Mississippi, learning

You want to do yourself a favor?  Go pick up a copy of  The Help.  It is the most jolting read I have had since The Bluest Eye.  The author transports you to Mississippi in the 1960s and gives you the most startling, revealing account of race relations I have read.

For some inane reason, I have always been proud of being a  Mississippian.  I have always revered the genteel culture and the fabulous cuisine.  I grew up, in Virginia,  in what was strangely both a homogenous and integrated atmosphere; most of my immediate friends were caucasian, protestants but everyone got along with everyone else.  At Reunion, I was particularly happy to see my African-American friends.  Yet, I idolized the most wretched state in the union.

Mississippi to me is sweltering heat, sweet tea, cicadas, pecan tarts, tennis and cocktail hour.  It's saying Yes Ma'm and dressing up for football games.  It's caramel cake and Tabasco and cotton fields.  And though I have read numerous books by many a great African -American author about the woes and abominations of Mississippi, I could never ignore the fact that Gran was Mississippian and therefore, it must be good.

The Help is a fantastically accurate book about the close and tremulous relationship between black maids and their white employers.  I ache, reading those poignant words about loving little innocent babies and tolerating their racist mommas.  The author nails the inflection, the accent and vividly describes the social strata.  I should say here that it is written by a white woman.

My Mississippi has nothing to do with silver being polished, and country clubs, and monogrammed clothing cast off to the maid.  I don't reflect upon separate bathrooms for different races or the tribulation between choosing between your white mother and your black momma.

Should I?

Yes.  I have been wooed and silenced by the nostalgia.  I have embraced the romanticism and ignored the ugly truth.

I have never asked Gran how she feels about African-Americans.  I know that prior to the last Presidential race, she told me she thought Obama was a man of integrity, an intelligent man and that of all the potential candidates she supported him the most.  Now my Gran is catholic, so I have a hard time believing that she would for a democrat, but I hope.

I cannot picture my Gran spitting on another human being or belittling someone because of the color of their skin; she is a lady.  But is she open-minded?  I don't want to know if she is tolerant; I want to think she is supportive.  I want.

Can I love someone unconditionally if they are bigoted?  Do I want to know if SHE is? I have never heard a prejudiced word from my grandmother; never seen an act that would make me ashamed.  Is that enough?

Black people have been running the state of Mississippi since its inception... raising white babies, chauffeuring white men, picking white peoples' cotton.  However, now Mississippi is being run into the ground.  It is the poorest, least educated state in the nation and yet more Fulbright scholars come from Ole Miss than any other school.

The Help.  I close my eyes and picture Hilda, my grandmother's maid for so many years until she had to go on dialysis.  I picture the beautiful" high yellow" woman who made the best biscuits and sweet tea at my best friend Brooke's plantation.  I know the Help.  Now I know the suffering they went through to make my Mississippi possible.

Would I write this if I had spent all my years in Mississippi?  Would I have the courage, or more importantly, would I have the insight?

I am like an embarrassed teenager shying away from her parents... I love being Southern and yet I am ashamed of what that connotes.