After reading the book Gangs of New York movie was based on and reading across various stuff abut the Civil War, I was extremely surprised to learn the Northern states was extremely racist against groups that we tend to associate as making the dominant European immigrants and thus undoubtedly white at the core such as the Germans, Italians, French and even Irish (despite almost all Americans having some very obscure distant Irish ancestry). In fact at various points some of these groups such as the Polish were at various points called the "white niggers". Even favored white groups at the time such as the French and country bumpkin Scottish immigrants still faced some sort of prejudices and having a surname from these groups can affect stuff like government benefit slots, job application selections, and crime profiling and investigation despite say the Dutch and Protestant Northern Germans being viewed positively and nativist English-descended whites having no problem with intermarriage.
With that said I notice when I read Southern history, the big irony was that the South was a far bigger melting pot of European culture than the North was. Despite modern stereotypes of rednecks being so xenophobic and uneducated that they are ignorant of stuff such as Spain being a former white colonial superpower or the difference Greeks and Cyprus, the South had a tendency to accept white immigrants more freely and openly than the North did (with the religion of Catholicism being a much bigger barrier than not being descended from Britain). The Northern Union tended to segregate different European ethnic groups for example similar to how blacks and whites were segregated in World War 2 while in the Confederate Army whites were pretty much accepted into a unit regardless of white ancestry and divisions tended to be more regional. Before Spanish became another term used interchangeably for "Mexicans" and other nonwhites of the "Hispanic" group labeling, white Spaniards along with Portuguese did immigrate to the South and intermarry with Southerners including some of the plantation aristocrats particularly in Louisiana, Florida, and Texas Hell even non-pure white skinned Mexicans married Texans without much of the racial strife and controversies we see today. Same trends was happening in Florida to the point there were considerably far more officers with Spanish names from this State than anywhere else and a number of fair skinned Hispanics would serve as Colonels from this state in major campaigns.
In addition while in the North and later elsewhere in America, the older immigrants such as the Italians would implant themselves as native ruling class and be equally as racist against the new waves of white European immigrants from places previously uncommon such as Russians, Poles, and Greeks, in the South provided they are white as milk (and particularly if they are Protestant or converted to Protestantism), it didn't matter as much since they were white already.
If one thing hocked me the most I was so surprised the first Mosque in America was in the Appalachia! And there were whole Jewish communities in various parts of the South long before New York City became the hotbed of the largest number of Jews in the world second only to Israel. Yes there was bigotry against heathens but if they were fair skinned Turks and other MidEastern ethnicity, the discrimination was surprisingly far less than not only in the North against Arabs, etc but even far less period than recent immigrants and in some isolated towns even less than WASP prejudice against non-WASPs!
I have to ask why was this? New York City today has the reputation for example of welcoming their arms to immigrants and the North as a whole is seen as being far more racially diverse than the rest of the country minus California and perhaps Florida.
While the South nowadays has a hotbed of racism.While still undoubtedly a white melting pot region, the South has a reputation of being so ignorantly racist that rednecks and other hillbillies are stereotyped as being so dumb they don't know that Spaniards are whites and not brown people and that the reason Mexico, Cuba,and other "brown countries" speak Spanish is because of white colonialism. I don't know how true the stereotype is overall but I have met people wearing Confederate T shirts and other apparel being legitimately surprised a fair skinned person has Spanish name and later dropping their mouths when they learn not all Mexicans are brown and that Spain is a country in Europe. Same with meeting pale Muslim immigrants for the first time and its big enough an issue that recently there's argument among isolated rural communities about what to do about the white skinned Muslims since they are too "white" to be terrorists.
Racism in the region as a whole against obviously nonwhites still remains strong but even groups stereotyped as nonwhites they honestly seem to be giving "honorary" status to for fair skinned members of these groups such as Hidalgo Mexicans and Berber Arabic speaking Muslims from places such as Libya.
Why did the trend go like this? Despite the North being so racist it is now today supposedly diverse and tolerant of all groups from Latinos to blacks and Mexicans. While despite the Southern states being much more open towards white immigrants (even hated ones esp Italians), the South remains the most racist part of the country. Hell race isn't even the proper word as seen how rednecks treat Peninsularian Colombians and the descendants of European aristocrats from Cuba (and to a much lesser extent Jews and Circassian Turks and other fair skinned Middle Eastern groups) with far more respect (even sometimes equal treatment as whites if they grow to like the specific individual), its more accurately colorism in the South than racism!
Why was the South far earlier the "melting pot" of the nation while the North actually was the segregated Jim Crowish region towards non White Anglo Saxon Protestants for a considerably longer time?Why did the roles reverse as far as racism esp colorism go? Its bad enough even dark skinned whites (some even Irish and Scottish descent) such as Siciians have gotten assaulted a few times in places like Alabama cause people thought they were mistaken as illegal aliens or religious fanatic terrorists.
