Dixie Dreaming

Growing up in the American South, from an early age I was accustomed to the 'Rebel' mentality. The quaint offerings of misremembered Confederate slogans fed into the subculture of small-town prejudice and violence in the name of Dixie.

The South was still segregated. Movie houses still had separate doors marked Colored which allowed the black kids access to the balcony areas only, while we went in via a large well-lit foyer. Although a small country town, it was large enough to mantain an isolated black community 'over the tracks', also known locally as 'coon town', 'buck town', and other shockingly stereotypical degrogatory epithets.

Everyday, black ladies would make their way from this area into the white community of well-maintained avenues and houses - including ours. My Mother, not long after I was born, went back home to Virginia for a while, a few weeks perhaps. I think now that she may have suffered from post-natal depression. Looking after my sister and me while my Father was at work, a large, loving, black lady came to our house every day. Although I don't remember her name, I was aware even at a young age that this secret army of 'help' was ever-present in our neighbourhoods.

Whether low-key - a Confederate flag hanging outside a store - or something more insistent and sinister - young black men beaten by a gang of whites on Saturday while police looked on, it was difficult to shrug off the sense of cyclical oppression. Even into the early 1970s, a wave of 'New South' music was popular among university students and rednecks alike. Charlie Daniels sang that "The South's gonna do it again", and although it was unclear exactly what "it" might be, there was an unspoken acceptance that the down-home, good-'ole-boy mentality was in the blood of the place.

A brittle, artificial culture allowed my Mother and her friends to treat themselves to expensive lunches at local clubs, while the reaction to clear injustice towards the black community was glossed over in silence.

Many years later, I was in Richmond, Virginia. Along one of the main avenues there stood heroic statues of Confederate leaders. Those who died during the Civil War are depicted facing North, while those who survived into the Southern peace face South.

It may be the case that allowing Northern 'carpetbaggers' and indusrialists into the Southern states post-War en masse, to strip the land and towns of their resources, contributed to the sense of disenfranchisement and a lost generation, the bitterness surrounding which then bled into the next century.

Today, such notions of race and entitlement seem oddly dated. We expect more of ourselves, hoping that we're better than the evidence allows.