Dying For Dixie

Why?

Why is the hate between the Whites and the African Americans still going on in the South if the war has been long gone? The South has so much history, both positive and negative to the American history. The Whites and African Americans play a role in the history also, but some how after all of what has happened in the past, the South will not grow, so the war will always be there.
“Dying For Dixie” is a chapter in the book, “Confederates In The Attic”, that tells the story of the aftermath of Michael Westerman's death. Michael Westerman's was a man that came from Chicago, to get away from all the violence and because he was a problem starter. One day when he was a the gas station he had the confederate flag on his truck. Why you ask because he just wanted to make his truck look nice. Tony Horowitz interviews the mother of Michael and she said that he didn’t even now what that meant. Some African Americans were at the gas station as were they got affined and went after Michael and killed him for have the flag on his car. Tony Horowitz, a reporter went to Guthrie, Kentucky. He said that when he went to the town it was as though he was walking through a ghost town. When the reporter walked in to the “Redbones” a local biker bar that had a the White people that hated the African Americans. He saw sign in the bar like “F.T.W” which means Fuck the World. Which almost got him beat up just for asking what that meant because the White people thought that he was the F.B.I.
One of the main reason that this war between Whites and African Americans is going on in the South is because the Whites don’t want the African Americans to be as good as them. “Don’t put us where they used to be,” says Chapman a character from “Dying For Dixie” who is a retired nurse. When she starts to talk in the story she has no problem really with African Americans but then she starts to talk more and she says thing like this “Black just need to get over slavery”, “You cant live in the past”, “They want the best jobs, the biggest money…”. Many people in the South believe this way that the African Americans should never be able to be strong or more empowered then the White people. That is not good for the African Americans because that means that they could be trying their 100% but since there is some much hate against them they will never be able to succeed.
Another reason that I believe that the war is going on is because of the president Barack Obama. The reason I saw that is because he is African American and the KKK don’t like African Americans, and plus they probably don’t like the president because they feel as though he was not even born in the Untied States. As well some of the people in the South. So I believe that most of the White people are going to take there anger out on the other African Americans in the South. This would mean that the war would start again between African Americans and whites.
I personally never thought that there would still be such hate between the African Americans and the Whites in the South. I have heard about a couple of stories but I really never knew that there was a mini war going through them. It was very bad for the African American because the had the “red jackets, KKK, white jackets”. The Whites where not that fortunate ether because even though they were White if you would do something bad or that was not for your race you would have the red jackets, or the White jackets ready to kill you. These people in those groups where just people that want kill people because they where so used to it because of the Civil War. After their groups separated they just went to the National Guard.
I really don’t think that there is going to be a end of this until a very long time and all the racial clubs and the south become interracial. Until the children of there children understand that even though other people have different skin colors doesn’t mean that they are bad or that they are trying to be better then you. They are just trying to be somebody.

Works Cited

Horwitz, Tony. Confederates in the Attic Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. New York: Vintage, 1999. Print.