COLUMN: A north-south state of mind

From Nathan Smith's, "White Lightning," Fall '97 From Nathan Smith's, "White Lightning," Fall '97I have tried in the past to articulate some of the differences between the North and my native South. It is a topic of endless fascination for me, as I am caught between the two. First, I must describe how Philadelphia feels foreign. Then I can move on to my most recent experiences of the South. Hopefully, this will clarify some of the real differences, rather than reinforcing the stereotypes and myths. There can be no doubt that I am a Southern boy in Yankee territory. I constantly find myself defending Southern culture. On campus, I am mocked by some and simply "kidded" by others for my overalls and banjo playing. People remark how "social" I am, simply because I know by name all the security guards, the people who work in the Wawa and some of the people standing on the corners asking for change. For me, that's just par for the course; I'd feel rude if I didn't know and talk to the people in my neighborhood, no matter if they teach my classes or serve me coffee. It's a simple standard of etiquette with which I grew up. These conventions make me very aware of my Yankee context. The fact people even notice -- much less deride -- my overalls or my friendly rapport with Ms. Green in the Wawa reflects their cultural background as much as my own. I am often surprised at how comfortable people are buying their bagels without knowing the baker, but few people think twice about it here. I've even been told that I was rude for talking so much with service people, because I'm holding up traffic! Clearly this reflects conflicts between the priorities of etiquette -- here efficiency is politeness, there personability takes precedence -- a conflict which makes me feel very much the outsider. Northerners would become more aware of their "Northern-ness" if they went down South. Just as I am aware of my Southern identity in the Philadelphian context, any Northerner entering the South would feel like they had just stepped out of a spaceship. Southerners would instantly remark the cultural differences. In short, the Yankee would stick out like a sore thumb. If you think "y'all" grabs attention around here, you should try saying "youse" or even "you guys" in South Carolina. Some restaurants might refuse to serve you. But you don't have to be from here to feel this difference. I myself am no longer identified as a Southerner when I go home. I've apparently picked up enough Philadelphian pronunciation to be taken for a Northerner by most people. Even my friends and family remark constantly I've sold out to the Union country. I am, in the eyes of many of my fellow Southerners, a born again Yankee, a traitor to the Northern aggressors. And in some ways, I am. This is particularly true along the dimension of ideology. In downtown Charleston, S.C., stands the slave market, where human beings were bought and sold. What have they done with this historic building? Did they make it into a holocaust museum? Did they dedicate even one brick of this building, which stretches over four blocks in the middle of town, to the remembrance of what happened there? No. The building is a huge craft market, where merchants sell Charlestonian memorabilia (including such charming knick-knacks as "Mammy and Pickaninny" salt and pepper shakers) for outrageous prices. It made me want to climb up on the rafters and ask aloud, "Have we learned nothing from our past? Are they selling miniature "Stereotypical Jew" figurines at the concentration camp sites in Germany?" Such logic, no matter how reasonable, would be dismissed immediately as "overly sensitive" or "PC," and I would most certainly be seen as a Yankee sell-out. I would be seen as a trouble-maker, simply becuase I could never forget what happened there. Likewise, I couldn't lose consciousness of the black and white social separation. Admittedly Philadelphia has its black and white establishments, which are predominantly one or the other, but there are places where the twain do meet. However, for the duration of my stay in Charleston I tried and failed to find even one establishment where there was any real mixing of the two. I was either the only white person in the place, or there were simply no African Americans anywhere. I was least comfortable in the latter environment. I felt chills as whites threw around the word nigger so very easily, spoken without question or remorse, relentlessly dropped in casual conversation. This is a very Northern consciousness to have. When I was growing up I didn't notice, because I had never seen anything else. Now, I can't even sit comfortably with an old high school friend and have a beer, for from all sides we are bombarded with in-your face racism. So I am caught in the middle. Here I am proud to be Southern, aware of my status as somewhat of a foreigner, constantly feeling I have to defend my homeland. There I can't relax socially; I cannot escape the politics of racism. I don't "fit in" either place, for one reason or another. Instead I build my own community of friends, misfits and weirdos of all sizes, shapes and colors, where somehow we harmonize despite our radical differences. We poke fun at each other's cultural origins, the stereotypes, tragedies and histories, but always with genuine respect. For after all, if it weren't for those cultural backgrounds, we wouldn't be who we are today; we wouldn't have each other. That's how I have defeated the challenges of larger cultural disparities. If I could sum up this messy account of my experience in any pithy, fortune-cookie wisdom, it might be simply that one can't go home again. But to avoid such pat cliches, I would rather say that the most salient aspect of the cultural differences must be the way that they estrange the individual from both places, leaving one to build one's own "community" from scratch. Perhaps between the dilemma and my solution there is some key to understanding the nature of North and South, but I think it sheds a more general light on cultural differences of all kinds.