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I grew up white in the South. Forty-five minutes outside of Atlanta is Covington, right on the edge of the greater metropolitan area. In many ways, I have lived on a border. There were two Georgias: the white and the black. The western half of my city was closer to the greater Atlanta area. They were mostly blacks. The eastern part of the city was rural, dotted with farms. It was white. With hindsight, it is easy to make these distinctions; in fact, growing up there, the city was just the city. Like the other borders, the communities on either side are much more mixed than they appear. My high school, for example, was roughly half white, half black – a fact that I only recognize in retrospect as I now have few black students in my classes here.
I love where I grew up – all of it. I love my city. I love my condition. I love the South.
But maybe I shouldn’t.
I think of the heritage of the South and all that comes to mind is guilt. I grew up less than an hour from the largest Confederate monument in the country. On the Stone Mountain side is the world’s largest sculptural relief: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis, all nobly depicted on horseback. I went on school trips there in elementary school. Blinded by youthful and scholarly ignorance, I marveled at this truly awe-inspiring sculptural work of art, but only learned about its horrid subject matter later.
I think this conflict between pride and guilt is in what we think – we as a country think – when we say ‘the South’.
The common connotation is that the “South” is made up of rural, racist and poorly educated whites who still cling to an idealized Confederation. These people exist. Not shocking anyone, it turns out that there are racists in the South. To sum up the South to those some, however, is roughly parochial. Stereotypes are harmful not because they are always wrong, but because when you apply stereotypes to people, you take away any semblance of individualism. I feel guilty about the southern stereotype not because it’s totally true, but because we’ve been taught that it’s what the world thinks of us.
Where is room for Southern Pride?
The pride comes from redefining this stereotype. The pride comes from showing the country and the world that we, the South, are not Confederation. The pride comes from people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Ted Turner. I realized that what I’m proud of encompasses what the South is today – and more importantly, what he is in the process of becoming. I feel guilty about our history, I am ashamed of the truth behind these white rural stereotypes. But I’m proud of what I consider to be the New New South. A South where, even in states that constantly try to silence a large portion of their citizens, we can elect Georgia’s first black senator.
Understand that the fight is far from over. These stereotypical racist southerners are here. Systems are still in place to prevent southerners from equal opportunities. While there is room for some pride in the distance we’ve come, we still have a long way to go to reach our maximum potential.
I have hope. Perhaps my position of growing up in white in the south fueled that optimism. Either way, I still can’t shake my pride in the South, my pride in who I believe we are becoming. It’s time to kill these stereotypes. It is time for us to become a truly welcoming region for all.
BRAXTON BUFF is a second year student at Davenport College. Contact him at [email protected].
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