Growing Up Southern

 I'm a southern boy and more recently city slicker, having lived my life by thirds in Central Florida, Atlanta, and Southern California. People are mostly the same everywhere, but regional differences do exist.

I grew up in central Florida, a land dotted with lakes and rivers, horse farms, and some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. This is in stark contrast to the distorted image of a Florida separate from the deep south... presumably impressions of those who might have visited their grandparents who had relocated to Miami from points northward. This is the Florida of the Barefoot Mailman, The Yearling, Cross Creek, Hemingway's To Have and Have Not and John MacDonald stories.

Circumstances surrounding my upbringing, a domestic ironing clothes to the sounds of her favorite radio station, had it that I was exposed to Southern Black Gospel Music for hours per day from age 0-2 years. No, my parents were not poor white sharecroppers. Dad was a liberal southern lawyer a la Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird. I suppose that affected me, sort of like the imprinting by which a baby chick thinks the first thing it sees after hatching is the momma hen. Even today, I hear that Gospel Music and start twitching uncontrollably all over, raising my hands to the sky in a cross between calisthenics and the hokey-pokey, like some devil-possessed Pentecostal....and make no apologies for it. My tastes have since become more eclectic, but I still love that MoTown sound.

People tend to overlook the exceptional aspects of their upbringing until time bears it out. I'm no different so from this point in my life looking back two things stand out. We could go barefoot 9-10 months a year and the society of the day was segregated. There's that for sure but there is so much more.

There's the sacrosanct triumvirate of preacher, football coach and politician. There's a society that was, up to a point, primarily agrarian, acutely aware of its lack of sophistication, and respectful of cultural lines dividing black from white, educated from uneducated and working class from their betters. There is an unquestionable grace, gentility and kindness against a backdrop of intransigent, stalwart reliance on the social structure as it has been for as long as can be remembered. And there's a viciously mean streak that bubbles to the surface in response to threats to this social order.

While these aspects of southern society might explain a lot one can only go back so far, and since I'm the one doing the writing here we'll start with the world as I came to know it...as it was upon my entry into it. When YOU write it can be all about you but until then it's the SFG show.

Despite already having some sense of race and what either did or did not come with it, what is a child of 6 to make of the tv images of marching blacks being attacked by dogs, doused with fire hoses and clubbed by policemen for no more provocation than walking down the street together? There was always that nebulous accusation of "uppity" I suppose. Some sense gets provoked, either a sympathetic response or presumption of guilt to the extent of some faith that life is fair, that people get what they deserve and that if the nice white policeman was beating them they must have done something wrong. And so it was, that a fork in perceptions might occur at such an early age as to lay the foundation for later life and in one case a hurtful bigotry that spares neither the perpetrator nor the recipient.

But please, before one is consumed by stereotypes as ridiculously ignorant as the crude Hollywood attempts at replicating southern accents for the silver screen consider that this is human nature and definitely not confined to the south. Soon after my arrival in Los Angeles, that hotbed of liberalism, I witnessed the closet racism of supposedly progressive people who complained about "my lazy Mexicans who I practically need to whip to get them to do any work." Generalizations can be risky to make when it comes to individuals.

I saw the tail end of overt racist symbols such as "Whites only" signs, expensive, ornate KKK robes like the one my neighbor found in his deceased grandfather's attic and inequities that assaulted the sense of fairness of anyone who might fleetingly imagine walking in the other's shoes -- disparities in medical care, education, employment opportunity, representation in government, community infrastructure and much more.

Despite the awareness that life was not so great for some, my life was idyllic. There were acres of woods right out the back door, a free-roaming dog to greet me upon return from school and horses to ride. No self respecting kid except for some emotionally stunted momma's boy would be caught playing indoors with such a wonderful, awe-inspiring playground outside. Tree climbing, cave spelunking, swimming hole loving kids all to themselves until after dark when either force or hunger propelled them homeward. In my case it was a ringing bell the translation of which was "get your ass home, NOW!!!" much to the frustration of my playmates, given its similarity to the ice cream man's bell. I went home and all the other kids ran outside with nickel in hand, cruel joke that it was.

I distinctly remember being in the car at age 4 with my 3 year old sister when our Mom pulled into Lavinia Washington's dirt driveway to pay her for the weeks work she did as a domestic. Her kids were playing outside and we'd been given strict orders to STAY IN THE CAR. I cannot explain why some things get etched into memory and others do not but I remember an awkwardness and a desire to strike up a meaningful conversation by observing "Y'all sure do have nice suntans." I cringe at the memory but laugh at the innocence. In our little white world we'd known that we got darker in the sun so upon encountering kids so dark we figured they'd done some serious time in the sun.

Years later my father found himself doing some legal work for a black doctor. He took me with him into the medical office where my sense of justice was provoked in the cruelest of ways. The examining room was open to the rest of the office and consisted of a single wooden table for the patient without that nice sanitary paper that would be pulled down to cover the table for each new patient. There was no autoclave for sterilization of equipment. Everything was shabby and in disrepair. That gave way to a pervasive sadness on that day as, once and for all, the realization set in that life was not so wonderful, that not everyone's parents were able to give them what mine did and that this seemed to be OK with some. That day marked my eviction from the garden and for some time life seemed cold, gray and cruel as I continued to gnaw on what I'd seen.

Kindergarten through grade 6 were spent in a church school, not so much for racial reasons but because of the small classes and superior education. Luckily I stockpiled enough time in church at a rate of 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, 39 weeks a year, for 7 years to absolve me of further religious obligations. At least that's what I told myself whenever my older driving age friends took me surfing with them on Sundays to avoid the monotonous drive without someone available for conversation.

Finally, at age 12 I entered the real world and community-at-large as afforded by the public school system. There were my friends who'd been more or less chosen for me by virtue of church, school classes of size 15, and parent's social network. There were kids from outlying ranches and farms. There were the black kids who walked from the westside shantytown we passed through on our way to football games, the field with wooden bleachers being located squarely within the borders of the black community or "niggertown" as it was known to some.

The "N" word was never spoken in our home and I often wonder whether it contributed to the way I took the world in and the basic presumption of "goodness until proven otherwise" that I found myself extending to all types of people. On the other hand it might have something to do with the fact that, had I used it, I would have been slapped silly. The legacy of my parents was not a bad one.




In 9th grade I began to notice this inexplicable condescension by some white friends towards the blacks and to a lesser degree the bussed-in country kids. Profligate use of the word "nigger", crude jokes about a stench that had no basis in reality and more stupid jokes about a driving point system based on size and weight of blacks as targets...the kinds of things that would have earned me a thrashing had I shown the slightest sign of them at home. It was the day of Woodstock, Black Panthers, Abbie Hoffman, and Gil Scott-Heron...something stirring in both black and white cultures.

As if the quest for one's own identity wasn't hard enough already the labels and identifications became even more complicated. For whites long hair and bell bottoms were the order of the day...if you were a hippy. The brothers sprouted 'fros and the 'fros held their pics. They also wore these black nylon tank tops which were good for the classroom and PE.

One bright, sunny, spring day I'd forgotten my T-shirt and risked a lower grade in PE if I didn't think up something quickly. My brother from another mother, Leroy Fulton, noticed my predicament and offered me this extra black nylon tank top to wear so I took him up on it, thanking him. You'd have thought I'd sold the commies all our nuclear missile silo coordinates...the disbelief, the incredulity, the complete and total confidence by many that I had lost all my marbles and gone over to the dark side, pun unintentional. This unfathomable betrayal rattled many to the core. I found their utterly profound sense of betrayal all-at-once telling and humorous but did not crack a smile. Inside I was laughing at them and most definitely not with them.


Leroy and the brothers took the top row of the bleachers in the gym for roll call. I entered the noisy gym a little late from the locker room and by the second step you could have heard a pin drop. The brothers were grinning ear to ear, enjoying every second of the spectacle they knew was about to unfold. After all life had already instilled in them this sixth sense for things of this nature.

Stevie hissed demandingly at barely audible volume "What the hell are you wearing that for?"

The progeny of white society looked on smugly stone-faced, waiting on the answer they thought they deserved, solidly lined up behind Stevie their spokesman.

From the peanut gallery came the stream of inanities as I caught Leroy's gleeful grin out of the corner of my eye and returned one of my own, albeit somewhat muted.

"Hehe, I think his whitewash might be starting to come off!"

"You'll never get the stink off you"

"I'll be just fine" I replied without a hint of worry and proceeded to play basketball until class was over.

Back in the locker room I found Leroy and returned his tank top meeting his gaze in what could only be described as one of admiration and mutual respect. That day one friendship grew deeper, others faded, and I gained a sense of the world that I wanted to live in as well as the means to secure it.