Being the good, forward-thinking progressive that I am, I have recently (in the last couple of years, anyway) begun following a few web sites, Facebook pages, and email lists that cater to my particular political & social awareness interests. I'm concerned with gay rights in particular, but also with civil rights in general. I believe in equality no matter the religion, race, sexuality, or gender of the person in question. I have stood for this for many years now. As I browse through the posts & comments and such on these sites, I am beginning to notice a disturbing trend. Many so-called progressives treat the southern states as if they're ghettos for the ignorant & bigoted.
This stereotyping seems to be the same type of thing progressives are opposed to in the first place. Aren't we supposed to be the open-minded ones? Aren't we supposed to be the peace-loving offspring of the hippies? And yet some of the remarks I've read are downright troubling. Some say "let the South secede already, we don't want them anyway" or "yeah, go ahead and deregulate guns in the South and let those idiots kill each other off." I'm a little behind on my political reading, so I've only recently become aware of Chuck Thompson's "Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto For Southern Secession" which makes that very point. The rest of the country, he proposes, would be better off without us.
This puts me and most of my friends in a terribly precarious situation. Many of my friends are, like me, open to diversity in its many forms. We are pro LGBT rights, pro science, and pro racial diversity. We are highly educated and we value charity and equal access to healthcare. We voted for President Obama twice. And most of us were born and raised right here in the South. We do not wish to be viewed narrowly. We do not wish to be lumped in together with bigots and young-earthers. But at the same time, we don't wish to let go of the land and the heritage that has made us who we are.
Perhaps the best example of a Southerner who is both Southern through and through and a well-known progressive is former president (and fellow South Georgian) Jimmy Carter. President Carter has recently been outspoken on LGBT rights. His administration was, in fact, the first to meet with leaders of the gay community and even 40 years ago he opposed legislation that would allow teachers to be fired for their sexuality. He has been a leading voice in combatting poverty domestically and across the globe. I cannot believe that President Carter is the kind of person Mr. Thomas believes he would be better off without.
And it must be pointed out that one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the history of the United States was himself a Southerner. Dr. King was born and raised in the Deep South. He was the pastor of a Christian church. He was, on the surface, all the things that people choose to bring up when talking about how backwards things are here, but he was one of the men who helped this country to make some of its greatest strides forward.
In my experience, there are a whole lot of Jimmy Carters and Martin Luther Kings in this part of the country. The Southern states look very red from a distance, but there are many, many pockets of blue. By choosing to lump us all in with the David Dukes, the progressives in other parts of the country leave behind those of us who truly want to move forward. We just don't want to have to leave our homes in order to do it. Negativity and stereotyping is counterproductive. Rather than wishing to cut us off from the union and let us drift off into the Atlantic, I invite progressives from the North and the West to reach out to those of us who are fighting for what is right here in the toughest battleground in the nation. We might have more insight than they think.
Yes, there are many people in this area who want to go back to the plantation era. But there are many others who want freedom and equality for all people. We are the South too.
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