Wow. I just reread my title. (I wrote the title, and then walked away and then came back). Am I going to end racism and solve race relations in the heart of the Deep South? Nope. Am I even going to be able to articulate a path toward a promised land of racial unity? Lulz.
What I can do is tell my story of a white dude growing up and living all my life in Louisiana, from small towns, to the Northshore, to Baton Rouge.
I was born in Leesville, LA. While it’s a small town, it was home to a military base – Fort Polk. When I lived there, it was home to the 5th Mechanized Infantry Division; that division has since moved to Ft. Hood and Ft. Polk is a readiness training center for troops headed overseas to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq. This is an important point – I went to school with people from all over the country and many of whom had been overseas. This wasn’t your typical insular small town, and as a result there wasn’t as much racial tension as I encountered when I moved to Marksville. To be sure, there was some. It’s Louisiana, after all. But I honestly don’t remember the raw hostility and outright racism that I found as I moved around the state. Leesville also didn’t have the de-segregation issues in the schools. There were no private schools, and there were only two elementary schools which fed one middle school (5-6th grade), a junior high (7-8th grade), and one high school. Everyone in the town went to the same schools. This, I think is a very important point.
My own parents had their issues, but fortunately racism wasn’t among them. I never heard the “n-word” from any family member. And, at least while I was growing up, they didn’t engage in discussion about blacks vs. whites or disparage other ethnic groups.
When the family moved to Marksville, however, things were very different. The first thing I learned was that there was a black Catholic Church and a white Catholic church. Within ½ mile of each other. Then I learned that they still had (and the practice continues to this day) a prom for the blacks and a prom for the whites.
Here’s how the whole black/white prom thing worked. The “official” school prom was boycotted by the white students. On a separate night, they held a private dance at a hotel in Alexandria. My family moved to Marksville in the summer before my Junior year in high school. I was a social misfit – I didn’t really fit in anywhere at this point. Once I learned of the prom system, I was horrified. So, the night of the “black” junior prom, I put on my only sport coat and slacks and went. Now, I have moderate social anxiety, and going to a dance where I knew exactly zero people was, frankly, terrifying, but I did it. I went in, paid some money, stayed about 30 minutes, and then left. I guess, if this were a movie, that act would have started a great thaw in the race relations in the school that would have transformed the community.
It wasn’t a movie.
Nothing happened, mainly because the political, educational, and religious leadership of Marksville isn’t really interested in changing things. I remember railing to a teacher “How come the rest of the Servant Squad wasn’t there as well?”. But I forgot – this is a strain of Catholicism that is comfortable in it’s racism and refuses to challenge injustice. The status quo is status fine to them.
And if this was a movie, then I’d remain unchanged and continued the good fight against the racism in my community.
But it wasn’t a movie. I drank the kool aid, and because my identity as an individual was less important to the group I was forced to join (more on that later), I gave up. I sold out. I became that which I fought against. My senior year found me, at the same time, intending to go to seminary to be a Catholic priest, and attending the white prom, with all the Servant Squad.
Y’all wanna know what it’s like to sell out? Intoxicating. You’re finally one of the group. You’re accepted, comforted, and understood.
It’s all a lie.
The Big Cheese 