Mean guitar
Sir: Roy Kerridge's article ('Blacks and blues in Mississippi',. 7 May) in which he discovered a 'new kind of prejudice' in the American South, should be in your '. . and statistics' feature, except that Mr Kerridge avoided specific figures. Instead, he noted that 'most' and 'a majority of white Southerners are hostile to the blacks who live in the 'sepia quarters' of their towns. These blacks are uniformly por- trayed as quaintly docile, idealistic, and sincere.
Mr Kerridge based his sweeping charac- terisations of white Southerners on the revelations he received while wandering in search of black singers of the blues. I imagine I could go to Britain in search of Celtic bards, wander a provincial area talking with a few natives, and then baldly assert the existence of a 'new kind of xenophobia'. But I hope I would realise that my anecdotal experiences might. not he sufficient to justify an indictment of the regional society as a whole.
I will not bother to contradict Mr Ker- ridge's assertions with my own experience: But I can fairly say that racism is not confined to the Southern US, nor is it strictly the purview of whites, nor it is on the increase. I have even noticed it in some Europeans.
I write not to deny that racial problems exist in the American South, but to dispel the notion — popular among many Amer- icans as well as Britons — that the whites of this region are primarily red-necked, rural, and racist. (By the way, I sing the blues quite well and play a mean guitar, if Mr Kerridge is still looking for some authentic folk artists — or is he only interested in those of a particular race?) William K. Wray
2696 Foxglove Drive, Marietta, GA 30064 USA
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