I must apologize to y’all for jumping right into content here without properly introducing myself and explaining why I created this space – Hey White Folks! In the words of Blanche Devereaux, that was very un-Southern of me.
My name is Janey and I am a cis Woman of a Certain Age who is old enough to either be your sister or your favorite aunt (I will never be old enough to be your mother.) I am a mama, wife, sister, daughter, auntie, cousin and friend. My kiddo is developmentally disabled and is a loud, happy, teenaged troubadour who never met a stranger but is not pleased that he cannot go to school right now. Neither of us are pleased about this. THANKS, COVID. (We are sequestering tightly at home because this virus doesn't play and neither do I when it comes to my family's health.) I am in the process of letting my hair go gray. Right now, I appear to be a slovenly Cruella de Ville without the furs and vile attitude. My idea of camping is no room service after 10 pm. Quarantine has allowed me to participate in my most favorite home activity of Not Wearing Pants. And I love cheeseburgers more than any other food item (rare, with grilled onions, side of fries and a cold Bud Lite.)
And I have privilege.
I am a second generation native Floridian, third generation University of Florida graduate, faithful Tampa Bay Rays supporter and franchise-long ride-or-die Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan. That should lead you to deduce I’m patient, long-suffering and have a high tolerance for pain and disappointment. I still cannot believe that Brady and Gronk are on My Team. My love for sports is only matched by my love for the theatre. I can be a Drama Queen in the best sense of the phrase. If music (and theatre) be the food of love, play on.
(By the way, I have privilege.)
I also am a budding genealogist. I come from a very long line of Americans on two of my four ancestral lines. I am of the South – my earliest ancestors arrived in this country before the American Revolution and settled in North Carolina. I also am somewhat of the North, with kin coming to both Massachusetts and what would become New York State. However, my heritage is overwhelmingly Southern. My people fought in every single war in which our country was a participant, from the French & Indian War through World War II. I might have kin who came over on the Mayflower (yet to be 100 percent confirmed.) The Janey Ancestors have been on this soil a long, long time.
You betcha they had privilege.
And yes. I have people who fought in the Civil War. On the side of the Confederacy.
Also. I have ancestors who were slave owners. Note the plural: more than one.
They had privilege. BIG TIME.
Does this upset me? Yes. Every time I see, in my genealogical research, that property inventory of said ancestor(s) with people – Black people – listed on it, I literally get sick to my stomach. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that people – the same ones made in the image of God just like you and I are, as told to me by the Bible – were considered property, same as the cows in the field and the silver in the pantry.
Do I feel guilty about this? Honestly, it’s more shame than guilt. This happened decades and decades before I was born. There’s nothing I can do about it specifically because you cannot change history. But it does bother me deeply. I once had someone tell me that I shouldn’t be dismayed by this because “It meant your relatives had money! Isn’t that great?”
Shut it and take a seat, BOB.
Am I embarrassed to talk about it? A bit. But like with so many issues today, talking about things that are shameful brings them out into the sunlight where they can be seen for what they truly are. And this one is reprehensible. It’s also reprehensible that we are still talking about basically the same issue – Black Lives Matter – over 150 years later, albeit with some difference nuances and circumstances.
It’s complicated, being a proud daughter of the South these days. I love knowing that I have cast-iron skillets that are generations-old. I love the sound of a frog chorus crooning in a cypress-laden swamp. The scent of boxwood in Virginia (it just smells different to me there) or orange blossoms in my native, crazy Florida. Having sorority sisters who, even after all these years, relish in your shared history and still know how to make you laugh. Understanding how to set a proper dinner table, right down to where the silverware is placed for multiple courses.
Deeming Duke’s as the only acceptable mayonnaise – I will fight you over this. Being a member of the Junior League and believing in the purpose of the organization so much that I became its President. Having manners, even if I don’t always deploy them (Yeah. I know. I swear a lot. Shhhh.) Keeping my string of pearls in my jewelry box to wear on proper occasions. Knowing all 178 verses of “Just As I Am” from the Baptist hymnal and wanting every last one of them sung at my funeral. Having a list of Important Things: God, Family, SEC Football. In that order. Although that’s always subject to change depending on what’s going on with the Gators.
But. These precious-to-me things have one thing in common: they have the indelible fingerprints of white privilege all over them. Granted, some more than others, but all can be lumped in the Privilege Pile in some fashion. And that’s more than a bit disconcerting to me. Pride + Shame = being a progressive Southerner.
There’s a publication/community I follow on social media and via its website called “The Bitter Southerner.” Here’s a synopsis that sums up what I want to say pretty succinctly:
–– You see, the South is a curiosity to people who aren’t from here. Always has been. Open up your copy of Faulkner’s 1936 masterpiece, “Absalom, Absalom!” Find the spot where Quentin Compson’s puzzled Canadian roommate at Harvard says to him, “Tell about the South. What it’s like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”
It always comes down to that last bit: With all our baggage, how do we live at all? A lot of people in the world believe that most folks in the South are just dumb. Or backward. Just not worth their attention.
And you know what? If you live down here, sometimes you look around and think, “Those folks are right.” We do have people here who will argue, in all sincerity, that the Confederacy entered the Civil War only to defend the concept of states’ rights and that secession had nothing to do with the desire to keep slavery alive. We still become a national laughing stock because some small town somewhere has not figured out how to hold a high school prom that includes kids of all races.
If you are a person who buys the states’ rights argument … or you fly the rebel flag in your front yard … or you still think women look really nice in hoop skirts, we politely suggest you find other amusements on the web.
According to Tracy Thompson’s brilliant “The New Mind of the South,” it’s been only two decades since Southern kids stopped learning history from censored textbooks, which uniformly glossed over our region’s terrible racial history. Even today, kids are studying texts that Thompson rightfully labels “milquetoast” in their treatment of Southern history.
And recent election results suggest that the Southern mind hasn’t evolved much, that we’re not much different from what we were in 1936, when Faulkner was struggling yet again with the moral weirdness of the South. Almost 80 years later, it’s still too damned easy for folks to draw the conclusion that we Southerners are hopelessly bound to tradition, too resistant to change.
But there is another South, the one that we know: a South that is full of people who do things that honor genuinely honorable traditions. Drinking. Cooking. Reading. Writing. Singing. Playing. Making things. It's also full of people who face our region's contradictions and are determined to throw our dishonorable traditions out the window.
Still, the tension — the strain between pride and shame, that eternal duality of the Southern thing — remains. Lord knows, most folks outside the South believe — and rightly so — that most Southerners are kicking and screaming to keep the old South old. But many others, through the simple dignity of their work, are changing things. ––
*raises hand* It me. I'm the one wrastlin' with this.
If you are a person who buys the states’ rights argument … or you fly the rebel flag in your front yard … or you still think women look really nice in hoop skirts, we politely suggest you find other amusements on the web.
According to Tracy Thompson’s brilliant “The New Mind of the South,” it’s been only two decades since Southern kids stopped learning history from censored textbooks, which uniformly glossed over our region’s terrible racial history. Even today, kids are studying texts that Thompson rightfully labels “milquetoast” in their treatment of Southern history.
And recent election results suggest that the Southern mind hasn’t evolved much, that we’re not much different from what we were in 1936, when Faulkner was struggling yet again with the moral weirdness of the South. Almost 80 years later, it’s still too damned easy for folks to draw the conclusion that we Southerners are hopelessly bound to tradition, too resistant to change.
But there is another South, the one that we know: a South that is full of people who do things that honor genuinely honorable traditions. Drinking. Cooking. Reading. Writing. Singing. Playing. Making things. It's also full of people who face our region's contradictions and are determined to throw our dishonorable traditions out the window.
Still, the tension — the strain between pride and shame, that eternal duality of the Southern thing — remains. Lord knows, most folks outside the South believe — and rightly so — that most Southerners are kicking and screaming to keep the old South old. But many others, through the simple dignity of their work, are changing things. ––
“The strain between pride and shame.”
The South is weird (Florida brings a lot of this to the Southern table but I digress) and I try to reconcile this conundrum between pride and shame on a regular basis. So many contradictions.
I am striving to be one of those Southerners who is changing things, even just a little bit. Not for ego. Not for pride. Not for accolades. But because it’s simply the right thing to do. The right thing to do.
The right thing to do.
November 9th, 2016. One of the darkest days of my lifetime. That was the day after the 2016 election. I stayed awake all night, crying. Partly because HRC had lost; mostly because I had a feeling this country was in for some horrific, turbulent times ahead.
I knew. But. I had no idea how horrible those times would be. Couldn’t even fathom the depths of crassness and graft and lies and racism and horror we'd experience. And here we are.
On that day, November 9th, 2016, I decided that I never ever wanted to feel that way again and vowed to do everything in my power to make sure that happened. My AHA! moment, if you will.
I immediately got involved with a grassroots local activist group that became part of the Indivisible movement. I’ve worked with it for the past three-and-a-half years, most often behind-the-scenes on the Steering Committee as our organization’s Administrator and graphic designer/writer. I gladly do this, as it's been a great outlet for my righteous indignation. And I've had the bonus of making some terrific friends that I adore whom I might never had met.
I, like most folks with compassion and heart, was upset and outraged when I first heard about George Floyd’s murder and the circumstances surrounding it. I began to ponder what White Me could do to help this centuries-long situation.
And then I learned that in his final moments, he called out for his mama.
And then I learned that in his final moments, he called out for his mama.
That did it. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. My protective instinct went into overdrive. That man wanted his (late) mama. And this mommy (what my kiddo calls me) could no longer be timid or a voyeur. I needed to amplify my voice even more. And I have a big old bullhorn in these vocal cords. Along with no more effs to give about offending people.
Serendipitously, a number of my white friends were having their own AHA! moments. And wanting to know and learn how they could help. They too felt they could no longer be silent.
This was my Do Something. I could help other white people shape their AHA! moments by providing some guidance and access to a whole lot of resources on how to be white advocates.
I’m not an expert on privilege, bias, racism and other similar issues. But I have had a good amount of training, thanks to my activist group. I read a lot… boy, do I read a lot. Got a knack for writing fairly OK. And a fine-tuned empathetic intuition.
And that is how this site came to be.
It’s a place for learning.
A stop for resources created by experts and wise people.
A spot to have provocative conversations.
A spot to have provocative conversations.
A safe space to ask questions.
And when the time is right, it will be a vehicle for action, whatever that may be.
IMPORTANT: This is not the time to ask Black folks for suggestions or advice on what to do. They are exhausted, having done the heavy lifting on racism for centuries. We white folks need to take responsibility and educate ourselves. Another reason I put this joint together.
I’m absorbing stuff while I do research. #AlwaysLearning. But I do have a bit of a head start because of my involvement in advocacy work during this insane political environment (one reason I’m letting my hair go gray – can’t keep up with the coloring because it’s turning more silver every time That Man opens his mouth or publishes a tweet. Don’t get me started on the circles under my eyes…)
I’ve gained more knowledge than you can imagine these last three plus years. I’ve taken training classes about racism and bias. Participated in privilege walks. Been rightly chastised by Black people when I naively and innocently step in it. And bit by bit I have gotten tougher and more resolved -- not toting around as much white fragility as I used to (pardon the grammar.) I’m not the same person – in a good way – I was in November 2016. And I want to share what I’ve learned with y’all - pay it forward, if you will.
If you made it through this wordy tome, thank you. I thought it was important for you to know who the heck I am, what my experience has been and why Hey White Folks! came to be.
And if y’all stick around after all this, many thanks from the bottom of my heart.
Friend -- let’s get after it.
PS: As always, BLACK LIVES MATTER.
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