Racism in the North Country

I was always perplexed by the racism that I saw and heard in my home town in New Hampshire. People trafficked in the most appalling stereotypes about blacks despite the fact that almost no one in Newport could even plausibly say that he or she knew any black people. If one wants to see racism as a function of ignorance and unfamiliarity, most of northern New England would be the place to go. Of course there are other wellsprings for racism as well, but that which springs from ignorance born of unfamiliarity, the most literal kind of ignorance, is among the most truculent. I was reminded of these experiences from those years while reading this story in The New York Times about death threats levied against anyone who dared attend NAACP meetings in Bangor, Maine. Not surprisingly, Maine is apparently the whitest state in the country. And this example shows that the racism of unfamiliarity can carry with it every bit of the malice of any other form of racism. Keep this example in mind also when someone next tries to tell you that America is over its racist past, or that blacks just need to get over it, or any of the other cliches that some people reflexively blurt out in order to avoid scrutinizing a country that has come a long way but that still has a long way yet to travel.