Send White Lilies, Please.

I've got Senator Jesse Helms's funeral on without the sound -- this is North Carolina, so it's a big deal -- and I don't think I see a single black face in the entire church, including the choir.  (This is Hayes Barton Baptist Church, Raleigh, and that looks like Mitch McConnell speaking right now.)

We were in the swimming pool at the Triangle SportsPlex in Hillsborough on Sunday, where there was, as usual, a mixed crowd, mostly black and white with a few East and South Asians and Mexicans.  While there's some tendency to stick with the ones what brung you, there's also a lot of matter-of-fact interaction across racial lines, especially hoop games and flirtation among teenagers.  We've come a very long way from Emmett Till.

However, an older white gent ("older" like me) with a broad Southern accent, who was minding his eight-year-old grandson, latched onto J and me while we were resting down at his end of the pool, and started talking to us fervently:  about his heart attack a few years ago ("I died"), his desire to retire but also to keep active, and eventually, how bad he feels about the death of Jesse Helms, for whom (I think he said) his wife worked at one point.  This uninvited intimacy, as we watched a mostly black group of boys toss a ball through a hoop, had what felt to me like a strong subtext of "Us white people got to stick together."  At the very least, the man was assuming that because we shared his skin color we would share his sentiments about Senator Helms, despite the glaring lack of Southern accents.  J was not particularly aware of who Jesse Helms was; I kept my thoughts to myself and was sympathetic and civil.  The man's grandson, meanwhile, frolicked with the black teenagers.

The scene at the funeral and the scene in the pool are silently eloquent evidence of the complex passing of an era.  I have a white Southern friend close to my age who grew up small-town aristocracy, and she laments the end of a standard of authority, quality, graciousness, and character that made her world dignified and secure.  Her resentment, however, is directed not at black people -- who after all have their own variant of Southern, Christian dignity and graciousness -- but at the Mexican "invasion" of North Carolina, a culture so foreign to her that she cannot see the pattern and order in it. 

Since I began writing this I have seen one white-haired black man at the funeral.  Could have been James Clyburn, the South Carolina congressman and House Democratic whip -- the epitome of a dignified Southern gentleman.

Comments

[jason]

Excellent observations, Annie. I have to admit my mother raised all of us kids to be colorblind, so I grew up with acceptance being an important part of my outlook. I've dated people of many races and have always had friends from diverse cultures and backgrounds.

That said, and despite your optimism, I still think this country has a long way to go before inclusion and tolerance overtake prejudice and bigotry. Sure, I see great progress from my childhood through now, yet all I need do is pick up a newspaper to read how even some Democrats are saying they won't vote for Obama because of his skin color. (I'm using that as an example and not as an endorsement of the man.) Very unfortunate that people remain so shallow, so narrow. Nevertheless, I know it takes time--too much time--for these things to change.

[david]

What a world, what a world.

[wj]

Even with the best will in the world (certainly not always present), some people will simply find it impossible to move beyond the prejudices they absorbed as children. Which means that prejudices must, to some degree, simply be outlived. We see that, in this case, with racial prejudice. We see it also, albeit a generation or so behind, with prejudice based on sexual orientation.

The major variable is: which irrational prejudices will be in the process of dying off (pun intended, sorry) vs. which ones are not yet starting to fade. Certainly we have some current prejudices which are not yet there. Although those who hold the various opinions would insist, usually vehemently, that their opinions are merely right-thinking, and not prejudice at all at all. But then, those who hold prejudices always do say that, don't they?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I've got a note about Kruna and Jesse here in my notebook; maybe I'll type it tonight.

But it's worth remembering about Jesse that:

"Helms and his wife, Dorothy, had two daughters and a son. They adopted the boy in 1962 after the child, 9 years old and suffering from cerebral palsy, said in a newspaper article that he wanted parents."

And that:

"And yet, his Senate office was, if not a model of diversity, a place that was at odds with his perceived bigotry. No less a personage than James Meredith, the first black student at the University of Mississippi, was employed by Helms as a special assistant from 1989-91. His press secretary was black as were several administrative assistants."

In person, Jesse was a sweet grandfatherly old Southern man. He was conservative in the least sense of the word: he disliked change as change, and didn't see what things couldn't be the way they were in 1930. He never could --- or much wanted to --- get beyond the small-town Methodist (I think -- I vaguely recall he and Fred Brooks attended the same church at some time) upbringing.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Um, "karuna"

[RW Rogers]

Reason magazine's Jesse Walker, a native North Carolinian, has an interesting take on Helms. At their Hit & Run blog, David Weigel has another. A commenter to Weigel's post adds a third.

[Donna]

I've come to think I have a strange perspective of racism. I was raised in Colorado & New Mexico, then moved to Texas at age 16.

Until then, I'd only met one black person in my life and he was a very old man who worked for my Dad and refused to knock on our front door or sit at the table with us to eat (as other employees often did). His refusal frustrated my mother to no end, but she never pushed him too hard, just fixed him a plate to take home with him.

In school in NM, I was in the minority. Not only was my skin much lighter, I didn't speak or understand the language. In some classes I was the only non-Hispanic, non-Native American in the room.

Sometimes I thought they were talking about me or laughing at me, but I realized later I was mostly just paranoid since I couldn't understand.

However, that experience influenced my relationship with blacks when I got to Texas. It was also influenced by the 2nd black person I met -- the only girl who spoke to me on my first day at a new school. Looking back, I don't know if she thought of me as a best friend, but I certainly thought of her that way.

oh...geez. What point did I set out to make?

Ahh, yes: That I now tend to just treat everyone I meet as an individual. Frankly, I like most everyone regardless of skin color or any other physical attribute.

Then again, I am generally made uncomfortable by any excessive display of "group" membership, whether it's gangster, pink spiked hair and multiple piercings, or fake cowboy.

[karen]

I've personally known only two black people. A girl from Liberia(boarding)in High School whom everyone loved because she was so-- charismatic and seemingly unconscious of her own colour. And, my Tanzanian priest. A man of God who seems to savour the differences of his very white congregation up here in the NEK.

In a(n) homily: do i use an (n) before a(n) ~H~?- he actually used the words ~cling to religion~. I wonder about that, if it was a mere coincidence or planted phrasing, re: BObama.

I love Donna's experience and i hope that is how i treat folks, too. As individuals, regardless.

[karen]

I forgot to ask:
" Although those who hold the various opinions would insist, usually vehemently, that their opinions are merely right-thinking, and not prejudice at all at all. But then, those who hold prejudices always do say that, don't they?"

Ignorant question being:
wj, do you mean, as in ~correct thinking~ or as in Conservative thinking?

[wj]

Karen, I used that phrase ("right thinking") meaning "correct thinking." I mostly tend to say conservative or liberal, and lost track of the fact that "right-thinking" could have more than one interpretation. Actually, I thought I was being sooo careful to NOT use a phrase that implied one or the other. Sigh, so much for intentions.

My intention was definitely to include both liberal and conservative mindsets. Having spent the late 1960s at Berkeley, and still living in the San Francisco area, I am all too aware that liberals are every bit as prejudiced as conservatives. On different issues and in different directions, but the prejudice is certainly there. (Albeit with even more vehemence that they are not prejudiced!) What else, after all, is political correctness?

[jason]

Karen: Thank you for asking the question.

wj: Thank you for answering it.

I read that just now and cocked my head to the side while pondering the same thing: I wonder what "right thinking" means in this context...

And thank you again for mentioning sexual orientation. Like so many other prejudices, I believe that has become our society's (species'?) replacement for racial bigotry. After all, we're expected to give up seeing skin color as a measure of a person, so all that intolerance and hate has to be aimed at something else. (Disclosure: Keep in mind I'm a gay man and probably have serious objectivity issues on that topic!)

Donna: I love your experience! I wish more people could have a fraction of that lesson taught in the same meaningful way.

[Lisa]

jason: Like so many other prejudices, I believe that has become our society's (species'?) replacement for racial bigotry.

Not really: while prejudice based on sexual orientation is very real, racial bigotry is alive and kicking. When a huge and culturally diverse group of people is called 'Mexicans', do you think it's not a racial prejudice?

[karen]

How is saying: ~a huge and culturally diverse group of people is called 'Mexicans'~ = racial... any different then calling a huge and culturally diverse group of people 'Americans'?