@JC
"you are correct I don't know or understand the people in your area fully."
Actually, you are correct, you do not know them fully, but you know them better than you think you do.
"I do know we are very different."
I don't think we are at all. I think we are very close and have just a few minor differences in how we want to achieve the same goal.
“The south like all places has issues that needs improvement but the stereotype of the south being so racist is absolutely ignorant.”
And all of California is liberal? And all of . . . If you don’t want to have people think that all of the south is racist, then don’t treat the other areas the way you don’t want to be treated. The south, just like the north, just like the west, has pockets that are really fucking racist. Racism really doesn’t know a geography more than a mindset.
“My generation knows our history and the mistakes made by generations before us. “
I disagree here. I think you know of, but do not know. It is a function of modern society. What we learned in the 50s was not as vast as we learned in the 70s which was not as vast as the 90s and so on. Every generation has something new to learn and something gets pushed to the wayside. Schools no longer have music as mandatory. Schools are pushing to get rid of PE as mandatory. History is one of those classes that is getting trimmed as well. This vast amount of subjects that we have today compared to 40 years ago is partially why colleges are complaining that they have to spend the first two years just getting people ready for college.
“People here get along much better than others places.”
That is subjective. From my perspective, people here get along a LOT better than when I lived in Fort Lauderdale or Miami or yes, even Albertville, AL. What I saw when I was in AL is that if you were from there, you were fine. If you weren’t from the state, you were treated completely different.
“My kids as I were raised to respect our elders no matter color. We say thank you to whomever no matter the color. We will buy, sell, talk, laugh no matter color.”
And that is different here?
“Here religion is something special to many and by far Christianity is the religion people follow no matter their color.”
I mainly agree with that. Orlando starts the bible belt and it goes north from there. But there are seriously segregated churches in the south. I think religion is man made. I got to go to a black church in Fort Lauderdale and in Gainesville. OMG . . . it was friggin awesome. The energy, the feeling that the people had. It was much different than the whitebread boring sermons :)