Reddit reviews White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Politics and Society in Modern America (89))

I think that one of the complicated underlying issues here is that the Red Tribe doesn't really do a lot of traditional protesting, really, and a lot of them don't relate to it, even at a basic level. And this is a much deeper issue, especially if you think peaceful protest is a core democratic ritual.

I'll concede up front that the Tea Party did look like a Red Tribe protest movement (although that required libertarians to get the ball rolling and then Fox News and Glenn Beck to astroturf it), there has been some recent tradition of abortion protesting, especially by Catholics, and you could probably find some other examples. So the impression I'm about to give certainly isn't absolute. But growing up white in the South, in a suburb, around conservative religious people, I had never, ever heard of anyone who had ever protested anything. Protest is something that other groups of outsiders (blacks, coastal intellectuals, feminists, gays) did, not us.

Some of this is probably a function of residential patterns; rural areas and decentralized unwalkable suburbs are really difficult places to protest, owing to their lack of shared public spaces.

Some of it is surely cultural; most Red Tribe people I grew up around did not, at all, have a "Squeaky Wheel gets the grease" kind of world view. It was more of a "Upraised nail gets hammered down". Drawing undue attention to yourself was not a virtuous way to be.

Additionally, I think the version of Red Tribe I saw put a much higher premium on some myth of self-reliance; to engage in protest is to kind of implicitly acknowledge yourself as enthrall to much bigger powers that you are a part of. That was not part of the self conception of a lot of Red Tribe people I was around (you might disagree with their evaluations of themselves, I'm just trying to name it). And this goes hand in hand with a much stronger need to see a general framework of authority and tradition respected and valued, and of course protest often targets perceived bad authority or tradition.

Some of it was surely historical; I don't think there was ever a time in my life where I heard people refer back to a previous time when there was some sort of wrong that upset them, and the act of protest was key to righting that wrong - especially not in a way that involved rudely confronting other citizens who were strangers. Meanwhile, there were plenty of stories where people they identified with or respected had been on the receiving end of protests, often for reasons that they found maddening or bullying.

Some of this was surely an accurate pragmatic read of reputable media; protest in the 20th century has often relied on sympathetic media coverage to amplify its impact, and I think many of the Red Tribe I knew knew, on a gut level, that many of their concerns would covered hostilely by reputable press or, much more likely, would be entirely ignored.

And then, from another perspective, we've talked here, before, about the difference between Exit and Voice. Protest is entirely about Voice. The Red Tribe culture I'm familiar with seems to be much, much quicker to want, instead, recourse to Exit. In fact, I just finished reading Kevin M. Kruse's White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, and this dichotomy is central to his story; African Americans engaged heavily in protest in the 50s through the 60s, and although there was some amount of counter-protesting, overwhelmingly the response of the Red Tribe was to abandon every single notion of any shared anything in public life; they abandoned public parks, they abandoned public schools, they abandoned faith in and support for shared government programs, and ultimately they abandoned the city itself and set up carefully curated suburbs. Exit, exit, exit, exit, exit.

Because of all this, at least for people like the ones I'm thinking of, just the act of protest itself is often going to be treated really, really negatively and interpreted as being extremely divisive and hostile.

I honestly think there's a massive, massive cultural disconnect on this specific topic.

Oh its definitely an apartheid.

Always has been. If you have the skrilla please get this book as soon as possible. Then, force your friends to read it

There's so much shit that went down with hate groups, real estate, how the ghettos were formed, white nationalism, conservatism that just isn't taught to us and Atlanta is a historical microcosm of how it all went down.


It's an eye opener but, be warned, it will leave you with a seriously powerful rage that just won't bloody QUIT.

Anyone interested in learning more about Atlanta's interior neighborhoods (including Inman) should pick up a copy of "White Flight".

http://www.amazon.com/White-Flight-Conservatism-Politics-Twentieth-Century/dp/0691133867/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418651548&sr=1-1

White Flight is a great book, and explains a lot about how we got to where we are today (sprawl).

https://www.amazon.com/White-Flight-Atlanta-Conservatism-Politics/dp/0691133867

> They live and act like they are from small communities when in fact, the hub one of the largest and most exciting cities in the country is 40 minutes away. Yet they refuse to associate with it and are frankly afraid of it.

Relevant read.

It wasn't just the complacent, the lazy, or the unlucky that were left behind. Check out White Flight by Kevin M. Kruse. It'll answer your question and then some.

Here is the mobile version of your link

> a farmer who had a small farm 35 miles north of Atlanta. He bought the land with money he made working someone else's farm

why'd you skip the step of the "Cherokee County banker charging 6% interest to make the farm loan" from a day-laborer's already meager income?

> because it was basically unused scrub land with poor resources,

Nowhere near Atlanta is this the case. Georgia north of Atlanta has more rain than Seattle, and is some of the most ideal hardiness zones in north america. Timber, Sweet Potatoes, You name it ; any type of agriculture can be done here that's not Cactus nor Redwood.

> as more prosperous people moved north.

No, that was the "White Flight" since the 1996 olympics. really great book on it

>He refused to sell, not wanting to lose his livelihood.

good for him.

> Eventually, the land he'd bought for a few hundred dollars was worth 3 million an acre, and he had 50 acres or so.

no thanks to him whatsoever. He was busy "mixing in the labour" and vacationing out of Hartsfield. Probably voting against MARTA expansion, too.

so this farmer, despite his likely opposition to urbanization and basic traffic management from 1876, now had not just one potential customer within walking distance, but tens of thousands.

So think about how much this farmer leeched off of the public roads and reliable water sources to get his crops to customers.

Think about how much this farmer purchased the testing of fertilizer and fungicides from University of Georgia Agricultural Department Grad Students. Without reimbursing them.
Or Clemson's.

A reliable, highschool educated workforce spoon-fed from age 5 to run seasonal operations, too.

The she-chimp -->user/IrbyTremor stopped twerking in the tree long enough to let the whole forest know
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I'll do yo five betta ugnomeimsayin nigga? Buy dis book immediately.

It beees very, very eye openn ugnomeimsayin nigga? Once you're done you're funna be like 'Why de FUCK isn't de KKK labeln a terrorist organization? Oh wait, I understand ugnomeimsayin nigga? Conservatives be havinn't changn much! Ugh'
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White Flight is where I got most of the information for this pack

If you're interested in African American history (of an earlier variety), check out Steven Hahn's A Nation Under Our Feet (another Pulitzer Prize winning work of history).

Hahn argues that contrary to the conventional wisdom, slave communities were very aware of politics on a local and national level. The book explores slave communities' reactions to political events and how their political sensibilities were translated into political action in after emancipation.

White Flight by Kevin Kruse is another interesting book that documents how urban white communities dissolved during and after the civil rights movement and reconstituted themselves outside of city limits rather than tolerate integration. It's a little more specific than my other suggestions, but a very interesting argument about the suburbanization of America.