Southerners, even racially sensitive Southerners such as Jimmy Carter,
             often claim that they understand the true' plight of Black Southern
             people. This statement, so strange on its surface given the racial
             intolerance that has long marked the South, is made because white
             Southerners frequently live at greater proximity to individuals whom
             identify themselves as African Americans. Even advocates of segregation in
             the pre-civil rights era in the South often had Black maids and Black
             individuals take care of their children. Whites in the North might endorse
             racial tolerance in the abstract, but had little contact with African
             Americans on a personal basis in the pre-civil rights era and even
             afterwards.
             Former President Jimmy Carter, and those who advocate the point of
             view that Southern people of a liberal ilk have a greater understanding of
             the Black plight in America may thus have legitimacy in their advocacy of
             their greater tolerance in comparison to Northern whites. It is indeed
             perhaps better and more humane from a human rights standpoint to understand
             someone as an individual human being rather than to advocate the betterment
             of the race' in an abstract fashion, as Northerners who came to the South
             to help the cause of civil rights but had never known a Black person as a
             friend or associate. Carteri¿½ states thati¿½ in his Southern community, in
             Georgia our [white and Black family's] daily existence was almost totally
             intertwined" (20).
             Carter grew up on a farm. He knew that the peanuts harvested could
             not have brought economic gain to the community, without the efforts of
             Black families. He saw that Black Americas sweat as much as the White
             laborers, ate as much, and yet were paid far less. He experienced
             discrimination, not in the abstract, but knowing that his family and
             lifestyle could not have existed nor been supported without the struggle,
             hands, and strength of Blac...