Walter C Uhler » Entries tagged with "Southern Culture"
Republicans Court the “White Trash” Vote in Alabama and Mississippi
Although it was far behind Texas, in 2011 Alabama executed more prisoners than any other state in the United States. Citizens of Alabama live in more mobile homes per capita than all but three other states. Alabama has the third worst infant mortality rate in the United States, the third lowest life expectancy, and the second highest obesity rate. Only four states have more single parent households per capita than the great state of Alabama. Mississippi is worse. It has the lowest per capita income in the United States, the highest percentage of persons living below the poverty level, the fourth highest unemployment rate, the third highest percentage of mobile homes per capita, the highest infant mortality rate, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Politics
Let’s Reverse the Spread of the Social Diseases Already Blighting the Republican-Controlled American South
There was a time during the mid-1980s when many of America’s Soviet scholars asked themselves how a man possessing the moral fiber, education and stellar capabilities of Mikhail Gorbachev could possibly have risen through the political ranks of a thoroughly corrupt and bankrupt Soviet socialist system. Today serious Americans should be asking themselves whether it is even remotely possible that a Republican Gorbachev could emerge from the socially diseased American South. If you look at our last Republican President from the South, George W. Bush, you will recognize the problem. During Bush’s eight years in office, America: (1) suffered the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history, (2) heard false assertions about weapons of mass destruction and ties to al … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Politics
Documenting the Social Pathologies Afflicting the American South
Rank Among All 50 U.S States (from databases no older than 2003) PATHOLOGY 50th (worst) 49th 48th 47th 46th Most Executions in 2011 Texas Alabama Ohio Georgia Arizona Violent Crime (per/100k pop.) S. Carolina Tennessee Nevada Louisiana Florida Lowest Per Capita Income Mississippi W. Virginia Utah Kentucky Arkansas % Persons Below Poverty Level Mississippi Arkansas Louisiana Kentucky N. Mexico Highest Unemployment Rate Nevada California Rhode Island Mississippi Florida/N. Car. Most Mobile Homes (%) S. Carolina New Mexico Mississippi Alabama N. Carolina Fewest Labor Union Members (%) S. Carolina N. Carolina Arkansas* Virginia* Utah* Infant Mortality Rate Mississippi Louisiana Alabama Tennessee Arkansas % Most Out-of-Wedlock Births Mississippi N. Mexico Louisiana Delaware S. Carolina Most Single-Parent Households (%) Mississippi Louisiana N. Mexico S. Carolina Alabama Highest Obesity Rates Mississippi Alabama W. Virginia Tennessee Kentucky Lowest High School Grad Rate Nevada Mississippi Louisiana Georgia N. Mexico Highest Illiteracy Rates California New York Florida Texas Georgia/NJ Fewest BA or BS Degrees (%) West Virginia Arkansas Mississippi Kentucky Louisiana Lowest Life Expectancy Mississippi W. Virginia Alabama Louisiana Oklahoma % Traffic Fatalities/Miles Montana Louisiana W. Virginia S. Carolina Mississippi Per Capita Alcohol Consumption New Hampshire Nevada Delaware Wisconsin N. Dakota Highest Per Capita Smokers Kentucky W. Virginia Oklahoma Missouri Tennessee (* specific ranking not established) Additional Data Found in: The South and America Since World War II, by James C. Cobb (Oxford University Press, 2011) In 1958, Melvin Tumin and associates found that, in Guilford County, North … Read entire article »
Filed under: Politics
Gingrich Wins in the “Sahara of the Bozart”
Racism is alive and well in the Republican Party of South Carolina. You saw it up close and personal if you watched the recent presidential debates in that state and heard symbolic racists in the audience cheer Newt Gingrich every time he offered up the newest racial code words. Code words are required in the Sahara of the Bozart because ugly overt racism needed to be replaced and has been replaced by what scholars call “symbolic racism”- “a coherent set of beliefs including the sense that discrimination is no longer an obstacle for blacks, that their current lack of upward social mobility is caused by their unwillingness to work hard, that they demand too much of government, and that they have received … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Politics
The South Continues to “Make” Race: Will the Supreme Court Follow?
How Race is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses, by Mark M. Smith University of North Carolina Press, 2006, 200 pp. A few years ago, in exasperation over pre-invasion polls indicating that a large majority of Americans erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on 9/11, I was forced to return to Walter Lippmann’s classics about Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, along with other books explaining why Americans were so highly susceptible to political manipulation. Ultimately, that reading led to the article, “Democracy or dominion?” written for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [ Jan/Feb. 2004] Although the general response to that article was quite positive, a highly esteemed professor insisted that I overlooked the obvious: “Most … Read entire article »
Filed under: African-American History, Book Reviews, Race/Racism
The Nation: Editor's Picks
- Class and 'The Great Gatsby' May 17, 2013 Michelle Dean
- This Week in Poverty: Fighting Poverty Through Wall Street Accountability May 17, 2013 Greg Kaufmann
- Why Christians Like Me Should Listen to Critiques of Evangelical Adoption May 17, 2013 Melanie Springer Mock