Hi, I’m blueneck, and This is My South.
I’ve had it today. I’ve thought long and hard about starting this series of diaries. Should I point out the good news about the South, or rat out the sorry state of affairs that continues….? Maybe I’ll do some of both, but this one is about the sad, sad ignorance and intolerance that regularly continues to rear its ugly head.
First off, check out this story in the Clarion-Ledger, the Jackson, Mississippi newspaper (Gannett), about the “Christian” adoption service that receives funds through the sale of Mississippi car tags with the motto “Choose Life” printed on them.
A local Christian adoption agency that receives funds from the sale of Mississippi’s Choose Life specialty car tags will not consider Catholics as adoptive parents.
…
“It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith,” wrote Bethany Christian Services director Karen Stewart in a July 8 letter to Sandy and Robert Stedman, a Catholic couple in Jackson seeking to adopt. “Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant’s time, money and emotional energy.”
…
Sandy Stedman, a 33-year-old neonatal nurse who had been trying to get pregnant for three years, said Stewart wrote her the letter after she called Bethany to inquire about the agency’s policy toward Catholics.
…
In a written response to The Clarion-Ledger’s questions about the agency’s policy toward prospective Catholic parents, Stewart did not answer the questions directly but wrote, “Bethany seeks to place children with (sic) who are emotionally, financially, socially and physically stable and who agree with the agency’s Statement of Faith.”The Stedmans said they showed Bethany’s statement of faith to their priest, who told them it did not conflict with Catholic teaching.
The statement is available at Bethany’s Web site, www.bethany.org.
“I have a feeling that the board has a little bit of that Deep South mentality about Catholics,” Robert Stedman said.
Duh, “Deep South mentality”, indeed.
Bethany “Christian” Services – Statement of Faith [scare quotes are mine, and this link is to the Clarion-Ledger web site, not bethany.org, as I will not dignify their website by encouraging hits.]
__
Next up, an article about the decline of the KKK in Mississippi. It’s hard for me to get excited about the “decline” when we still have six active chapters…and lest we forget, the KKK has morphed itself into the CCC, which is also active here. None other than Mississippi Senator Trent (small-Tent) Lott and Governor Haley Barbour (aka Hollow Bubba) have visited with the CCC and received their endorsement.
Mississippi has six Klan chapters, according to the figures kept by [the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center]… Tennessee has the most with 13, followed by Ohio with 11. Of the Southern states, South Carolina has the least with three.
…
One Mississippi Klan group that didn’t make the list because of inactivity is Royal Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan headed by Jordan Gollub of Jackson.“We haven’t had a march since 2001,” he said. “We had a march in Biloxi and a march in Carthage. It made you feel good that day, but I don’t think it changes the political atmosphere. It doesn’t put Bennie Thompson (the state’s lone African-American congressman) out of office.”
…
The Council of Conservative Citizens, formed in the mid-1980s, has roots in the pro-segregationist white Citizens Council. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report describes the St. Louis-based group as a white supremacist organization.
LINK:
Will KKK fade into history?
__
And last up, for today, a sympathetic look at Bernie Ebbers – who deserves no sympathy IMO.
People still see a lot of good in Bernie Ebbers — good works, good intentions and good ol’ boy — qualities that can spawn sympathy, especially in Mississippi and the South, experts say.
And then we have the whining about him being from Mississippi hurting his chances for the jury verdict in New York. Well, boo hoo for him. Last time I checked, the federal laws on fraudulent behavior are the same everywhere in the U.S.
Ebbers’ Mississippi background probably didn’t help him in New York, some experts say, but it has at least benefitted him in the court of public opinion in these parts: “The positive reaction comes from people who know him,” says Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
It’s awfully easy to be seen as a nice guy by your chosen friends and charities when you steal billions from unknown other people and give thousands or even millions to your chosen, especially if you wear cowboy boots and smile.
LINK:
Some still see good in ex-CEO
Well, there you have it. My first “This is My South” diary. I hope you don’t take my negativism here as defeatism. Au contraire, I want to rat out every last racist, religiously intolerant, gullible Mississipian’s attitudes in an effort to help change these things. I would not still be living here if I did not also enjoy the good things about the South and Jackson, Mississippi, in particular. But today I am in no mood to describe the goodnesses. I feel like stomping on the piss-ant ideas that rule the minds of my some of my fellow local citizens.
I’m blueneck, and This is My South.
Howdy Ya’ll, just thought I’d let those of you who don’t live here in on some of the local news. I don’t intend to only quote the Clarion-Ledger in the future, but after reading this morning’s edition I couldn’t help myself. It’s awfully frustrating sometimes to get yer craw full of this stuff before the day even gets started.
Hey, Girlfriend. So good to see you posting here. I am jumping up and down with your diary here. What an excellent posting of facts!!!!! Bless your little heart!!!!!
I can tell you firthandedly, you are absolutely on target!!!!
I am a yankee transplant here in the state of TN and I can tell you that the first lesson I learned here is to keep my yankee mouth shut or else pay a dear price!!!! Anyone knowing me is that I do nto keep my mouth shut!!!!
I di, however, learned to be come more diplomatic with opening my mouth. It was something I had learned years ago when in the military and being in Maryland around Annapolis. God you are right on target!!!
And besides,. once driving to NYC I stopped in Delaware, to get gas, and was asked by the station attendent if I wanted to join the KKK….Can you imagine this ordasity???!!! I was so young and I felt so scared. I did not travel by then in uniform for it was not the thing to do then, and besides I was driving my own car.
Well, I applaude you for your diary. Lots to discuss…..this will go to show the way things really are down this way.
Hey back at ya, girlfriend. But ya better call me boyfriend….And as a seventh generation Mississippian (on both sides) who spent several years in Boston, I can really empathize with your adjustment. When I lived up yonder I had the adjustment in reverse!
Thanks for your support and applause! One of the things I have grown to love about this wonderful pond is being able to participate in a community of wonderful people.
AND last but not least, thank you for your service in the military. I do truly honor and cherish every single person who has served. I visited the Naval Academy when I was trying to decide “where to go to college/what to do with my once young life” and I thought it was a beautiful campus and Annapolis a great town. I still have several books I bought there at a bookstore filled to the brim with old books….
Another transplanted yankee here, from Philly via Kansas City, now living on the other end of the state.
Your comments about not offending the native southerners are dead-on.
Folks forgot to mention the obligatory question you get asked when meeting the neighbors: “Where do you go to church?” Only in our case, that was question #2, after “What kind of name is that?” I really, really wanted to answer “It’s American,” but to be polite – which counts for everything in the South – I gave them the answer they were really looking for: “It’s Italian.”
Turns out that actually was right: since I have an ancestor that never became an American citizen (he died in the 1918 flu epidemic) I can file to have my dual citizenship recognized!
I say go ahead and say what you think. If it offends them sometimes, they probably need it! Too few of us down here are confronting our fellow citizens with our viewpoints out of fear of being impolite. And on the flipside of the politeness thing, sometimes a little bit of anger and indignation go a long way.
Your diary and the resulting threads got me to thinking that I need to be more open to the good things here, not just the negative. So I’ve been thinking and I’ve come up with a few:
Then there are things that don’t really have to do with the people that I really like here:
I’m also more at home here now that we have the Knoxville Ice Bears hockey team! LOL They have GOT to have the best hockey team logo I’ve ever seen!! And the tickets (and parking) are so cheap compared to what my brothers pay in Philly and DC!
Ya know Dem in Knoxville, you have some real gems there. The pace, the general friendliness to acquantances and strangers, the fullness of each of the seasons of the year…these are definitely major plusses for me, too.
When I lived in the Boston area I nearly froze to death each Winter and then nearly died a spiritual death each year waiting and waiting and waiting for the Spring to arrive.
I shall never forget my first experience at the convenience store across the street from my new residence. I walked in, nodded hello to the clerk (got no response), got myself a coke and some doughnuts, walked up to the counter and said “hello, how are you today?!” In return I got a blank stare and the voice behind it said “$1.98.”
I do fondly remember the sound of falling snow, which I’d never really heard before – the sound of SWARMS of BIG flakes coming down with almost no wind blowing, in the middle of the night, each flake making a little “pff” sound on the blanket of white beneath and the total auditory experience being absolutely heavenly – sort of, but not really, like a babbling brook or a small waterfall or the surf breaking on the beach. I did miss the ROCKIN’ thunderstorms we have in Mississippi, where all hell breaks loose and the big trees are swinging to and fro in the wind, the lightning flashing and thunder booming without end, echoing through the land- and sky-scape. And the petrichor filling my nostrils right before the storm arrives….
I also missed the biodiversity here in the South. The city and the country run into each other with regularity, as we are not so heavily populated as to have driven the wildlife totally out of our towns and “cities”.
And so much more….to be continued.
Your store story took me back. When I was a kid I went with my mom to Maine. And I remember being practically in tears telling her how mean everyone there was because no one was saying “Have a nice day” back to me.
One of the things I like most about websites like this one is that I often learn to see things from other perspectives. I grew up in an all white suburb of a small city in upstate NY. I have absolutely no knowledge of what it is like to live in the south.
I think a series (and, yes, I do want to hear the good side too) on life in the South would be great.
Thanks for your support. I’m feeling a little bit better now, and I promise I will do some positive diaries, too! I have a lot be thankful for – and to be humbled by – from the history of my state and of its people. The daily struggle to live amongst the ignorant ones is far surpassed by the opportunity to be with some of the most elegant, honest, curious, and highly intellectual people I’ve ever met. I’ve traveled a good deal, even been to upstate NY (Catskills, Adirondacks as a geology student), but I’ve never come across anything quite like home.
My son decided to go to college in upstate NY in part to see what a different part of the country was like (He’s at the Rochester Institute of Technology). Also because he likes snow and missed it. (We used to live in Kansas City when he was a boy and they get lots of snow, but not like Rochester!) Oh, yeah – and they gave him a nice scholarship, too… 😉
Vent away if you need to. I would love to see a series of South diaries – both good news and bad. Facing South has news out of the south also.
On a more personal and unrelated note, I have some great memories of visiting Mississippi when I was a child. My parents had friends/practically family who lived there in the middle of nowhere and we would sometimes visit.
Only 2 houses for miles – theirs (the parents) and the grandparents. It would be me as the only girl, my 4 brothers and their 5 five boys. Sometimes their uncle, a Vietnam Vet would visit and take us for these wild rides in the wilderness in his jeep. Better than any amusement park ride.
I couldn’t drink their well water so I’d have to walk along a path in the woods to the grandparents house (for some reason their water was ok). It wasn’t a long path but was a little scary when I’d get to the point I couldn’t see either house (scared of snakes). After I’d get there the grandmother would always have me sit a spell while she fed me whatever she had baked that day and told me stories. How can I not love Mississippi when those are my memories of it?
Thanks Liberalpalooza! I have a list of southern blogs, but I do feel that I have a unique point of view – so you’re gonna get this series whether you like it or not!
You are not alone in having great memories of Mississippi, and your description of childhood visits resembles some of my own. I have relatives all over in Mississippi – some rural, some town-folk, and some of us city-folk. I remember going to visit my father’s cousin’s house in the country and running around on acres and acres of cow pasture land with my brother and my second cousin. We did things like throwing rocks at the bull and running to get up a tree. Or getting our slingshots and shooting water mocassins in the creek! That was kinda scary. I always thought those snakes were gonna climb up out of the creek bed and come after me!
I promise I won’t always vent in these diaries, but I admit I do have a lot stored up to vent about. But basically, I don’t think I’m a negative person at all. I do try to “Always look at the bright side of life.” (OK there’s my Monty Python reference for the day.)
Oh I want your diaries. I personally think there is a real need for more southern friendly places. Not that Booman isn’t. I mean more aggressively pursuing southerners and your diaries could do that here.
I posted recently that sometimes it’s harder to be a liberal southerner amongst liberals than it is to be a liberal southerner amongst southerners. It worse perhaps because it comes as a surprise (“no one expects the Spanish Inquisition”) to see prejudice from other liberals. So anything that encourages more southern participation will be welcomed by me.
This is your America.
Wishing it were all nicely constrained by a century-old political border doesn’t make it so. And that denial won’t heal the core rifts in America, including the debt unpaid to African Americans all across the land.
Yes, redwagon you are correct! I agree with you that we are all Americans. However, that doesn’t negate the fact that I am a Jacksonian, a Mississippian, and a Southerner. The U.S. is a huge geographical construction, with differences between regions that are very real. I merely wish to let it be known that I am a liberal, educated, non-racist, white male from Jackson, from Mississippi, and from “the South”, as well as being an American.
As for the unpaid debt – I agree with you that it remains unpaid. I do favor the concept of reparations and I believe that something would be better than nothing along those lines. However, the realist in me says it ain’t gonna happen. The logistics are very difficult. I do actively advocate affirmative action, fully funding public education, and helping my brothers and sisters of all races and religious beliefs. I am the great-grandson of a Mississippi sharecropper. These folks were severely abused by the Plantation owners, too. I don’t believe that that is in anyway comparable to the plight of black people, but I’m sure it was no piece of cake to be looked down on as white trash by those in power and exploited economically. I am also in small part a Native American, and I can definitely see the direct parallels there. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that centuries of repression cannot be solved by a few decades of “legal” equality.
I don’t think these problems are “nicely constrained by a century-old political border”, either. Most of the problems here in Jackson are mirrored by the attitudes and problems all across America. In my opinion, “the South” is different from the rest of the U.S. and the world because of the particular legacy that belongs to us. As such, I believe that it can serve as a particular window into the state of affairs in all of America. Thus, this diary.
I am also very tired of tuning in to TurnerSouth on Cable TV and hearing all of these glowing assessments by different folks saying “This is My South”, so I thought I’d tell the world about reality down here.
just wanted to let you know that I wrote a rather long reply to your post here:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/7/13/143424/247#4
Thanks NeoLiberal, I’ll reply over there. But we do agree on Gore and Dean, for sure!
I grew up mostly in a small town in northeast Texas and now live in Minnesota. I would be interested in any positive take you could provide on the south because I don’t have any. This is probably because my family is not only southern, but also fundamentalist christians. When I go back for a visit (they live in Dallas now) – I am never in any community that even begins to approximate sanity. I usually just try to keep my mouth shut because I’m not prepared to cut all ties with the family and that is what is likely to happen if we get into a discussion about politics or religion. But its sad and I usually need about a week to “decompress” when I get back. The last time I went, I came home with the powerful awareness that they are all in a tremendous amount of pain, but with no opening for healing.
NLinStPaul, I grieve with you. I have had decades to actively seek out rational people here in my hometown and my parents are both liberal/moderate, so I don’t have to fight that battle on the home front. Your observation about the pain is on the mark, and that could be the subject of a whole series of diaries, too, I think.
As for the positive take on the South, and Mississippi in particular, I promise to offer something to you in the near future.
Thank you for sharing, and just so you’ll know, I’ve thought long and hard about leaving Mississippi myself. It can be overwhelming at times. Which is why I had to let off a little steam this morning. Thanks for reading and I wish you the best that it can be with your family in Texas.