Growing Up Sideways In The Straight And Narrow South

[Are_grits_groceries]

Last edited Thu Jun 20, 2013, 04:30 AM - Edit history (1)

(I am reposting this from a couple of years ago. There are many people in the South who aren't Rethugs. They have constantly worked for change and are still working. It isn't easy and never has been. Despite all that has happened and is happening, the work continues.
A lot of people have the same story as mine with their own distinct variations.)

Growing up in the South can be an odd and peculiar experience. You don't realize how odd until you venture into other places and meet other people. When you are kids, you may think everybody has the same experiences. Hell, I know adults who believe that.

Imagine my shock when I found out that people didn't know all the battles of 'The Great Unpleasantness' in order and the bios of all officers. Didn't everybody have a picture of General Robert E. Lee hanging with all the family pictures. We called him Uncle Bobby for years.

Then there was CHURCH. We had to go to church no matter where we were. If I was visiting relatives, we went to their church. We were members of the Methodist Church which is a mild version of faith where I lived. When I would visit, I went to a lot of churches with a variety of styles. I never really connected the fact the that they were all Christian.

For as long as I can remember, I never liked church or any of it's auxiliary activities. I didn't want to be wearing a dress and listening to somebody wail about going to hell if I wasn't good. I figured my place in the Netherworld had been booked for a long time. There wasn't anyway around that. I didn't worry about the afterlife and decided to get my money's worth if I was spending eternity in the tropics.

I wasn't the typical Southern child to say the least. There was a group of five of us who spent a lot of time growing up together, and none of us fit the model of conformity. We got a good dose of church and local mores, but we never quite stayed in line or kept the right step. Our parents tried, but they wondered if we were changelings.

I believe there were 2 major factors that directed our lives away from the norm when we were little. First of all, we got it honest. Several of my aunts, uncles, and other relatives jumped off the beaten path from time to time. Some stayed off of it. So we not only had a variety of role models, but also a streak of independence in our DNA. Our parents would conveniently forget about any of these people.

The second thing that lead us further astray was 'Mad' magazine. There was little or no access to a variety of views growing up. Rocky and Bullwinkle were great teevee models. Mr. Bunny Rabbit on the Captain Kangaroo was a budding rebel. Beyond that, we were on our on.

Our parents did vary from many in that they bought comic books for us, and they assumed that 'Mad' was just a larger type. Little did they know that it was a veritable gold mine for wayward youths. We learned Phd level snark and mockery from 'Mad'. Nothing was sacred, and that was fine with us. That magazine looked at the world sideways, and we adjusted our sight lines accordingly. They stayed that way.

The five of us were a tribe of independents within a culture of lockstep belief. As soon as we got out from under our parents, we never set foot in a church again. We didn't openly rebel earlier at going because it wasn't worth the hassle. We went and listened to the rhetoric and compared it to reality. That honed our sharp view of religion.

Off we have gone in many ways since we were little. None have been on the beaten path. My brother informed me that he was a Druid. I informed him that I could care less, but that Mama might be a twee bit unsettled. And so it goes.

There are many little tribes like this that have grown up down here. Many have lead to people dedicated to change. Some have lead to people such as Stephen Colbert who is dedicated to snark. Some of us are dedicated to both.

It is the Bible Belt, but a belt can only hold up so much.

[HiPointDem]

1. i prefer certain aspects of the south to northern mall-suburbia car culture & 'modernism'.

no less conformist and soul-sucking.

[Half-Century Man]

2. Spent 8(+) years in the south due to MSgt Dad's duty stations

Being jewish in the south in the 60s was interesting. We didn't hold ourselves apart, but were set apart by the locals when we had to live off base.
My 4th grade teacher in Selma Ala. didn't know quite what to do with me. She held me tenderly at arms length, like a was an extremely greasy/ dirty kitten. I got corporal punishment (10 strokes) in Fla cause I went home during school hours, over choir songs I refused to sing.

Mad Magazine was great, so were those buns they served at lunch in school (I remember them from Selma Ala, and Biloxi Mis).

[LuvNewcastle]

5. Y'all were probably better off being set apart.

I had a friend named Jeremy when I was in junior high. We were in band together and we used to hang out and eat lunch together and talk. I was a misfit and Jeremy was a bit of a nerd, so we were a good match as friends.

I knew from our many conversations that Jeremy's family were Jews and they attended the Unitarian church. I didn't know much about Jews or Unitarians. I did know that they weren't Christians, but that was a plus as far as I was concerned. I was already at my wit's end with Christians by then, and it was a relief not to hear someone talk about church.

I don't remember the reason for it, but Jeremy came home with me after school one day. I didn't usually have friends over. I didn't want them to get the 20 questions from my parents. Well, what do you know, one of the first things my mother said to him was, "why don't you come to church with us?" I told her Jeremy was Jewish and she said, "so, he can still go to church." I don't know why my mother did that. I swear, religion to her was like a product that she was always trying to sell to everybody. She had never embarrassed me so much in front of my friends, and I got Jeremy the hell out of there.

I apologized to him over and over after we left. He was really cool about it. He told me to forget about it. He got a lot of respect from me after that.

We eventually moved away from there and I changed schools. I lost track of Jeremy, but I think about him every now and then. I hope the Baptists didn't get him.

[madokie]

3. How I became an atheist

Growing up I was raised in the southern Babtist Church. I remember once asking my dad if it was ok if I went to church with my new friends. He said son you are free to go to any church you want to go too but I'm here to tell you you won't like it. It being Church of God. I accepted the invite and away we go to my friends church. Every thing was fine, some pretty girls I'd not met yet yada yada and the sermon was pretty much what I was used to, hell fire and brimstone and all that. The singing was pretty much the same but when my friends mother started talking in what later I was informed was 'talking in tongues' or some such, anyways and the Preacher pulled off his shoe and started the wailing and beating on the pulpit with his shoe and 'talking in tongues' I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I was just a kid mind you and I ran back home. When I got home my dad said, I told you so. At the Baptist church the message always was that if you weren't Baptist you were going to hell and at the friends church the message was the same if you didn't belong to that church you were going to hell. So I lost my religion right then and there, been atheist ever since. Don't bother with with a sermon as I won't listen. Done heard all that I care to hear.

[carolinayellowdog]

4. "many little tribes"-- almost white and almost southern

I had thought of an OP on this subject, after the most demoralizing day ever at DU. Hatemongering based on regional and racial polarization seems to come in cycles. For someone who identifies as neither white nor black, southern nor northern, it is very hard to endure abuse based on misunderstandings coming from multiple directions. Won't be posting any more about any of this, since the process seems driven by griefers with nasty ulterior motives for stereotyping and scapegoating. But did want to comment on yours in relation to a presentation I'm working on for the annual Melungeon Union coming up next week. Many people have heard of Melungeons, but the Brass Ankles and Turks, Moors and Nanticokes, Cubans and Portuguese etc. etc. occupy the same racial no-man's-land. Your part of SC is near the "Smilings" I think. Here's a list I made showing the distribution of triracial isolate groups across the south and east, by county:

120 counties, 17 states:

34 Virginia counties and 3 cities: Albemarle, Allegheny, Amherst, Augusta, Bedford, Campbell, Caroline, Charles City, Elizabeth City (now city of Hampton), Essex, Fauquier, Greene, Halifax, Henrico, King and Queen, Henrico, Lancaster, Lee, New Kent, Newport News city, Norfolk (now city of Chesapeake), Patrick, Portsmouth City, Prince William, Richmond City, Roanoke, Rockbridge, Rockingham, Russell, Scott, Smyth, Tazewell, Washington, Westmoreland, Washington, Wise. (Melungeons, “Issues,” Pamunkey, Mattaponi, Cubans/Saponi, many others)

17 North Carolina counties: Alleghany, Ashe, Stokes, Surry (Melungeons), Bertie (Pell Mellers, Indian Woods), Cumberland, Hoke, Robeson, Scotland (Lumbee), Hertford (Winton Triangle), Northampton (Portuguese), Person (Cuban/Sapony), Rockingham (Goinstown Indians) , Franklin, Halifax, Nash,Warren (Haliwa-Saponi)

15 West Virginia counties: Barbour, Braxton, Grant, Hampshire, Marion, Monogahela, Preston, Randolph, Taylor, Tucker (Guineas/Chestnut Ridge People); Boone, Lincoln, Logan, McDowell, Wayne (Melungeons, Ramps)

7 South Carolina counties: Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton, Dorchester,Orangeburg, Sumter, Williamsburg (Brass Ankles, Turks, Smilings)

6 Texas counties: Angelina, Jefferson, Madison, Nacogdoches, Orange, Trinity, (Redbones)

6 Tennessee counties: Claiborne, Grainger, Hamilton, Hancock, Hawkins, Rhea (Melungeons)
6 Alabama counties: Clark, Mobile, Washington (Cajans), Jackson (Melungeons), Tombigbee, Tuscaloosa
6 Louisiana parishes: Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Rapides, Sabine, Vernon (Redbones)

5 Kentucky counties: Floyd, Harlan, Knott, Letcher, Magoffin (Melungeons)

4 Ohio counties: Darke, Highland, Shelby, Vinton (Carmel Indians, Melungeons)
4 Mississippi counties: Claiborne, Hines, Jackson, Natchez, Warren (Creoles

2 Florida counties: Holmes (Dominickers), Jackson (Cheraws)
2 Delaware counties: Kent, Sussex (Moors and Nanticokes)
2 Maryland counties: Charles (Wesorts), Garrett (Guineas/Chestnut Ridge People)
2 New Jersey counties: Bergen, Passaic (Jackson Whites/Ramapo Mountain People)

1 Pennsylvania county: Clinton (Keating Mountain Group)
1 New York county: Rockland (Jackson Whites/Ramapo Mountain People))

I feel a greater sense of kinship with any descendant of these groups than with people whose taken-for-granted sense of whiteness or blackness, northernness or southernness enables them to play divisive games at others' expense. Triracial isolate communities almost always ended up disdained by everyone else, marginalized and ridiculed. They had more in common with one another across vast distances, and despite being entirely ignorant of one another, than they did with their white and black neighbors. Descendants of these groups are in my experience the most receptive to understanding the nuances of race in US history. (With the unfortunate exception of some of the Indian-identified groups who are not receptive to embracing their European and African ancestry on equal terms as their Native American ancestry-- but who can blame then in light of the racial polarization surrounding their communities?)