Darkness in Dixie

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Long-time readers of this blog will know that your Head Trucker is a Southerner through and through - a modern Southerner, that is, with an education, and respect for the dignity of every human being.  I do not, however, take those sublime words of the Prayer Book to mean that one should indulge every folly or countenance outright wickedness:  rather, I believe they mean that sometimes one should oppose such things with unflinching vigor, wherever they are found.

There is much to love about the South - a green and pleasant land blessed, for the most part, with a warm and sunny climate, lush with trees and verdant fields, and every sort of vegetation.  The camellias were blooming a month ago down here - now the azaleas are shining out, and will very soon be followed by redbuds, dogwood, wisteria, mimosas, magnolias, crepe myrtles, roses, and every other lovely jewel of nature, while our friends in the frozen North are still bundling about in heavy coats and keeping their snow shovels at the ready.  A pity, that.

We also enjoy our somewhat slower pace of life, which affords us time to say hello and please and thank you to complete strangers, and time to savor the pleasures of a well-set table, laden with all the delicacies and delights of Southern cookery, than which there is no finer.  You must admit, we do some things very well indeed:  a region that has given the world fried chicken, barbecue, Coca-Cola, and rock 'n' roll can't be all bad, can it?  The past is prologue, to be sure, but the present is given us to improve upon it.

We Southerners sometimes like to exaggerate our Southerness for effect, if only because it makes the snooty, self-righteous Yankees cringe.  We may have our flaws, it's true - but y'all have yours, too, which you conveniently ignore when you stereotype us all as ignorant hicks, as you do incessantly in public and in private.  Come on now, you know you do.  I've heard you when you thought nobody was listening.  But the truth is, there are backwaters of place and thought in all parts of the country, North and South, city and country, where the light of reason shines but dimly through the miasma of bigotry and backwardness, and no section has a monopoly on righteousness.

But I take it all in sport, and try always to keep in mind that no matter where we happened to be born, luckily or not, we are Americans all, and brothers under the skin - equal heirs to the ringing words of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," with which a certain Southerner astonished the world many long years ago, a promise which still resounds in the hearts of free peoples around the world, and those who yearn to be free.

And the South has grown up and moved on from the days of legal segregation, which was still very much in force in my childhood, as I remember vividly.  Until recent years, I thought we had gotten past all that, learning to live and let live.  But of course the progress of the human race is never in a completely straight, smooth line, but proceeds by fits and starts, now inclining a little this way, then a little that way, and sometimes a step or two backwards before finally advancing upwards.

Your Head Trucker is a great believer in the via media, the middle way, avoiding the unwholesome extremes of the right or the left.  Not only are they perilous, but it is certain that any extreme tendency in one direction will provoke an equal and opposite reaction in the other direction.  In the very recent past, and up to the present moment, we Americans have seen this principle very clearly displayed in politics and society, in ways too obvious to need explanation.

There is also a deeply embedded tendency in our human nature that seeks a scapegoat for every ill - something or better yet someone to blame when things do not go the way we would like - anyone will do, in fact, as long as it is not us!  This lamentable facet of human nature - a leftover from an early stage of child development - can be eradicated by education, empathy, and most of all, a close, unflinching examination of one's own soul.

Perhaps this is why them ol' Greek boys, pretty smart fellas, inscribed as the first principle of wisdom on the temple of Apollo - the god of wisdom - the admonition, "Know Thyself."

The second was, "Moderation in All Things."  How much suffering and sorrow the human race would have avoided down through the centuries if only these two golden maxims had been heeded!

And still, in the dark regions of the earth, and worse yet, in the dark corners of the mind, do fear and ignorance, in their perpetual infernal coupling, breed hatred, violence, and misery, a poisonous brew that can even conjure up ghastly shades from the nether regions of the past.

My readers will have no doubt already heard of the egregious outpourings of one sick, sad, twisted old man, the 80-year-old editor of a newspaper in tiny (pop. 2,000) Linden, Alabama, near Demopolis, about a hundred miles west of Montgomery.  This sorry specimen of benighted humanity, who obviously has outlived his purpose for being on this earth, in a fit of venomous spite, utter ignorance of history, and contempt for all morality, has actually called in print for the revival of lynching and murder that left such a dark stain on the pages of Southern history.

I will not give him the dignity of even mentioning his name here.  I say only that as a Southerner born and bred - the scion of a long line of Southerners stretching back to the early days of this country - I condemn him and his filthy words absolutely.  There is no place in the South, or in America, for that kind of hatred and incitement to violence - and in my view, there should be no defense for it under the principles of free speech or freedom of the press.  Liberty is not license.

I don't know anyone who would countenance his vile thoughts, and I do not for a moment believe that my parents, grandparents, or any other of my kin, if they were still living, would do so, either.  Decent people never have.  And never should.

That revoltingly ignorant hick should retire forthwith from publishing, and his paper close its doors.  I can only hope an outraged citizenry, even in the depths of Alabama, will see to that, by legal and peaceful means.


Update, 7:30 p.m.:   It seems most Linden residents have already stopped reading the local rag, according to this New York Times story.