We live in a small town in the southern part of South Carolina. I'm neither proud or ashamed to say that racism is still very much a part of everyday life where we live. I don't think that we really ever thought about racism before we moved here (about 8 years ago, from Pennsylvania). I really only ever had a few occasions to do so. I knew some black people, near as I could tell they were just like white people, just a different skin color. Just like white people: some of them were nice and some of them were jerks, some of them hard working and some lazy, some decent and some criminals. I never really felt like black people treated me differently for being white. Here, it's very different. And sometimes, I can feel myself fighting against becoming a racist.
There is a railroad burm that goes through the middle of our town that separates the black side of town from the white side. Most of the white folks live on one side and most black folks live on the other. Downtown, there is a big Baptist Church with a mostly white congregation and a big Baptist Church with a mostly black congregation, a big Methodist Church with a mostly white congregation and a big Methodist Church with a mostly black congregation. Two Horizons (gas stations) each with two EZ Shops (convenience stores) one frequented by whites and one blacks, a Hardee's, a pizza place, a Piggly Wiggly, a Courthouse, a Bank, the Sherriff's office, a few small businesses and really not much else. Mostly, black people and white people are courteous but cautious of one and other here, but every once in a while there not.
There are no laws here telling people to separate themselves like that, really no overt hate propaganda teaching us to be this way, our kids all go to school together, there's no lynchings, no drive by shootings, we're really too small for groups like BLM or any white supremacy groups to bother with. No one is insisting that the town divide itself like that, but still we just do; black people and white people both just choose to be separate here. There's not a single person here who doesn't know where that line is — "the tracks"... thing of it is: there hasn't been a train in Bamberg for 25 years. "The tracks" are literally gone - physically removed in the 90's, yet still they separate us.
Most of the town is poor. When we first moved here, I had no work. I got a job at the pizza place and my wife got a job at the bank, then later, I got a better job at the Dept. of Transportation (DOT), was trained as an inspector and now have a really good job with a private company that does inspections out of Charleston (90 miles or so away from Bamberg). There were black people in all of those places. As a matter of fact both my supervisor at the DOT and my wife's at the bank were both black people. A year or so after I started at the DOT another guy started there who I'll just call Joe, because, well, his name was Joe. Joe was black, had a family just like me, busted his butt just like me, and eventually found a much better job with a private company - just like me. My point being is that there is no "institutionalized" racism preventing black people from getting a job in Bamberg. There's nothing but crummy jobs, but sometimes a crumby job is what you need to get a foot up. Stil, on any given workday I can drive my truck through the black side of Bamberg and see porch after porch of able bodied people, sitting idol. Now, I realize what a stereotype that is to say, but I can't deny what I see everyday with my own eyes, so don't ask me to, and don't pretend that asking me not to say it is what is going help end racism. I think those people are lazy because the same Hardee's with the same help wanted sign in the window has been in the center of town since I moved here.
The thing is that the topic of racism is far more complicated than "why can't we all just get along", because there are pocket cultures wherein the stereotypes we use to fuel that anger are actually truthfull. There are some bad cops or bad departments of cops who probably don't value the life of a a black person as much as a white person and frankly I understand when a black person says "well I can't tell a bad cop from a good one just by looking at them". Likewise, there are places in this country, in my town, where a white persons fears of a black man, who chooses to look like a thug are in fact justified. Both situations are analogous to when you're hunting in the woods and come up on a snake. In that instant in which you see the snake there is no "oh, that's just a kingsnake (good snake)", or "wow, that's a cotton mouth (bad snake)", in that first instant there is just "Yikes, a snake" and I'm not so sure that it's fair to call that racism. Not all snakes are bad snakes and not all snakes are good snakes, but until you have the chance to figure out what snake you're about to step on, you're probably going to err to the conservative. When it's your children who are about to step on the snake you're probably going to really err to the conservative. Racism is what you choose to do after that. It's a decision you make to kill anything you see in the woods that's not like you using the excuse that some snakes are bad snakes and that doing so is necessary for your survival... and it works both ways. You can usually tell a real racist because the hate comes first. A true racist will use fear to justify their hate whereas others will hate as a result of fear.
About a year and a half ago something happened in South Carolina. A young (white) man by the name of Dylan Roof, walked into a black church in downtown Charleston during a Wednesday night bible study, prayed with some of the congregation, and then stood up and shot nine of those (black) people dead. By that time I was working in Charleston, so I also felt as if I was a part of this community and I can tell you that for a day or so it was like first seeing the snake. Everyone, black and white, just sort of froze in shock about what had just happened and terror about what would happen next. There had just been riots in Baltimore and Fergison and I think most expected the same thing to happen here. Understand, this wasn't some punk kid who had just robbed a convenient store and was trying to take a police man's gun, these were amazing Christians who had gathered in love to study God's word. I can't say as I would blame the black community in Charleston if they would have gone ham on the city, but instead something else happened, the families of the victims got on TV and started talking about forgiveness.
And in an instant, every preconceived notion that I had previously developed living in Bamberg, every fear, every resentment, simply fell away and I felt nothing but sorrow for those families. I think it made a lot of other people,feel the same way, because we didn't ever have any riots. We were just ALL profoundly sad for a few days, all went to church together, all cried together, and then all walked across the Ravenel Bridge together. They say that God can use even the most horrific events to bring about love and I think that's very true because Dylan Roof tried to put a wedge in between the races in Charleston and the result is that we pulled closer together. I can't find it now, but I was reading through this thread the other day and read one post which said that in order for people to come together they need to have a common enemy. I think there is some wisdom in that, because I think it's what happened in Charleston. The enemy was't a race, the devide wasn't between black and white, it was between decent people and evil and most of us realized that there really is only one enemy.
Anyway, I'm sure that's enough out of me. Thank you for allowing me the format to sort this stuff out. (In my own head at least, even if no one else makes it this far)
Oh, one more thing... This is what's happening in Bamberg this week:
Please keep our little town in your prayers because given where we live and that with this incident garnering more and more public attention that we're really just one Bubba getting a snout full and going out looking for country justice away from a race war in downtown Bamberg
