The Other South

Phil Robertson is the South. 

I say this with shame, as a Southerner, but I know it's true. 

I know because when I was in the sixth grade, I prayed to God to fix me and found myself falling into a pit of self-hatred and confusion that lasted years and years and still sometimes tries to drag me in. My own Phil Robertsons did that. 

I know because I heard talk about how things used to be better, how people were happier "back then." I was told about us and them. There he is again. 

I know because when Phil Robertson spouted hate and bigotry, many of my friends and family formed a wall around him and his words, defending them against the better judgment of A&E and corporate distributors of Duck Dynasty goods. These people refused to accept that racist, homophobic language was problematic or should be acknowledged as such, even when it appeared in a major publication from the mouth of a man with considerable influence (bizarre as that influence may be). 

They couched their efforts in pretty words and tried to use the First Amendment to make it seem as though Phil Robertson were being persecuted and his rights were being denied. 

Nope. 

The Mississippi teen who got called "it" by her teacher? She is being persecuted.

The trans women who walk in fear and cannot depend on police protection because jail cells are often sites of new horrors? Their rights are being denied. 

But Phil Robertson is the South, and that's why people watch Duck Dynasty, for the picture of a "real" Southern family that prays together and eats together and works together. For god's sake they call Phil the patriarch. The gawk factor of a group of rednecks with money is just icing on the cake. 

Of course the not-so-hidden downside of embracing this myth of the South and its perfect family came out when Phil opened his mouth in GQ and his defenders rode their white horses to trample whatever morality clause A&E might have implemented to remove him from the show. 

His various non-apologies, most of which involved some kind of statement about the universality of sin, his own mistakes, and the need to love one another, revealed another insidious logic of the church and its followers, of a specific kind of South. 

He is allowed to say whatever he wants so long as he blankets that statement by saying, "love one another." Much like "bless his heart," it excuses a wide variety of otherwise unacceptable or minimally rude (its own kind of shame in the South) content.

For many, it functionally erases the fact that he called gay and lesbian people murderous and hate filled sinners who would rot in hell or that he wrote off the painful experiences of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South, a spiel which can only be explained by a serious and willful ignorance of history and a lack of self-awareness that might be unique to his particular brand of Southern white man.

This is "love the sinner, hate the sin," an approach to homosexuality that somehow finds no problem in divorcing a queer person from his or her sexuality even as it advocates for heterosexuality as supreme and essential. It's the approach that makes self-righteous cousins feel okay about hurling insults at the dinner table or that prompts nosy neighbors to constantly inform gay couples that they are "in our prayers."  It's the logic that made me hate myself for a long time. 

This is the South that many of these same people want to claim is post-racial, even as they jump to defend a rewriting of history that negates the experiences of their neighbors and their neighbors' ancestors and conveniently removes any responsibility to recognize white privilege and its history. 

Most disturbing is that most people who cried First Amendment did not need or want Phil to apologize, even in the form of a non-apology. They wanted his words. They wanted his thoughts. They wanted the patriarch in all his bigotry to stand and speak for them. That's what this has become, a fight about a belief system that a whole group of people want to maintain but know is being constantly challenged (not enough, never enough). In Phil they found a voice that reaches a massive group of people and advocates for their cause. It's not about First Amendment rights; it's about the right to hate without repercussion and continue to foster a culture that keeps queer kids shamed and minorities of every kind exhausted by constant microaggressive, or for that matter just flat out aggressive, statements and actions. 

The fight is about what the South is and how it will or will not progress. If we want the mythical Southern family that Duck Dynasty represents, then we have to take it all. I will say this for Phil, he feels righteous and his backers feel he is too. He will not sweep his homophobia or racism under the rug for anyone's sake. And apparently, he shouldn't have to. With his reinstatement it has become clear that he has the right to spew hate, although I wonder if he would have the same right if he weren't part of a show that centered on a very particular kind of Southern life. 

That gets to me because it's true, Phil Robertson is the South. 

But so am I. 

So are my mama, who responded to my coming out with an "Oh honey" and every kind of support you could possibly imagine, and my brother, whose refrain of "Sissy, I've got your back" echoes loudly every time I feel afraid to face another coming out. 

So is the queer community who healed the wounds Phil Robertson and those like him scraped into my skin, digging down into my subconscious and leaving shame and self-loathing that took years to extract (still it lurks). 

So are the families and friends who support me and the rest of the community and put no asterisk on the word love. No terms and conditions apply.

So are Black people and any number of people of color, good God, and their histories and struggles and triumphs.  

So are the churches and faith communities who open their doors without question or presumption and ask their potential priests questions about lgbt people not to weed out the liberals but to protect their lgbt members from any hate from the pulpit. 

So are all those who refuse hateful, historically inaccurate myths about Jim Crow and racial segregation as happy times for all involved and try to fight the racism that seeps into every corner of life. 

So are those who refuse to shield and support a bigot under the misuse of the first amendment. 

This is the other South, but it's easy to forget because it is buried under the mythology of the Old South, the praying family, the benevolent patriarch, the way things used to be (the way things never were). 

This is the South that is hard to find, that won't get a tv show, that gives support where it can but can't reach everyone who feels alone and trapped by hateful words that try to hide themselves under meaningless platitudes. 

It is shameful to all of us that Phil Robertson gets to represent us to yet another generation, another round of queer kids who hear in his words a warning to stay deep in the closet, another group of people who hear racist revisonist history as the song of the South. 

I remember the prayers and tears and thoughts of self-harm and wonder how we can let him speak for us. 

So what can we do, this other South?

I don't know yet but I know I refuse to let Phil Robertson represent me any longer. 

The South is more than that, more than him, and I am thankful for that every day.  

We just have to figure out how to let everyone else know the other South,

too.