I’m in agriculture and receive free copies of a magazine called The Western Farm Press, specifically their western edition. Most of the articles reflect the interests of large scale conventional farmers—info on new ag technology, market reports, pesticide management practices, and the like. It’s a thin magazine but they devote an entire page near the front of the magazine to two opinion pieces. When these opinions veer toward the political, they lean heavily to the right. Often to the crackpot right.
Which brings me to an opinion piece by one Tim Hearden who is apparently on staff of the magazine. In it he provides us with one of the nicest examples of unconscious racism we see far too often. Check it out:
It was my first real visit to the South, and I had the pleasure of experiencing Southern hospitality firsthand.
A security guard in a restaurant parking lot, upon hearing it was my first visit to Mississippi, shook my hand while querying, “Well what took you so long?” Later that evening, a bartender at Ground Zero (so named for the area’s significance to the history of blues) heard I was visiting from California.
“Well you should feed this man,” she cheerfully told my editor. “He’s probably just used to eating sprouts.” I had been sampling Southern cuisine, and she told us about the next day’s chicken-and-biscuits lunch special, which we returned for.
The thing was, both individuals were African-Americans. This was a small town in Mississippi, and I was a middle-aged white guy from California. They went far beyond just being courteous and professional, which is what their jobs would have required. They were genuinely pleased to have an enthusiastic visitor in their neck of the woods, whatever my race or background.
Wow! Can you imagine? Black people at work were nice to a white customer!
Sigh.
There’s so much changing that has to happen and it’s going so slow. Maybe even backwards.
P.S. Link through to more of Tim’s opinions and you’ll find that he’s also a climate change denier. Which is amazing to me. Every one of the other growers I talk to are constantly talking and thinking about the very real changes the climate emergency is having on our crops, land and future.