We can all agree that thorough, thoughtful
interpretations of historical fact matter. We know this process requires more than a
knowledge of facts on a timeline, especially when the perception of those facts
is combined with the perspectives and prejudices common to one's own time, or
one's own place in any particular demographic. We therefore understand that it
also requires awareness of the contemporaneous political and sociological lens
of the time being studied through which to evaluate those facts undergoing
scrutiny. And all this exhaustive effort is worth it because it takes a comprehensive
understanding of our history to learn the lessons that will allow us to more
correctly interpret today and tomorrow -- the only lessons, imho, that really
matter, in practical terms.
I think it is not only
possible, but also important to see merit in differing points of view, not in an either/or set of dualistic choices, but across a spectrum of opinions that get at an approximation of what was, or is true.
So, what I personally have to offer a discussion about the South does not include footnotes, except in the context of an
unsubstantiated lifetime of experience in which I have lived in the south and in Florida (not the same thing), in
the north, in the Midwest, in both northern and southern California, and, too
briefly, in Canada and in Europe.
So. Believe
me or not. But what I know about my country, because I've seen it and heard it and
absorbed it, personally, inside and out, is that: a) whether you are a Yankee
or a Southerner; b) whether you are from the midwest or the west coast; c)
whether you are an urbanite, a suburbanite or live in the sticks; d) whether
you are white or you are black or (god help you) a foreigner; e) whether you
are old school or part of the new school.... we, as Americans, have a
long way to go to erase the self-satisfied (and self-satisfying) myths that
continue to rationalize and condone ethnic, religious, gender and sexual
preference prejudices.
But I also
know, as a certainty, that we've come a long way and that, contrary to what
many people seem to be suggesting, progress, in its way, is most notable
in the still flawed South, where its history of blatant, rather than shadowy,
surreptitious prejudice drew a spotlight of negative focus that forced it,
however unwillingly and however reluctantly for far too long, to change,
fundamentally.
Full
disclosure: I make this assertion as a product of the South -- even
though I was partially, and maybe even pivotally raised, and educated, in the
north, and west. Nonetheless, despite the years I have spent elsewhere, make no
mistake -- I am southern to the core because wherever I am, geographically, I
carry the voices, as well as the collective sensibilities and lessons taught
me, by a liberal southern mother (not an oxymoron), a
somewhat deranged (but funny as hell) southern grandmother, and a
great-grandmother straight from central casting, etc.. Nor was mine just a
matrilineal southern training; my father's family, his "people," also
derive from south of the Mason-Dixon line, if only just south of it.... and,
just so you know, it was solely in that mid-Atlantic Maryland faction -- not in
the deep South enclaves -- that stereotypical racism reared its ugly head again
as recently as two generations ago.
So, in an
effort to move this discussion forward, and to demonstrate the slow and steady,
if alarmingly schizophrenic quality of southern change, I offer anyone at
TPM -- anyone who is, in my perception, south-phobic -- a glimpse of one southern
family, my family, that may at times make you shudder, may at times make you
angry but which should, in the aggregate, not only give you hope for the
future cohesion of our American society, but also transform white southerners,
in your perception, into real, living, breathing people, instead of
cookie cutter stereotypes.
Here are
the facts - colored (no distasteful pun intended) by my love and affection for
some, but certainly not all of the respective players noted.
Many
generations ago:
1) it is a
fact that one of my South Carolina progenitors -- William Cloud by name --
bought, sold and owned slaves;
2) it is a
fact that his son - Augustine Cloud by name -- after going to school in
Massachusetts and marrying a girl from Boston -- then, shortly after the death of his father, voluntarily freed
those slaves and their children more than twenty years before the civil war. It is recorded that Augustine gave each family land -- not so much, I suspect, as reparation per
se, but rather, to give each family a good start in their independence... even if the motivation behind that gesture was to relieve Augustine of further responsibility. (Was land
enough? No, but better than not giving anything.)
Skipping
several generations, because they neither distinguished nor embarrassed
themselves:
1) one of
Augustine's descendants, one of my maternal great aunts, became the first
white woman on the board at Tuskegee. When she died, she left her modest estate
to that school, endowing a scholarship ad infinitum (reparation of sorts, but
this time based not in guilt but in belief).
2) on the
other hand, it is a fact that her generational peer, the paternal grandfather I
admired and adored in all other things, was an unrepentant bigot, one who
ostentatiously walked out of his church when it was announced that it would
integrate, and one who asked me, at the beginning of each elementary school
year, how many "pickininnies" I had in my classroom.(As a side note
in parallel construction, he, too, endowed college scholarships, albeit at a
college that was, then, all male and all white.)
My parents'
generation:
1) my
mother's brother went to West Point - he who was (according to photographs, and letters) though movie star handsome,
witty and athletic, was certainly not the brightest academic bulb in the bunch
-- which is neither here nor there, except that, early on in his experience at
West Point, he became an admirer of one of the few African American USMA
graduates of the time, Benjamin Owens Davis, Jr..
Here, I
think, is a specific example that the values and cultural assumptions of any
given time are relevant. Because -- in this instance, in this time and place -- a privileged, blonde, blue-eyed white
southern "boyeh" of eighteen, nonetheless instantly recognized the
inherent substance of one who, in my uncle's world of reference at
the time, would have been referred to dismissively as "colored" at
best and a "Nigra" in common parlance. This recognition of inherent
value says something truly fine about my uncle, his southern white male
background notwithstanding. A cynic might say that perhaps his attention was
first grabbed by the family name they shared - Davis was my uncle's middle name
- but name sharing, between white and black is, btw, completely taken for granted in a south in which slaves were forced to take the names of their
owners. The point -- imo -- is that it is more remarkable than not that my uncle, in 1938, selected an African American as his mentor and role model. And I know that he did
so -- because I have read the letters he wrote to my mother, and I can attest that he
was struck, as if by lightning, by this African American man who, as he points
out with respect, endured more in his tenure at West Point than any white boy
ever feared, in his worst nightmares.
So, after
his own West Point graduation in 1942, my uncle followed in his role model's
footsteps, signing up for the Army Air Corps, and requesting -- after he completed
his own flight training --that he be assigned to serve under said Capt.
Davis as a pilot instructor in the Tuskegee program - where there was already a
family interest and connection.
Sadly, my uncle's request was denied. Instead, allegedly because he had fast reflexes, he was assigned to a test pilot program in Texas
.... where he died in flames six weeks later, his fiancée a witness to the
unexpected crash. After which a clueless company commander sent his melted
wings to my grandmother ... molten wings that now reside, uneasily, in my
closet, in an archival tissue-papered box, where they keep company with my bigoted
grandfather's pocket watch and my father's Phi Beta Kappa
key.)
But I
digress.
2) despite
their differing upbringings on matters of race, neither my mother nor my
transcendent father tolerated even a whisper of prejudice in our household;
rather, they were radically inclusionary and outreaching -- which, btw, cost
them dearly, in some circles, after the war and through the 50's and 60's, and
they did not care.
3) during
the same time frame, an aunt - my mother's sister -- employed an African
American housekeeper for twenty-five years and, when she (the housekeeper)
became too frail to work, my aunt "retired" her, which is one of
those "witty" southern euphemisms that evades acknowledging that my
aunt laid her off without benefits or pension.
My
generation:
1) my
sister and I didn't escape confirmation or cotillion, but we did follow my
parents' excellent example in passing up ritual opportunities to join
exclusionary societies: we therefore eschewed college sororities as well as
both the DAR and the DoC (Daughters of the Confederacy) and, later, the Junior
League; instead, we signed up for, or donated to, acronym societies and
legislation that promoted inclusion and equality: SDS, NAACP, ACLU,
etc.. And, at the first opportunity, we registered with the Democratic Party --
the real one, of course, not the Dixiecrat one that had already morphed into
the Republican party of today. Since then, neither one of us has ever voted for
a Republican, and throughout our adult lives, both of us have donated to and
worked for Democratic candidates, as well as for specific causes we believe in,
not least of which was the ERA. We can aver, without a clichéd blush,
that we have friends of every ethnic, religious and gender persuasion, with
whom we feel free to celebrate common ground and discuss differences of
opinion.
The
difference, though, between our generation and that of our children is that we
still think all this multi-culturalism is miraculous, whereas our children take
it as a given, as what is.
Our
childrens' generation:
1) We lived
in Manhattan when my son was young. After I divorced his father and refused
alimony (OK -- some early feminist principles were just plain stupid) private
elementary school was off the table. And so I sent him to public school,
wrangling a place for him at the highly regarded PS 41 in the West Village by -
yes, Machiavellian principles, by which I mean a lack of principle --
renting an address (as compared to an apartment) from a friend in the district,
when in fact we lived on the upper west side. (It may mean nothing to anyone
who was not southern or who did not live in Manhattan at the time, but even
living on the upper west side was a unusual thing for a southerner to do, then,
before the neighborhood was deLucca'd.)
Anyway,
thus began a bizarre reversal of the appalling bussing African
American children were subjected to in the south for years. Each morning, my
son and I left our neighborhood to take the subway downtown to deliver him to
school on my way to work; and, each afternoon --well, at least most days, but that is another story -- a counselor in his afterschool
program, accompanied him home. But the good news is that my son adapted to his
new milieu like a duck to water, even though his class had the dubious
distinction of being featured in the NYT as the first Manhattan class on record
in which: a) every child's parent was divorced; and, b) every student (but my
son) was either African-American, Hispanic, Asian or European. I confess it --
this ethnic/country of origin imbalance concerned his southern mother who
feared that he, as a minority in this context, might be targeted by whomever
for bullying. But I needn't have worried. In that year, my son learned to be at
ease in the world, wherever and with whomever he may find himself. It was a
lifetime gift, to me as well as to him that, though born of economic necessity,
keeps on giving.
For
example, that year was excellent preparation for our later move to San Francisco
where, in his school, the same ethnicity distribution pertained. And, in the
end, all those experiences helped my son gain admission to an excellent southern
college because, in his interview, he pointed out that yes, he had the grades
and SAT scores, and yes, he had the requisite athletic credentials... but,
also, given his upbringing, he was a prime candidate as a useful catalyst
between old south legatees and the then mandated, but under-appreciated,
minority admissions.
Shocking
manipulation of circumstance? Not in my opinion, although I may rationalize it to this day. But -- has there ever been a student
applying to a competitive school who has not thrown every asset he or she can
think of into the consideration mix?
Never mind. In my son's
case, these were more than persuasive words; A. meant them. And so, although shortly after his arrival, he joined a fraternity known for
its southern white maleness, I was really proud that he and one his
"brothers"- the grandson, btw, of a canon-icononized, southern author
- promptly challenged the national fraternity to admit minorities, and won. (Is
gaining a welcome to an all white male preserve a triumph for minorities? Hmm,
probably not. But it is a triumph for the white males who saw the need for
correction and did something about it? I say, yes.)
In summary,
how have all these decisions and actions, through all these generations,
synthesized?
In the
immediacy of any particular moment, it's hard to tell. But:
1) I love
the implied promise, for the south in general and for women in particular (of whatever ethnicity) that
I was offered the opportunity to be the interim Editor-in-Chief of a city
magazine, a job that is still almost invariably offered to a a man.
2) I am
discouraged by the fact that, during my magazine tenure, the current owner of a
local plantation informed me, proudly, that part of the plantation's tourist
spiel is his phrase: "It took 100 slaves 10 years to carve out these 1000
acres of rice fields" -- an accomplishment that, apparently, he still sees
metrically, rather than morally.
3) I love
walking down a tabby road on Wadmalaw Island where both white and
African American natives to the island tend their own, owned farms that produce
tomatoes and sunflowers; as I
4) hate
driving down a road on adjacent John's Island following a redneck truck with
over-sized tires, a gun rack, a Confederate flag decal and a bumper
sticker that, still says, in 2009: "Forget, hell."
5)I love
the fact that conservative women I know, really well (including a cousin) found
their way to the Obama campaign headquarters; and,
6) I hate
the fact that a few of them pleaded with me to "keep it between us."
The
conundrum of being southern, and white -- whether male or female -- continues.
Obviously our discomfort does not compare to the pain and suffering over
generations of those who are southern and African American; nor does it compare to the disparity that
still exists in opportunities between the two.
The bottom
line, though, is this: yes, bad things, horrific things were ignored too long in the
south, accepted as the status quo. But. Things are changing -- too quickly for
diehards and too slowly for everyone else. As they change there is an ebb and
flow of progress and predictable backlash, just as there is in any quantum
shift.
But the South is coming along. Why, then, not offer its people the carrot of encouragement rather than the sticks of stereotype and scorn?
