Category: Life

Trick Falls wonders: ‘Is trailer trash talk the new normal?’

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life8 Comments

There’s a certain reality show (I won’t say which one because I don’t want to get sued by anybody) that I believe intentionally recruits contestants that use a lot of in-your-face -profanity, are arrogant and full of themselves, and generally behave like the worst trailer trash on the planet.

Ratings, ya think?

Wikipedia photo
Wikipedia photo

Even so, I assume these people act on the show the way they do in real life. If so and if this is the new normal, then our country’s in worse shape than I thought.

This comes to mind today because a Facebook discussion got started on a friend’s thread about whether people hanging out on the social media should simply expect to the discounted about anything and everything. My answer was no. I thought it was out of line for people to come out of nowhere and randomly criticize people’s clothes, hair, eyes, career choices, and various other personal attributes because (hopefully) they wouldn’t do that kind of thing in person and remain friends.

Others said that if you do anything (or are anything) on the social media, people are going to comment. I think personal attacks there are out of line, but agree that if one posts something about politics, religion, current events, and a variety of other issues, there will be a lot of commenting. That’s why those posts are put there unless people think they’re just preaching to the choir and that everyone who sees the post will click LIKE or say AMEN and move on.

I see a lot of libelous material on Facebook and often wonder why that’s necessary to “win” an argument about whether ABC is better than XYZ. Many of the comments sound like they’re from people who talk like those on the reality show I’m thinking about. But God help us, these are (I assume) regular people. Those of us on Facebook weren’t selected by central casting to come out there and stir things up to increase Facebook’s ratings.

Of course, trash talk is easy. If somebody makes a political point, it’s easier for somebody to say, “well, you’re an asshole” than to come up with anything factual and relevant to say in response. And, should anybody ask where you got your information, it’s easier to say, “those bitches at that place are all f_cked up.” I’ll wondering, of course, when it became okay to use the word “bitches” as a synonym for women and if the people that do think they’re winning any points in the discussion with the “F” word as well.

Sounds like a lot of high school posturing to me. But it’s coming from adults who, somewhere along the line, decided that talking like an immature juvenile in the middle of a temper tantrum was good for their jobs, their friends, their lives and their country.

By the way, if you happen to live in a trailer and don’t talk and act like the people on that reality show, you’re in the clear. If you call me an asshole on Facebook because I’ve just found a factual flaw in your political argument, you’re not in the clear.

My dear old daddy used to say, “trailer trash ain’t never going nowhere no matter how they strut around the block because they end up back where they started.”

I used to agree with him. Now I’m thinking times have changed.

–Trick

A resident of Two Egg, Florida, Trick Falls made a killing in the gigolo business before going into the philosophy business.

 

 

What makes your eyes glaze over?

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life8 Comments

We all have stuff that bores us so much that our eyes give the impression we’re dead. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen when your  spouse says “I love you” or your boss is telling you what you have to do to get a better performance review.

Generally, most people try to pretend their eyes aren’t glazing over when they are. Even though manners don’t seem to matter as much as they used to, we generally know how to fake being interested in something even if we’re not. I’m sure appearing bored is probably politically incorrect along with everything else that might bother people.

Nonetheless, sometimes some things are so boring that we can’t help appearing dead. Do you have your own top ten list? I’m sure you do even if you’re not sure what it is because–if you’re like some people–making a list of what bores you is so boring that your eyes glaze over before you have more than a couple of things written down. For what it’s worth, here’s my list:

  1. Writing discussion questions for book clubs. (I feel that if the club isn’t smart enough to discuss the book without suggestions for discussing it, they’re probably not smart enough to read the book.)
  2. Forensics shows on TV about old cases. (Yes, I marvel at what labs can do–especially if it’s Abby on NCIS–but watching people shake clues up in test tubes isn’t my thing.)
  3. Open caskets. (I really don’t want to see the person in the casket so I let my eyes go out of focus.)
  4. Golf. (I don’t understand the need for it. Simple as that.)
  5. Health Discussions. (Why do people get together and compare all the ailments they’ve had during the past week? It’s like a bloody contest. Yawn.)
  6. Sermons. (I guess I was raised wrong, but I don’t like listening to somebody telling me what to do for an hour or so while people from the neighboring churches have already finished their services and are hogging the best seats at the nearby cafeterias.)
  7. Badly written sex scenes in novels. (Make it stop.)
  8. Parades. (I never saw the attraction of watching a bunch of people walk or drive down the middle of a street.)
  9. Overly obvious advice. (What the hell am I supposed to say when somebody says, “you know, Malcolm, God moves in mysterious ways.” Am I supposed to nod in agreement or say something wise like “when you’re right, you’re right.”
  10. People with a new baby who invite you over to watch their new baby. (Past a point, when I’ve seen one baby, I’ve seen them all. So what happens to people who used to engage in good conversation with guests once they have a baby and think we want to stare at it for two or three hours?)

What about you? Can you keep your eyes from glazing over long enough to jot down the top two or three things that make them glaze over?

–Malcolm

 

Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig, or those long-ago regrets one seldom mentions

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life2 Comments

“Old love never rusts.” – Swedish Proverb

Hej!

Over time, I’ve learned that while everything we acknowledge we did probably impacted our lives forever, it’s best to say little or nothing about the other things that almost happened, because had they happened, we wouldn’t know the very people who sometimes ask to hear the story.

Göteborg (AKA Gothenburg)
Göteborg (AKA Gothenburg)

I seldom mention Sweden, not because I’ve ever been there, but because I almost went there during the Vietnam War. When I went to Europe about a year before the draft would catch up with me, my local draft board had to be convinced I was planning to return. I was when I filled out the paperwork for permission to leave the country. By the time the summer was over, I came very close to never coming back.

While on a summer church work project, the two Americans in our international group started dating the two Swedish girls in our group. Most people will say, “that figures” because dating a Swedish girl is supposed to be the epitome of dating. Frankly, I don’t know how it happened because even though you won’t believe this, I wasn’t paying much attention to the Swedish girls in our group because at the outset they stayed together and chattered in Swedish.

When it did happen, I was lost.

In time, she asked me what I would do when I went back to the States at the end of the summer.  I said that I had another semester of college to finish and then I’be probably be drafted unless I joined, say, the navy (which I ended up doing) before the draft put me in the army.

This began multiple conversations about the Vietnam War, my distaste for it, the fact I couldn’t (not then) file as a conscientious objector if my church had no formal anti-war statement, and how military service was one of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune we all had to put up with.

One day A___ said, “You would be safe in Sweden.” I knew that already because the newspapers constant printed stories about people who dodged the draft by going to Canada or Sweden. I said I was pretty nearly broke and couldn’t afford to go to Sweden, and that even if I could, I’be put in jail if I ever went back to the States.

She said, “well, you know the government will teach you Swedish and help you get a job. Before that happens, you can stay at my house. ” “What?” “My parents are fine with it.” “You asked your parents?” “I thought it best to make sure before I brought an American home with me because you know what we say about dating Americans.” (She never did tell me what they say, but I figured it would be unflattering.)

My parents didn’t support my anti-war beliefs and, I believe, my not coming back home was something that might have occurred to them. If they had, I would have gone home with her and would probably be writing this post in Swedish. As it was, when I borrowed the work project’s truck to drive A___ to a nearby city at the end of the project where she would catch the ferry back to Sweden, I seriously considered leaving the truck in the parking lot there and going to Göteborg with her.

As the sages say, you have to be at least a little mad to take such a leap of faith. I guess I wasn’t mad enough in those days, though several of the people at the work project were surprised to see me return. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” they asked. “I couldn’t take a step that meant never seeing my family again.”* They had to admit that made sense.

Who knows how it would have ended up. Everything and everyone I’ve known since that day in August, 1967, would have been vastly different. As it turned out, my parents would have passed away before amnesty was offered to those who went to Sweden, though they did take a vacation trip over there after my dad retired. I was happy for them, I thought, seeing the life I almost had without ever knowing how close I came to seeing it before they got there.

I’m glad I came home. I wasn’t glad then. I had trouble keeping my grades up during that last semester of college. My folks wondered why. I thought it best to tell them I had no idea or that it was bad karma or evil spirits. That seemed better than saying that when I fell asleep at night, I dreamt of A___ whispering “Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig.”

It’s easy to see now, of course, that if the wind or the clouds had been slightly different and I’d gotten on that ferry, my cool daughter and my two wonderful granddaughters wouldn’t exist, that I wouldn’t now be married to the person who is my soul mate, and that I would have missed a lot of memorable moments with my parents and two brothers.

Sometimes the gods keep us from doing what we want to do for a reason we think is capricious at the time.

Hej då,

Malcolm

  • Following up on an amnesty related comment, I actually would have been able to come home sooner than I expected. Gerald Ford offered conditional amnesty in 1974 with some legal strings attached that I wouldn’t have liked. Carter offered a pardon in 1977. My folks lived until 1986 and 1987. Knowing what I knew in 1967, I had to act on the assumption that amnesty would have never come or would come much later than it did.

 

 

 

 

Dear Hertz, about that smoke-scented car

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life

Dear Hertz,

My answer to this question is "no" since Hertz isn't enforcing the policy by penalizing customers who smoke in the cars.
My answer to this question is “no” since Hertz isn’t enforcing the policy by penalizing customers who smoke in the cars.

About that smoke-scented car from the Baltimore airport we rented on January 20th , it doesn’t really help to try and perfume away the smell left in a car left by the last user who apparently smoked like a chimney in spite of the DON’T THE HELL SMOKE STICKER.

Frankly, we think you should have charged that person more for ruining the car interior for future customers; then you could have given those of us who are allergic to cigarette smoke a debate.

When we rented a “no smoking car” we thought that meant the car wouldn’t smell like smoke. What do you think?

Blizzard rebate?
Blizzard rebate? (Rental car on left.)

On the plus side (health-wise) our allergies didn’t kick in as badly as they usually do because Jonas descended on the greater Baltimore area where we were visiting family and we couldn’t drive the car much at all because: (a) we couldn’t see the road, (b) the cops were giving tickets to people driving in the blizzard, (c) the car was blocked in the parking lot for several days.

Since Baltimore and Washington, D.C. had ample warning about the impending storm of the century, it would have helped if the car had been equipped with studded snow tires and a plough.

Do we get a blizzard rebate?

Just wondering,

Malcolm

P.S. When we asked your desk clerk how to get from the airport’s offsite car rental facility to the Interstate, his directions sent us into a fantasy world with streets nobody’s ever heard of.

 

I wish I’d heard the blues at the Red Bird Cafe

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life2 Comments

Just across the main east-west thoroughfare from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, sits the oldest black neighborhood in the state. Known as Frenchtown, the area was beginning to decline when I rode my bicycle on Macomb and Dean Streets delivering telegrams while in high school. Those older than me remembered the days when Frenchtown’s Red Bird Cafe was an important stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit, and they spoke fondly of the days when Cannonball Adderley and Ray Charles lived in the area and were famous along the streets for their music.

Red Bird Cafe - Florida Memory photo
Red Bird Cafe – Florida Memory photo

The yellow Western Union tag on my shirt identified me as a harbinger of death as surely as a black car in a military neighborhood. Perhaps it was that tag or perhaps it was luck, but I never ran into any trouble in Frenchtown even though most of my friends thought I was crazy to go there even though the job required it. I usually took bad news because that’s what telegrams were all about in Frenchtown. The recipients often made me open the yellow envelopes and read the messages at their front doors, and helplessly seeing their reactions and sometimes helping them compose a reply was–I think–my introduction to what it was like to feel the blues.

I wish I’d been more daring then, for I went to a Peter, Paul and Mary concert at FSU, but never went to the Red Bird other than to pedal past it on my bike. Surprisingly, I delivered–much to my embarrassment–more than one singing (usually “Happy Birthday”) telegram in Frenchtown where whole families and their neighbors gathered in the small yards to hear that poor, sweaty white boy sing. Who knows what would have happened if I’d ever had to sing such words at the front door of the Red Bird. Maybe somebody with an “axe” (guitar) would have emerged from the crowd and joined in. Never happened. But as I worked on my Conjure Woman’s Cat novella with its strong leaning toward the blues, I couldn’t help but think of Frenchtown and all the music there I never heard in the world where it lived.

If I owned a time machine, I’d get out the yellow Western Union tag that I “borrowed” from the company when I left, and I’d go back to the Red Bird and listen. In real life, all that music was at once so close and so far away.

–Malcolm

http://www.conjurewomanscat.com/

Memories of that First Cat

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life2 Comments

When I was a kid, I read The Hound of the Baskervilles and immediately became a “dog person.” I imagined becoming a famous writer who would live on an immense estate protected by supernatural and potentially unfriendly deer hounds.

Needles-Stairs-Xmas79My fiancée informed me I was going to become a “cat person.” Other than the expedient fact that she was a cat person, the practicalities of the matter were that large hounds don’t fit well in apartments. They need, if not moors, large yards.

So, about 30 years ago Needles became our cat because (a) a friend’s cat had a litter and the friend didn’t need more cats, and (b) the cat would prove one way or the other if I was “marriage material.” Needles got his name because he had sharp claws and, of all of our cats over the years, his temperament was probably the closest to the hound of the Baskervilles.

I could tell stories, but this is a family blog.

StockingsXMAS79Needles lived a long and adventurous life in Georgia, from Rome to Marietta to Smyrna to Norcross. When he crossed the rainbow bridge he was ancient. His final resting place is the farm where we now live just outside of Rome.

My wife likes to tell people that when Needles first arrived in our lives, I had a “what the hell do I do with that thing” kind of attitude. In my defense, I didn’t know nothing about no cats and didn’t know what they wanted or why they randomly freaked out and clawed the hell out of my arms. They’re possessed, I think, by random malevolences that haunt most neighborhoods.

Needles liked his blanket. He thought that no matter what infraction he committed (such as grabbing my ankle when I walked through a dark room), he was free and clear if he could just get back to that blanket. It was like home plate or a safe house.

Lesa and Needles in 1979
Lesa and Needles.

We had a deck at the Norcross town home that got so hot on sunny afternoons, we couldn’t walk out there in bare feet. Needles could lie out there for hours. Go figure.

By then I had learned that cats sleep 16 hours or more a day and thought (a) what a life, and (b) that at least they couldn’t jump out of dark shadows while they were asleep.

Bottom line, Needles was a hoot and somehow with him I passed the test and my fiancée and I were married in 1987 in a small ceremony in the living room of the friends who gave us our first cat.

My only regret is that saying “release the cats” doesn’t sound as cool as saying “release the hounds.”

–Malcolm

KIndle cover 200x300(1)Malcolm R. Campbell learned enough from Needles, Black Kitty, Orange Kitty, Marlo, Duncan and Katy to write a novella with a cat as a major character: “Conjure Woman’s Cat.”

New Presidential Candidate to out-trump Trump

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life, satire2 Comments

Junction City, TX – Star-Gazer News Service – Local author Caine Molasses, whose recent bestseller Grits on the Half Shell has been banned from schools across the country, announced his candidacy for the Presidency today from an Albino County jail where he’s serving time for skipping 25 straight alimony payments to his former wife Sue “Sugar Beet” Hawkins who, with her sister Sadie, runs a dance studio on the other side of the tracks.

Sweeter than Grandma
Sweeter than Grandma

Warden Bill Smith, who introduced Molasses to the prison exercise yard news conference, said that since the author had been a model prisoner, he would make a wonderful President.

“My campaign is a blend of the worst ideas from this year’s crop of Presidential wannabees simply because those ideas get the most publicity,” Molasses said.

His campaign manager Bugsy Baker, formerly of Chicago, said “even the dead will want to vote early and often for this man.

According to his campaign literature, Molasses will promote the following:

  • Carve up all the nation’s great banks into the chaos of tiny inefficient banks they used to be prior to all the mergers. Inefficiency means more jobs and more jobs mean more prosperity.
  • Build a Berlin-style wall along the border with Mexico at Mexico’s expense, complete with machine guns and a “Checkpoint Carlos.” Strengthen the war on drugs by sentencing users to do their time south of the wall until America is so drug free, the cartels will go out of business. We’ll be crime free by 2023.
  • Promote the concealment of all e-mails, letters, diplomatic packets, phone calls and texts from the American public who really have no business spying on their own government during sensitive negotiations with rogue governments, unruly Senators and Representatives, or rich people who are willing to kick in a few bucks for better government considerations.
  • Unleash Wall Street so that it can truly become the Las Vegas of the east. Let them do what they do best under an investor beware philosophy. Don’t get in the game if you can’t afford to lose your shirt.
  • There are a lot of countries out there who only respect force. Force is good for our military industrial complex because it means jobs for the common man and woman who screw bolts on new tanks and it means a larger military which means jobs for people who would otherwise be in jail or on the county or hoping Uncle Sam will pay their college tuition. We need an invasion every year or so to stay on top of our game.

Molasses, who has been married fifteen times, says “my love life is evidence I can sweet-talk anybody into my bed. That’s the first duty of a great President.”

Baker told reporters that he knew Molasses fight to get noticed would be an uphill battle since the major candidates are saying so many outlandish things, “they already have CNN or FOX news in bed with them.”

“When elected President,” said Molasses, “I’ll guarantee that every man, woman and child will receive the minimum daily requirement of Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium, Zinc along with 14.74 g of carbs and 1.213 kcal of energy from the department of agriculture. After all, that’s what I’m made of.”

JockTalksPoliticsStory filed by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

 

No, doc, I don’t want Bette Davis eyes

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life, writing4 Comments

A year ago, my optometrist said, “you’re going to need to do something about the cataract in your right eye.”

Thinking he meant, a waterfall, I said I hadn’t been dripping water, tears-wise or otherwise.

eyeHe informed me that I was going to have trouble seeing within the year.

Noticing that I was driving blind more often than not, I went to an eye doctor a week ago and he said, “Holy crap, man, you’re still looking at the world with eyes made during World War II when factories slapped out millions of eyes per second without a lot of paperwork for the war effort.”

He surfed out to Wikipedia where he gets most of his medical information and showed me an eye diagram. “When you were born, we didn’t know about half this stuff, so your eyes not only aren’t compatible with Windows 10, you’re missing a lot of the world’s important developments such as texting and more nudity.”

He got out a catalogue published by the American Academy of Ophthalmology called “Fabulous Eyes.” It contained a list of the replacement eyes available for those of us about to undergo cataract surgery.

bettedavis“There’s been a run on Bernie Sanders eyes lately, and that means a waiting list. Since you’re a writer, maybe you’ll want something exotic like Bette Davis eyes.”

“I remember the song,” I said.

“According to the song, with these eyes you’ll either know how to make a ‘crow blush’ or a ‘pro blush’ depending on which recorded version of the song you like.”

I informed him that Bette Davis’ eyes were older than the ones I was currently using and probably had fewer working parts.

As it turns out, there are more eyes out there than you can poke out while running with scissors. Since they (the eyes) are purportedly windows of the soul, I didn’t want to make a flippant choice. Truth be told, I’ve gotten used to the way I’ve always seen things even though I’m seeing less other them.

In “My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut,” Toba Beta wrote,  “Eyes shows lies.” That ruled out a lot of eye models, especially those from celebrities, political candidates and serial killers.

Muir-Einstein-Newman Eyes, Model
Muir-Einstein-Newman Eyes, Model “MENJ38-25774.”

Finally, it appeared that I was best suited for a combination eye, one with the attributes of John Muir, Albert Einstein and a dash of Paul Newman. “Eyes don’t make you smart,” the doc cautioned, saying that I shouldn’t expect to be rich and famous with rich and famous eyes looking out at the world.

“With the MENJ38-25774 eyes, you might go into the salad dressing business or be able to shoot a good game of pool.”

“More likely,” I said, seeing through my glasses darkly, “I’ll turn into Brick Pollitt and say, ‘I’m ashamed, Big Daddy. That’s why I’m a drunk. When I’m drunk, I can stand myself.'”

“That can happen,” he said. “My assistant here thinks she’s Helen of Troy and wants go go into the ship launching business.”

Frankly, I thought his assistant looked more like Bette Davis.

–Malcolm

New Jock front CVR full sizeMalcolm R. Campbell is the author of “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire,” a satire similar to this post in that it has characters who are likely to say anything (and often do).

Basing decisions on Facebook LIKES

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life6 Comments

In her blog The Green Bough, Oriah writes that “We do not need permission to live our life guided by that which lives within us.” Nonetheless, she believes we often wait for it or ask for it.

americanpresidentmovieIn the 1995 movie “The American President,” Michael Douglas (the widowed President) wants to date Annette Bening (a lobbyist). When he mentions this to Martin Sheen (his chief of staff), Sheen offers to “crunch some numbers” to see how much of a “hit in the polls” the President would suffer. It’s both an amusing moment and a strong hint about what our leaders must think about day to day.

After all, we put them in office to serve us.

On Facebook, I see pages (everything from organizations to public figures to authors) seeking more and more LIKES. LIKES rule the roost on Facebook for, without them, status updates from official PAGES and personal PROFILES get less play in the daily news feed.

New conscience or new god?
New conscience or new god?

When people post political statements and/or platitudes, they often come with the suggestion to LIKE AND SHARE if we agree. Of course, this gets the word out about the new book, the petition drive, the cause or the event.

What gives me pause are those posts in which an individual is thinking of changing jobs, pondering a new point of view, ditching a lover or wondering whether they were too harsh or too lenient with a friend, child, spouse or co-worker. How do we help? With LIKES and associated comments.

I’m not sure this is a good way to live, crunching Facebook LIKES, so to speak, before we do or say what he already know we want to do or say. Do we really need permission from our online friends or even our non-virtual friends before we can act?

I hope not. Life isn’t an on-going political campaign or popularity contest, I don’t think. We know who we are without checking Facebook or crunching real and virtual LIKES.

Yes, it was funny in the movie; but when I see it happening on Facebook, it’s a bit frightening.

–Malcolm

Those who routinely slander the South are bigots

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life3 Comments

“Oddly, the same people who disparage us also have love affairs with our culture. They ridicule us and then profess their love for Nina Simone, Austin, Johnny Cash or Louisiana’s crawfish etouffee dish when it’s trendy. This brings me to my favourite specimens: cocktail party progressives. You know the type – can’t converse without referencing the New Yorker. Pretentious, self-congratulatory liberals who applaud their own humanity while mocking the south. Curiously, they feign knowledge of Hank Williams when fashionable, but their intellectual elitism forgets that Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams were southern geniuses. ” – Seema Jilani in “Deep prejudice about the deep south”

“Liberal prejudices are against three related groups: evangelicals, whom we do not give the respect of other religious groups; Southerners, whom we hold guilty of uniquely wicked views and behavior, as well as stupidity, evangelicalism and talking funny; Texans, we say, combine the wickedness and corn pone dialect of Southerners with diabolical evils all their own. Since evangelicals in our own back yard tend to be invisible to us, let’s sum all of this up as a single bigotry, the prejudice of regionalism.” – Gary Bennett in  “The Last Acceptable Prejudices”

Charleston
Charleston

As Gary Bennett suggests, hating the South is one of this country’s last acceptable prejudices.

Even those who go to great extremes these days to support love and acceptance for other nations and peoples, have little problem denouncing the South as an outer circle of hell where the majority of the doomed is purportedly racist, backward, stupid, has white supremacist views, are members of a “unsophisticated” churches, and talk so strangely their accents are mocked on variety shows and talk shows to great applause.

The South is mocked with the same overarching superiority and derision that Blacks were once mocked in minstrel shows. Those who see no humor in films or commentaries about old minstrel shows, believe that slandering the South is not only funny, but allegedly demonstrates high levels of liberal and progressive thought, a politically correct philosophy about all that’s wrong in the world, and a piety higher than Heaven.

Ironically, those who mock the South are bigots even though that mockery includes saying that Southerners are bigots.

Watts
Watts

Those who slander the South with the claim that racism is an inherent Southern trait become silent when they are asked why the nation’s largest race riots occurred outside the South. While forgetting Watts in 1965, Detroit in 1967, Ferguson in 2014, and Baltimore in 2015, they presume sufficient purity to cast the first stone.

Those riots did not cause the rest of the country to create an across-the-board slander campaign against California, Michigan, Missouri or Maryland. Yet, in the wake of the senseless killings by one man in Charleston, the national and social media have been filled with a return of self-righteous individuals’ across-the-board mockery of everything Southern.

Those who disparage everything and everyone within the South don’t address the fact that Charleston handled a racist event with more love and community concern than officials in Ferguson and Baltimore.

Detroit
Detroit

Bigots aren’t simply those who condemn other races and religions. Bigots also condemn countries and regions. Those of us who live in the South are bone weary of this attitude and wonder if those who exhibit it long for a return to the unfair and unjust horrors of Reconstruction as a coverup for their own sins.

While I have no tolerance for the infinitesimal minority that says, “Save your Confederate money, boys, the South is going to rise again,” I am saddened by the fact that a much larger group of holier-than-though people openly states without apology that the South is unworthy of love, respect or common courtesy.

When discrimination against the South by other regions of the country rises again during times of racial crisis, it further divides people, calms no storms, solves no problems, rights no wrongs and addresses no injustices.

In fact, such slander serves as a catalyst for more of the unrest the slanderers claim to oppose.

–Malcolm