Learned some things in Alabama today....

After my first visit to Birmingham in almost exactly a half century, I am very pleasantly surprised.  I always thought of Alabama as the last bastion of willful ignorance, racism, nationalism, etc.  Yes, they were technically southerners, but displayed none of the gentility I tend to associate with “true” Southerners.  I was wrong.  Like the rest of the South (and the reason I prefer a Southern racist to a northern one), Alabama appears to have dealt with its ugly history of racism.  Has it resolved issues of race?  Of course not, but it has acknowledged the racial terrorism in its past, which is more than most of America does.

Interactions with people were most interesting for me.  I can’t go anywhere directly, and as I wandered around on the way to Selma, I found myself on beautiful backroads, with majestic trees – that would have been great for hanging people.  You could go for miles and not see another car; while I enjoyed it, I was not unaware of the fact that a knucklehead could see me, run me off the road, and disappear me without leaving a trace.  My interactions with people were the exact opposite of that.  I did not meet a single person who did not address me as “Ma’am” (because we’re in the south, not because of my age), and because it’s the South, everybody stopped and made pleasant conversation.  It wasn’t the gruff assembly line interactions you get in NYC.  At one point, as I’m explaining to a woman that I don’t want to buy another battery pack because I have a solar one in the hotel, but the heat is wacking out my battery and I’m concerned I may not make it to Selma, blah, blah, blah – she asks where I’m coming from, I tell her NYC, and her face lit up like a Christmas tree as she told me how she and her husband went there a year ago this week, and how they loved Central Park.  As she’s telling me this, another lady is waiting to tell me about how she went with her son when he was eight (he looks to be a teenager now), and how they had to evacuate the Statue of Liberty for a bomb threat, and how it made the news… Later on I saw a woman with a family, including a young boy with a shirt that said “I can do all things..” I asked if he knew that was part of a Bible verse, and she told me that yes, he knew.  The kid is a big fan of Steph Curry and a big fan of the Bible.  We had a long convo about my friend who idolizes Curry, waited all day for the chance to do one of those half-court contests, MADE the basket, and got to celebrate with Curry!  Then we talked about the young boy and how he’d had some health challenges, had gone through treatment, and she’d gotten him the shirt at the end of treatment.  We also talked about kids, helicopter parenting, the advantages of juicy versus crisp burgers, and the various chain restaurants in Indiana and Kentucy (where she’s from), NYC, and Alabama.

So the people are cool, but the history is amazing.  You fly into Shuttlesworth Airport.  I had no idea who Rev. Shuttlesworth was, but he was an original SJW, and Birmingham has named its Airport after him!! As I sat out to go to Selma, my offline nav system wasn’t updated for the ongoing construction, so as I was driving around in circles, I stopped at the 16^th Street Baptist Church. The City and the State have a long history of civil rights, both abusing them and protecting them. No one is perfect, but what I’ve seen in Birmingham shows a city doing what I thought only my progressive college-centric hometown would do:  confront their past, acknowledge its strengths and weaknesses, build on the former, and eradicate the latter.

Now, one of my profesors share an article about kids from Harvard who met people from the heartland and got to know them.  I assume Alabama was a red state, and I expected everyone here to be a character out of Deliverance.  I couldn’t have been more wrong, while makes me wonder where the disconnect happened that so many of them went to the dark side? I think perhaps labeling people as “deplorables” was not helpful; seems a number of people embraced that moniker and allowed it to define them.  But what about those who were offended, or whose fragile senses of self and self-esteem were fractured with the utterance of such a label?  Not trying to make excuses for them, just trying to figure out what went wrong – everybody that voted for that guy is not an idiot, is not a racist, is not unintelligent – so what went wrong?

It would be nice if those in the political realm could do like the people of Birmingham have done, and say:  we made a real mess here.  Let’s examine it and ourselves, make some changes, and see that it never happens again.  Fellow liberals, we could learn a thing or two from the folk of Alabama…

***Sigh*** and now the people from the conference are returning to the hotel, disrupting the quiet with their hallway banter and conversations. 

Privilege

I talk a lot about injustice in this country.  I write from my point of view as an African American female.  It may, therefore, seem a bit strange for me to write about privilege, but today I got a unique glimpse of it.

If you know me, you know I've been a season ticket holder for the NY Liberty for years.  As I've been able, I've gradually moved my seat up; in their last full season at Madison Square Garden, I sat right behind the MSG announcers and made a game of photobombing their interviews.  Since the move to a much smaller venue up north, I've graduated to feet-on-the-floor, a luxury I could never afford, even for women's ball, at MSG.

Today the team was back at MSG, and my seat was moved up a bit to be beside the announcers instead of behind them.  I got to engage in the old familiar banter with the reporters, the camera people, and all the statisticians who are constantly scurrying to and fro.  Most of them work for MSG and are not assigned up north, so this was the first time this season I've seen some of them.  From sales reps to security guards to people manning the Delta Club, there was a brief feeling of "coming home."

So it wasn't at all unusual that my cameraman friend got me on camera.  That's my normal.  As I left the Garden, I was surprised at the number of people telling me how good I looked on TV, how I was a star, etc, etc.  I think it's because when I'm on camera, I'm calm and waving to everyone, just like the celebrities do.  This is in contrast to the people who get on and engage in wild antics (I used to think they were drunk, but this was a morning game and no alcohol was served), or the kids who are so hyped they literally look like they're on film that's being fast-forwarded.  There are, of course, the shy ones, but there are more of the types who clamor and climb over each other to get on camera, or to get to touch the mascot or to get a player's attention after the game.

I was watching a group today, and was about to be judgemental when I realized my privilege.  No, the players don't know me by name, though many recognize my face, but I'm often on the jumbotron and apparently have been on the screen at the smaller venue -- this isn't uncommon when you sit with feet on the floor.  The mascot plays with you, the cameras are on you, you make sure to move your feet out of the way of the players and the refs -- that,  plus a dedicated catering menu and/or private entrances, are simply part of the package I've bought. I got to 15-18 home games a year, and have done so for several years.  It's not a big deal.  But then I thought about the folk for whom it is a rare privilege to sit anywhere other than in a nosebleed seat at MSG.  I thought about the 20,000 people the stadium can hold, and the fact that only perhaps 20 -- or let's say 50 -- have the chance to have a cameo on the jumbotron.  Of course it's a big deal to them.

That led me to thinking about privilege in society.  Those who "have" or have access to certain privileges may not, without intentionally seeking to do so, understand the environment or perspective of those who live without privilege.  Those who live with privilege may not recognize their own privilege, or may identify more with the effort it took to gain that privilege than with the results of that privilege.  If someone were to call me elitist for entering the Garden through a private entrance, I would explain how much I love basketball and hate crowds, how hard I work, what I sacrifice to pay for the tickets, and how much I need the release, all of which justify my being in the position of privilege.  Unless I'm bringing my clients (who will use donated tickets and to whom we try to give a decent allowance to purchase snacks at the exorbitant MSG prices), unless my clients are attending a game, I'm not very intentional about the fact that I can avail myself of amenities unavailable to others; to me, these seem like perks that I deserve.  In society, when people are said to be privileged, they may be unwilling or unable to see how others live without that privilege.  Privilege in and of itself is not a bad thing; you could, for instance, take your free food and snacks and share with people who have none, and the reason we actually have to wear non-removable wristbands is because Rangers fans used to take their wristbands and give them to their friends (wristbands identify who gets access to what).

One of the benefits of a diverse society is that we are all privileged, in some way, to some extent or the other.  I think it's important for us to begin to recognize the areas in which we exercise both privilege and power.  Perhaps we can share the benefits with one another.  It doesn't mean I have to give up my courtside seats; perhaps it just means that I need to respect the awe, delight, and desire of the folk who don't routinely sit in them.