Yankee Go Home: Saturday Political Soap Box 215

Go back to where you came from.

Send her back.

Love it or leave it.

I cannot fathom how devastating these phrases must be to people of color in the United States.  Since our racist President and his howling band of Trumpeteers have taken up this cry, the stories of  African-Americans, Hispanics, immigrants, and naturalized citizens, who have to endure this awful slur is legion. 

Not all who are given these ugly threats are new citizens.  African-Americans and Hispanics whose ancestry trace back hundreds of years, many of them having family that traces back much longer than those hurling the insults at them.

I cannot say that what I've experienced, as a white person whose American roots trace back 13 generations, is on the same level of the vileness that many people of color have had to endure.  At the same time, I cannot say that I am not unfamiliar with the words expressed above.

Why would anyone say these things to me?

Because I am a Yankee living in the South.  I have not been told I should go to another country, but I have been told to go back to the northern United States.

The phrases above, or their close approximates, have been expressed to me over the years.

I have lived in the State of Georgia since 1978.  That may be longer than some of the Georgia residents who read this.  Some of you have experienced this.  Some of you probably haven't.

I am more fortunate than a person of color in that I can blend in with the white culture if I want to.  It is not apparent by my skin tone that I am a Yankee.  I can speak with a South Georgia accent if I want to.  No one would know.

There are many Yankees here who have blended very well, thank you very much.  Within one or two generations, they become accepted, and sometimes their families even join the clique of families that dominate the rural Georgia town they might live in.

This only works if you accept Southern culture without any question.

But -

I don't always conform my accent to those around me.

I don't hunt or fish.

I don't go to a large Christian right church.

And most importantly, I have not adopted the dominant politics of the area.

I don't think the Confederate flag is a proper thing to display.  To me, it represents slavery and oppression, and a traitorous rebellion against the United States of America.  I don't think it represents the best of the South.  There are good instincts in the South, progressive and caring Southerners can be found, even looking at the South historically, and the Confederacy represents a rejection of the good things the South is capable of.

I have been told that since I wasn't born in the South, I have no right to an opinion on this issue.  Living here over 40 years now, and raising three sons here, is not enough.

I don't vote for the same people my peers vote for.  Even among the handful of Democrats here, my choices stand out.  In the last Democratic primary in 2016, in which only about 15% of Pierce Countians voted on the Democratic side, only about 30% of those voted for my choice, Bernie Sanders, and 70% voted for Hillary Clinton.  I was a minority of a minority.

I don't go to the conservative megachurches.  I am a devout Christian, but I am a progressive, left-leaning Christian.  There may be only one or two predominantly white churches in the area that are even open to the Christian Left.

I love the South.  I love the people (minus the politics), and see a lot of promise in the future direction of the South.  I love the food (too much), and I've always felt the people are more warm and open than where I grew up in Michigan.  And, if you read the history carefully, there have been progressive impulses in the South, even if they haven't always been the prevalent ones.

Everything is fine.  Unless you express an opinion that the white majority doesn't like.  Then it's "Well if you don't like it here, why don't you go back where you came from?"

Do I agree with every word and opinion uttered by the four Congresswoman that the President has so monstrously and shamelessly vilified?  No, I don't.  I'm not 100% aligned with any politician (although Elizabeth Warren comes close). 

What I do believe is that these women all love this country deeply.  They love it enough to put themselves on the line, serve our country as duly elected Congressional representatives, and fight to help this country live up to its ideals and become better.

The idea that you have to fall in line with our racist President to be considered American is ludicrous, and as about as anti-American of a notion as you can get.

We all have a right to be here.  America wouldn't be America without us.  America's strength is in diversity, not hate.  We are a colorful patchwork, united by our constitution, our sense of civic worth, our participation in the Great Democratic experiment.  It is not in the dominance in one culture, and a my way or the highway attitude if you don't conform.

Ironically, my opinions and ideas were not necessarily mainstream when I lived in rural Michigan.  There were many in my hometown whose beliefs on many issues were close to what I've experienced in the South.  But they didn't tell me to go back where I came from.  You'd have to go back to 1600 or so and to Wales.

Like the Congresswomen, referred to as The Squad, I love this country, all of it, South included, and I will fight to make it a better place. 

Aerica is not perfection.  We wouldn't have for President whom we have if it were.  But it is a blueprint, a progression to follow, a dream to pursue, a hope to achieve.

And that Squad? The Squad struggling to achieve those American dreams?

Count me in.