Hateful. Ma called
me that when I was little. The word summoned the image of darkness oozing out
of my pores, crawling along my scalp, sliding down the strands of my snarled
hair, until it filled the room like a black void. My hatefulness was the
manifestation of wanting to be loved, demanding it, and wanting to destroy the
world if I couldn’t have it. I felt the unfairness of Ma’s inability, probably
due to postpartum depression, to bond with me. I emitted a mountain of emotion
for so small a child, and my memories of it are still crisp. I know hateful
when I see it.
North Carolinians,
not every single one, but a majority, have shown their hatefulness, and it
feels like a black void blotting out the Carolina blue sky and sunshine.
Amendment One, a constitutional modification that states a marriage is between
a man and a woman, was overwhelmingly passed on May 8th. The next
day the rain poured down, thunder rumbled, lightening cracked open the sky, and
the darkness at ground level caused me to switch on lights. “God must be
crying,” I mused.
I thought that
because God was plopped right into the middle of the debate. Both sides were
quoting the Old Testament.
As a vocal liberal, I’m sure most people
don’t know that I am a born again Christian, as in I accepted Jesus as my
savior in a private moment of epiphany. I live in contentment because of my
choice. Until I wrote this post, I did not share that fact with many other
people. I don’t shout it in the streets, thump my Bible, practice religion, go
to church, and attempt to convert others, or tell people that God has spoken to
me and that I am delivering a message. I also don’t tell people they are wrong
if they do any of that. Everyone has a right to worship, or not, in the way
they choose.
I try not to judge
others, though I think we can all admit that can be difficult at times given
our own imperfectness. I try to show compassion and love, as Jesus did, for all
of mankind, maybe because I felt so unloved as a child.
So I am not
condemning the people of North Carolina for their decision to pass this
amendment. I condemn the amendment itself. I am deeply saddened and frightened
by its passage and by the opinions and judgments expressed about the people
this amendment targets, the GLBT population.
I saw the
hatefulness in the remarks of a Fayetteville pastor who encouraged his
parishioners to beat their children if they displayed behaviors, attitudes, or
dress that veered from traditional gender roles. I saw hatefulness in the words
spoken by a state senator’s wife who said the amendment was important to pass
because the white race was diminishing and that “white people founded this
country” and “it should be the country they founded.”
When the civil
rights of one group are taken away, we are all diminished by the action. It has
nothing to do with God. It has everything to do with discrimination,
oppression, and hatred. It has to do with treating peers as unequal, as less
than.
Once it is
socially acceptable to forcefully take the civil rights of one group away, it
becomes easier and easier to target other groups.
Read my post “On
Being a Creative Maladjusted” to learn how quickly Hitler rose to power and
targeted groups for oppression, imprisonment, and death:
Look how Jim Crow
laws gave permission to supposedly good people to torture and lynch blacks and
prevent interracial couples from marrying. Look how government supported involuntary
sterilization took away the reproductive rights of thousands of citizens. The
darkness, the hatefulness, the fear, and the anger grow and grow inside people
that might otherwise be fine citizens. A mob mentality takes over and erases
all personal thoughts and actions.
The Southern
cultural heritage is complicated and unresolved in my opinion. I’ve told people
from down here that I am offended by the Confederate flag and what it
symbolizes, and they’ve answered, “But that’s my heritage.” What does that
mean, though? Do they acknowledge that their history is one of slavery,
oppression, violence, and secession? Do they still cling to those beliefs? No
one has ever given me a straight answer, so I can only go by what I see.
I see hatefulness.
I see fear. I see aggression. I see the Southern stare.
Ronald and I
coined the phrase “Southern stare” to describe what we often experience (and
what I have often written about in my blog). The Southern stare is the way some
people look at us. They bore their eyes into us, turn their heads, slow their
pace, twist their bodies to get a better view, veer their cars across lanes,
drop whatever else they are engaged in such as conversation or eating, and
stare. They don’t speak to us or acknowledge us in any way. They just stare.
That leads me to
believe, despite seeing quite a few interracial couples walking around besides
us, that it still is not accepted. The amendment that made interracial
marriages illegal in North Carolina was codified in 1875 and not removed from the
state constitution until 1971, four years after the Supreme Court ruled
anti-miscegenation laws illegal. Is
anti-miscegenation considered part of the Southern heritage?
Another thing we
discovered is insularity. We are called Yankees. We are considered outsiders. We’ve
been told we don’t belong here. It is apparent that since we don’t go to
church, we are considered unworthy of friendship, and that’s been our
experience with people of all races. It’s been difficult to make friends and
acquaintances.
“Why stay there?”
you ask. We aren’t sure that we will. We’ve asked ourselves that question a lot
lately, because we feel that we’ve given it enough time but things haven’t gone
as we had hoped. We’ve grown tired of conversations that are racist and
one-sided, like people calling President Obama “your president” or telling my
husband that they hate Tiger Woods, challenging him to disagree. We’ve grown wary of people who talk about
carrying guns and shooting others or who veer their car in our direction as if
they mean to hit us. (See my posts “Profiling Fatality”:
and “Do the Right
Thing”:
to read about
those two experiences).
Then we remember
that we experienced racism in our old town up north, too.
One thing we both
believe in is that we have a right to choose where we want to live. It is one
of our civil rights and we exercise them with the belief that they are
inalienable. We believe in them so strongly that we will fight for our right to
exercise them. See my post “The Legacy of Racism” that talks about our housing
discrimination suit: http://aboutracewriter.blogspot.com/2011/08/legacy-of-racism.html
However, we have
been disturbed by the passage of Amendment One. It is a sign that civil rights
can be taken away at will, with ill intent, and with the purpose of
discriminating against targeted groups.
I don’t expect
every person to like me or for me to like every person. That’s how humans are –
some people have interests or circumstances in common that draw them together. Oftentimes
relationships are formed based on cultural and racial commonality or similar
values. Dislike is often caused by dissimilarity. But just because you don’t
like someone or how someone lives, doesn’t mean you should act against him,
especially if he does not cause harm to others.
Hate is different.
Hate is a strong emotion. It takes energy to hate another human being. Hatred
has the power to harm. Like in the case of taking away civil rights from groups
who are different from the majority.
A lot of North
Carolinians are upset about the bad press the state has gotten in the media.
They are proud of the state, and I can see why. We wanted to claim this state as our new home. It is physically beautiful. And
there is that whole thing about heritage, which, as a recent migrant, I am
still trying to understand.
I watched comments
fly back and forth on Facebook. People expressed offense over the meanness of
certain comments that belittled all citizens of North Carolina, and I agree,
there were some over-the-top ones and some terribly offensive generalizations
made. There are very strong emotions on both sides of the fence.
People are shocked
by the passage of this amendment now, at this time in our history. The amendment has consequences for more
than just the group of people it targets, and it diminishes our social ethos.
Why would anyone deny another person the right to a mutual, consensual, loving,
committed, stable relationship that protects both partners? In my mind, there
was never a reason to put it out for a vote, other than to use hatred against a
group and to wield power to keep them oppressed.
But then another
thought entered my mind as the comments continued to fly back and forth. It
isn’t the nicest thing I could think of to say, but it just seems right: When
you bare your ass in public, don’t get upset when people talk about how big it
is.
Amendment One is
North Carolina’s ass hanging out for everyone to see and comment on. That isn’t
said in hate. It is said with disappointment, sadness, fear, and wonder if we
should stay in a state that can take away civil rights and use God and the
Bible as the excuse to do it. This is not the first time and probably not the
last time. There is a proud heritage of taking people’s civil rights away in
this state.
I see hateful people. I’d like to think God had
a really good cry after Amendment One was passed.
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