White people must oppose those who preach hate

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Albany Herald, EDITOR'S PICK - Aug 18, 2017 

https://goo.gl/fyVgn4   

I grew up in the segregated south to a poor family — but a family favored with what has come to be known as the power of whiteness.

My dad’s family goes back generations in south Alabama and the Florida panhandle. They probably even owned slaves. But, I can’t turn back the clock and undo the past.

Slavery was an abomination that ended in the United States 150 years ago. What really makes me sad is that we Southern whites found a way to keep slavery alive for another hundred years. I saw the evidence with my own eyes. I remember the “colored” restrooms and drinking fountains, and the “white only” waiting rooms and country clubs. It makes me uncomfortable to remember that it took heroic effort and bravery for African Americans to earn the rights that a free people should have had all along.

So, what heritage am I, as a white Southerner, allowed to be proud of?

I am proud of the people, both black and white, of my generation and older who are able to put all of that behind them and work together in friendship and brotherly love.

I am proud of a Southern heritage of politeness where we say hello to strangers on the street and we teach our youngsters to say “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir” to their elders.

I love it that we make Northerners uncomfortable when we move in for a hug.

And I am proud of my parent who in the 1970s, when the schools in St. Petersburg, Fla., were integrating, sent my younger brother to a high school that had been all-black for generations. While the rest of the white community was huffing in indignation, my parents had the courage to stand up to the “white-flight” that caused others to flee to the suburbs.

My brother was an athlete who excelled at football and basketball. He was the only white player on the football and basketball teams his junior year. That meant my parents were the only white faces in the stands.

I can be proud of my Southern heritage without being proud of everything my ancestors did. But my Southern heritage is complicated. It is a heritage of white folks versus black folks, and a heritage of Southern gentility alongside the ugliness of racism.

I can’t change who I am – a white, Southern male – and I can’t change the past, but I don’t need a Confederate battle flag or the statue of a Confederate general to remind me of who I am.

I know there are plenty of good, decent white people who are appalled by the message of the Neo-Nazis and white supremacists. But this issue is not going to be resolved by more marches and sit-ins by people of color. This particular brand of evil needs to be squashed by white people standing up to other white people and telling them they don’t speak for us.

As for me, I’ll write about it. I’ll shout about it. And, if need be, I’ll stand up against those who preach hatred. It just makes me sad that nearly 50 years after the death of Martin Luther King, we are still having this conversation. “Make America Great Again” rings kind of hollow right about now.