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?