I'm sorry but perhaps I'm a little touchy here. I can't celebrate my German heritage without someone pointing out the Nazi's. I can't talk about my state of birth or of any of the beautiful things here down south without someone deciding to bring up slavery or racism.

There was alot more overt racism when I lived up north than there is down here in the armpit of the south.

When I told a fellow worker that I would be transferred to Wilmington, NC she said that she would never go down there, that her family would be in danger down there (she is the child of a mixed marriage).

Surprise, surprise, I saw more mixed couples in Wilmington, NC than in all of Baltimore, MD. We only had one murder in five years of living there. Don't even bother to look at the murder statistics in Baltimore over the same time period.

I'm not saying that there isn't racism, but a lot of people don't give the south a chance, and thereby deny themselves some pretty great things, because of slavery and jim crow. It happened, it's behind us. And the racism that remains is just as much at home in Kennebunkport Maine as it is in Montgomery Alabama. Let's remember that Archie Bunker was not portraying a southerner!