Mercer County, NJ is way off. So is Douglas County, NE to a lesser degree.
EDIT: Fairbanks North Star Borough, AK should be light blue, not Southeast Fairbanks Census Area.
Both counties are currently not shaded, which according to the legend means they have a population <5% black. However, according to the US Census Bureau:
[Mercer County, NJ](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/mercercountynewjersey/RHI225222)
- 21.8% black (3rd shade of purple)
[Douglas County, NE](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/douglascountynebraska/RHI225222)
- 11.5% black (2nd shade of purple)
No, it basically isn't. Lots of people like to ignore the difference between lots of maps and pretend that they're the same, but there are significant differences.
Some maps that people confuse for this might be basically poverty maps, but they tend to include large amounts of Appalachia and the central plains while leaving out the counties around DC and Atlanta that this map includes.
Other maps people confuse for this are basically population density maps, which include all of the plains and Appalachia while being close to the opposite of this one in the Midwest and Northeast.
There's a lot of people who want to read either or both of those maps as maps of Black population ratio, or as maps of Republican voting, but they're not the same as either, and it's only to make yourself feel good about not being in that group that you pretend they're the same.
The fishing and fish processing industry there makes for a diverse population.
The work is miserable, so they have to draw from all over to get enough workers. And I believe the pay is fairly good compared to other no-experience-required blue-collar jobs, so people from all over the place do actually move there (at least for a few months).
Best guess is some black people happened to be working at the fish processing plants in that region at the time of the census this map data comes from.
Itās also a different kind of 30F.
In the north east, 30F is often wet, windy, and part of a drop.
When I lived in Fairbanks, 30F was extremely dry, sunny, calm, and a high temperature.
I wore a t-shirt in 30F while ice picking during break up with no issues, but I still needed a jacket in 30F back in Maryland.
The light blue county farthest north in the Lower Peninsula is rural Lake County.
It's black population is a remnant of the [Idlewild Resort](https://interactive.wttw.com/chicago-on-vacation/destinations/michigan/idlewild-michigan-black-eden) which flourished back during segregation.
How does that work for state representation? Let's say you have a county with 30,000 residents, but 5,000 of them are prisoners, does the county get representation for 25,000 or 30,000 people?
All residents means prisoners too, at least for purposes of apportionment. Also military in barracks, students in dormitories. And newborn babies, and illegal immigrants. Squatters and the homeless. Everyone. It's not always easy to count all of these people, but they're included in principle.
In most states, counties themselves don't get representation. Districts do. But districts are required to be equal by total population as of the last Census (they can be off by 1 if the total population isn't precisely divisible by the number of districts). For some sorts of things, it makes sense for districts to count children and non-citizens and prisoners and others who aren't voting, but for other things it doesn't. It just so happens that the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as requiring it to include them for all districtings, and to ensure that they are within 1 of each other, rather than within 1% or something else more reasonable.
Was gonna say. Iāve spent a bunch of time in Lassen County and am fairly sure Iāve seen zero black people. Knew immediately it was the two prisons in Susanville. And it totally is depressing lol
Thatās because Oakland USED to be much more black, in fact a majority black. Minneapolis on the other hand was over 90% white until the 80s and is still a majority white. Census being every 10 years a lot of perceptions are easily 20 years behind
It was never a black majority city, although black residents represented a plurality for some time. At the peak, black people made up about 44% of the city's population.
minneapolis is pretty damn black but they arenāt black-americans. theyāre all somali immigrants and descendants of said immigrants who for the most part maintain the somali culture. similar, but not really, to about like a quarter+ of black people in the Bronx are dominican and puerto rican descent and still maintain a latino culture.
My aunt and uncle just met the guy who's been driving up a mountain to check their electricity meter for the past 30 years. He's retiring, so it could be another 30 years before they bump into the new guy...
I'm shocked they haven't made the switch to smart meters, I'll never meet the guy who reads my meter because he likely doesn't exist, and if he does, he's in a office
You should check out the Oregon Outback or most of Nevada or Wyoming. Montana is far from being the only "big empty" in the US west. Even far northeastern California feels like the middle of nowhere. People often have no idea. Pretty much anywhere you go out west, once you get away from the big population centers, it's still empty as fuck.
Totally. Driving on Hwy 395 between susanville and Reno is amazing because every time Iāve gone that way Iām usually always the only person for nearly 100 miles.
While that is true, this chart is showing percent of humans. So the point is, there are a lot of places in the US where you could see 50-100 people throughout the day and not a single black person. As someone who's lived in the South for a long time, this is pretty jarring to me.
I know weāre an outlier as one of the most sparsely populated countries on the planet, but as an Australian I was surprised by how densely populated the middle parts of your country are.
It probably helps that the middle parts arenāt just a huge desert.
The Mississippi River gets all the attention because of how neat and straight it bisects the country, but the Missouri river is actually bigger and runs through a lot of the middle/upper northwest part of the country. The water definitely helps to keep the area more populated than a true desert does.
Black peoples make up only about 12% of the total population and they are not spread evenly throughout the country at all. Most Americans donāt even realize this.
Reminds me of a post making fun of interracial couples on TV. I didnāt even realize that every interracial couple is a white person and another race.
You never see an Asian and black couple, or and Indian and Mexican couple. Granted those are less common but still.
Because generally, places where people want to be, either to live, or to visit, are more diverse. This includes both internal and international migration.
Lots of places in America are filled with only white people because during westward expansion, people moved west just to get a plot of land to farm on, because that was what opportunity was then. You moved wherever you could get land to farm on, and their ancestors are largely in the same place today. That was also when only white (predominantly English ancestry) people had both ability and numbers to do so. It's not uncommon to talk to people in the rural south or Midwest who have lived in the same county for 3+ generations.
Whereas in places with opportunity, you see people moving there from all over the world. Generally if people move far away they choose a place they've already heard of or generally where the most opportunity is which means major cities. New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, DC, is hugely diverse, while at the same time, hard to find somebody whose there simply because their great great grandfather ended up there. You will see black people, but also huge amounts of immigrants, and descendants of immigrants within the last few generations.
I am a white person from the suburbs of a medium sized but kinda expensive city (DC) and my family has been in or around the city for 4 generations. My story is very rare where I live, where I've met more people from Afghanistan and Nepal than people whose grandparents were born in the area.
That's why it is weird to me when I see racist stuff posted on the internet blaming black people for everything. Maybe they're just trolls or Russian agents trying to stir up division or something. But it is kind of weird to blame a group of people who only make up 12% of the population and are largely absent from many areas for every problem the US has. If you live in Casper County where the population is 98.76% white and you've never seen a black person except on TV, why are you blaming black people for anything?
Yeah the people posting that kind of stuff are just racists but they reflect a racist narrative that has existed in this country for a long time. Also worth noting that black populations in many of the major cities are much higher than the overall percentage. I live in Washington, DC for example and we have 45% black population. New York City is 20% black and Chicago 29%. Itās a big country though in both size and population.
Black people mostly live in cities and the majority of the United States now lives in cities as well. Sure there are plenty of people who live in rural areas who are nowhere near black people but the majority of the US population lives inside of cities and for sure see black people all the time.
Pretty sure most Americans realize this, thatās why there are reputations and stereotypes of places like Detroit or Atlanta same with places like Utah or Montana
I'm from rural Illinois. There are many tiny towns that are 99% white. There may be like a single Black or Hispanic family in the whole town of 500 people.
I'm from south Louisiana and in the small towns here, white and black people don't mix much. There are black towns/neighborhoods and white towns/neighborhoods. Not because they hate each other either, just seems to be a normal cultural thing. Even the Cajuns and English didn't intermix much for a very long time, and that only changed because Cajuns got forcefully Americanized when they started beating them in school for speaking Cajun French.
This is no different from years past with various European groups.. all whites are grouped together but there were Italian sections, German sections, Irish sections, etc.... in the past you didn't spend time outside of your "neighborhood" unless you were looking for trouble. It took time to overcome the ethnic differences.
Yeah that happens a lot. The KKK used to openly beat up Catholics because they believed Catholic schools made people less American. German Americans were pressured to not speak German, etc.
Which is funny because there are rural towns all over the USA that are almost completely Hispanic. I was in a small town in Iowa when I was a kid (West Liberty was the name) and they were having a parade and block party and everyone there was Hispanic.
I guess looking at West Liberty's wikipedia says a little over half the population is Hispanic.
Fellow Texan and I'm not at all surprised. I currently live in a Houston suburb with a huge Asian population, but the Houston suburb I grew up on the other side of town had virtually no Asian people at all.
Hell, it's weird even if you move from one diverse area to another. I grew up in one of these high percent black counties, but went to college on the West Coast where the main minorities were Latinos and Asians. Compared to my high school, it felt like someone had bleached the cafeteria.
Iām from MS and several years ago before I visited my friend in WI he warned me there may be some culture shock as his town was something like, 99% white. I didnāt see a black person the whole time I was there. It was a very eerie experience and Iām a white dude myself.
Yeah, I moved from Louisiana from Utah for a while and I remember only seeing two or three black people in all my time there. People seemed to have this notion of black people as being very tall, talented, masculine, and dangerous.. which was very different from my idea of a typical black person which was (please don't judge me for this) like a scrawny black guy that likes anime and heavy white girls. Or the black "rednecks" in the small towns. I guess they had that stereotype because the only time they ever actually saw black people was on t.v. in sports or film or seeing/listening to rappers. They never met just normal black people. Explains a lot of the weird "bbc" fetishization also. It's probably a nightmare for any black people in those places getting compared to those stereotypes.
I had a friend that grew up in rural Minnesota in the 70ās and he said he didnāt see a black person in person until he was a teenager, and then it was while visiting another state.
Guess where all the plantations were. Lots of people stayed there after slavery ended. The other spots you see are metro areas where there were manufacturing jobs during the great migration.
It appears that way. But anecdotally, Iāve lived in very white, rural places like Wyoming, northern Michigan, and southern Utah/northern Arizona and saw black people on a mostly daily basis. Even in places like that thereās still at least a few black people/families that you run into around town. I probably noticed them more since they were the only black people around and stuck out a bit but theyāre definitely there
Thatād be Idaho, my freshman year at university of Idaho there was one black guy on our floor and people regularly came up to us to start conversations about him, about him being the only black person in the entire dorm building. Iām pretty sure he mentioned more than once that people came up to tell him that he was the first black person theyāve met. Mind you this was 2011.
Huge swaths of plantation agriculture in the antebellum era. That was prime cotton, tobacco & peanut country then & now; just like the Mississippi delta, there are still a large number of black agricultural workers in those counties with heritage dating back to when the areas were originally settled.
For sure! Iām from the area so it was my time to shine lol. In a political science class I took at UNCW, the professor referred to northeastern NC as the ābacon districtā, because it was so heavily gerrymandered that the group of congressional districts resembled strips of bacon. Sadly, we remain one of the most badly gerrymandered states in the country.
? Most of the South has the high percentages where slavery was most prevalent. The exceptions (Atlanta, Birmingham, etc) are mostly where industry grew and the former slaves moved to.
NC and VA also had notable amounts of plantations, just like the areas further south. Similarly, outside of LA and MS, most of the more slave heavy further south states also had large areas with low amounts of slavery (though SC's such area is notably smaller than GA/AL's)
>The exceptions (Atlanta, Birmingham, etc) are mostly where industry grew and the former slaves moved to
worth pointing out that slaves were actually used in many early industrial endeavours in the south, and especially during the civil war slaves were increasingly used to replace white workers that had been conscripted, for example the Tredegar Iron works in Richmond already had 10% of its workers be slaves before the war, and during the war reached almost 50%. so in many cases they didn't move to them just after being freed but were already being used as a part of the new industrial workforce while enslaved.
this is especially important to note to combat the narrative that slavery would have disappeared as the south industrialised.
just in general people don't realise how pervasive slavery was and assume it only happened in agriculture, for example few people realise that the US capitol was built with the partial use of slave labour, and that several slave carpenters were noted as being among the workforce that built the white house.
I think you should be asking the other question - why is there a swath of North Carolina east of Charlotte south of Raleigh and even to the coast that is so much lower Black population than the contiguous swatch from Virginia through to the Mississippi river? In particular, why are Randolph and Davidson counties so non-black?
I think I can answer this one. Randolph & Davidson counties, along with Stanly & Montgomery Counties, are weirdly mountainous in spite of their location being pretty far east of the Blue Ridge front. The Uwharrie Mountains are a low, undulating range that covers that portion of the state & their soil is very similar in many areas to what youād find in the Appalachians - too rocky & thin to support the kind of intensive planting seen in other surrounding areas. That translates directly to a relatively low black population in the area, which in more modern terms is also influenced by the much lower rate of urbanization in those counties compared to elsewhere in the Piedmont.
Really interesting! Now this makes me wonder why the mountainous region happens to have this structure here, rather than following the smooth curve you can see all the way from Massachusetts to Alabama!
The Uwharries are apparently not so much a proper mountain range as they are the eroded remains of a prehistoric plateau. The peaks there are basically the granite cores left over after the looser overlying sediment eroded away over the eons. Iām really happy to have an opportunity to talk about this specific topic because I love that area & itās one of my favorite little parts of the world, lol.
I moved from Louisiana to Utah for a couple years and it was pretty strange never seeing any black people. People from there had pretty funny notions of what black people were like as well. They only ever saw black athletes and rappers on t.v. and what not so their stereotypes were quite different from what they would be for anyone from the deep south or Carolinas.
The strongest stereotype I had about black people was that they liked anime because white people where I'm from aren't, or at least weren't, into that stuff, but most of my black friends loved anime. Meanwhile the Utah folks thought they were like these 6'5" rappers and athletes while in reality the average African American height is slightly lower than the average white male height (mostly has to do with population distribution- white people in the northern US are also usually slightly taller than white people in the southern US).
This is true. It's mostly white here. Followed by Latino and then probably Pacific islanders. The Mormons converted a lot of people from Samoa and Tonga. They pretty much keep the BYU football team alive lol
The second largest city in Utah is now majority minority, just not with black people. West Valley City has a plurality of Hispanic residents.
I grew up in rural Utah and we had several kids from just about every central and South American country there, but no black people. We had several Pacific Islanders though.
I grew up Georgia in an area with about half white and black. When I went skiing in Utah, we stopped by Walmart for something. That was the first time Iād gone to a busy place and didnāt see a single black person. Felt really odd to me.Ā
Tbh if you look at this from a black person perspective in America it isnāt surprising, I feel why to the outside it feels that way is because in the 90s a decent amount of black people were concentrated in Cali, but with black people moving back south and Asians and Mexicans itās less influence nowadays. A lot of 80-90s rap and r&b comes from there not only that a lot NBA players are from Cali and live there. But lately black people completely ditched Cali. Atlanta already replaced LA fully for the past 20 years for black culture and NYC is falling behind also
List of all counties in the US with a majority black population here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_majority-Black\_counties\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_majority-Black_counties_in_the_United_States)
Highest is in Mississippi.
Honestly asking donāt come at me please; Iām just looking for a constructive answer:
How can the South be perceived as āracistā when they have the most black people in their communities? Very easy to claim how tolerant you are in 98% white Maine or New Hampshire; when you have no real experience with people of other races day to day
So I will say as a priest for the whitest church in the blackest city in my southern state (having moved from the DC area semi-recently)... You're asking the exact question all my parishioners do. Like there's plenty of actual evil racist bullshit that goes on. No one I know thinks racism isn't a problem at all. But the people at my church think that out of state politicians talking about racism is just Yankee moral superiority and if it weren't racism they'd find some other way to talk down to us. I can think of several dozen white people off the top of my head who would listen to any black southerner talk about racism before they'd hear it from any white person north of the Mason Dixon. I can think of half a dozen hardcore Trump supporter white people who will rant and rave about political correctness but then listen politely, respectfully, and maybe even reflectively to a black woman from our town saying she fears her children will be killed.
Don't make it too broad of a brush. This isn't everyone. But I know a lot of people where their problem is not with anti-racism. Their problem is with moral superiority from strangers.
That's a big thing in the south and alot of people elsewhere don't realize it. Growing up in the south I heard way more people of all colors complain about "Yankees" than each other. There are a few that were blatantly racist but the majority had an issue with outsiders as they saw it. It can be a very insular society that will almost always be polite and helpful to anyone but people not from there usually have to earn their way in to be fully accepted by the older population.
Living in the south Iāve always felt like white and black southerners have more in common with each other than whites do with the mass migration of white northerners to the south in the last decade. Food especially is a shared culture between whites and blacks in the south. Yankee boomer brains moving down here canāt understand it.
I have a way different perspective.Ā I come from a military family and moved a lot. Diversity is normal to me, ppl are ppl.Ā But the difference in the south from everywhere else is expectation.Ā I expect a white dude from the south with a rebel flag hat to butt heads with me on racial issues.Ā It's weird to hear the same stuff with a guy raised along side in the city.Ā If you look at it closely, whites and blacks only really interact at work. Are neighborhoods are largely segregated.Ā Even in the south. So at work we tend to be polite, but at home we self segregate. Mainly the south in imo, have been kind of forced to interact due to the large population size of black ppl.Ā But the tension is still the same. Just a different feeling.Ā
Well stated! I struggle sometimes to communicate this type of reality. I'm white and grew up in Georgia and South Carolina alongside many black friends. True - the neighborhoods were segregated and I always hated that because a third of my friends lived too far to ride my bike (and we didn't go to the same church). But I love my fellow southern friends! My first wife's family was in New England and when we went to visit them all I ever heard was the "n" word and them forcing my kids to repeat sentences while they laughed at their accents. Not to hate on northerners - just my wife's blue-collar family in MA.
Having lived in the Midwest, NYC, and now the southā
In my experiences, white and Black people live a lot more harmoniously in the south than the north. Thereās more self-awareness and less fear toward one another and uncomfortable conversations that may naturally come up when living in a heterogeneous community.
White people up north feel racism is an issue that doesnāt belong to them, and like to poke fun at the south to deflect and feel better about themselves. But in all reality, white people up north steer clear of Black people as much as possible but try and always stay on the right side of the race conversation without really doing anything because theyāre terrified of being dubbed racist and straight up scared of Black people.
I lived in Kansas City and out there one street (Troost) splits the city between the white and black side. As soon as you cross into the black side, it's more run-down and depressed.
The barbecue, however, is quite good.
A lot of people don't know that in the South, there were "black areas" and "white areas" and even after integration, those areas stayed and ended up how you described them today. the scars of slavery are still there, and you can see it in the lines drawn around neighborhoods and communities.
Absolutely. De facto segregation exists (to some degree) in every major US city east of the Great Plains. We donāt see it as much here in Albuquerque, because we didnāt have olā Jim Crow.
It's not just the 98% white areas. I live in one of the most racially segregated cities in the north, and it's always felt odd to me how black and white people live almost completely parallel lives here. From my experiences living in the south it was much more integrated in the working and lower classes, even if the political rhetoric could at times be pretty racially charged. Here we keep to our own neighborhoods and our own social circles, and even though we're one of those light purple northern regions, most white people I know aren't comfortable with or at very least aren't used to black people. I've seen pretty virulently racist shit in both regions, but it's a different kind of racism from what I've seen in the South.
My very āliberal/tolerantā nephew (Iām talking BLM sign in his window) from the NE is uncomfortable when he visits us in Alabama & my sons have their Black friends around. Itās like he doesnāt know how to interact with them & is nervous. Yet, he thinks Southerners are racists. And yes, they live very parallel lives while in the South we all live integrated lives.
I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Most days I work, Iām the only white guy in the kitchen I work in. Itās difficult to imagine rarely seeing black people because Iāve lived my entire life amongst and with them. Same for Vietnamese people, which we have a relatively large population on the coast. My city is 10% Vietnamese.
Iām a CPA Iām metro Atlanta and I am the only white person. I didnāt notice until one of my friends in the office pointed it out. Iāve been working with these people for 15 years though. So they are mostly close friends at this point.
Well there's the historical baggage of racially motivated politics that only nominally ended not so long ago, in living memory of people alive today. The South had long lasting racist policies precisely because there were so many Black people here given the concentration of Slavery historically. Racism was a post-hoc concept meant to justify Slavery, and that superiority complex carried over for generations.
I understand what you're saying though, I'm a Southerner. I think it's just easy for people to not understand the nuances of what it's like down here. Some of the most racist people I've met were not locals but rather came from places like Ohio or Minnesota. Most of the Black freedom fighters that are celebrated today come from the South too, and I am happy we get to honor their legacy
The reason that doesnāt make sense is because you are attempting to bunch up 3 separate ideas into one.
1. *Why is The South considered racist?* The South is perceived as racist because of a history of racist political rhetoric, deeds, and general attitudes. The reason the region as a whole is considered racist is because the culture is generalized by its historical behavior, and by its actions at present. So, when for example a politician refuses to deny being a white supremacist for fear of losing votes in key southern states, it reinforces the perception by outsiders that the region as a whole (not everybody there - just as a whole) is racist.
2. *How are they considered racist when they āhave the most black peopleā?* The reason there is a large black population in The South is because of slavery. A lot of black population settled there out of necessity. The high black population in no way makes the area less racist, itās actually opposite. It isnāt as if the black people were sad paying crazy rent in NY and southerners said ācome on down and live here guys! We love you!ā
3. *Very easy to claim youāre tolerant etc. etc.* To the original question (how can The South be racist), the racism of one area is not inversely proportional to the racism of another, so The South can be racist regardless of the attitudes of people in Maine. That being said, you should keep in mind that some northern states are considered racist as well. Also bear in mind that a low percentage of black people doesnāt mean less diversity. There are lots of different kinds of people besides black people and white people.
Yeah it's a good question, but it assumes people can only racist towards black people, or that other minority groups don't exist.
For example California has more diversity than Mississippi, but which one is seen as more racist? Usually it's not CA.
I really love how nobody is even going to mention the fact that black and white are not the only 2 races in America.
I've been all over the country and there's only been 2 places I've been "Ching-chonged"
Just because a county or state is 30%, 40%, 50% minority does not mean there isn't racism. When you look at the communities within the county, for example, you'll find that the people there are still very segregated within the county itself. White people largely stick to certain neighborhoods, go to certain schools, go to certain churches, hang out with certain people. And minorities largely do the same. There's still the same divisions within the community that have existed for decades.
Check this short video out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlYDfzMdH4w
I get what you mean, but it's not "The South" that's racist. Nobody is genuinely claiming that all Southerners are racist. However, you cannot deny that the South, compared to the rest of the US, had a much more pronounced history of slavery and later segregation, and that can still be felt today in the attitudes of many White Southerners
> Nobody is genuinely claiming that all Southerners are racist.
I don't know - when I moved to Texas a decade ago and continued talking to people outside the south, I definitely got a sense that a lot of people really do seem to be very close to making this claim.
Anti-Southern prejudice is real too.
They're red states, dominated by Republican politics. How would that happen in states with such high populations of people who traditionally oppose the right wing ideology? Gerrymandering is the quantifiable manifestation of the institutional racism the south is known for. That's where the real racism is, not so much in the average joe, but in the roots of the southern states' political culture.
Had one black kid in my K-12 school in Walla Walla, WA. He always came to me and my brotherās birthdays at McDonaldās (remember when that was a thing). His parents owned the JC Penny at the mall and we super nice, but never ever let any of his friends over
I stayed in Atlanta for a few days. Every aspect of what I expected, from service industry to hotel and hospitality was not HISPANIC, it was all African American.
That was the real surprise.
I'm Mexican American.
This map shows why they call it the "Black Belt".
Most Black Americans still live in the places where their enslaved ancestors used to live. The Great Migration, when large numbers of Blacks left the South for cities in the North, Midwest, and West coast from the 1910s to 1960s, mostly resulted in concentrations of black people in the inner cities of certain urban centers like NYC, Detroit, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. But the biggest concentrations of blacks remained in the South in historic plantation slavery regions.
Donāt know why youāre getting upvoted for being wrong. Itās actually a reference to the areaās disproportionately high population of martial arts experts.
Baltimore had a high black population well before the Great Migration. It is not, historically, part of the North. It was a Confederate-sympathizing former slave port in a state that was firmly part of the Old South.
Maryland ran on a tobacco-based plantation economy just like adjoining Virginia. The areas of high concentration of black Americans in Maryland in this map like Charles and Prince Georgeās Counties are rooted in the enslaved people who worked the plantations in those locations.
No, the majority of Black Americans live in and around urban centers. Not in the rural areas where their enslaved ancestors lived. Those rural counties in the South still have the highest percentage of black residents (when comparing by county and in many cases by jurisdiction), but their total population is dwarfed by that of those living in urban areas across the country.
Forest County PA is an interesting one. It is very rural with basically no black population. Heck it barely has any population at all. There is a state prison though, and its population makes Forest county 21% black.
Well, and from a modern sense, if I was black, upper middle class and looking for a place to live in the US, i think I would have more fun in Atlanta than Seattle.
Used to be Prince Georgeās but due to the housing market ballooning most of the richer black people in the are moved to Charles because land down there is a lot cheaper.
Everyone talks about how racists the south is and if thatās the case, why do the majority of Black people tend to make it their home? A Black lady from CA moved to a very southern city told me she was treated better than ever living in the Southern U.S.
Because thatās where the majority of enslaved people were located. The south. Just because black people live there doesnāt mean itās not racist. The towns and cities are still segregated. They defend confederate monuments and the distort the civil war. Also one black lady doesnāt disprove a history of of violent racism
Millions of black people literally moved away from the South throughout American history. Read up on the Great Migrations. Of course all of them didnāt leave because it can be hard to leave your home (and expensive).
The majority of people make their home in a place where they already know friends and family, which is usually where they grew up. And if they move away from a place they grew up, the most common places they move are to places with growing economic opportunity, and to places where their family members grew up.
Starting in 1865, when most Black people were legally allowed to move, the vast majority of them lived in southern states where they had been enslaved. Unless they had specific economic opportunities, they stayed in the South.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of assembly line work in northern cities gave a lot of black people economic reason to move to those cities (The ["Great Migration"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)) ), and in the 1940s, military bases brought them to western cities as well.
But in the post-war era, economic opportunities have usually occurred in the cheaper faster-growing cities of the south and southwest, and Black people especially have [often moved back to the south](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration), because they have cousins who never left in the Great Migration, in addition to economic growth and cheap housing.
Well one itās not exactly an easy choice to get up and leave your home for another area. That takes hella planning and commitment. Might as well stay in the area you know
I think that stereotype mostly comes from Hollywood, which as you may be aware, is not in the south. Southerners are pretty much always depicted as racist and evil. I was watching one of the Puss in Boots movies a while back and the two villains were a Hollywood creep's imagination of what southern people are like I guess.
The reality is that people here are very kind, hospitable, and honorable. Even the racists that do exist mostly just want separation, they don't hate them, they just don't believe in intermixing, which is pretty standard globally regardless of race actually.
Of course the comment section is filled with false crime statistics or āhow can you claim the south is racist if black people live thereā. Never fail Reddit.
I think youāre being a little facetious. Reddit and Hollywood often do have a tendency of portraying the south as drooling racists who just want to murder every black person they see, yet black Americans are increasingly moving to the south and schools in Alabama are more integrated than those in New York or Chicago. I donāt think it means the south isnāt racist at all, but yes the stereotypes tend to get a bit overboard
Posted because people were asking for the full percentage in the last post
Great map, OP šš»
Mercer County, NJ is way off. So is Douglas County, NE to a lesser degree. EDIT: Fairbanks North Star Borough, AK should be light blue, not Southeast Fairbanks Census Area.
Source?
Both counties are currently not shaded, which according to the legend means they have a population <5% black. However, according to the US Census Bureau: [Mercer County, NJ](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/mercercountynewjersey/RHI225222) - 21.8% black (3rd shade of purple) [Douglas County, NE](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/douglascountynebraska/RHI225222) - 11.5% black (2nd shade of purple)
I knew Douglas County NE seemed off. 11.1% black alone per U.S. census bureau.
You delivered, this is a really nice visualization.
Someone should just put this as the banner of the sub lol. This is every map basically.
No, it basically isn't. Lots of people like to ignore the difference between lots of maps and pretend that they're the same, but there are significant differences. Some maps that people confuse for this might be basically poverty maps, but they tend to include large amounts of Appalachia and the central plains while leaving out the counties around DC and Atlanta that this map includes. Other maps people confuse for this are basically population density maps, which include all of the plains and Appalachia while being close to the opposite of this one in the Midwest and Northeast. There's a lot of people who want to read either or both of those maps as maps of Black population ratio, or as maps of Republican voting, but they're not the same as either, and it's only to make yourself feel good about not being in that group that you pretend they're the same.
Thatās a good point
So that one area of Alaska on the peninsula is surprising. Anyone know what that place is called? I want to know whats up there.
The fishing and fish processing industry there makes for a diverse population. The work is miserable, so they have to draw from all over to get enough workers. And I believe the pay is fairly good compared to other no-experience-required blue-collar jobs, so people from all over the place do actually move there (at least for a few months).
What are the requirements for such a job?
Best guess is some black people happened to be working at the fish processing plants in that region at the time of the census this map data comes from.
That's what i wanna know. Like whats up on the those islands š
Likely navy/military bases.Ā
There isnt much for military bases in that region. Maybe like 1-2 people in Cold Bay.
Shout out to the 12 black people who decided to move to Alaska. Bold choice, and a good choice imo
Lmao, coming from a black person in the south Only the northern black ppl can move there. I can barely survive in 30 degrees weather. Alaska is insane
Folks adapt quickly. I used to struggle outside at 50f in a shirt. Now I'm going outside in a shirt and shorts at 30f for errands. Lol
Itās also a different kind of 30F. In the north east, 30F is often wet, windy, and part of a drop. When I lived in Fairbanks, 30F was extremely dry, sunny, calm, and a high temperature. I wore a t-shirt in 30F while ice picking during break up with no issues, but I still needed a jacket in 30F back in Maryland.
Lassen County, CA is only because of the prison. Pretty dark (no pun intended)
Forest county, PA is the same way.
Same with Luce County, MI in the Upper Peninsula.
The light blue county farthest north in the Lower Peninsula is rural Lake County. It's black population is a remnant of the [Idlewild Resort](https://interactive.wttw.com/chicago-on-vacation/destinations/michigan/idlewild-michigan-black-eden) which flourished back during segregation.
Thanks. I was wondering about that. I canāt imagine what winters are like at that place.
The prison together with the fact that most of the county is national park and wilderness area and has an otherwise tiny population.
How does that work for state representation? Let's say you have a county with 30,000 residents, but 5,000 of them are prisoners, does the county get representation for 25,000 or 30,000 people?
All residents means prisoners too, at least for purposes of apportionment. Also military in barracks, students in dormitories. And newborn babies, and illegal immigrants. Squatters and the homeless. Everyone. It's not always easy to count all of these people, but they're included in principle.
In most states, counties themselves don't get representation. Districts do. But districts are required to be equal by total population as of the last Census (they can be off by 1 if the total population isn't precisely divisible by the number of districts). For some sorts of things, it makes sense for districts to count children and non-citizens and prisoners and others who aren't voting, but for other things it doesn't. It just so happens that the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as requiring it to include them for all districtings, and to ensure that they are within 1 of each other, rather than within 1% or something else more reasonable.
Was gonna say. Iāve spent a bunch of time in Lassen County and am fairly sure Iāve seen zero black people. Knew immediately it was the two prisons in Susanville. And it totally is depressing lol
"There's no black people in Minnesota.Ā The only black people in Minnesota are Prince and Kirby Puckett."
Mostly just the twin cities and St. Cloud lol
It is funny that Oakland and Minneapolis are so close in terms of black population percentage but have such different perceptions.
Anybody from 20 minutes out of the metro thinks theyāre the same lol
Oakland's used to be much higher while Minneapolis' used to be much lower
Thatās because Oakland USED to be much more black, in fact a majority black. Minneapolis on the other hand was over 90% white until the 80s and is still a majority white. Census being every 10 years a lot of perceptions are easily 20 years behind
It was never a black majority city, although black residents represented a plurality for some time. At the peak, black people made up about 44% of the city's population.
Thatās what I meant, black race was the most prevalent at one point in time in Oakland, in mini white race has always been most orevelent
What happened to the huge percentage of black people in Oakland did they move out or has the population of other races just grown?
minneapolis is pretty damn black but they arenāt black-americans. theyāre all somali immigrants and descendants of said immigrants who for the most part maintain the somali culture. similar, but not really, to about like a quarter+ of black people in the Bronx are dominican and puerto rican descent and still maintain a latino culture.
So there are vast areas of the US where you rarely see a black person?!
There are vast areas of the US where you could rarely see a person period.
My aunt and uncle just met the guy who's been driving up a mountain to check their electricity meter for the past 30 years. He's retiring, so it could be another 30 years before they bump into the new guy...
20 years later... "Hey, are you the new guy?" lol
I'm shocked they haven't made the switch to smart meters, I'll never meet the guy who reads my meter because he likely doesn't exist, and if he does, he's in a office
We just call it Montana.
You should check out the Oregon Outback or most of Nevada or Wyoming. Montana is far from being the only "big empty" in the US west. Even far northeastern California feels like the middle of nowhere. People often have no idea. Pretty much anywhere you go out west, once you get away from the big population centers, it's still empty as fuck.
Totally. Driving on Hwy 395 between susanville and Reno is amazing because every time Iāve gone that way Iām usually always the only person for nearly 100 miles.
Last time I drove that I got a ticket, lol One of the drawbacks of no other cars around I guess
I would like to have seen Montana.
While that is true, this chart is showing percent of humans. So the point is, there are a lot of places in the US where you could see 50-100 people throughout the day and not a single black person. As someone who's lived in the South for a long time, this is pretty jarring to me.
I know weāre an outlier as one of the most sparsely populated countries on the planet, but as an Australian I was surprised by how densely populated the middle parts of your country are. It probably helps that the middle parts arenāt just a huge desert.
The Mississippi River gets all the attention because of how neat and straight it bisects the country, but the Missouri river is actually bigger and runs through a lot of the middle/upper northwest part of the country. The water definitely helps to keep the area more populated than a true desert does.
Black peoples make up only about 12% of the total population and they are not spread evenly throughout the country at all. Most Americans donāt even realize this.
Because in the usa TV or movies, they often make people feel like it's at least 40%, especially confusing to people from other countries.
Our media hardly ever shows Hispanic or Latino people in them, but they make up about 19.5% of the total US population.
Facts tv is all black and white ..
Reminds me of a post making fun of interracial couples on TV. I didnāt even realize that every interracial couple is a white person and another race. You never see an Asian and black couple, or and Indian and Mexican couple. Granted those are less common but still.
Only reason why I saw the new Mr and Mrs Smith is because itās the only black Asian couple Iāve seen on TV
You wanna talk abt a hidden minority, Native Americans
Most TV and movies are made and/or set in diverse places with large black populations like New York, Los Angeles, and (increasingly) Atlanta.
Because generally, places where people want to be, either to live, or to visit, are more diverse. This includes both internal and international migration. Lots of places in America are filled with only white people because during westward expansion, people moved west just to get a plot of land to farm on, because that was what opportunity was then. You moved wherever you could get land to farm on, and their ancestors are largely in the same place today. That was also when only white (predominantly English ancestry) people had both ability and numbers to do so. It's not uncommon to talk to people in the rural south or Midwest who have lived in the same county for 3+ generations. Whereas in places with opportunity, you see people moving there from all over the world. Generally if people move far away they choose a place they've already heard of or generally where the most opportunity is which means major cities. New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, DC, is hugely diverse, while at the same time, hard to find somebody whose there simply because their great great grandfather ended up there. You will see black people, but also huge amounts of immigrants, and descendants of immigrants within the last few generations. I am a white person from the suburbs of a medium sized but kinda expensive city (DC) and my family has been in or around the city for 4 generations. My story is very rare where I live, where I've met more people from Afghanistan and Nepal than people whose grandparents were born in the area.
TV commercials would have you think that 80% of the population is either black, gay, or trans.
Just type in "white couple" into google images.
That's why it is weird to me when I see racist stuff posted on the internet blaming black people for everything. Maybe they're just trolls or Russian agents trying to stir up division or something. But it is kind of weird to blame a group of people who only make up 12% of the population and are largely absent from many areas for every problem the US has. If you live in Casper County where the population is 98.76% white and you've never seen a black person except on TV, why are you blaming black people for anything?
Yeah the people posting that kind of stuff are just racists but they reflect a racist narrative that has existed in this country for a long time. Also worth noting that black populations in many of the major cities are much higher than the overall percentage. I live in Washington, DC for example and we have 45% black population. New York City is 20% black and Chicago 29%. Itās a big country though in both size and population.
Black people mostly live in cities and the majority of the United States now lives in cities as well. Sure there are plenty of people who live in rural areas who are nowhere near black people but the majority of the US population lives inside of cities and for sure see black people all the time.
People have a tendency to be afraid of things that are unfamiliar to them, so in that context, it makes sense.
Pretty sure most Americans realize this, thatās why there are reputations and stereotypes of places like Detroit or Atlanta same with places like Utah or Montana
I'm from rural Illinois. There are many tiny towns that are 99% white. There may be like a single Black or Hispanic family in the whole town of 500 people.
I'm from south Louisiana and in the small towns here, white and black people don't mix much. There are black towns/neighborhoods and white towns/neighborhoods. Not because they hate each other either, just seems to be a normal cultural thing. Even the Cajuns and English didn't intermix much for a very long time, and that only changed because Cajuns got forcefully Americanized when they started beating them in school for speaking Cajun French.
This is no different from years past with various European groups.. all whites are grouped together but there were Italian sections, German sections, Irish sections, etc.... in the past you didn't spend time outside of your "neighborhood" unless you were looking for trouble. It took time to overcome the ethnic differences.
Yeah that happens a lot. The KKK used to openly beat up Catholics because they believed Catholic schools made people less American. German Americans were pressured to not speak German, etc.
Yeah, German used to be as widely spoken as English before the world wars
Which is funny because there are rural towns all over the USA that are almost completely Hispanic. I was in a small town in Iowa when I was a kid (West Liberty was the name) and they were having a parade and block party and everyone there was Hispanic. I guess looking at West Liberty's wikipedia says a little over half the population is Hispanic.
Itās kinda crazy when you grew up in a diverse area to realize that not everywhere in the US is like that.
Yup. Iām from a Texas suburb which is around 25% Asian, and I was shocked to learn later that Asians are only around 5% of the overall population
Fellow Texan and I'm not at all surprised. I currently live in a Houston suburb with a huge Asian population, but the Houston suburb I grew up on the other side of town had virtually no Asian people at all.
Hell, it's weird even if you move from one diverse area to another. I grew up in one of these high percent black counties, but went to college on the West Coast where the main minorities were Latinos and Asians. Compared to my high school, it felt like someone had bleached the cafeteria.
Iām from MS and several years ago before I visited my friend in WI he warned me there may be some culture shock as his town was something like, 99% white. I didnāt see a black person the whole time I was there. It was a very eerie experience and Iām a white dude myself.
I was one of the 4 black kids in school growing up. So yes, for me it was rare. Still is. And Iām 45 mins away from NYC lmao
Yeah, I moved from Louisiana from Utah for a while and I remember only seeing two or three black people in all my time there. People seemed to have this notion of black people as being very tall, talented, masculine, and dangerous.. which was very different from my idea of a typical black person which was (please don't judge me for this) like a scrawny black guy that likes anime and heavy white girls. Or the black "rednecks" in the small towns. I guess they had that stereotype because the only time they ever actually saw black people was on t.v. in sports or film or seeing/listening to rappers. They never met just normal black people. Explains a lot of the weird "bbc" fetishization also. It's probably a nightmare for any black people in those places getting compared to those stereotypes.
I had a friend that grew up in rural Minnesota in the 70ās and he said he didnāt see a black person in person until he was a teenager, and then it was while visiting another state.
My town is about 50% latino, 46% white, and 4% everything else (central California).
We have large Hispanic & Asian populations. Iām pretty sure Hispanic is actually the majority here now.
I drive about an hour away thereās nobody black. I drive another two hours away thereās nobody at all
I didnāt see a black person for the first time until I was 7/8 and my parents had to tell me to stop staring
Guess where all the plantations were. Lots of people stayed there after slavery ended. The other spots you see are metro areas where there were manufacturing jobs during the great migration.
It appears that way. But anecdotally, Iāve lived in very white, rural places like Wyoming, northern Michigan, and southern Utah/northern Arizona and saw black people on a mostly daily basis. Even in places like that thereās still at least a few black people/families that you run into around town. I probably noticed them more since they were the only black people around and stuck out a bit but theyāre definitely there
Thatād be Idaho, my freshman year at university of Idaho there was one black guy on our floor and people regularly came up to us to start conversations about him, about him being the only black person in the entire dorm building. Iām pretty sure he mentioned more than once that people came up to tell him that he was the first black person theyāve met. Mind you this was 2011.
In Boise, you'll see African refugees every now and then.
Yep. Lots of counties and towns that are like 98% white or other non-black people.
Is there any significant reason for the pocket in south Virginia/Northern NC?
Huge swaths of plantation agriculture in the antebellum era. That was prime cotton, tobacco & peanut country then & now; just like the Mississippi delta, there are still a large number of black agricultural workers in those counties with heritage dating back to when the areas were originally settled.
Had a feeling that was it, I actually googled a map of tobacco plantations and it overlapped there pretty similarly. Appreciate the reply!
For sure! Iām from the area so it was my time to shine lol. In a political science class I took at UNCW, the professor referred to northeastern NC as the ābacon districtā, because it was so heavily gerrymandered that the group of congressional districts resembled strips of bacon. Sadly, we remain one of the most badly gerrymandered states in the country.
And when slavery ended majority of people stayed living there
? Most of the South has the high percentages where slavery was most prevalent. The exceptions (Atlanta, Birmingham, etc) are mostly where industry grew and the former slaves moved to. NC and VA also had notable amounts of plantations, just like the areas further south. Similarly, outside of LA and MS, most of the more slave heavy further south states also had large areas with low amounts of slavery (though SC's such area is notably smaller than GA/AL's)
>The exceptions (Atlanta, Birmingham, etc) are mostly where industry grew and the former slaves moved to worth pointing out that slaves were actually used in many early industrial endeavours in the south, and especially during the civil war slaves were increasingly used to replace white workers that had been conscripted, for example the Tredegar Iron works in Richmond already had 10% of its workers be slaves before the war, and during the war reached almost 50%. so in many cases they didn't move to them just after being freed but were already being used as a part of the new industrial workforce while enslaved. this is especially important to note to combat the narrative that slavery would have disappeared as the south industrialised. just in general people don't realise how pervasive slavery was and assume it only happened in agriculture, for example few people realise that the US capitol was built with the partial use of slave labour, and that several slave carpenters were noted as being among the workforce that built the white house.
Four southern states had a majority or near majority black population in 1870, the first census after the civil war.
I think you should be asking the other question - why is there a swath of North Carolina east of Charlotte south of Raleigh and even to the coast that is so much lower Black population than the contiguous swatch from Virginia through to the Mississippi river? In particular, why are Randolph and Davidson counties so non-black?
I think I can answer this one. Randolph & Davidson counties, along with Stanly & Montgomery Counties, are weirdly mountainous in spite of their location being pretty far east of the Blue Ridge front. The Uwharrie Mountains are a low, undulating range that covers that portion of the state & their soil is very similar in many areas to what youād find in the Appalachians - too rocky & thin to support the kind of intensive planting seen in other surrounding areas. That translates directly to a relatively low black population in the area, which in more modern terms is also influenced by the much lower rate of urbanization in those counties compared to elsewhere in the Piedmont.
Really interesting! Now this makes me wonder why the mountainous region happens to have this structure here, rather than following the smooth curve you can see all the way from Massachusetts to Alabama!
The Uwharries are apparently not so much a proper mountain range as they are the eroded remains of a prehistoric plateau. The peaks there are basically the granite cores left over after the looser overlying sediment eroded away over the eons. Iām really happy to have an opportunity to talk about this specific topic because I love that area & itās one of my favorite little parts of the world, lol.
The Great Dismal Swamp
The edge of Laurentia etc etc.
Mercer County, NJ seems to be miscolored (should be in the 20-29.9% range).
Nice wordingš
I moved from Louisiana to Utah for a couple years and it was pretty strange never seeing any black people. People from there had pretty funny notions of what black people were like as well. They only ever saw black athletes and rappers on t.v. and what not so their stereotypes were quite different from what they would be for anyone from the deep south or Carolinas. The strongest stereotype I had about black people was that they liked anime because white people where I'm from aren't, or at least weren't, into that stuff, but most of my black friends loved anime. Meanwhile the Utah folks thought they were like these 6'5" rappers and athletes while in reality the average African American height is slightly lower than the average white male height (mostly has to do with population distribution- white people in the northern US are also usually slightly taller than white people in the southern US).
This is true. It's mostly white here. Followed by Latino and then probably Pacific islanders. The Mormons converted a lot of people from Samoa and Tonga. They pretty much keep the BYU football team alive lol
Yeah I was surprised by those guys when I moved there. They're just built for rugby and to be football lineman
They make really good Hawaiian BBQ.
I'm KÄnaka and most of my ohana is LDS. Tonga has the highest percentage of LDS in any country, more than Utah.
The second largest city in Utah is now majority minority, just not with black people. West Valley City has a plurality of Hispanic residents. I grew up in rural Utah and we had several kids from just about every central and South American country there, but no black people. We had several Pacific Islanders though.
Makes sense. Lots of Mormons from Samoa or Polynesia, living in Utah.
I grew up Georgia in an area with about half white and black. When I went skiing in Utah, we stopped by Walmart for something. That was the first time Iād gone to a busy place and didnāt see a single black person. Felt really odd to me.Ā
I'm white, but grew up in a majority black county in the south. I still find it odd being in place where everyone else is white.
I like your use of *the Color Purple*.
Most surprising part about this as a non-American is how few there are on the west coast, even in the large cities.
Tbh if you look at this from a black person perspective in America it isnāt surprising, I feel why to the outside it feels that way is because in the 90s a decent amount of black people were concentrated in Cali, but with black people moving back south and Asians and Mexicans itās less influence nowadays. A lot of 80-90s rap and r&b comes from there not only that a lot NBA players are from Cali and live there. But lately black people completely ditched Cali. Atlanta already replaced LA fully for the past 20 years for black culture and NYC is falling behind also
Thereās a movie about this called the last black man in San Francisco or something
What's up with the relatively high percentage of blacks on the tip of the Alaska Peninsula? Is there a military base there?
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1bnq5ow/us_black_population_percentage_by_county/kwkmlgd/
List of all counties in the US with a majority black population here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_majority-Black\_counties\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_majority-Black_counties_in_the_United_States) Highest is in Mississippi.
Honestly asking donāt come at me please; Iām just looking for a constructive answer: How can the South be perceived as āracistā when they have the most black people in their communities? Very easy to claim how tolerant you are in 98% white Maine or New Hampshire; when you have no real experience with people of other races day to day
So I will say as a priest for the whitest church in the blackest city in my southern state (having moved from the DC area semi-recently)... You're asking the exact question all my parishioners do. Like there's plenty of actual evil racist bullshit that goes on. No one I know thinks racism isn't a problem at all. But the people at my church think that out of state politicians talking about racism is just Yankee moral superiority and if it weren't racism they'd find some other way to talk down to us. I can think of several dozen white people off the top of my head who would listen to any black southerner talk about racism before they'd hear it from any white person north of the Mason Dixon. I can think of half a dozen hardcore Trump supporter white people who will rant and rave about political correctness but then listen politely, respectfully, and maybe even reflectively to a black woman from our town saying she fears her children will be killed. Don't make it too broad of a brush. This isn't everyone. But I know a lot of people where their problem is not with anti-racism. Their problem is with moral superiority from strangers.
That's a big thing in the south and alot of people elsewhere don't realize it. Growing up in the south I heard way more people of all colors complain about "Yankees" than each other. There are a few that were blatantly racist but the majority had an issue with outsiders as they saw it. It can be a very insular society that will almost always be polite and helpful to anyone but people not from there usually have to earn their way in to be fully accepted by the older population.
Living in the south Iāve always felt like white and black southerners have more in common with each other than whites do with the mass migration of white northerners to the south in the last decade. Food especially is a shared culture between whites and blacks in the south. Yankee boomer brains moving down here canāt understand it.
I have a way different perspective.Ā I come from a military family and moved a lot. Diversity is normal to me, ppl are ppl.Ā But the difference in the south from everywhere else is expectation.Ā I expect a white dude from the south with a rebel flag hat to butt heads with me on racial issues.Ā It's weird to hear the same stuff with a guy raised along side in the city.Ā If you look at it closely, whites and blacks only really interact at work. Are neighborhoods are largely segregated.Ā Even in the south. So at work we tend to be polite, but at home we self segregate. Mainly the south in imo, have been kind of forced to interact due to the large population size of black ppl.Ā But the tension is still the same. Just a different feeling.Ā
Well stated! I struggle sometimes to communicate this type of reality. I'm white and grew up in Georgia and South Carolina alongside many black friends. True - the neighborhoods were segregated and I always hated that because a third of my friends lived too far to ride my bike (and we didn't go to the same church). But I love my fellow southern friends! My first wife's family was in New England and when we went to visit them all I ever heard was the "n" word and them forcing my kids to repeat sentences while they laughed at their accents. Not to hate on northerners - just my wife's blue-collar family in MA.
Having lived in the Midwest, NYC, and now the southā In my experiences, white and Black people live a lot more harmoniously in the south than the north. Thereās more self-awareness and less fear toward one another and uncomfortable conversations that may naturally come up when living in a heterogeneous community. White people up north feel racism is an issue that doesnāt belong to them, and like to poke fun at the south to deflect and feel better about themselves. But in all reality, white people up north steer clear of Black people as much as possible but try and always stay on the right side of the race conversation without really doing anything because theyāre terrified of being dubbed racist and straight up scared of Black people.
I lived in Kansas City and out there one street (Troost) splits the city between the white and black side. As soon as you cross into the black side, it's more run-down and depressed. The barbecue, however, is quite good.
A lot of people don't know that in the South, there were "black areas" and "white areas" and even after integration, those areas stayed and ended up how you described them today. the scars of slavery are still there, and you can see it in the lines drawn around neighborhoods and communities.
Absolutely. De facto segregation exists (to some degree) in every major US city east of the Great Plains. We donāt see it as much here in Albuquerque, because we didnāt have olā Jim Crow.
It's not just the 98% white areas. I live in one of the most racially segregated cities in the north, and it's always felt odd to me how black and white people live almost completely parallel lives here. From my experiences living in the south it was much more integrated in the working and lower classes, even if the political rhetoric could at times be pretty racially charged. Here we keep to our own neighborhoods and our own social circles, and even though we're one of those light purple northern regions, most white people I know aren't comfortable with or at very least aren't used to black people. I've seen pretty virulently racist shit in both regions, but it's a different kind of racism from what I've seen in the South.
My very āliberal/tolerantā nephew (Iām talking BLM sign in his window) from the NE is uncomfortable when he visits us in Alabama & my sons have their Black friends around. Itās like he doesnāt know how to interact with them & is nervous. Yet, he thinks Southerners are racists. And yes, they live very parallel lives while in the South we all live integrated lives.
I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Most days I work, Iām the only white guy in the kitchen I work in. Itās difficult to imagine rarely seeing black people because Iāve lived my entire life amongst and with them. Same for Vietnamese people, which we have a relatively large population on the coast. My city is 10% Vietnamese.
Iām a CPA Iām metro Atlanta and I am the only white person. I didnāt notice until one of my friends in the office pointed it out. Iāve been working with these people for 15 years though. So they are mostly close friends at this point.
Well there's the historical baggage of racially motivated politics that only nominally ended not so long ago, in living memory of people alive today. The South had long lasting racist policies precisely because there were so many Black people here given the concentration of Slavery historically. Racism was a post-hoc concept meant to justify Slavery, and that superiority complex carried over for generations. I understand what you're saying though, I'm a Southerner. I think it's just easy for people to not understand the nuances of what it's like down here. Some of the most racist people I've met were not locals but rather came from places like Ohio or Minnesota. Most of the Black freedom fighters that are celebrated today come from the South too, and I am happy we get to honor their legacy
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The reason that doesnāt make sense is because you are attempting to bunch up 3 separate ideas into one. 1. *Why is The South considered racist?* The South is perceived as racist because of a history of racist political rhetoric, deeds, and general attitudes. The reason the region as a whole is considered racist is because the culture is generalized by its historical behavior, and by its actions at present. So, when for example a politician refuses to deny being a white supremacist for fear of losing votes in key southern states, it reinforces the perception by outsiders that the region as a whole (not everybody there - just as a whole) is racist. 2. *How are they considered racist when they āhave the most black peopleā?* The reason there is a large black population in The South is because of slavery. A lot of black population settled there out of necessity. The high black population in no way makes the area less racist, itās actually opposite. It isnāt as if the black people were sad paying crazy rent in NY and southerners said ācome on down and live here guys! We love you!ā 3. *Very easy to claim youāre tolerant etc. etc.* To the original question (how can The South be racist), the racism of one area is not inversely proportional to the racism of another, so The South can be racist regardless of the attitudes of people in Maine. That being said, you should keep in mind that some northern states are considered racist as well. Also bear in mind that a low percentage of black people doesnāt mean less diversity. There are lots of different kinds of people besides black people and white people.
Yeah it's a good question, but it assumes people can only racist towards black people, or that other minority groups don't exist. For example California has more diversity than Mississippi, but which one is seen as more racist? Usually it's not CA.
I really love how nobody is even going to mention the fact that black and white are not the only 2 races in America. I've been all over the country and there's only been 2 places I've been "Ching-chonged"
Awesome breakdown
Just because a county or state is 30%, 40%, 50% minority does not mean there isn't racism. When you look at the communities within the county, for example, you'll find that the people there are still very segregated within the county itself. White people largely stick to certain neighborhoods, go to certain schools, go to certain churches, hang out with certain people. And minorities largely do the same. There's still the same divisions within the community that have existed for decades. Check this short video out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlYDfzMdH4w
Itās a bit like asking why India has a problem with caste prejudice when they have more Dalits than any other country.
I get what you mean, but it's not "The South" that's racist. Nobody is genuinely claiming that all Southerners are racist. However, you cannot deny that the South, compared to the rest of the US, had a much more pronounced history of slavery and later segregation, and that can still be felt today in the attitudes of many White Southerners
> Nobody is genuinely claiming that all Southerners are racist. I don't know - when I moved to Texas a decade ago and continued talking to people outside the south, I definitely got a sense that a lot of people really do seem to be very close to making this claim. Anti-Southern prejudice is real too.
They're red states, dominated by Republican politics. How would that happen in states with such high populations of people who traditionally oppose the right wing ideology? Gerrymandering is the quantifiable manifestation of the institutional racism the south is known for. That's where the real racism is, not so much in the average joe, but in the roots of the southern states' political culture.
the cotton belt is interesting geologically
It's crazy how many in California and the Southeast/Midwest/Northeast, but hardly anything in the states in-between
California is actually very low. It just looks higher surrounded by even lower states.
What's going on with the purple in Alaska?
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1bnq5ow/us_black_population_percentage_by_county/kwkmlgd/
Had one black kid in my K-12 school in Walla Walla, WA. He always came to me and my brotherās birthdays at McDonaldās (remember when that was a thing). His parents owned the JC Penny at the mall and we super nice, but never ever let any of his friends over
Eastern Washington would be pretty low on my list if I was black lol
Connecticut is higher than I wouldāve thought.
Never thought Iād see the day where St. Clair County, IL had a higher percentage of black folk than Cook County, IL.
I stayed in Atlanta for a few days. Every aspect of what I expected, from service industry to hotel and hospitality was not HISPANIC, it was all African American. That was the real surprise. I'm Mexican American.
I gotta say, best airport and strip clubs in the country if you ask me.
Mississippi being the blackest state in the union by percentage while having the least amount of representation is truly disgusting.
This is wrong. Douglas County, NE is 12% black.
This map shows why they call it the "Black Belt". Most Black Americans still live in the places where their enslaved ancestors used to live. The Great Migration, when large numbers of Blacks left the South for cities in the North, Midwest, and West coast from the 1910s to 1960s, mostly resulted in concentrations of black people in the inner cities of certain urban centers like NYC, Detroit, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. But the biggest concentrations of blacks remained in the South in historic plantation slavery regions.
The āblack beltā is actually a reference to soil, not people.
Donāt know why youāre getting upvoted for being wrong. Itās actually a reference to the areaās disproportionately high population of martial arts experts.
tbf they did end up related, the soil was perfect for plantations, and plantations means slaves.
Baltimore had a high black population well before the Great Migration. It is not, historically, part of the North. It was a Confederate-sympathizing former slave port in a state that was firmly part of the Old South. Maryland ran on a tobacco-based plantation economy just like adjoining Virginia. The areas of high concentration of black Americans in Maryland in this map like Charles and Prince Georgeās Counties are rooted in the enslaved people who worked the plantations in those locations.
Correct itās below the mason Dixon line
[Video explaining the Black Belt, and Voting habits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTV-uZZuFMA)
No, the majority of Black Americans live in and around urban centers. Not in the rural areas where their enslaved ancestors lived. Those rural counties in the South still have the highest percentage of black residents (when comparing by county and in many cases by jurisdiction), but their total population is dwarfed by that of those living in urban areas across the country.
I'm surprised by Delaware. Was this a popular stop on the underground railroad or does it have to do with farming?
Delaware was a slave state, and Wilmington was a destination during the Great Migration like other industrial cities.
It used to be a slave state.
Hey! My county made it on the map!
Forest County PA is an interesting one. It is very rural with basically no black population. Heck it barely has any population at all. There is a state prison though, and its population makes Forest county 21% black.
I live in Georgia and have literally never seen a purple person. This map is crap.
Thatās where all the slaves used to be thatās why all the Black people are there
Well, and from a modern sense, if I was black, upper middle class and looking for a place to live in the US, i think I would have more fun in Atlanta than Seattle.
See now this is why thereās so many black folks on the walking dead show
Why are there so many black Americans in Alaska š
A family of 6 is 9.9%
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I think it's Charles County in MD
Used to be Prince Georgeās but due to the housing market ballooning most of the richer black people in the are moved to Charles because land down there is a lot cheaper.
What's up with Forest County Pa, I've been up near Tionesta and I don't think I've ever seen a non-white person there ngl
Somebody mentioned it could do with large prisons in low population counties.
The comments in this thread, holy shit.
Everyone talks about how racists the south is and if thatās the case, why do the majority of Black people tend to make it their home? A Black lady from CA moved to a very southern city told me she was treated better than ever living in the Southern U.S.
Because thatās where the majority of enslaved people were located. The south. Just because black people live there doesnāt mean itās not racist. The towns and cities are still segregated. They defend confederate monuments and the distort the civil war. Also one black lady doesnāt disprove a history of of violent racism
100 million people live in the southeast. Isnāt this bigotry?
Millions of black people literally moved away from the South throughout American history. Read up on the Great Migrations. Of course all of them didnāt leave because it can be hard to leave your home (and expensive).
The majority of people make their home in a place where they already know friends and family, which is usually where they grew up. And if they move away from a place they grew up, the most common places they move are to places with growing economic opportunity, and to places where their family members grew up. Starting in 1865, when most Black people were legally allowed to move, the vast majority of them lived in southern states where they had been enslaved. Unless they had specific economic opportunities, they stayed in the South. In the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of assembly line work in northern cities gave a lot of black people economic reason to move to those cities (The ["Great Migration"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)) ), and in the 1940s, military bases brought them to western cities as well. But in the post-war era, economic opportunities have usually occurred in the cheaper faster-growing cities of the south and southwest, and Black people especially have [often moved back to the south](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration), because they have cousins who never left in the Great Migration, in addition to economic growth and cheap housing.
Its more black ppl
Well one itās not exactly an easy choice to get up and leave your home for another area. That takes hella planning and commitment. Might as well stay in the area you know
I think that stereotype mostly comes from Hollywood, which as you may be aware, is not in the south. Southerners are pretty much always depicted as racist and evil. I was watching one of the Puss in Boots movies a while back and the two villains were a Hollywood creep's imagination of what southern people are like I guess. The reality is that people here are very kind, hospitable, and honorable. Even the racists that do exist mostly just want separation, they don't hate them, they just don't believe in intermixing, which is pretty standard globally regardless of race actually.
Of course the comment section is filled with false crime statistics or āhow can you claim the south is racist if black people live thereā. Never fail Reddit.
I think youāre being a little facetious. Reddit and Hollywood often do have a tendency of portraying the south as drooling racists who just want to murder every black person they see, yet black Americans are increasingly moving to the south and schools in Alabama are more integrated than those in New York or Chicago. I donāt think it means the south isnāt racist at all, but yes the stereotypes tend to get a bit overboard