History was made in the deep south during the 1800’s with the civil war, and again in the 1950’s and 60’s with the civil rights movement. When I was standing in the places where the history happened so long ago, I could feel it. The air was heavy (with both humidity and history) and the ground felt packed with stories and riddled with purpose.
I learnt a lot on this trip. I was taught about what’s important and about change and told dozen of stories. This trip to the south showed me resilience in it’s true form. I met incredible people and left very inspired; but I also left feeling changed. The funny part is, the change and the inspiration didn’t come hand in hand. The inspiration is something that came from the big picture of where I was, and who I met. The change in perspective came from something else entirely.
There were a few things that I noticed down south that were very hard to swallow. The first was that they don’t recycle. I’ve been to place that had no recycling system once before, and it was very close to where I was this time. About four years ago in Florida, my family had separated our garbage from recycling for the two weeks we had been on vacation. When we went to go dispose of the bags, my sister and I were both mortified to find only trash bins. I don’t remember a world without recycling, it’s always been something that’s been drilled into me at both school and at home. My parents tell me they’ve recycled, in different ways, their whole lives. In my mother’s childhood, they didn’t have weekly pickup, but everything was reused. Their pop bottles were glass, and they would get them refilled at the store. It seems like these southern towns, both big and small, don’t have either the reuse method my parents grew up on or the recycling one I’ve been taught. They progressed past the reuse and went to the one time use without learning the proper disposal methods, and it makes me wonder how much southern children are taught about keeping our planet green.
In small town Mississippi, I wasn’t necessarily as uncomfortable more than I was amazed. We made a pit stop at a gas station, and the minute we stepped out of that van we were all completely out of our element. I could see two confederate flags from the middle-of-nowhere old gas station, there were two stray dogs hanging out in the sun, and a horse ten feet away from us. There was an old unoccupied building stating it was a laundromat and had video games (fancy). The man who owned the horse then came out of his house to greet us, and said the only thing that made me think I hadn’t time traveled back to the year 1978, and it was that his horse had a facebook page.
The environment I experienced in that short pitstop was unlike anything I had ever really seen before. I didn’t think places like that actually still existed, but a horse and a shirtless 70 year old man had proved me wrong. Although this might all fall in within the stereotype of the small southern town, nothing that I saw there was anything I expected. I had no idea that places like that still existed, and that made me realize that not all of America is like Washington and California, or even Vancouver. Somehow, it’s almost if Mississippi is 40 years behind.
In Selma, I met my next uncomfortable topic. In a tour off the town headed by a woman who grew up there, Joanne Bland. I saw a world I had never seen outside of fictionalized stories. And for the lack of a better word, I am going to use a word that makes me very uncomfortable. A word I am aware is stigmatized and I probably should avoid, but it’s still the first word that came to mind when I entered the area. So for the sake of honesty, I had entered the “ghetto”. The ghetto or projects or whatever you want to call it was scary for me. When we drove in, Ms. Bland told us not to “act like tourists” or we’ll be shot. I know she was joking (or at least, I’m pretty sure), but gun violence isn’t something that people in Vancouver joke about, so it caught me a little bit off guard. It was scary for me to be there, I had never been in a place like that before. I guess the closest would be the downtown east side, and I’m not afraid of the east side.
Not until about a day and a half later did I realize the true uncomfortableness of the “ghetto”. What’s bad about the ghetto isn’t the reasons I was afraid when I was actually there. What’s bad about it is the fact that it exists. Or, that it had to be created in the first place. Those people in those small apartments didn’t chose to be there, they’re smart people. In fact, Ms. Bland told us that the school that takes in all the kids from those buildings has the highest testing scores in the whole state. People in those projects aren’t stupid, but once you’re put in there it’s hard to get out. Really hard. Then I realized who put those people in those projects. It was my people, the white people, that put them in such bad situations.
Maybe this shouldn’t be such a shock to me. Maybe I should have thought about this long ago, but it was something I didn’t realize until I saw it with my own two eyes. I felt bad about it, and then I felt some kind of weird guilt about it. I’ve gotten over that now because guilt solves nothing, and nothing there was directly my fault. However, that doesn’t meant I want to ignore it. The uncomfortableness of all this was a good thing, because everything that really happens happens because people are uncomfortable. White people being uncomfortable with black people brought oppression, but black people being uncomfortable with how they were treated brought civil rights. It’s the same thing with the transgender bathroom laws right now, or even veganism (which seems to be a big controversy right now).
Being uncomfortable was what made me realize what the problems are, but if I don’t deal with my uncomfortableness the right way, I could end up on the wrong side of history. I have to be okay with being uncomfortable and learning from my experiences, or nothing will change. And the more I accept what’s uncomfortable, the more I know what needs to change.
A small collection of pictures from the trip:
