"It's so far removed from any of this that it's safe to say it's completely irrelevant."

I'm going to play a little devils advocate here.

The problem is that's not what happens. The judgmental attitude creates its own biases and prejudices instead. The South is a very convenient enemy to create that in the mind of non-South white people absolves them of the sins of racial tension in this country. "They're the intolerant ones - we did nothing wrong."…

It must suck to hate every single Gawker article but have the severe OCD that forces you to read them all anyway...

If African Americans did try to travel the Oregon Trail, they would have most likely died of dysentery, anyway. I always did.