I am sorry if I have offended you or anyone else. I was simply sharing my own observations of a particular culture. I do not judge cultures.

Also, I am not defending racism, which is wrong. I didn’t see examples of racism when I lived in the Midwest, but that doesn’t invalidate the stories of those who did experience it.

However, African Americans were NOT sold as slaves IN THE UPPER MIDWEST. They were NOT FORCED to live there.

Here is some actual data:

https://www.bowdoin.edu/~prael/lesson/tables.htm

On the eve of the Civil War, there were a grand total of 17 black slaves in the Midwest as a whole. I suspect these were owned by transplanted Southerners and not by locals.

There were 65,000 FREE blacks who lived in the Midwest. Since they were free, I assume they moved there voluntarily.

Now, slaves WERE forced to live in the South. Slavery was a Southern institution. That is one reason that we fought a Civil War, and why 360,222 white Northern men died - in order to free the slaves. Because the North was against slavery.

Obviously slavery is wrong, so is racism. But if a black person is treated identically to a white person, that is not racism. It would only be racism if the black person is treated differently than a white person.