Thank you for proving my point about why NPR should be defunded: it produces completely misinformed, low-knowledge, intellectually pretentious dunces like you who are so poorly read that they don't even know the basics of their own side's history.
Allow me to turn to the classic American book on Jim Crow segregation, called The Strange Career of Jim Crow by the leftist historian C. Vann Woodward, who was on the far left politically throughout his life. This book was dubbed "the historical Bible of the Civil Rights movement" by Martin Luther King Jr. Clearly, you have never read this book, and likely never even heard of it. As a New York Times-reading, I mean New Slavetrader Times-reading, NPR-listening American pseudo-intellectual, you really have never read anything of substance in your entire life - not even classic works of the left, such as this book by Woodward.
Now let's turn to pages 14-16 where Woodward - who, again, was always on the far left - described interracial mixing in the South before the War Between the States. Notice the absence of any mention of "rape." The "Wade" he refers to here is the historian Richard C. Wade in his book Slavery in the Cities. Sorry to convey the truth to you, it must hurt:
"The very appearance of segregation in the cities, however, was a reaction to an opposite condition of racial mixing. For in the cities of the slave states the races lived in closer physical proximity and greater intimacy of contact and association than they did in any other part of America. 'In every city in Dixie,' writes Wade, 'blacks and whites lived side by side, sharing the same premises if not equal facilities and living constantly in each other's presence.' The typical dwelling of a slave-owning family was a walled compound shared by both master and slave families. Neither non-slaveholding whites nor free Negroes escaped this intimacy, for they were 'sprinkled through most parts of town and surrounded by people of both races.' In spite of changes in the ratio of races which resulted in some racial concentration by 1860, the pattern of residential intermixture prevailed to the end of slavery - and did not disappear quickly thereafter. The pattern was the same in all cities. 'In no case did anything like full residential segregation emerge,' concludes Wade. 'Few streets, much less blocks, were solidly black.' Nothing quite comparable existed in Northern cities at that time or since.
The purpose, of course, was the convenience of the masters and the control of the subject race. But the result of this and other conditions of urban living was an overlapping of freedom and bondage that menaced the institution of slavery and promoted a familiarity and association between black and white that challenged caste taboos. The celebrated masked balls and other casual relations between races in New Orleans were popularly attributed to exotic Latin influences. 'Actually,' says Wade, 'what visitors noticed about New Orleans was true of urban life throughout the South.' Every Southern city had its demimonde, and regardless of the law and the pillars of society, the two races on that level foregathered more or less openly in grog shops, mixed balls, and religious meetings. Less visibly there thrived 'a world of greater conviviality and equality.' Under cover of night, 'in this nether world blacks and whites mingled freely, the conventions of slavery were discarded,' and 'not only did the men find fellowship without regard to color in the tippling shops, back rooms, and secluded sheds, but the women of both races joined in.' The police blotters of the period are cluttered with evidence of this, but they bear witness only of the sinners who were caught.
In addition to urban factors of proximity there are important demographic data that help account for the intimate interracial association at various levels. In all the Southern cities during the four decades prior to 1860 there was a striking imbalance of the sexes in both races. The significant fact is that the imbalance in one race was the reverse of that in the other. Among whites, especially in the cities west of the seaboard states, there was a great preponderance of men over women, always a phenomenon of rapid urban growth. Among blacks, on the other hand, there was a great preponderance of women over men, occasioned by the practice of selling off young males to the country. Among both races the shortage was always greatest among young adults. This situation helps to account for a considerable amount of cohabitation between white men and Negro women and a growing population of mulattoes. While the census of 1860 listed 12 per cent of all the colored people in the South as 'mulattoes,' the percentage of them in the cities was much larger, often three or four times as large.'"
So there you go, Moxie, you misinformed NPR listener. At this point you should pay me at least $30 every post I make through PayPal for giving you the education you never received. But I do enjoy teaching. I'm like Socrates, and you're some clueless passerby who I am imparting the truth to. You are very welcome.
