I decided to have a look at the site that Songwronger linked to in the first post.

I'll betcha that Clarence Thomas never used the phrase 'northern liberal elite.' I bet he said something about some people up north treating him worse than people down south.   The liberal part and the elite part came from the columnist, who has an ax to grind.

It is not breaking news that some people in the North are prejudiced. It's too bad that the prejudiced people get a lot more media attention than those who are not prejudiced.
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A few years ago, my husband did field work which kept him in rural Alabama for many months. In general, the people there were the kindest, friendliest, most innocent he had ever known. We're going back now, on vacation.