We are all from South Carolina
“South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.”
James L. Petigru, 1860
As a Palmetto State expatriate who grew up in South Carolina public schools singing “We are good sandlappers” each week to the music of SCETV and who gladly returns home often, I am stunned by the horrific deaths at Emanuel AME Church, Charleston. I’ve only been to Mother Emanuel one time, long ago when I was a student at the SC Governor’s School, but I’ve known her place in our state’s history forever.
The deaths of nine people in prayer and study there have gripped our nation. Indeed, we weep that those gathered in the name of love were slaughtered, it appears, because of the color of their skin. The murderer in this case wanted to start what he has allegedly called “a race war.”
In the days since the massacre, there have been many statements. Our president held emotions of sadness and anger in his words, righteous anger in my estimation; he is indeed right in saying he has addressed such evil too many times. Elected officials in the Palmetto State and beyond have denounced the crime. People all over the globe have extended sympathy.
And yet, I have been appalled that so many tweets and posts on social media have instantly turned to diagnosis for South Carolina. South Carolina alone. I too am hopeful that the Confederate flag will be removed from the statehouse grounds there. I remember marching in 2000 for its removal from the capitol rotunda, people yelling and spitting in my face. I too hope that people in South Carolina begin to see the structures that still enslave and divide our fair state’s population.
While Petigru’s statement is just as true today as it was in 1865, we must acknowledge his statement as universal; we are all from South Carolina. I am first to own that my home state has produced characters worthy of Flannery O’Connor’s fiction. We have even elected them for years and sent them to Washington. We have crazy citizens who buy property along the interstate to embarrass us and raise the stars and bars as a symbol of hatred cloaked in words of historically inaccurate heritage (that flag flew in SC from 1962 to 2000 as a protest to integration; not before; fact). But to think that South Carolina has the monopoly on racism and the institutionalized, unacknowledged, systemic degradation of humanity is a part of our American problem.
Racism is not Southern. It is American. We have seen it in Boston and New York, Chicago and San Francisco, from sea to shining sea. “This land is made for you and me” but we have generally looked the other way when racism has required us to confess and turn from our ways.
We must stop pretending. The failure to acknowledge our sin, yes our national sin, puts it in the shadows where it grows and mutates like a virus, empowering hate groups that divide and multiply until the pathogen inflicts destruction. The only way to begin the healing process is to bring our prejudice to the light. Bringing things into the open, into the light of the day, is the only way t0 healing. It will not be quick. There is no powerful antidote that will eradicate the disease overnight like we so desire. But with time, honest time, love has the chance to triumph over evil, to bring reconciliation where darkness has prevailed.
Until we the people, all the people, stop blaming racism on a part of our country, until we demand holistic honesty about it, until we hold accountable those who still peddle racism in their political actions and words, until we look in the mirror and behold the sinner, blaming it on just a flag, just a state down South, just a deranged person, just an anything, we cannot expect change. We cannot expect healing.
South Carolina has a role. I know the depth of her people and the ever-expanding boundaries of their hearts. I know the capacity of people like Mayor Joe Riley of Charleston who can weather any storm, learn, and emerge as stronger, wiser leaders. I know how they love with wild abandon and cross all lines to make a difference.
So be the quirky Southerners people expect. But ask more of them. When people reduce Charleston to its past because they don’t want to look in the mirror, hold one up for them. When they talk about a backward Southern state, be kind but remind them of what happens all across our land.
And Governor Haley, lower that flag because it is the right thing to do. Lady Justice at the SC Supreme Court, across the street from the Statehouse, wants you to. As do your people.
Because yes, Petigru was right. Not just for my home state. For all of us.
While I breathe, I hope. *
*Dum Spiro Spero, the state motto of South Carolina.
