I'm glad much has changed, and I don't mean Bill O'Reilly.

"Southern: in their faces; Northern: behind their backs."

For a black man, there's no difference between the North and the South. In the South, they don't mind how close I get, as long as I don't get too big. In the North, they don't mind how big I get, as long as I don't get too close.

— Dick Gregory

and after going through a bunch of them we settled on Georgia-- a black woman who grew up on the cotton fields somewhere in the Carolinas, I think.

Georgia was marvelous. Not just hard working, but perfectly centered and so honest that when my father died she was the one my mother entrusted the valuables to. Georgia would have defended not just the valuables, but us, with her life, if it came down to that. Georgia was also of invaluable support while my father was dying.

One day she announced she was going back home down South. "It's not you", she said, "it's just that down there, as bad as it is, when I walk down the street at least I know where I stand."

... other black male northern migrants including myself... here at least I know

Smile in your face while stabbing you in the back. In the South they will tell you how they feel to your face.

than it is for them to be friends with Northern whites, as odd as that sounds. But when you consider the fact that black and white people have about four centuries of shared history living in the South in the same communities, it makes a lot of sense.

I could be off base though, but this seems reasonable to me.

than I ever did in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina or Tennessee.

Just saying.

Northern racism is far more insidious in my view because so many don't believe that they are racist, and their psychological, ingrained racism is harder to eradicate. Many of us who are from the South know who are enemy is. I'd rather the hate be up and in my face than someone who is incredibly bigoted and who refuses to believe his/her own prejudice.