Where is Gandhi? I'm nineteen. I read books in high school about wars. I wondered what it meant that war changes someone. And in high school, premature beliefs and ideals melted away. I became stiff and rigid with fact. When two friends joined the military, my instant reaction was to hate the institution. Instant reactions soon gave way to thought. They're still in the military. Both of them tell me they can't stand it, but I still don't have a clear leaning one way or the other. One of those friends was a girlfriend. We dated until the Navy moved her to Italy. I broke up with her by mail and hated myself for half a year.
In 2004, my economics teacher reluctantly gave us election cards for a high school straw vote. She said it was state-wide, and we'd have the results that October. I voted for John Kerry. I think I was one of three in the class. Mississippi, I thought. Stupid, backwards, Mississippi.
When I talk to people my age about politics, there is usually a flailing desperation to the conversation. My friends huff and puff over the phone, mainly using a lot of profanity to describe our generation's situation. One of immobility - both created and natural. Fear has driven the national mood for years. Created or natural? Man-made paralysis. My friends say the President is just too stupid. He's just too fucking stupid. They say, we could do better, but there's nothing we can do.
Where is Dr. King? My history teacher threw a map on the board. We were supposed to name a total of ten countries, states, or capitols. I watched as my classmates grimaced and smiled ignorantly, pointing out Mongolia for France, or Australia for Alaska. Stupid, backwards Mississippi. If what we've got now is this bad, what is our generation bringing to the table? Sleepless geography? Misguided missiles? Will we attack ourselves for lack of a compass?
My history teacher taught us that FDR had come the closest to establishing a dictatorship as any other President in our history. He packed the benches! He ignored the Constitution! If that's as much as wrong as they could manufacture then, I asked, What about today? My history teacher was a Republican. Diluting the legend of FDR must've been a wet dream. I hated him .. but loved him. He was great to debate - truly, a typical "southern white guy." My friends and I called him that out of an almost naive appreciation. Like the town drunk. The village idiot.
I wrecked my car into his fence that fall. Small towns = bad statistics. I knew it was his fence immediately. Everyone knew where he lived. He drove a school bus. I rode it once, going to a friend's house. I'd seen this fence before. Why not avoid it? Sigh. There was a three foot hole in the fence, and my car was totaled. I was okay. I got out, picking up papers that had flown out the window. (I wrecked rolling up one window and grabbing at papers. I was on my way to the library.)
He came driving down the road from his house in a giant pickup, slammed on brakes near my car, and got out screaming. "You little commie piece of shit! You're going to hell!" It was a strange rage. It was as if he'd missed the point about his fence and just wanted to let out some steam from a Fox News-viewing gone wrong. He honestly believed I had wrecked my car on purpose. To spite him?
It continued until my older brother arrived. And the police. I was living alone at that point, a senior in high school. No job. He placed charges on me (vandalism being one). They were later dropped, but my grandmother ended up paying $1600 for the fence. She grilled me about my politics because he'd been on the phone with her. He told her I hated America. That I was gay. An atheist. Probably a terrorist. The last time I was in Mississippi (May of this year), the hole in the fence was still there.
I hate the southern white guy as much as anyone else. The stereotype fits some, even those outside the south. Even those of a different race or sex. It fit him. It definitely fit him. But it definitely doesn't fit everyone down there.
October came around. My economics teacher had the straw-vote results. Now she grimaced walking towards the board. She stuck a tack into a piece of paper but didn't say anything. Class ended and I walked up. I looked several times, checking the accuracy. John Kerry had won.
Where is JFK? Where is America's idealism? Both southerners and young Americans know a lot more than we give them credit for, but turning on the news for five minutes can give anyone the impression of a nation driving blind. It's easy to lose hope, to think you can't change a thing. But the harsh truth is that we would do a better job. Now someone needs to step up. No more armchair politics. Find the gentle truth that is our nations fabric: it's the beauty of language, oratory, dreams, and hope that will ignite change in the south. And I believe that - with all due respect to other ages - it's going to come from us.
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