Since moving to Alabama four years ago, I've wondered about the depth of racism lying just below the polite surface of society. What are the lingering effects of Jim Crow? How have the views of White people who were born before the Civil Rights era changed — or not — about their Black neighbors?
The Alabama Politics This Week podcast interviewed Dr. Jim Vickrey about his continuing journey. It's a fascinating conversation.
“I consider myself, for example, a recovering racist. I don’t think any white person born and raised in the South ever overcomes the effects of the scarlet fever of racism. You can tell yourself, and you can think to yourself mentally that I’m past this. My conversion put me on the other side of this matter. But it’s still there. It will pop up in the darndest places when you are in an encounter suddenly with a Black person, and you do the wrong thing, you realize later. I’ve had that happen to me several times. It’s just a part of growing up here.” Dr. Jim Vickrey from his interview on Alabama Politics This Week
