstrated, they were met with little to no resistance at all. There was no Bull Connor of a northern city. There's a reason that the civil rights mvt occurred in the South. And while many places in the north like to keep up appearances by juxtaposing themselves a non-racist place far away from the 'back woods' of the south the truth is there is still racism everywhere in the US. All white neighborhoods, schools, are forms of racism no matter their relative position to the Mason-Dixon line.

The use of race-mixing has been used to forward the ideas of white supremacy in the southern united states as well as the north. But, I think that to just throw the label of racist on someone that takes any position without really looking into what made the person arrive at that conclusion is stupid. If it were possible to know what the JoP thinks I would be able to arrive at a conclusion better, so I'm not going to call him racist with using the 'looks like a.... smells like a...' system. I wish that our society could be at the point where someone could make a legitimate (i'm not calling his position legitimate because I don't personally know his racial politics) argument dealing with race without racist being tossed on him as frequently as Americans (lib and con) like to throw around Nazi without knowing what it actually means. People are too quick to rush to judgment when someone talks about issues like this.

I do know that from research I did as an undergrad that children of mixed races have trouble fitting in not only in school and their peer group, but sometimes even with families. White kids dismiss them as 'not one of us,' and black kids dismiss them as 'not black enough.' The same systemic problem can be shown by using examples from both history and contemporary times. Kanye West had a lot of trouble being accepted as a rapper not only because of his music style but even the style of his clothes. A&R and music execs thought that he wouldn't appeal because he was essentially not 'black enough' i.e. didn't wear chains or jersey's or talk about bitches & ho's money, cars, clothes stuff. Some in the rap community criticized him for not fitting into this narrow ideal of what a rapper should be. This runs parallel to black kids not accepting kids that aren't black enough, or if they behave or talk 'white.' The topic of black kids having to shun education and being forced to perform their expected identity to their friends and family was recently covered on a news story on CNN. Similarly, there is the historical example of the mixed children born in Australia. Mainly the product of white 'Australian' frontiersmen and (usually by rape) Aboriginal women, after horrible policies by the Australian government aimed at eliminating the 'half-castes' population by forced castration and other methods, the 'half-castes' were finally allowed to enter 'normal' society. Sadly, many were never able to function properly because of their inability to integrate into the white or aboriginal society.

So there are in fact legitimate concerns about the children. It is true that this has been used in the past to shroud racist policy making in the US. However, there is a concern. The JoP's remedy of just stopping the marriages is a pretty stupid one. There should be more done in communities, white and black, to help the integration of children of mixed races. Some get by without any problems, some in the past have used 'passing' as a way to cope, and others who couldn't fit have just been forgotten.

The sad thing is that no one in the media at least that I know of, tried to get the truth out of his opinions. The story was handled by every news source that I read as 'racist JoP tries to make stupid stand against interracial relationships haha laugh at the racist.' They did the job that we typically expect of msm reporters, and just reported for shock value, the selling of headlines, etc.

Now, I would doubt that the decision that the JoP made had half as much thought put in to it as I did this post, but the thing is, no one ever took the time to look into it. If the judge did have a legitimate concern, he went about in perhaps the most absolutely wrong way he could have. But, I think we lost out on a way to improve race relations by just dismissing him as a racist and not examining our own racial politics, our own schools, friend circles, neighborhoods, restaurants. We will never make any progress if people aren't allowed to think critically about race.

I'm sure you have heard the news about what happened in the Geneva area. There have been quite a number of posts on forums dealing with the shooting dealing with second amendment rights and southerners, you know, the same 'ol hatred and attitudes we all get from other parts of the US. In case you don't see what I'm getting at: People always criticize the south as being gun-toting, deer shooting, red-neck people that live in trailers and don't have access to paved roads and schools. I was wondering if you fellow Alabamian DUers thought about second amendment rights. Seeing as we are in the "fertile crescent" of gun ownership, and apparently we all identify as democrats (which makes us socialists, communists, crazies, and enablers in alabama right?LOL) I see us as being in quite strange position as far as our opinions go. I know many fellow dem's that are incredibly liberal, but are strong second amendment supporters. Anybody wanna lay their opinion down?

The team is there for you, and supports you in every way, and then BAM!! They kick you out. I think that gay people get too caught up in the labels that have been applied to us. I recently saw Chuck D (of Public Enemy fame) give a lecture at the University of Alabama where he stated that labels are something applied to you by people who are not like you so they can fit you into a little group with a title to make them feel more comfortable. Furthermore, he went on that government uses labels like this to draw lines in society to further divide communities for political gain of the people in the government. My personal view on sexuality is that it is a fluid, constantly changing thing. When you stick yourself to a certain group, you have to live by their laws. This includes turning your back on someone who leaves the group. It's very animalistic if you think about it. I feel that a lot of males who identify as gay, do it because it is easier than saying bisexual. Furthermore, many guys who don't want to be identified as gay because of the perceived stigma associated with it, identify as bisexual. In the words of T.I. "Just live your life." We get too caught up in labeling ourself as belonging to a specific community. When we do this we then engage in behavior such as turning our back on a good friend just because she/he decided to try something different, perhaps something that other people in the group have wanted to do, but haven't had the guts to, because they are committed to a certain group, even if this means lying to yourself. When we do this it really runs contrary to what the GLBT community is all about, which is being a community. We call it a community because it is a community of support for those whom society has turned their back on, because we know what it feels like to be different. And then, low and behold, we do the same thing that we shame society for. It is quite the double standard. Sorry you had to go through it.

I really don't understand the issue surrounding sex workers. Having lived in Germany for some time, seeing the sex workers in the red light district comes as quite a surprise to your American eyes at first glance, but you get used to it. I do not know the intimate details involved with prostitution in Germany as far as government involvement, taxes, etc., but I do know that it is legal, and very expensive.

As far as what the GLBT community thinks about sex workers, I think that you have to look at what we think of sex in general. I feel that sex in our community is more up front. When we were younger and not as mentally sophisticated, what we did, or wanted to do, in bed was the only thing that defined us. Some of us are still caught up in this type of thinking. But later in life, I think that this gives us more nonchalant attitude when thinking about sex. For some reason straight people as a whole do not like talking about sex as much as gay men. Not that we're sex crazed maniacs, it just comes naturally to express ourselves in this way, and most importantly it is not looked down upon in our community to do it. I feel like it is hard for straight people to express themselves sexually because forces of conformity are stronger in straight relationships than in gay ones. As for others in the community I cannot speak for them because I know very few of them.