Southern Discomfort

dr. elsewhere here

Yesterday was a primo New England day. Crystal blue skies, puffs of cotton white clouds, hi of 75, sea breeze. Sweet.

So very different from last month, the thick of the heat wave. Those maps of the US, beet red, then pink and white hot, for chrissake! Colbert's take on how that map proved such a miraculous shift from the all blue states just six months prior would have been funny had anyone had the energy to laugh.

The temperatures didn't fall below the 90s for days on end, and the humidity competed with those numbers, reminding this ol' Southern gal that there was another reason I left the American tropics. And left me wondering if it was following me.

I'll get back to that part, the hot part, in a few grafs. But I'd like to first make good my longstanding threat to opine on the deep South, especially in light of the many changes occurring over the past month, particularly for this post Cynthia McKinney's serious loss in the GA Democratic primary. That whole story deserves its own post at another time, as a number of disturbing factors were in play surrounding the media coverage, starting way back to her post-9/11 truth-telling right up to her close encounter with Capitol police some weeks back. Many thanks to Joe for highlighting her brilliant concession speech.

Actually, Congresswoman McKinney's experiences provide as reasonable a starting point as any to complain about the various ills of the region below the Mason-Dixon. There can be little doubt that she has suffered the brunt of extensive racism, not to mention sexism, which damn near says as much as anyone should have to say about why anyone would flee the South. That history is undeniable and pervasive, yet for many who maintain southern residence, there is the most astonishing blind spot.

I should say, for the whites who live there; no doubt virtually every black person still down there knows exactly what I'm talking about. Not that I do, mind you. As a sometimes singer, I have often wished I was born black. But recently, when I was lamenting the dire state of my finances and work status, I was brought up just real short by this thought that suddenly exploded in my head: How much worse it would be if I was black. Or perhaps I should more accurately say, if I wasn't white.

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This unassuming little mind bomb kept me occupied for a number of hours, first shaming me into recognizing just how much I have to be grateful for. But exploring some of the speculations of what life really might be like were my skin a different color was quite a revealing exercise. And something of a come-uppance.

Most of us think we have some sense of what that kind of life must mean. Most of us pride ourselves on not being racist, on embracing not just the people who are of color, but the history of their plight and their suffering. At least, that is, until we have a Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? moment. I have to say my little internal revelation (not exactly facing Sidney Poitier as a son-in-law, but no question I'd prefer that to a lot of fates, certainly poverty) changed me forever. And the biggest insight I got from it was the unassailable fact that there will never be any way for me, or any white person, to ever have anything resembling a real clue. There remains, and always will remain, this great divide.

And this truth is so much more profoundly unequivocal in the South, it takes the breath away the same way that blast of sticky heat does when you step out into the dense Southern air most of the year. Even for so many Southerners who think they have always been so kind to blacks, so kind and generous, so kind and generous and inclusive, there remains that self-serving complacence of the condescending patron, that dangerous undercurrent of the imperious benefactor, that silent but insistent rule that their good acts must remain charity, a rule that requires the assumption of inequality, and thus, injustice.

This may seem harsh judgment, and almost anachronistic, like a naive revelation forty years behind step. But I was in the South forty years ago, and I was in the South less than a fortnight ago, and I can honestly tell you, that despite the fact that blacks no longer ride in the back of the bus and are no longer banned from white drinking fountains and bathrooms and diners and theatres, the absence of those restrictions is only a matter of the absence of the actual prohibiting signs. The sad fact is, segregation of space still keeps blacks to their own toilets and clubs, and even keeps them to their own buses and not just to the backs of them, because so few if any whites will ride them precisely because they are so occupied by blacks. And segretation of residential areas and life in general still keeps blacks to their own schools (despite bussing, which ultimately only sent white kids to church-run white schools), and increasingly keeps them out of college.

My own perspective from up here in progressive New England is admittedly skewed, though often as not, every time I see a black person in these parts they are accompanied by a white partner, which is now admittedly no longer life-threatening in the South. But, fact is, there are so few blacks up here, even in the inner cities, by comparison. In Memphis, where I was a freshman when King was shot - at a college located across a wide boulevard from a park where snipers fired shots off all that long, April night - blacks make up more than half the population, which means they have also made significant inroads on governmental levels, not always with graceful results. But the rich mix of races does not really mix; instead, it has boldly and obviously segregated anew, continuing the plantation model of old with gated communities instead of antebellum mansions, with the "lessers" still locked out, the masters still locked in.

Many wonderful people live in that sleepy, sluggish river town, and all my old friends there are wonderful people. But I am continually and repeatedly shocked at their fear of black folk, their mistrust of the "criminal elements," and at their thoroughly white lives, no less than mine here in the very white northeast. They gasp when I ask about the bus schedule ("You can't ride the bus here!") and literally never ever even drive through "those" parts of town. And they don't even recognize it or see it for what it is, it's become so infused into their lives in a sleepy, segregated, southern town.

In their defense, it is certainly the case that crime is extremely high there, and is no longer concentrated in the designated "dark" parts of town, now creeping insidiously into the master's own backyard, insinuating itself into the mansions themselves. Blacks are apparently most often the perpetrators, as they fill an enormous percentage of prison cells. But I despair that my very wonderful but very white friends appear to fail not only to see this deadly pattern, but fail to take the time to examine just why things are the way that they are.

All too reminiscent of those of us comfortably here who tsk tsk over the middle east crises without ever asking the real question: Just why are the oppressed so damn angry?

Just asking the question answers it, which may well explain why it is never asked. Never mind wondering how angry we might be were we so oppressed. What might we, the masters, actually have to do were we to actually face that question? Admitting the ultimate sting of our charitable sensibilities and condescending generosity would require so much, and no one wishes to lose those luscious lawns and antebellum homes. Besides, we gave in the 60s.

It is this mentality that keeps me from the South, this vestige of the slavemaster's mentality, the pervasive worldview that bleeds oppression over every object in its domain, from its women and its broods, to its land and its bounty, and all the riches to be possessed and oppressed thereof. It is the mentality that sanctions ownership of anything that can be named (acres? crops? workers? wives? children? ideas? faith?), that glorifies greed, and justifies the fight to keep it all. Hell, it justifies the right to war and murder for even the meanest piece of it. And of course, throwing in the religious jutification for it only serves to galvanize the pathology, sanctioning all manner of hatred and avarice and bloodlust in the name of a man whose every teaching and action condemned such thoughts. The conception of hypocrisy in the womb of blind faith from the seed of fear.

This mentality was not invented in or by the South, not by any stretch of the imagination. World history is cluttered with the corpses of this pathology, and there is hardly a corner of the planet that is immune (though the implicit social rules of the Scandanavian northlands do wonders at keeping the sickness at bay, so we'll revisit this notion forthwith). Still, there can be no denying that this mentality is very much over-represented in the South, obviously. Nor can we deny that this slavemaster mentality has seriously infected the rest of the country, and to a disturbing degree. Hence Molly Ivins' apology for the "Texasification" of the nation. We see it in the Limbaugh and O'Reilly and Savage and Coulter and Boortz audience, in the violent films and video games, in our current mis-leadership, and - god help us - in both our domestic and foreign policy.

It is so damn easy to see how destructive this perspective is, but not so easy to understand why it occurs or takes hold. And, perhaps because we cannot understand it, it can be almost impossible to even consider sympathy for those in its grip.

But, for the first time in my life, the heat - the brutal, relentless, inescapable heat after having escaped it for so long - gave me something like a clue.

If you've never suffered a Southern summer, it is a thing to reckon with. It commands a great deal of respect, despite the fact that it also deserves infinite cursing and scorn. If you have suffered a few days, even several days of the recent heat wave, then extend that pretty much from May through September. Then take away the AC and the electric fans and the swimming pools. Then you have the pre-Roosevelt South.

During the heat wave here, I remembered that one of the peripheral reasons I hate those summers is that I really don't like AC. It's stale and oddly cold in a dank and clammy way that is just not pleasant; it's forced and fake and I really hate it, even in a car. I like my windows open and a real, natural breeze flowing through. Just like most summers are in New England by the sea. Just like yesterday afternoon.

Few of us truly recognize just how impossible living in such conditions can be. The heat and humidity were an enormous reason the South remained almost entirely rural until the AC. It may well be the largest reason the South remained politico non grata, and why so many were so easily manipulated into submission by the slave master machinery for so long. The heat just makes everything so damn hard.

This recent Alternet piece does a great job of dissecting not only how air conditioning has changed the entire population and political landscape of the region, it also exposes just how much the demand for air conditioning strains our resources (20% of all electrical demands) and trashes the environment (easy extrapolation there). But I have to say, not until the soon-to-be infamous heatwave of '06, even up here in New England, did it hit home just the range and scope of the toll it takes.

I was so miserable. I could not imagine how the elderly could deal with it, especially living alone and in fear that open windows invite intruders. No; most especially living on Social Security and not being able to afford the cost of running AC, or even a fan, let alone buying one. Their fragile bodies needing extra water and meds and food and nutrients, and they cannot move to help themselves and no one there to help them. And infants; they get rashes and digestive gas and become listless and fail to thrive. And the ailing, like the elderly, need more of what is not there, and if they have no caregivers, they are also at increased risk.

I was so miserable last month I refused to cook meals and had to really psych myself up just to get to the store to get food. I was so miserable I could not wash my dishes or sweep the floor or do laundry. I work at home, but I cannot imagine having to get myself up and on the train and into an office as if it's just another regular ol' day. Even so, sitting in a pool of sweat with my head pounding from the heat was hardly conducive to cerebral productivity. All I could do was lie spread-eagle on my bed with the fan blasting directly on me, trying to pull what pathetic little AC cool my tiny window unit could produce.

Yes, I admit; I do have my limits on misery.

And I was still so miserable I was really cranky. I mean, really really cranky. I had no patience whatsoever with anything, phone calls, bills, deadlines, the news. Everything just ticked me off. All I wanted was to sleep and wake up cool, cool enough for a blanket. All I wanted - and here it comes - ....

All I wanted was for all those things - the meals and the shopping and the chores and the work - to be done for me. All I wanted was for someone to do the dishes and the meals and the cleaning and the work for me. To bring me tea with ice in it (I never use ice) and a wedge of lemon and sprig of mint, if you please. All I wanted was for someone to draw a cool bath and rub my temples with cubes of ice. All I wanted was for someone to lay out cool, clean sheets and stand over me with an enormous feather fan all night, occasionally spritzing cool water all over me, especially my face and the back of my neck and knees.

OK, I did get carried away, but what else was there to do in that oppressive steam sauna except wish I had a slave.

When I realized this was the upshot of all my furnace fantasies, I had yet another of those revelatory moments. What a horrifying wish to have! With some difficulty, I finally managed to get my sorry self up to a vertical position and at least prioritize the tasks to be done. Mentally, at least. That was a little better.

[Which brings up an interesting factoidal aside: Dr. Robert Ornstein has asserted an intriguing hypothesis that the human cerebral cortex expanded as it did because it is a cooling agent; it serves as insulation for the essential subcortical regions that control vital signs like heart rate and breathing, as well as fight/flight reactions. Moreover, he asserts that our going upright was also about the cooling effect; less surface area exposed to the heat and more body further away from the ground's heat. Try it.]

In any case, my wallowing in the miserable heat forced me to acknowledge this aspect of my Southern aversion and the contribution that heat makes to the slavemaster's mentality. Not that I'm excusing them; the misery of Southern heat is hardly justification for using slaves not just to avoid that misery, but to exploit them for selfish gain and obscene domination. But I became fascinated that something so subtle we hardly consider it could play such a powerful role in a social dynamic. Even the irritability and inability to muster simple courtesies explains a lot that it cannot ever excuse. Certainly the accessibility of AC has shifted the dynamic there, smoothing some of the edges a bit, even if not eradicating the hell entirely.

And then a friend offered the counter example. Scandinavian through and through (though we met and became friends decades ago in Tennessee), she shared the story of the powerful social rules that prevail in the northern reaches of human habitation, such as the more limited property rules. There, fences are forbidden, and all citizens are allowed to roam across whatever counts as boundaries. Visitors can help themelves to berries or nuts or even animals they happen to encounter, the reason being that the winters are so deadly, we all need each other to get by. So we do not deny our neighbors the simple little things necessary to survive.

The curious image of huddled neighbors under all available blankets near a single, fuel-saving fire comes to mind. Contrast this to the cranky, demanding, and impatient sponges of sweat, with brains to match, seeking out nothing more than distance between ourselves and every other heat producing being on the planet, except to subjugate them to our will and needs. Which scenario will yield a socially conscious, collective, egalitarian community, and which one will produce something a bit more like the Darwinian greed fest we now see, with everyone red in tooth and claw and only those rich enough to pay for slaves - whether they hold the fans or manufacture them - surviving?

Of course, this hypothesis is not air-tight. The Russian Empire was just as ruthless as the Southern slavemasters ever were, and they did not even release their serfs until four years prior to the emancipation of American slaves. But, to be sure, the driving element is simply this craven, depraved, and utterly destructive impulse in our species to subjugate and annihilate others for our own gain. It's authoritarian, a subject I'll address a bit more generally in a later post. This impulse was taken beyond the hilt in the old South, and has infiltrated the fabric of our entire American culture.

Now, due directly and causally to this impulse - and in no small measure due directly and causally to air-conditioning against the heat, especially in the South - we are creating the very environmental crisis of pervasive heat that will undoubtedly reverse the trend started by the various ice ages, and potentially do us all in. What a bizarre full circle we are closing.

This summer of '06 is now coming to its close, and the likelihood of another heat wave is diminishing. (Heck, today it's been 60 degrees all day and rainy, with the same forecasted through the weekend. This is also New England!) But we have yet to slide past the Katrina anniversary, much less the end of the hurricane season, though it has been relatively quiet compared to last year. And then I am forced to consider the heat wave in Europe just three years ago when at least 35,000 died. Still, we have the temerity to complain.

But we should have the foresight to see the trends, if not the future, and the determination to correct our course. I fear, though, that just like everywhere else, from medicine and education to the economy and politics in general, the solution will only look like a band-aid, and not anything like a real cure. That will require a real acknowledgement of the nature and depth of this disease, this authoritarian slavemaster epidemic that threatens to destroy us all. Perhaps our greatest hope can be found in those who have suffered most, the Southern blacks, at least those who are able to recognize the symptoms and steer toward higher principles.

The South has many like Cynthia McKinney to offer as antedote, but just as many too who will only feed the sickness. Methinks this recovery - if we can even hope for it - will require a revelation within each of us, a moment of recognition that we each suffer from and participate in the problem and so must learn to huddle together, despite the heat, because we are all in this together. But we cannot afford to wait for more Katrinas or heatwaves or slavemaster corruption and destruction to wake us from this sultry Southern sleep. The affliction consumes us with every bite of trucked-in Georgia peach, and with every breath of compressed cool air. We are dying in our desperate attempts, not just to live, but - so foolishly, so selfishly - to live without discomfort.