This is my first web log ever, although I have posted a comment from time to time on political and scientific sites. I decided that I was seeing and hearing too many things that I wanted to comment on. I am driving with my wife and 3 kids (g~9, b~7, g=4) by mini-van from Missouri to Pennsylvania, to Williamsburg, to Daytona and back. I work for a European biotech company and decided to take nearly a month off like many of my colleagues around the world.
To jump right in to the “interesting” things I see and hear, let me start with a t-shirt I saw in a western Pennsylvania bar: “If at first you don’t secede, try try again” over top of a big confederate flag. My wife, from Texas, found it very tacky and laughed: “Well, what can you say about that?”. I found it offensive with every interpretation I could come up with. Here’s one interpretation: I mean, the dude is from the north. Does he want the southern states to secede? I think my wife’s interpretation is closer to the truth. She thought he was making a statement about states’ rights, with a little southern pride, but still very tacky. “You will see a lot more of that as we head south”, she said.
I want my kids to learn that the Civil War was caused by an uncontrolled uprising, and people settling differences with guns and cannons rather than their words. I can easily teach my kids about the Revolutionary War, and my son was born in England (is he one of the “bad guys”?), but the Civil War is difficult to explain to kids under age 10. Who knows, maybe they do understand way more than we think. Slavery is obviously a huge topic, and I want my kids to know that people are STILL discriminated against because of color, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
But is there any credence really to the idea that the Civil War was also about states’ rights and “Northern aggression”? Is there a common ground, where a practical progressive can think that states should have some freedom to govern in ways that are contrary to federal policy? Of course, I believe that states should not limit people’s rights so much, and freedom from slavery is such an obvious right. But what about granting rights that are contrary to federal policy? Medical marijuana, for example? (Heck, what about recreational use?).
I am having many conversations in bars this week. Some of my old friends are unemployed now for a year or more. My home town has been depressed since the steel mills closed in the early 1980’s, but this is the worst I have seen it. Democrats here definitely preferred Hillary over Obama — typical throughout Appalachia, I have heard. I remember only 2 black families in my whole town while I was growing up. The kids’ school photos were always taken with too little lighting, making the features of anyone with dark skin hard to make out. I am one of 5 kids, 3 of us adopted, and 2 with darker skin — my Italian brother and my Vietnamese sister. I remember the n-word being used to refer to each of them at least once in their lives. Being back as an adult, I am hyper-sensitive to racism in my home town. A former friend saw me and we went to a bar near a college in town. “This place seems a lot darker than I remember.” He was referring to the college kids — a lot more diverse than I remember. Yup–one less “friend”, I think. This is going to be an interesting trip. I was told that the bars were less full because unemployment benefits had run out and people did not have beer money. I am happy to have a job and my Yuengling lager…
