Don’t let ‘em fool you....

My parents recently retired and moved “back home “ to South Carolina. A part of the second Great Migration of African Americans who fled the South during the 60’s, they made a home here up North in New York . Here they live comfortably free in a sea of Brothers and Sisters who looked like them, talked like them, and had a bonding culture. After 40+ years of making a life for themselves and their family and careful planning, they decided to retire back home where life is easier, slower, warmer, and the cost of living was more suitable for them as they go up in age.  Add to this, much of our family stayed in South Carolina or are in the midst of their personal reverse migration, they wanted to be surrounded by their extended families.

With that background, I was very apprehensive of their move. I listened to the stories of my mother and her 12 siblings spending a lot of free time picking cotton. (YES! PICKING FUCKING COTTON!!!) As the children of share croppers “working the fields “ is a requirement. If they weren’t picking cotton they were carefully navigating roads in and out of town for home goods or hanging out. Stay on the roads with lights, travel in groups run past this road, stay off that road or they may not make it home in one piece or may become strange. My father telling me he was spit on for staring too long.  Or how he had to run out of town in the middle of the night The Good White town folk were “looking for” the boys who started raging the evening of April 4, 1968. I understood why they were moving down but could not get certain images out of my head. I was apprehensive to say the least. After all they were not moving to Charleston or Monks Corner. They were settling in Sumter County. They were moving to the area where the first shots of the Civil War were fired (Fort Sumter). Where my, at the time 82 year old, grandmother had only recently been assigned an official street sign, which would allow for home delivery from the Post Office.

When it came time for my “Super Black”, first generation Harlemite  ass to visit I was ready for the bullshit. I wear my culture on my sleeve. Literally.  But I also wanted to keep an open mind because times have changed and until recently, old confederate racist were not as in your face as they were before the 1990’s. I was pleasantly surprised to find the natives were not hostile, or so it seemed at quick glance. There is a military base nearby so there is racial diversity. The town of Sumter has experienced economic growth so there are more shops, and a nice mix of good old country culture with a few metropolitan out post. Not too bad. Moving down if the opportunity presented itself was something not too unimaginable.

However the truth came to the light this past Holiday season. While doing some last minute shopping at Wal-Mart I made the mistake of wishing someone “Happy Holidays”. Ill be damned if the older woman didn’t go into a 2 minute Trumpian diatribe. “No it’s Merry Christmas, that’s what we celebrate here”. I could not believe that after almost 6 years and 20 trips I was finally encountering what I believed to be a bigot and possible racist. All I could do was smirk, I didn’t want to laugh at her because that only makes stupid people angry and she didn’t seem ready or open to a conversation. But the encounter made me briefly reconsider my opinion of what I thought was at minimum a “purple” town in the making.

Later that same day overheard a White guy comment on the conversation of a group of South Asians speaking their mother tongue. “ I’m sure those people don’t know how to not be so loud”, what the fuck? I shot him a look and he looked away, which confirmed I heard what I heard in the right context and he really didn’t intend for me to hear it.Nothing’s really changed.

These fellas weren’t changing their opinion of all Blacks or Non Black People of Color. They were tolerant of those who assimilated into the traditional program (minus the yassum and yassir). Go to a good Christian Church, find yourself a spouse that matches, and don’t too many of you move next door, and we can co exist. Just be a “Good Nigger” and Ill let you live, and if you’re good at football you can call them friends in public. I’m not downing conservative Blacks or NBPOC or Whites for their views on the Holidays. There are conservatives who will acknowledge there are many cultural Holidays that occur during the last week of December and a simple yet cordial Happy Holidays is not meant as an offense, simply an all encompassing term to mean Enjoy your Holiday whatever it may be. The difference between the two is the difference between tolerance and acceptance.  Acceptance can only occur after the conversation.  Acceptance is an appreciation for the difference, and understanding that every thing is not for everybody but there is the mutual respect for the belief of others.  They’re not there yet in Sumter County, SC. They’re not there yet in Monticello New York.

Maybe they will be but today, nah. They have a powerful need to maintain this part of their history. Unfortunately more people of many races and cultures are waking up and they are fading out through attrition. So Ill hold onto hope for them but I’m not too optimistic that acceptance and true diversity in the South will happen in my lifetime