Why do carpetbaggers always try and divide us in our mutual Southern Struggle?

Southern Whites and Southern Blacks have been poor as dirt by and large for the majority of the time since the civil war. We've been beaten down and trodden on, and then told by the yankees to blame the man standing in the mud right next to us because he looks different than us. I once drove across southern Georgia, from the Alabama line to Savannah, staying off the interstates. You know what I found? The southern blacks that I met were indistinguishable from the Southern whites. Small towns. Rural. Polite. Suspicious of outsiders. Just trying to get by.

I'm not trying to whitewash slavery anymore than trying to whitewash (or claim equality between) slavery or sharecropping. After 1865, blacks got to join the majority of poor whites throughout the south in the ancient institution of sharecropping or working for pennies. Fun times. Racism held the two groups back from uniting and taking pride specifically in their mutual struggle. Racism that was exacerbated by northern agitators.

We can't erase the past. Hell, it isn't even past. What we can do is look at each other and realize that black or white or brown, we are Southerners (and/or Texans). We look at yankees sideways when they say we're racist for offering fried chicken to a black guy, because damnit, its just good food. We all grew up with sweet potato casserole on thanksgiving, and church on sunday. The rest of the country hates us, thinks we're backwards, and generally looks down at us. We gave the nation (and the world) the Allman Brothers, Muddy Waters, Elvis, George Washington Carver, Dr Pepper, Coke, and much, much more.

When a racial incident happened up north, they rioted. A second one happened up north, they rioted again. A shooting worse than both of those put together happened in the South, and we fricking gathered together in peaceful unity and politely told hate groups to go to hell. The South is the cultural core of the USA. I don't know what white culture or black culture are. But I know what Southern Culture is, and it doesn't have a race.

Yes, I have been drinking.