Deep South and California: not even close, bud.

Living in California means, in many ways, living under a dome of light, air, peace and prosperity.  (Also an outlandish cost of living, privilege living for many and fine weather. Among other things.) Look at the history of California: it didn't really start until 1848-49 when gold was discovered and opportunists flocked here. California has not had any major social conflicts compared to the South. We have nice weather, no polar vortex here, we don't have hot, humid summers. Our economy is stable, yet we have a definite class system of the successful business people vs the hourly wage earners. There is no economic justice and many live at a substandard way of life. But in the big picture, California is still the land of sunshine, dreams and opportunity. And California is divided: half white, half Latino. It's a fair mix.

Drive through the South.  Drive through small towns. Get out of your car and you could easily be the only white person in that Walgreens or in that gas station. The idea of integration seems so foreign in the South, to this day. At least to me, at least to what I saw. White people doing the good jobs, black people doing the rest. Sort of like California in that white people do the good jobs and Latinos do the rest. But so much more obvious in the South, probably because there is a clear racial divide. Black and White: that division is difficult to hide. 

My drive through the South profoundly moved me in so many ways. Civil rights for black people became something that felt like an arrow to my heart so many times. We, in California, have no idea what the legacy of slavery means. California did not have slavery. Californians can read about it but we cannot understand it. I cannot really understand it or see it as a real, true culture but I am beginning to see it so much more clearly now than I ever did before. The two Civil Rights museums helped educate me in the immediacy of the injustice that has been perpetuated for the past several hundred years. And that injustice remains today.

The culture of the South is so deep and so historic and yet so immediate, so of this present moment. There is nothing that I can say that would convey how powerful my two week journey was. Suffice it to say just that: driving through Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and a bit of Arkansas made me see history, culture, white and black in a totally profound way. It moved me in a way I have yet to define. I loved almost every one of the almost 3000 miles I put on that new car!  

There will be more to say on this.



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