WEBVTT - Thou Shalt Shut the F**k Up and Learn Something 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:05.040 Hi, and welcome to everywhere. I am your host, Daniel Scheffler. 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.480 Today's travel commandment thou shall shut the funk up and 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:22.079 learn something. Myself and yourself might not be the same. 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:30.080 What some call America's Deep South includes, without question Georgia, Alabama, 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:36.120 South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana a k a. The Cotton Belt. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.479 But for some like me, Tennessee and Arkansas feel so 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:45.560 much part of my Southern appreciation, whereas Florida and Texas 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.880 appear to be totally their own things, almost in a 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:54.760 kind of isolation. Some travel industry people are actively calling 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.600 it the New South. I guess it's less controversial than 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:03.319 calling it Dixie and right. I think what they mean 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:05.320 is that a bunch of hipsters have opened up a 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:11.319 design centric descourse stores and themed boutique hotels, or found 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.320 new ways of barbecuing and are getting tattooed whilst they're 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.679 at it. But for me, if I choose to live 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.679 in America, I need to travel America. The least I 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.640 can do is to get to know it. All. The 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.360 South sounds so monolithic to me that I was determined 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:33.520 to unpack it and allow every region, every county every 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.840 piece I could discover to show me what it is 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:41.360 and what it is not. Charleston and Nashville are the 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.840 current gems and the travel game, the bride's maids and 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.640 the cool kids have descended. But I've also wondered about Greenville, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:53.480 South Carolina, and also about Little Rock, Arkansas, and even Atlanta. 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.200 So I orchestrated a series of road trips across the 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.040 South over the course of a few years. Some studies 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:05.240 like Memphis, Tennessee, and Savannah, Georgia, I returned to numerous 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.920 times because there was so much to find that I 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:12.200 just simply love. And the road from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Asheville, 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.000 North Carolina, to Spartanburg, which is also North Carolina, I 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.320 could possibly now drive in my sleep. But then they 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.280 parts of the South that I still need to get to, 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:26.320 so see you soon, Montgomery, Alabama, and San Antonio, Texas. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.160 My friend Sue and I decided that if we wanted 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.480 to understand a little more of America, the good and 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:38.720 the bad, we needed to road trip through Mississippi. I've 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.000 always loved the many essays in that wood and those 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.000 iconic silky essays on the road signs just thrilled me. 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.080 So we started off with a wild weekend in New 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.280 Orleans for her birthday, which ended with us in a 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:57.080 car driving over the Twin Span Bridge from Louisiana into Mississippi. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.640 Oh look, she said, a dollar gen a store And 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.120 that was the first of our troop. After a week 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:06.480 in the state, we had counted nearly a hundred different 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.280 of these. It was our official road trip game. We 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:12.600 also came up with a new slogan for the Mississippi 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.839 Tourism Board. Better than you think. You need to say 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.280 that really fast together, better than you think, and we 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.640 tried it on locals. They all seem to like it 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:26.240 a lot. Our first stop was the Luxe. I was 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.040 told that had three syllables, so you had to slow 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:36.520 your pronunciation right down. The Luxe a beach town with 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:42.120 large casinos, plenty of surf, and even more shrimp. Back 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.520 in the day, the casinos weren't floating barges for tax 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:50.600 and regulation purposes and sneakiness I suspect. But today they're 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.480 all on the beach. And of course Sue knew how 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:58.240 to gamble. In Mississippi, they have crapless craps a craps 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:03.040 variant in which the player cannot lose a pass bet 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.560 on the come out role. Yes, I have no idea 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.640 what that means, but it was fun to watch Sue 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.240 make a couple of thousand dollars within minutes. The town 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:17.040 of belux Se also boasts a Frank Gary designed or 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:21.320 O'Keefe Museum of Art. Nothing to do with George O'Keeffe. 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:23.880 This was just the family who paid for the museum, 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.120 dedicated to the mad pot of Biluxei. George e Er. 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.400 In the late nineteenth century, pottery was taking America by storm, 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.840 and I probably need Holly to tell us more about this, 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.000 but it was usually a French laurel or Japanese minimal. 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.640 But good old George had other plans, like pots in 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:48.159 anatomical shapes or a whole filled coffee mug that required 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.240 you to drink from it in a specific way to 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:55.239 avoid a spill. Long after his death, the art world 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.520 caught up with him, and even Andy Warrell became a collector. 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.359 So right next to Biloxi is a little extension of 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.800 the area called Ocean Springs, a sweet little town with 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.680 incredible chefs and young people who are from the area 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:13.880 and revitalizing it in a sort of entrepreneurial spirit. And 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.839 this is where I really started to ponder about gentrification. 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.880 Here it felt less like hipsters moving in and shaking 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.840 things up by kicking locals out, and more like rebuilding 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.359 a defunct part of the state. In fact, the whole 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.080 coast fell under disrepair with weather disasters and people just 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.160 moving away. But here in the Ocean Springs community, albeit 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.920 pretty small, pulled together to create a place for progressive 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:46.200 people to come live healthy, creative lifestyle. I entered us 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.960 into the local Southern biscuit competition, where town folks were 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:54.640 competing every Thursday with no family recipe. It's no wonder 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:59.120 my sneakily storeboard biscuits lost to the savory bless your 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:04.479 Heart a can and cheese entry. No trip to Mississippi 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.039 is complete without a stop in its capital, Jackson, home 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.800 to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum that opened not so 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:16.560 long ago. So here we were two white people standing 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.640 next to a Confederate flag and a ku Klux Klan 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:25.479 costume in display cabinets. An eerie darkness descended on Sue 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:30.359 and I. This was in some ways America. I was 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.480 standing in this museum room when an older African American 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.800 lady came to stand next to me. She looked at me, 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:42.960 and I looked at her silence, and then we held 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.520 hands and we both started to quietly weep. All I 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.920 wanted to say is I'm sorry to apologize with something 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.400 I didn't quite understand. I felt some of the pain 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.680 and I think African Americans must experience walking through the museum, 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:03.040 and I felt shame for the world. We stood there 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.000 for a long time, just trying to process our emotions, 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.000 and this is often how I feel. In the South. 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.680 I don't quite grasp the race situation. I was born 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.320 in Africa as a white boy, and it fences my understanding, 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:21.240 and I do wish that I could talk about it 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.240 more openly, and that maybe I could shut the funk 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:28.960 up and listen to someone for once. Unfortunately, in most schools, 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.960 and certainly the ones I attended, I just wasn't given 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.400 the vocabulary to talk about it bravely. I did have 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.040 an English teacher at high school whom i'm still best 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:42.560 friends with, that encouraged reading James Baldwin and black writers 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.160 from all over Africa. We debated race and class and 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:52.160 ways that felt both respectful and very challenging. But that 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.800 was the eleventh grade, and this is the real world, 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.280 so real that when Michael and I found ourselves at 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.680 a plantation house in South Carolina, just north of Charleston 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.120 as part of our tour of the South, we both 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:09.240 felt pretty uncomfortable staying on property. But somehow this like 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.800 uneasy feeling was probably something we needed to deal with 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.840 and not run away from. So we stayed, and it 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:18.880 was really hard not to make a run for it. 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.440 When there was this bizarre re enacted slavery section as 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.560 part of the touristy tour of the grounds, I naturally 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.400 took this opportunity to question our tour guide and rapid 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.240 fire questions with her about the South and racism. She 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.520 wouldn't let up. The more I talked about it, the 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.480 more she wouldn't. The next morning I had my moment. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.640 Breakfast was awfully formal, served at this very long table 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.680 in the old slave master's home. We took our seats, 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.960 and this now owner of the property brought out family 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.120 style food. Soon enough, I asked the woman next to 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.720 me whether, as a white woman, she felt aren't being there. 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.400 She looked at me for a split second in silence, 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.680 and then started talking fast. Hi, I'm Annie, and we're 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.480 from a small town nearby in South Carolina, and we've 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.280 come here to understand race a little better. And on 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.600 she went. Her daddy, who was sitting next to Michael, 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.959 ran a chain of grocery stores aimed at lower income communities, 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.240 and her mama helped local women in their community get 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.200 kids through school. In fact, her parents had adopted many 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.920 local kids and helped them get educated. Her brother, for instance, 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.200 who happens to be African American, was finishing up Harvard 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.440 in the fall. She herself ran a clinic for woman 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.559 to get healthcare services at cheaper rates, even abortions. She added, 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.600 if that's what they wanted. We chatted for about an 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.920 hour with this whole family, and with the elections going on, 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.440 it obviously turned political. And at some point I said, oh, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:55.520 I so wish I could spend an hour of my 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:59.000 life with Trump supporters so I could just better understand 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:06.320 their viewpoints. The room went silent and Annie said, you 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:11.560 just did, and the rug was pulled. Those are the 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:15.760 moments that the South keeps delivering to me. In Memphis, 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.680 I met this glamorous hat wearing woman named Karen who 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.559 owns a restaurant called the Beauty Shop. So one night 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.000 we were sitting at dinner and you can sit under 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.560 the old hand dryers, and she told me about her staff. 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:30.800 I hired the ones who don't feel like they belong, 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.560 she told me. And it's true. I've been to the 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.560 restaurant a number of times now and made it my 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.480 business to chat to the service and bartenders and line chefs. 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.040 Many of them are lgbt Q and have come from 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.959 small towns or maybe a farm somewhere in the South 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:49.079 where they are not welcome. They told me stories about 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.520 being chased from their childhood homes by guns, and how 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:56.960 some were sent to gay conversion therapy classes. But luckily 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:00.000 news travels and many kids scared for their lives need 0:10:59.920 --> 0:11:04.040 to run away. Here about Karen's I don't know safe haven, 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.000 And as she says, I'll hire just about anyone. Everyone's 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.720 welcome here. How can I not ponder how fortunate I 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.800 am to have had an immediate family who embraced my sexuality, 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.080 who never made me feel lesser because I happen to 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:25.479 love men. Of course, the story is about race acceptance, 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.760 identity are everywhere in the Greatest South, ready for anyone 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:34.160 to take and start discussing, like the Savannah College of 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.920 Art and Design, transform the electric City of Savannah and 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.640 open it up to a new generation of creatives from 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.640 all walks of life and all over the world. There's 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:46.960 nothing I love more than people who are Southern and 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:50.079 come back to the South to find their roots, like 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:54.320 Mashama Bailey, who runs the incredible Africa meets Southern meets 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:59.520 New York City restaurant The Gray in Savannah. Nobody embodies 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.360 the South quite like she does. But just a few 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.840 hours south of the city, nearby on some beautiful Georgian 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.360 islands is where I found out Blacks weren't welcome at 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.920 some of the resorts until about twenty years ago. The 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.640 Jews weren't until about ten years ago, and only very 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:23.560 recently other gays welcomed. In Dallas, I'm always struck by 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.800 how Sheik people are on the street, the most sophisticated 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.719 Southern city by far. Maybe the Nieman Marcus HQ downtown 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:36.000 could take some credit. And close to Lexington, Kentucky, I 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.839 learned about the Shaker communities who had a model of 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.560 equality of the sexes in Raleigh, North Carolina, Michael and 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.600 I became friends with a chef, one of Indian descent 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.880 by way of the Bronx, and a restaurateur who came 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.520 to America as an adopted baby from Lao. The expressions 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.960 of being Southern is what America is all about to me. Yes, 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.080 I mentioned their ethnicity just to make a wide a 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.320 point that the South is a place filled with everyone. 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.280 The stereotypes of the South are useless and I think dated. 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:09.920 They cannot just be this one idea of the South. 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.280 And people like Cheaty and Van and Raleigh, they show 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.280 us that every experience is valid and that every single 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:24.959 person can open your mind, but only if you let them. 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:29.120 Now everyone for a time out, except for sponsors. We'll 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:35.320 be right back with more Everywhere trade tables up. You're 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:40.520 returning to Everywhere land. Maybe it's time for a little 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.480 holly chat about the South. Since she is from the South, 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:50.120 Ish Ish, so she says, I wasn't born in the South. 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:54.560 I was a military kid. So I was born in Arizona, 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:58.120 and I lived in Seattle, and we moved to Florida 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.960 when I was nine, and then I'm moved to Atlanta 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.960 for college and I never left, so I am, in 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.880 practical sense absolutely a Southerner. Although it's kind of funny 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.000 because I sometimes find myself feeling a little between two worlds. 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.880 When I talked to relatives from like Michigan, for example, 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.600 they think I have the thickest Southern accent they've ever heard, 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.080 Whereas when I'm in the South, people are like, are 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.680 you a Yankee? But the real question is in New York, 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.040 where did they think you're from. Sometimes a lot of 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:28.720 people in New York think I'm from New York, which 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.280 cracks me up. Like my point of pride is that, 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.680 like if I'm walking up Eighth Avenue, which anybody who 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.840 knows New York is like tourism Central, that the people 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.040 who are trying to hustle and sell you tickets to 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:41.640 the any of the things like whether it's a Broadway 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:43.720 show or to get to the top of the Empire 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.320 State Building, they ignore me completely, And I'm like, okay, cool, 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.960 I'm blended in with New York, So yeah, new Yorkers don't. 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:53.320 I don't think I've ever had an interaction with the 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.040 New Yorker where they ask of him from the South. 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.680 That's interesting when I say I'm from New York. People 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:03.040 immediately say it, way you really from and I go why, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.200 and they go, well, you don't sound like you're from 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:06.960 New Yon. And then I have to say, well, New 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:13.200 Yon doesn't have a sound it exactly. Interestingly enough, um 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.120 Ella's with us in studio. My dog she's from Puerto Rico, 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.480 and very often people would ask me, always a dog 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:22.240 from it, and I'd say, oh, she's Puerto Rican and 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.280 they'd be like, oh, she's from a foreign country. And 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.600 I have to be like, well, no, Puerto Rico is American, 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.000 and they'd be like, no, it's not right. There's some 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.720 confusion that still persists on that point. But that's like 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:40.760 a weird way where like race and diversity and ethnicity 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.160 comes through, like even through my dog, this suddenly this 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.960 like that's the other, Like she's from the other right, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.880 And everybody's just trying to process the world and like 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.760 define things in in the simplest boxes they can. But 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.880 unfortunately that leads to a sense of otherness. But like 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.640 I feel like because I moved to the South when 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.600 I was nine, which would have been nineteen eighty, because 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:09.160 I'm a very grown up person, find no baby, I 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:12.360 have all the life experience for you. So, as I mentioned, 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.720 my family moved to the Panhandle of Florida because my 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.560 father is in the military and their bases there. And 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.120 I think we had been living there about two months 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.640 when three lots down from our house and we were 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.200 in a pretty remote area of what is now a 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:32.200 very booming beach town. But there was a KKK rally 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.880 like complete with burning cross and I just remember like 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:36.680 looking at my parents and be like, where have you 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.680 moved me to? And we even kind of walked down 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.680 the street tentatively just because like our next door neighbors 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:44.560 had said, oh, just f y I this is going on. 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.280 Maybe don't go out if you don't you want to 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.240 see any of that. And we were like, wait, no, 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.600 that can't she can't be don't wear white pajamas outside 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.760 in the street tonight. It was just so bizarre. But 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:57.880 for the longest time, I mean, I grew up in 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.200 a community that was almost in tirely white. We had 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.080 one black kid in my school and he was a 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.080 unicorn to most people, you know, they were like, what 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.320 are you like? And he was like a person. Um. 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.600 I always wondered if he, too, like had been a 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.080 military kid that just kind of landed in the South 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.480 and was suddenly like, what is this experience? And of 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.560 course I was young enough to not realize like, those 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.920 are exactly the people you should seek out and find 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.240 out what their experiences because one they may need an ally, 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:30.639 and two that's a unique situation that is definitely a 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:32.600 learning thing, which you're not thinking about that when you're 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.919 a kid, because you're a dumb kid. At least I was. 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.359 Not all kids are. Some are very bright and insightful. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.800 So yeah, it's been very interesting to see that and 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.080 then living, you know, continuing to live in the South 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:46.760 as I do, how we haven't haven't progressed in the 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.919 intervening thirty plus years. Well, the South to me is 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.120 such a perfect and easy way for anyone to learn 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.600 these lessons, because like, I've traveled to South Africa with 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:01.720 a black friend and have gone to a beach where 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.560 the entire beach left, Every single person on the beach left, 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.119 and someone said to me, that is the first black 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.080 person to ever come on this beach. And this was 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.520 two thousand and three. Wow, that's not so long ago. 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.760 And this was like a segregated beach, and that happened 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:25.439 almost ten years after apartheid ended. I don't. I'm curious 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:27.919 because I feel like you have this unique, parallel, but 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.440 not quite the same experience being from South Africa, where 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.159 there is sometimes a desire I think in the study 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.679 of American history for people to go like, Okay, the 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:42.320 Civil War happened, and then abolition happened, and then reconstruction 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.800 and racism was solved, and it's like no, no, no, no, 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.359 no no. And I wonder if it's similar with apartheid, 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.639 Like maybe the legal rules on the books have been 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.720 done away with, but that doesn't mean that cultural norms 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.199 magically shift to cool. It takes a while, and it 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:04.520 takes to me. I see it generationally, like maybe you 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.959 grow up in a household that is racist and you 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.840 don't like it, so then you create a household that 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.080 is not that, but surely you're probably still propagating some things. 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.400 And then your kids see that and they do one better, 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:17.760 and you know what I mean. So I think it 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:22.600 generationally improves. Not in all cases. Obviously they're outliers to 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:24.679 that model. So I do. I mean, I think that 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.600 when I talked to teenagers today or kids in their 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.359 early twenties. I'm always wowed by how wise they are 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.600 about embracing each other for who they are and not 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.960 needing to do those things like put people in defined 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.280 boxes with a label on them like that. It's just 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:45.520 not the same mindset. My gone dn'ta who's like at 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:50.919 high school would never use race as an identifying for someone. 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:55.000 She would never go that and to race the girl. 0:19:55.320 --> 0:20:00.840 She would identify them with something that's more universal. Right. Well, 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:02.960 and there is like this other angle to that, right 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:06.400 where I like, you don't want to erase though somebody's 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.760 identity in that regard, Like to some people their ethnicity 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.080 is super important and it's a big part of their identity, 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.600 but you don't want to treat it disrespectfully, as just 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:19.280 like an adjective. So I always wonder how those waters 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:23.280 will be navigated going forward. Well, I think the idea 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.080 of traveling, like I've spent time in Croatia where the 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.679 friends that I made there had never seen a person 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.840 of color because Croatia wasn't at the time, So this 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.679 is like maybe ten years ago, it wasn't as open 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:41.080 to tourism, and they would say things like I've never 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.720 seen a person of color so I'm staring not because 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.760 I'm being racist, It's because I don't know it, right. 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.919 I mean there and then the invos, like you go 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.320 to India and some rural parts of India, those people 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.320 have never seen white people and they stare at me 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.520 and look at me like, who's this person? This alien 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.439 from wherever? Honey, it's not because you're a white person. 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:09.600 It's because you're a tropical fish walking among us human. Yes, 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.800 just because I'm slightly taller than you, you're a tropical fish. Yeah. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:15.760 I mean it is fascinating, and it gets back to 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:17.720 you what you were saying about the other, right, Like 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:21.159 we come to understand what we're exposed to. And so 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.399 that's like the thing you've talked a lot about being 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.760 open to meeting people and hearing what they have to say, 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.439 and that makes them not the other, even even if 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.240 they are very different from you. There's still part of 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:38.240 the greater human experience. Well, as I told you about 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:43.439 my experience with Annie. When I became quiet and was 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:47.119 able to listen to Annie, who I met at the 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.520 Plantation House, telling me about her life, that's when I 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.639 was learning something instead of just being like my experience, 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.439 my way this is how I see the South. I 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:03.240 was thing to let somebody else explain to me their 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.840 version of the South, and it shocked me because the 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:11.760 stereotypes that people have are so wrong, and they based 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.320 on such a small part of the world. Like people 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.159 say things like New York is a rude Where do 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.840 you get the stereotype from? That? One always cracks me 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:25.280 up a little bit because because my experience to me, 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:27.360 I meet some of the friendliest people I've ever met 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.720 in New York. Why do you think the South has 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:35.960 this reputation that's the Southern accent has a reputation, that 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.520 very notion of the South has a reputation. Well, there 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:42.639 are certainly reasons, right, Like we have a tag on 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:45.240 our show where we talk about racism is not something 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:49.119 that only happened in the South, but because it was 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:53.600 where a lot of high profile civil rights moments happened, 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.520 it looks like where that like the South is where 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.720 the battle over racism was happening. The other thing too, 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.720 that I think is that we don't always realize how 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.240 rooted in history some of these ideas are going all 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:08.840 the way back to the Civil War, Like two Northerners, 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:13.119 there are still roots of that idea that everyone in 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.800 the South is a stupid backwards person. Similarly, I mean, 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.600 I remember going to high school with I had a 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:23.160 wonderful teacher, but her family would still talk about people 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:25.240 north of the Mason Dixon line as though they were 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:28.200 the enemy. Like she was telling this story one day 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:32.000 about how her brother was engaged to a woman from 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.960 like Pennsylvania, and it was like the family scandal. What 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:39.679 that was like more than a hundred years ago, that 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.479 this actually took place. That you don't have to do 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:46.240 the the Yankee versus Confederacy thing. I'm not sure why 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:49.440 this is playing out, but I think that those tendrils 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.879 have continued longer than people realize. Not everyone embraces change, 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:57.679 particularly not social change. And it's like while things may 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.840 be progressing in one way, the people that don't like 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:03.880 it really rally the other way, and those they're passing 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:08.120 those ideas to the next generation after that, etcetera. I mean, 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:10.760 it's the same thing that we talk about in terms 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:15.240 of how we see other races, how we see LGBTQ people. Again, 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:17.760 it goes back to that idea of their this way, 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:21.240 like it becomes that monolithic idea of Southerners are this way, 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:24.560