Away Down South in Dixie. . . No More!

My home is in the South. I have lived in the states of Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Virginia and Kentucky with family still in Arkansas and Alabama. I was reared on grits. The cultural mythology of the noble South runs deep in my veins. Yet there is nothing noble or honorable about a skewed view of history concocted to portray Southern Whites as genteel custodians of the African American citizenry of our nation. This is appropriately known as White Supremacy, but needs to be named as blatant racism. It raised its ugly head in Charlottesville this week.

White Supremacists cling to the myth of racial purity, intellectual superiority and therefore deserved privilege. Though they claim to be motivated by a noble cause they are, in fact, motivated by the fear of their loss of status in an ever more multicultural and pluralistic culture. They are encouraged in their violent antics by elected officials pretending that the murderous symbols of torches, swastikas, and pointy hooded white robes are benign. Once such groups were predominantly located in the Deep South but now have exported their bigotry across the country. I see Confederate flags waving in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The propagation of such racist symbols, slogans and marches by White Supremacists does not occur in a vacuum. They spread in environments in which public figures, elected officials and good people say nothing and do nothing to defy such ideology. I am culpable as a child of the South and a man of inherited White privilege if I do not speak up and speak out. The bankrupt ideology of White Supremacy has no place in our democracy. Our Constitution declares that we are “all created equal.” Our scripture says that we are to love one another (I John 3:9-10).

It’s time to lay down our weapons and to seek the common good of our nation and for all humanity.