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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

I'm glad somebody understood what I was saying.  I was worried about 
that. My little town probably has about the same number of black people 
as a larger town up north or out west...maybe 6-10%...not sure.   I 
think there might be one or two hairdressers in town that 'fix' black 
hair.  I see ads in the paper "I do corn rows" or "I do extensions".  It 
is not that a white beautician can't fix black folks hair, it is that 
blacks, understandably, want someone experienced in that.  I certainly 
would rather go to someone who cuts white people's hair all day and I am 
sure the feeling is mutual.  On the surface, that sounds racist, but it 
is not.  It is a matter of experience with something.  In areas, like 
Atlanta, were there is a huge majority, blacks can find someone to fix 
their hair anywhere.  They aren't limited to one or two options.  So 
that preference crosses over into various aspects of life.
I think what you feel, Susan, is what we all want, 'the comfort of home'.
Just today, my best friend and I were talking about the Pac NW, which I 
love and consider my second home.  I feel like I fit in there, 
physically anyway....lots of Viking blood in that part of the country. 
Anyway, my friend asked me why I never moved there.  It's real simple. 
I was born and raised as a Southerner.  I would never truly fit in...my 
accent would give me away...lol...besides, they don't have Waffle House 
or grits. :)  The coffee is good, though!


SJC wrote:
> EarthNSky wrote:
> > In a way, it is voluntary 
> > segregation, blacks returning to city where they are the majority and 
> > rejecting integrated cities.  Culturally, it makes perfect sense.  They 
> > have roots here, family here, and even the food has soul. ;)
> >   
> Makes perfect sense to me.  I grew up in a very distinct lifestyle from 
> that of the rest of the country.  I left at 15 in order to go to high 
> school and live "like everybody else".  To this day, despite the fact I 
> left voluntarily, I am never more comfortable and relaxed than where the 
> people speak "right", whether in English or my native language, where 
> the food is somehow more familiar than that I've been eating for the 
> last 50 years, where the social customs seem to be so "right" (and both 
> human/humane compared to what I see on a daily basis now), where the 
> clothing and hairstyles/cuts are so familiar it has drawn tears 
> sometimes when I've gone to visit and momentarily had to remind myself 
> that it was just a visit......I've often thought that on many levels I'd 
> like to be living with or near "my people" again.  It is, in fact, one 
> of the reasons I've decided to relocate in the next few years:  to be 
> closer to an often much-maligned (by neighbors, media, just about 
> anybody at one time or another) group of people.  We all like something 
> that makes us comfortable.
>
> Reminds me of what happened right after forced school segregations in 
> the north.  Many people hated it, not just whites, but of both races.  
> No one changed their social allegiances, nor for that matter, activities.
>
> If you have a dozen red chickens and bring in a white one, she's a 
> goner.  Same thing if the colors are reversed.  Have a dozen white, or 
> black, or whatever color, chickens and bring in one that looks just like 
> them, she'll eventually be one of them, albeit at the bottom of the 
> pecking order.  Sometimes I wonder just how different we humans are.  
> I'm definitely one of the most tolerant (of personal differences of all 
> kinds) people in my neighborhood, but I'm also the one who is "out of 
> the water" here.  Once in a while (admittedly it's usually when I feel 
> provoked by someone/something that went on) I catch myself wondering if 
> I came by that tolerance by way of wanting not to be shut out....I 
> didn't do such deliberately, but it may be that I've done in nevertheless. 
>
> I did, however, very deliberately teach my kids tolerance for people and 
> their differences, and I'd say 2 of them are very tolerant, the other 
> about at the level of his mother.  One of my kids has ever since he left 
> home lived, by choice, where there were few Caucasians and no native 
> English-speakers.  He is now contemplating moving back to where more 
> folks are multilingual, and recently he noted that one of the stresses 
> of the past 20 years has been that wherever he's lived he's occasionally 
> wished for "somebody who thinks like I do" and when queried about that 
> comment a few months ago, it turns out to be that what he's missing is 
> the verbal expression of a value system, certain child-rearing practices 
> he doesn't see where he is/has been, other things that basically to him 
> say "home", "my people"......
>
> So it seems a natural thing to me to want to be with one's "own kind of 
> people".
>
> Susan Jane, in Maine, where she just spent 2 days with visitors, old 
> friends,  from New York City, which is always fun and exhausting.  If I 
> had to move at that pace I'd have been dead long ago!
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“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to 
hate. Hate leads to suffering.”        Yoda