Bennettsville native here, and also a hobby writer. I enjoyed this and it is 100% accurate. We lived and worked side by side in peace until outside agitators attempt to paint us all with the wide swath of their projection.
That is the way everything is in New Orleans. Everything seen thru the lens of race. And yet, up until recently there was always a sweetness between individual people. Now because of the race baiters and elites on both side it is no longer ok to love each other across the divide. We are so much poorer for it
Chris, just a note to say that your Substack has been a revelation and I love it, and your perspective on forgotten towns and byways in the US. I’m always fascinated with anywhere I stop on a road trip and often have half a mind to do exactly what you do, except that you’re actually doing it and I’m just thinking about it. I also love that you always end these walkabouts with Mexican food and a brewery, which is precisely what I do in just about any town I visit. Kudos.
Poor and working class people of every race understand one another so much better, and more easily, than any of the credentialed folks that I see writing about them. Our entire media apparatus now feels like it's geared toward pointing fingers at poor white people, oblivious to the fact that the non-white people can see themselves on the receiving end of those pointing fingers.
I love your work. I come from a poor background in the upper south, always tested off the charts, started ridding myself of an accent when I was 5 or 6 because I'd already figured out how essential that would be. I ended up working in a factory after college, planning to save up money for law school. Then I helped organize a union there, was elected to first bargaining committee. Moved on from there, mostly by sheer luck, to doing lefty (non-union) political work. Finally surrounded by the rich kids that I'd always been drawn to, had spent my high school and college years with: achievers. But even (especially?) the ones that wanted to help had blind spots that I couldn't get them past. An inability to just see the people they believed that they wanted to help. They're so very different.
Even still, I left that work primarily because, unlike my colleagues, if I continued doing it then I would always be one mild disaster away from poverty. I've been very fortunate since. The only people who could possibly mistake me for working class are the very upper class. My son lives in a world that looks like Disneyland to me, when I view it through the eyes of my childhood, as we do. I've been so very lucky.
Now I move through manufacturing facilities all over the US, occasionally the world. I spend a lot of time in the break rooms close to the floor, and in the smoking sections, because I prefer the company there. I watch a level of integration and ease with one another among different races, at volume, that doesn't exist among the better off. They're elbow to elbow and figure out how to manage it without DEI/HR administrator intervention (but for how much longer?).
I moved relatively near my family (I've lived all over the eastern half of the country). I'm a single dad now and I travel a lot. I not only can use my family's help with that situation, I want my son to be around them. My sister works at Wal-Mart; if I ever catch this kid being as disdainful of that as I would've been . . . well he won't let me catch him doing it twice. My grandmother still says she's going to "warsh" some clothes, and my son tries not to get caught scowling, just like I did.
I slip in and out of working class diction, my accent grows. I'm probably saddling my child with class markers that won't necessarily serve him well where he's likely going, and I'm not unhappy about it (though we worry about everything, don't we?).
All of this (unnecessarily, and I apologize) to point out why this work really touches me. And it's much more important than almost anyone realizes. You're so right about people wanting different things. If you've decided that you don't want to be defined by a career, by meritocratic achievement, in this country, well (a) that is perfectly natural, and will almost certainly allow you to have fewer ethical quandaries in your life and (b) good luck staying afloat. Almost nothing here is truly geared toward helping you. Some people could do a lot "more" in tthe world, but in making the effort would have to give away some crucial part of their soul. So they don't, and don't want to. These are the best people that humanity has yet produced, the ones who hold up the world.
The people who most claim to want to help simply do not and will not have a level of understanding that would allow them to do that. They've moved on from being largely ineffectual and distracted, and have become harmful at that effort, unbelievably counterproductive. Comforting the comfortable, and afflicting the afflicted.
Sorry to ramble on this way, and in public no less. You touched me today, and I thank you for it. I'm grateful for what you do, and hope you find a way to keep doing it.
I'm from SC, and I lived/worked in Florence for several years. You've done an excellent job of 'explaining' the South. I'm sharing this with all my friends in Europe (where I now live).
Good points, Chris. When I moved to the US from a feudal society, I thought, wow, there's so much dignity in every job, and no one needs to kowtow to anyone. Over time, I realize how much more insidious the feudalism is, in the urban coastal places I've lived. It's education and success that divides.
I grew up in a cotton mill town called Lindale, right outside of Rome GA. Rome used to have all sorts of factories in bedroom communities and growing up I didn't really think of it a small town...maybe more a smallish town. LIndale now looks like a zombie apocalypse happened to it. It's unrecognizable from the pretty little town I grew up in. Rome likes to fancy itself more than it is. It's been run by the same families for decades and they still run and own everything. If you walk up and down Broad Street or out at Berry College you might leave thinking that it's a cute and nice little place. If you get out to the communities where people worked and lived you see decay and it's sad looking. I tried moving back to Rome some years back. I could not adjust or fit in. I lived there for the first 31 years of my life and when I moved back after 15 years away I may as well have been a total stranger. I moved away as soon as I could manage it. If you ever decide to do a walking tour in NW Georgia, Rome or some of the surrounding area might pique your interest. I sure am enjoying your walking series. You write about people I've known my entire life.
the guardrails are much higher in the north in terms of saying the right thing, but as you note there's not a lot of real Black-white bonding going on. When you see a Black and white guy together during the day, it's a work coffee run, and during the evening they're on a date.
Thanks Chris. I do enjoy every visit to SC having lived in the upstate for a few years before the turn of the century.
You could have experienced this same joyfulness on the exact same walk 10, 15 or even 20 years ago. Portions of SC enjoy a certain timelessness that I'd forgotten to appreciate until reading this. Thank you for sharing your experience.
you highlight a lot of the diversity/integration between black and white, but it does seem interesting to contemplate what's happening with the widening diversity of formerly only black/white places, with Mexican restaurants and Indian-owned businesses, and, I assume, growing populations of non white, non black residents .Do you get a sense that is changing dynamics in a place like Florence at all?
Don't know how I missed this. Great observations!
Bennettsville native here, and also a hobby writer. I enjoyed this and it is 100% accurate. We lived and worked side by side in peace until outside agitators attempt to paint us all with the wide swath of their projection.
That is the way everything is in New Orleans. Everything seen thru the lens of race. And yet, up until recently there was always a sweetness between individual people. Now because of the race baiters and elites on both side it is no longer ok to love each other across the divide. We are so much poorer for it
Chris, just a note to say that your Substack has been a revelation and I love it, and your perspective on forgotten towns and byways in the US. I’m always fascinated with anywhere I stop on a road trip and often have half a mind to do exactly what you do, except that you’re actually doing it and I’m just thinking about it. I also love that you always end these walkabouts with Mexican food and a brewery, which is precisely what I do in just about any town I visit. Kudos.
Poor and working class people of every race understand one another so much better, and more easily, than any of the credentialed folks that I see writing about them. Our entire media apparatus now feels like it's geared toward pointing fingers at poor white people, oblivious to the fact that the non-white people can see themselves on the receiving end of those pointing fingers.
I love your work. I come from a poor background in the upper south, always tested off the charts, started ridding myself of an accent when I was 5 or 6 because I'd already figured out how essential that would be. I ended up working in a factory after college, planning to save up money for law school. Then I helped organize a union there, was elected to first bargaining committee. Moved on from there, mostly by sheer luck, to doing lefty (non-union) political work. Finally surrounded by the rich kids that I'd always been drawn to, had spent my high school and college years with: achievers. But even (especially?) the ones that wanted to help had blind spots that I couldn't get them past. An inability to just see the people they believed that they wanted to help. They're so very different.
Even still, I left that work primarily because, unlike my colleagues, if I continued doing it then I would always be one mild disaster away from poverty. I've been very fortunate since. The only people who could possibly mistake me for working class are the very upper class. My son lives in a world that looks like Disneyland to me, when I view it through the eyes of my childhood, as we do. I've been so very lucky.
Now I move through manufacturing facilities all over the US, occasionally the world. I spend a lot of time in the break rooms close to the floor, and in the smoking sections, because I prefer the company there. I watch a level of integration and ease with one another among different races, at volume, that doesn't exist among the better off. They're elbow to elbow and figure out how to manage it without DEI/HR administrator intervention (but for how much longer?).
I moved relatively near my family (I've lived all over the eastern half of the country). I'm a single dad now and I travel a lot. I not only can use my family's help with that situation, I want my son to be around them. My sister works at Wal-Mart; if I ever catch this kid being as disdainful of that as I would've been . . . well he won't let me catch him doing it twice. My grandmother still says she's going to "warsh" some clothes, and my son tries not to get caught scowling, just like I did.
I slip in and out of working class diction, my accent grows. I'm probably saddling my child with class markers that won't necessarily serve him well where he's likely going, and I'm not unhappy about it (though we worry about everything, don't we?).
All of this (unnecessarily, and I apologize) to point out why this work really touches me. And it's much more important than almost anyone realizes. You're so right about people wanting different things. If you've decided that you don't want to be defined by a career, by meritocratic achievement, in this country, well (a) that is perfectly natural, and will almost certainly allow you to have fewer ethical quandaries in your life and (b) good luck staying afloat. Almost nothing here is truly geared toward helping you. Some people could do a lot "more" in tthe world, but in making the effort would have to give away some crucial part of their soul. So they don't, and don't want to. These are the best people that humanity has yet produced, the ones who hold up the world.
The people who most claim to want to help simply do not and will not have a level of understanding that would allow them to do that. They've moved on from being largely ineffectual and distracted, and have become harmful at that effort, unbelievably counterproductive. Comforting the comfortable, and afflicting the afflicted.
Sorry to ramble on this way, and in public no less. You touched me today, and I thank you for it. I'm grateful for what you do, and hope you find a way to keep doing it.
I'm from SC, and I lived/worked in Florence for several years. You've done an excellent job of 'explaining' the South. I'm sharing this with all my friends in Europe (where I now live).
Good points, Chris. When I moved to the US from a feudal society, I thought, wow, there's so much dignity in every job, and no one needs to kowtow to anyone. Over time, I realize how much more insidious the feudalism is, in the urban coastal places I've lived. It's education and success that divides.
I grew up in a cotton mill town called Lindale, right outside of Rome GA. Rome used to have all sorts of factories in bedroom communities and growing up I didn't really think of it a small town...maybe more a smallish town. LIndale now looks like a zombie apocalypse happened to it. It's unrecognizable from the pretty little town I grew up in. Rome likes to fancy itself more than it is. It's been run by the same families for decades and they still run and own everything. If you walk up and down Broad Street or out at Berry College you might leave thinking that it's a cute and nice little place. If you get out to the communities where people worked and lived you see decay and it's sad looking. I tried moving back to Rome some years back. I could not adjust or fit in. I lived there for the first 31 years of my life and when I moved back after 15 years away I may as well have been a total stranger. I moved away as soon as I could manage it. If you ever decide to do a walking tour in NW Georgia, Rome or some of the surrounding area might pique your interest. I sure am enjoying your walking series. You write about people I've known my entire life.
Thanks for this, Chris. Well done.
the guardrails are much higher in the north in terms of saying the right thing, but as you note there's not a lot of real Black-white bonding going on. When you see a Black and white guy together during the day, it's a work coffee run, and during the evening they're on a date.
This might be my favorite one so far. I've lived in the South my whole life and this is so spot on. Thank you.
It seems much, much less racist than NYC is. People here talk a good anti racist game but brass tacks, there’s more discrimination here.
Thanks Chris. I do enjoy every visit to SC having lived in the upstate for a few years before the turn of the century.
You could have experienced this same joyfulness on the exact same walk 10, 15 or even 20 years ago. Portions of SC enjoy a certain timelessness that I'd forgotten to appreciate until reading this. Thank you for sharing your experience.
you highlight a lot of the diversity/integration between black and white, but it does seem interesting to contemplate what's happening with the widening diversity of formerly only black/white places, with Mexican restaurants and Indian-owned businesses, and, I assume, growing populations of non white, non black residents .Do you get a sense that is changing dynamics in a place like Florence at all?