White People Behaving Badly, Part 5

Terry Barr
Aug 26, 2017 · 6 min read
Roll Tide Jalen!

When I was a little boy and thought about life in my little boy way, I actually believed that one day, Race wouldn’t matter in the country where I lived. I thought this despite the fact that many of my friends, and I myself when I wanted to be one of my crowd, used the racial epithet “Ni****.” I thought this despite the fact that no black child went to “my” school until I was in the fifth grade, and despite the fact that I did not see a black teacher until I was in the seventh grade.

While I knew that black students and black teachers existed somewhere before they came into my line of sight, they were as tangible in those days as was the planet Pluto. Or even New York City, which I never saw with my own eyes until I was in graduate school.

Are you now, have you ever been…?

So if seeing is believing, I keep asking myself what I have and haven’t seen; what I do and do not believe.

I saw the news footage from Charlottesville, and I read the story in The New York Times today about Charlottesville police not responding when they heard gunshots in the midst of clashing Neo-Nazi’s and counter-protesters; when members of the counter-protest, both black and white, actually begged individual members of the police force to protect them or arrest the Nazi-semi-youth who shot off weapons or used sticks and clubs to beat them. You may read that story for yourself here:

I would say that after reading this story, I didn’t know what to think. But I do, and what I think is pretty much what I’ve been thinking for most of my adult life when, seemingly, I “put aside childish things.”

I’m thinking that I’ll die before a significant percentage of white people believe in their hearts that the two primary races here are truly equal. In all things.

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So I was planning in this column to write about these two people:

Two very white people

They might have been attending a Braves game here, or maybe they’re in Birmingham’s new downtown park watching the Barons. Oh, those days of carefree innocence.

Charli Jones Parker, a former teacher at Pickens Academy in Carrolton, Alabama, was arrested in early 2016 and indicted on 13 counts of a school employee having sex with a (male) student under the age of 19, starting in 2014. Some of these encounters took place at a nearby cemetery, and others took place at Parker’s home.

Parker’s husband, “Jamie” Parker was arrested on similar charges for sexual encounters with a female student a few days after his wife, in early 2016, as he was a coach at the school. At the time of the Parkers’ arrests, authorities said none of the criminal sexual activity occurred at Pickens Academy, and both Charli and Jamie were immediately terminated from the school upon their 2016 arrests.”

I don’t need to explain why this is bad behavior, right?

But here’s the kicker: while Ms. Parker was sentenced to twelve years’ jail time (she’ll only serve three with five years’ probation):

“As we reported earlier this month, however, a judge overturned Alabama’s law governing sex between students and teachers in a separate case, and it’s unclear what bearing that decision may have in this case.”

You can find all of this in this past Tuesday’s Yellowhammer News online. So much for my post-Eclipse high.

I know this stuff happens in states other than Alabama. White people, and others, behave badly everywhere. But as a “Recovering Alabamian,” I find myself reaching for bourbon bottles (Four Roses Single Barrel, clearly not to throw) or searching for that “Andy Griffith” episode where Andy admonishes Helen not to have sex with Opie’s friend Arnold.

When do we start?

And then, because it’s too early for a drink and that “Andy” episode never happened, I read NY Times’ columnist Charles M. Blow’s latest essay:

“Donald Trump, ‘King of Alabama,’”

from which I’ll paste just this one section, and believe me, this isn’t even remotely the most bizarre and deflating section:

“Furthermore, CNN’s KFile reported this week that former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, the leading candidate to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, is a birther who has continuously questioned President Obama’s citizenship, including doing so ‘three months after then-Republican nominee Donald Trump conceded that Obama was born in the U.S. after pushing the racially charged birther conspiracy for years.’”

(Interestingly, Moore was not the candidate Trump supported in the primaries to fill the seat.)

Feelings about Obama’s birth and religion are important because as Philip Klinkner, a Hamilton College professor, wrote in Vox before the election:

“‘You can ask just one simple question to find out whether someone likes Donald Trump more than Hillary Clinton: Is Barack Obama a Muslim? If they are white and the answer is yes, 89 percent of the time that person will have a higher opinion of Trump than Clinton.’”

Alabama, according to Blow, was the state with the highest winning percentage for Trump, which is fine when seen in the abstract (well, not exactly “fine’), but when Alabama’s racial past is taken into that specific context…well, it’s 5:00 somewhere, right?

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One week from today, both Alabama and Auburn, to name just my home state’s major college football programs, will kick off their new seasons. As they do every September, both fan bases fully expect that their team will win this year’s College Football Playoff National Championship (I’ve long-forgotten which corporate sponsor lends its name to the event). This year’s starting quarterback for Alabama is Jalen Hurts, a young black man. Alabama didn’t field a team with any black player on its roster until 1971, you know, the Dark Ages. Alabama did have a black quarterback in the 1980’s and one interspersed among all the white others in periods since that time. So, no racial bias there, despite the fact that up until the 80’s, and who knows how long after, the belief that travelled in most circles — okay, most white circles — was that a black guy wasn’t “brainy” enough to command the most important position on the field. You might not believe that anyone could have ever said, much less thought this, and you don’t have to believe me when I say I heard it about as many times as I heard a good “War Eagle,” (if there is such a thing — JK).

But I did. When I was a child and long after.

I pay good money today to be a member of an Alabama football message board, and last year during the quarterback controversy, I asked, quite strongly, how much of this controversy was about the Race of the quarterbacks, because if you paid close attention, you found that white posters were defending certain white QB’s and black posters were defending Hurts. It wasn’t exclusive, but the tone and some of the words were getting so harsh that I wondered if we were all trolls.

I was such a child that I thought by asking the question directly, I might chasten some of the more hostile posters and cause some of those who had better instincts to face their darker sides.

Instead, I was admonished for bringing Race into the discussion, a discussion that several posters argued “had nothing to do with Race.”

Now, I can’t say what exactly lies in another person’s heart or mind. But I grew up in the “Heart of Dixie” state, and my memory is long. I am not lily-white clean in this regard, and I am also no longer a child.

But in this season of great expectations, my enthusiasm is waning. My outlook, while not dark yet, or even partially eclipsed, is sinking that way.

When I was a child and got into trouble, my mother would look at me and say, “behave yourself.”

Ahhh Mom, if only it were that easy.

)

Terry Barr

Written by

I write about music, lit culture, sports, food, and my Alabama past in One Table One World, MuddyUm, Indelible Ink, Contemplate, inkMend, and The Weekly Knob.

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