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Speaker 1: Pushing it all right on this episode of Some of

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Speaker 1: My Best Friends Are we are traveling to the South.

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Speaker 2: Man, I'm already there with that music. But this is

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Speaker 2: an adventure episode a journey, right, Yep, we're gonna talk

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Speaker 2: about a trip that you and I took last summer

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Speaker 2: to Tennessee. That's right, Sawanna University, which is also known

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Speaker 2: as the University of the South.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. In fact, they liked Siwani a little

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Speaker 1: bit more these days.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit more about that. But this

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Speaker 1: was part of a conference. You and I were there

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Speaker 1: with a bunch of really incredible people, writers and artists

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Speaker 1: and scholars, and you know, it was an opportunity to

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Speaker 1: do something you and I have never done, certainly not

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Speaker 1: done together, which is to think about Southerness, to think

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Speaker 1: about what it means to be Southern in the twenty

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Speaker 1: first century, and to even personally think about whether or

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Speaker 1: not I could identify in this way as a non

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Speaker 1: white person, like does that even include me?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Or hell, does it include me? You know, like a Northerner,

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Speaker 2: a Jewish person, somebody married to a black woman with

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Speaker 2: biracial kids.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, we haven't really had a chance

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Speaker 1: to digest exactly all that we took in, you know,

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Speaker 1: to be surrounded by Southern whites at a Southern white

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Speaker 1: institution and kind of like meeting them on their own

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Speaker 1: terms at the University of the South.

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Speaker 2: I hear you, khalil, Well, come on, carpetbager, that's that's South, all.

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Speaker 1: Right, all right. I don't have a banjo, but I

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Speaker 1: got my blue shoes.

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Speaker 2: How about that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's.

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Speaker 4: My age.

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Speaker 2: So to get to Tennessee, I traveled from Chicago.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I flew in from New Jersey.

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Speaker 2: And the two of us we met up at the

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Speaker 2: Nashville Airport. And you know, Sewanee is on a mountaintop

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Speaker 2: about one hundred miles southeast of Nashville. So the university

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Speaker 2: sent this driver to pick up a group of us. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this driver really awesome person. His name's Benny Humes, uh,

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Speaker 1: and he he kind of was like our ambassador for

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Speaker 1: the moment. He was, you know, a black man deeply

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Speaker 1: immersed in the country music scene, much to our surprise.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so a woman in our group in the passenger

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Speaker 2: seat got him talking about all the people he's driven.

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Speaker 5: Everybody in country music this, nobody, nobody, I haven't driven

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Speaker 5: absolutely Wow, Reaper McIntyre, the juds, Oh, Chris Stapleton.

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Speaker 6: I was with him last week, Vince Gil. Have you

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Speaker 6: ever heard of Brooks and Done? Yeah, hang out with

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Speaker 6: him quite a bit. Man.

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Speaker 2: I loved Benny and I still don't know who brooks

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Speaker 2: and Does. So, as you know Khalil, in the twenty

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Speaker 2: and tens, I actually lived with my family in Nashville

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Speaker 2: about five years and then we moved back to Chicago.

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Speaker 2: So I have a lot of experience, uh, not only

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Speaker 2: with the South, but specifically with music city, which is

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Speaker 2: what people call Nashville. So it wasn't surprising to me

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Speaker 2: at all when Benny said that he was also a songwriter.

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Speaker 6: Well, it goes a little something this, I'm in the

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Speaker 6: I'm in the I been at it. I mean, they

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Speaker 6: can't stay.

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Speaker 1: I love that. I'm in love with a woman I

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Speaker 1: can't stand.

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Speaker 7: Man.

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Speaker 1: Ain't that the truth from back?

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Speaker 4: You know?

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Speaker 1: No, that came out the right way. I know what

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Speaker 1: that's like from back in the day, I mean, not currently, that's.

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Speaker 2: Not cart before your twenty five year marriage, however.

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Speaker 1: Long you've been exactly and in fact, you know if

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Speaker 1: you haven't experienced that emotion, whether it's a woman singing

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Speaker 1: about a man she can't stand, you have never really

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Speaker 1: truly been in love, how about that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I wish Benny the best in both songwriting

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Speaker 2: and love. What a great guy. So we get to campus.

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Speaker 2: You know, it takes about two hours. We pull on

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Speaker 2: to campus and like I said, it's on a mountain

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Speaker 2: and it is beautiful. You pull through these gates. There

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Speaker 2: are thousands of acres of woods and these vistas overlooking

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Speaker 2: a valley. The buildings are this limestone and we get

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Speaker 2: dropped off at our dorm to which around the intersection

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Speaker 2: the corner of Mississippi Street and Georgia Street.

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Speaker 1: I'd never been there, but you've been there before, right,

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Speaker 1: You have a friend who had actually invited you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The reason that we were there is because my buddy

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Speaker 2: Adam Ross. He's the editor of the Sewanee Review, which

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Speaker 2: is this literary magazine that's published out of the University

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Speaker 2: of the South out of Sawanee. And you know, he

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Speaker 2: invited us because I'm his buddy, but he's also a

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Speaker 2: fan of the podcast, and he realized that even though

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Speaker 2: you and I are Northerners and we don't like necessary

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Speaker 2: talk about the South in a lot of ways. The

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Speaker 2: big question that they were asking there of like what

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Speaker 2: is Southern identity? Who is Southern? Can it be more expansive?

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Speaker 2: We ask variations about that in terms of like, you know,

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Speaker 2: how to reckon with the pat with America's difficult path,

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Speaker 2: you know, the sense of a deeply divided in an

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Speaker 2: unequal country is a question that they were wrestling with there.

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Speaker 1: That's right and it's not unreasonable, both in terms of

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Speaker 1: how we think about our own conversations, these ongoing conversations

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Speaker 1: we have. But like, how much is America is the South?

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Speaker 2: I mean, so like that's exactly right.

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Speaker 1: That is like overhanging this whole question. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: first of all, just to echo your point, this is

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Speaker 1: in a beautiful place. I mean, it's so beautiful. They

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Speaker 1: call it the mountain because.

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Speaker 2: They just call it the mountain.

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Speaker 1: They just call it the mountain. But this school has

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Speaker 1: a pretty unique story. So the first I learned about

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Speaker 1: it was a marker on campus which you see as

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Speaker 1: you enter the campus, And the first thing it tells

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Speaker 1: you is that the school sort of was built in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight, right before the Civil War, and what

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Speaker 1: you learn is that the school was dedicated to raising

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Speaker 1: up a group of Southern elites who would basically defend

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Speaker 1: the interest of slaveholders. This would be the Harvard, the Yale,

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Speaker 1: the Princeton of Southern slaveholders elites. It is the only

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Speaker 1: institution of higher education designed for this explicit purpose.

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Speaker 2: The explicit purpose like to promote the South of the

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Speaker 2: civilization of slavery, all that stuff.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, so that was.

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Speaker 2: The original founding of the school. Then during the actual

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Speaker 2: fighting of the Civil War, Union soldiers march up this

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Speaker 2: mountain and they destroy the university central building.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 2: So then a couple of years after the war, the

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Speaker 2: university rebuilds and reopens. Slavery has been abolished.

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Speaker 1: That's right. By eighteen sixty eight, they rebuild the school

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Speaker 1: and it's still fabulously wealthy even after the war. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're made up, the school is made up of the

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Speaker 1: slaveholding elite. They're still committed to the memory of the

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Speaker 1: South slaveholding past. And this place becomes like an engine

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Speaker 1: for the creation of the Lost Cause narrative.

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Speaker 2: Hey one, let's define. Let's define what that is the

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Speaker 2: lost cause narrative.

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Speaker 1: Go ahead, sure, the Lost Cause narrative was a belief

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Speaker 1: that the South had been noble in its defense of slavery,

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Speaker 1: that it was a righteous way of life, that northerners

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Speaker 1: had plundered, the South, had violated the Constitution, you know, essentially,

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Speaker 1: had had done this illegal occupation, and had set the

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Speaker 1: nation on this ruinous path by upsetting the natural order

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Speaker 1: of things, which in the most explicit way, was putting

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Speaker 1: black men politically on an equal plane with white men.

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Speaker 1: And that lost cause narrative shaped shaped an entire several

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Speaker 1: generations of Southerners well into the twentieth century, and arguably

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Speaker 1: is still still with us today.

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Speaker 2: And as you said earlier, that this is a school

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Speaker 2: that is grappling with that past in all sorts of ways,

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Speaker 2: even that it likes to be called Suwanee now rather

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Speaker 2: than the University of the South. That's you know, it's

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Speaker 2: better marketing. And the two of us arrived that were

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Speaker 2: there for this conference. And even though I told you

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Speaker 2: that that I lived in the South, I never felt

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Speaker 2: Southern in any way. And I lived in Texas also

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Speaker 2: for a while, I always felt like a visitor. And

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Speaker 2: so the whole idea of being Southern, it seems alien

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Speaker 2: to me. And like, you know, we were talking about

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Speaker 2: this fraud history, and I can always say that's over there,

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Speaker 2: that's not me, that's somebody else. But I got to

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Speaker 2: say that that being on campus and talking to all

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Speaker 2: these amazing people for several days, it made me think that,

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Speaker 2: you know, we are all kind of Southern in the

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Speaker 2: sense that this is our history, it's American history, and

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Speaker 2: we can't say it's over there or down there. It's

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Speaker 2: something that we all have to to to think about

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Speaker 2: and wrestle with.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, that's I mean, that's fascinating because to

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Speaker 1: some degree, until we got in the car with our

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Speaker 1: driver singing, you know, and his own total in bir

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Speaker 1: of like country music, I had also been feeling a

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Speaker 1: bit alienated and disconnected from like this this whole idea,

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Speaker 1: like what is it that we're actually doing. But when

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Speaker 1: I got there and I started meeting people and I

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Speaker 1: started thinking about the question on the table, what does

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Speaker 1: it mean to be Southern? What is the Southern identity?

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Speaker 1: It really forced me to be honest about the fact

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Speaker 1: that I am third generation removed from Mississippi and Georgia.

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Speaker 1: I mean, my grandmother was born in Georgia, my great

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Speaker 1: grandfather was born in Mississippi. And while I knew my

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Speaker 1: grandmother and not my great grandfather, there the stories they

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Speaker 1: carry with them who they are forced me to think

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Speaker 1: more carefully about my relationship to the South. And and

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Speaker 1: you know it's it's a little bit painful, but it's

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Speaker 1: also part of me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, let's take a short break and when

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Speaker 2: we come back, we're going to talk about this big

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Speaker 2: question of what it means to Southern can to be

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Speaker 2: more expansive.

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Speaker 8: And the mocking Berg and sing like the Crime of

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Speaker 8: the And I can't tell my daughters all the things

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Speaker 8: that I'm scared up, but I am not afraid of

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Speaker 8: that bright glory up above, dines. Just another way to

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Speaker 8: lead the one love.

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Speaker 2: We are back on. Some of my best friends are

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Speaker 2: at the University of the South Swane giving you the

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Speaker 2: Sounds of the South.

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Speaker 1: That's right. We are at this conference attending a whole

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Speaker 1: bunch of programming, listening to really smart people, and every

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Speaker 1: thirty of us attendees would gather, I mean it was

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Speaker 1: awesome for what they called salons and would open with

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Speaker 1: a song or a poem like the one you just

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Speaker 1: heard that was from this amazing guy named David Proctor.

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Speaker 1: Such a beautiful song.

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Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, I loved it. I loved it. And it

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Speaker 2: really set everyone in this intentional mood to have these

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Speaker 2: deep and honest conversations which are about Southerness, about what

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Speaker 2: it meant to be Southern. And so on the first

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Speaker 2: day that we were there, the two people leading the

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Speaker 2: salon conversation. One was Woody Register, a white historian from

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Speaker 2: Alabama who attended SWANI as an undergraduate and is now

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Speaker 2: a professor there. And the other person was Andrea Abrams,

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Speaker 2: a black anthropologist and a writer. She's from Mississippi and

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Speaker 2: she now works at a college in Kentucky.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And you forgot to mention, much to our surprise

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Speaker 1: while we were traveling with Andrea, is that she's a

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Speaker 1: sister of Stacy Abrams Abrams, Yeah, the voting rights advocate

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Speaker 1: who ran for governor and Georgia and is now a

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Speaker 1: Howard University professor. That Abrams family is one talented family.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they definitely represent a kind of way of

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Speaker 2: a new South, a different way of thinking about the South.

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Speaker 2: And so we're in the salon and Woody and Andrea

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Speaker 2: talked about their very complicated relationships to their own Southern identity.

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Speaker 2: They said that they were both on a kind of

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Speaker 2: life journey of confronting and trying to deal with their

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Speaker 2: own roots. Yep and Wood. He told this incredibly powerful

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Speaker 2: story about the time after he graduated from college and

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Speaker 2: he goes up to New York City to get advice

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Speaker 2: from one of his mentors, who is a history professor

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Speaker 2: at NYU.

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Speaker 4: I was telling you that I was playing going to

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Speaker 4: graduate school the next year, but that I was afraid

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Speaker 4: to leave the South. And he said, you can't leave

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Speaker 4: the South, said, he said, even if you leave the

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Speaker 4: South and won't leave the South, I said, no, no, no,

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Speaker 4: don't be and I want to get out of the Son.

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Speaker 4: And he said, well, every time you open your mouth,

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Speaker 4: I her slavery. Every time in your voice, I hear

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Speaker 4: the history of slavery.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, no, I mean I remember when he said

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Speaker 1: it sitting there, and.

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Speaker 2: Every time you open your mouth, every time you open

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Speaker 2: your mouth, I hear slavery.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, my mouth drops.

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Speaker 2: That's what I hear when you talk.

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Speaker 1: And but honestly, it's just putting words to an experience

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Speaker 1: that I've always experienced, meaning that someone white and Southern

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Speaker 1: speaks in that way, as as Zora mil Helstein would say,

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Speaker 1: you know, the map of Dixie is on their tongue,

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Speaker 1: and and it's like, you know, you're your suspicions go up,

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Speaker 1: at least for me. And so when Woody said that, well,

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Speaker 1: wood he said that, I was like, Oh, it's not

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Speaker 1: just me, like that is a.

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Speaker 2: Thing, even white people among themselves saying that to one another.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And if I'm really honest, I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: not unconscious bias. This is explicit bias. Like again, if

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Speaker 1: I'm in a space and a white person opens their

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Speaker 1: mouth and that's what comes out, you know, my sensibilities

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Speaker 1: are sharper. It doesn't mean I feel like I'm threatened

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Speaker 1: her in any imminent danger. It just means my sensibility shift.

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Speaker 1: I'm aware of something that is that is the historical

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Speaker 1: legacy of this past.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And what he was telling a story, and what

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Speaker 2: an open and wonderful person to do it that he

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Speaker 2: wanted to run away from this, and his mentor was saying, hey, man,

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Speaker 2: you can't, like you have to and even in your

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Speaker 2: work and your life's work, you have to deal with

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Speaker 2: this because it is who you are.

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Speaker 1: So after wood he spoke. Andrea spoke next, and she

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Speaker 1: talked about for her as a black woman, how she

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Speaker 1: equated Southern identity surprise, surprise, with whiteness. That was a

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Speaker 1: mouth drop too, And.

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Speaker 9: Southernness is whiteness. Southerness is the Confederate flat, Southernness.

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Speaker 7: Is white cookbooks that don't talk about black black people.

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Speaker 9: Southernness is white hospitality. Southernness is your door, wealthy and

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Speaker 9: William Falk is the best writers. Southern heritage is the

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Speaker 9: erasure of blackness.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And then and then Andrea said that you know here

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Speaker 2: she is a black person. And she said that as

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Speaker 2: a girl in Gulfport, Mississippi, she and her family would

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Speaker 2: drive past these gorgeous plantation houses and what she wanted.

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Speaker 2: She wanted that she wanted to be part of that culture.

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Speaker 1: It was gray, and.

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Speaker 7: It had two white, curving staircases that led to the

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Speaker 7: second floor back document And when we drove by, I

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Speaker 7: would imagine myself coming descending the staircase in my Southern

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Speaker 7: bell dress to meet my suitor.

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Speaker 9: And we would walk along the beach right, not thinking

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Speaker 9: Andry who had been at the back of the house.

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Speaker 7: So I understood slavery.

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Speaker 9: I understood presstory racism, and yet when I imagine the

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Speaker 9: South and myself as a Southerner, I was white.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that last line that she just said, when

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Speaker 1: I imagined the South and myself as a Southerner, I

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Speaker 1: was white. That's what I meant by another mouth drop moment,

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Speaker 1: Because like she's a well educated doctor of anthropology, she's

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Speaker 1: written extensively about race in the South, and yet what

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Speaker 1: she's saying is the power of whiteness to define nationality,

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Speaker 1: to define who counts, whose lives matter, was so blinding

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Speaker 1: in her childhood that when she imagined herself as someone

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Speaker 1: pretty and successful and someone whose life mattered, she imagined

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Speaker 1: herself in a white woman body. That's that's that's that

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Speaker 1: is something I mean, I don't know quite what the

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Speaker 1: word I want to say is, but it's that's a lot.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you might to be like, that's fucked up. But

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Speaker 2: as Andrea and wood You were talking in front of us,

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Speaker 2: Woody responded to her by saying, I also wanted to

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Speaker 2: be in that plantation house, and it was also denied

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Speaker 2: to me. I had no access to it. Yeah, what

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Speaker 2: did you think he meant?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well it was it was puzzling at first,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, of course, right, this is

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Speaker 1: about class because the plantation elite was a tiny minority.

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Speaker 1: The overwhelming experience of white Southerners was to be part

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Speaker 1: of a yeoman class, meaning working class at best, landless

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Speaker 1: and poor at worse. And what wood He was admitting

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Speaker 1: in this moment is that the Southern gentry represented the

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Speaker 1: aspirations of everyone. That yeah, that he couldn't embody it,

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Speaker 1: but he wanted it, yeah, And that that helped me

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Speaker 1: think a lot about what he'd said earlier too, when

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Speaker 1: the professor had said to him, wou do you have

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Speaker 1: to go back? Because I think part of that connection

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Speaker 1: is that Woody was someone who was in touch with

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Speaker 1: himself enough to do something positive with that history, to

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Speaker 1: make something of a different kind of self.

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Speaker 2: And both of them are I mean, they talked about

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Speaker 2: being on a life journey and trying to run away

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Speaker 2: from their past of being Southern and actually coming back

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Speaker 2: to it and reclaiming it in some way. And we

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Speaker 2: you and I had conversations with you know, many of

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Speaker 2: the attendees there and other black Southerners, and I remember

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Speaker 2: another person telling us, a black Southerner saying that you know,

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Speaker 2: he and others thought of themselves as born again Southerners,

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Speaker 2: that they had escaped the South, but they came back

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Speaker 2: and they're like, you know, embracing it on their own terms.

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Speaker 2: Now they're redefining it southern as not as Andrea said, whiteness,

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Speaker 2: but also as blackness. They were expanding the definition of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I really appreciated that because it helped to

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Speaker 1: put in context that that part of what's been happening

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Speaker 1: in this country is that people were like, why should

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Speaker 1: we give up our own heritage? I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was a it was a terrible experience for black

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Speaker 1: people in the context of what happened, you know, both

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Speaker 1: during slavery and afterwards. But it's still their roots. And

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Speaker 1: so this whole notion of like born against Southerner return

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Speaker 1: migration was very much a sub theme of many of

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Speaker 1: the conversations of that people had.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, someone I remember somebody talking at the conference and

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Speaker 2: saying that the whole notion of Southern is so unlike

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Speaker 2: any sense of identity in America. This vast region you

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Speaker 2: know that expands from like you know, whatever, Oklahoma to

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Speaker 2: Florida or something, and it's so varied and to say,

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Speaker 2: like we're all stamped by this. Nowhere else in the

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Speaker 2: country do we identify regionally that much? Yeah, And so

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Speaker 2: he was saying basically like maybe you abandoned this concept

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Speaker 2: al too other.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And and the other side of the coin, right

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Speaker 1: is like, you know, America is a big place. We've

365
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Speaker 1: talked about the fact that the Confederacy never die and

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Speaker 1: is indeed elements of it are resurgent, and no part

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Speaker 1: is is uncomplicated by race and racism. But like, do

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Speaker 1: I want to be in a part of the country where,

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Speaker 1: like it is the core values of the country, you know,

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Speaker 1: this idea of of anti blackness as as we know

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Speaker 1: it and as it's unfolded in places right now that

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Speaker 1: are passing all this crazy legislation aimed at black history.

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Speaker 1: You know, no, not for.

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Speaker 2: Me, I meaning you, You're like, I'm just not going

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Speaker 2: to go live in those spots.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna Yeah, I'm not. I'm not quite there yet

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Speaker 1: with the born again Southern or even through three generations removed.

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Speaker 2: Well, you you were never Yeah, you're right, see what

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Speaker 2: you mean. You weren't born there in the first place,

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Speaker 2: But you're saying your people were, That's right.

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Speaker 1: All right, yeah, yeah, And so we're going to take

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Speaker 1: a quick break. We'll be right back, all right, Ben.

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Speaker 1: So look, the past is a past, but of course

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Speaker 1: it's not even really passed. So one of my favorite

385
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Speaker 1: things was talking to one of the professors there at Sewanee,

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Speaker 1: a black woman named Tiffany Mohman. We learned so much

387
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Speaker 1: talking to her about her work as a public historian,

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Speaker 1: and she shares so much with us about what it's

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Speaker 1: like to be a black faculty member, to be a

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Speaker 1: black person in a place like Siwani.

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Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, Tiffany told us that she is from Memphis.

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Speaker 2: It's also a predominantly black city. Nashville is predominantly white,

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Speaker 2: and here we are even further east and further south

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Speaker 2: on this mountain top.

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Speaker 3: But what I love about Memphis is just the culture,

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Speaker 3: like that African American history, that culture is just bubbling

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Speaker 3: out of the ground. When I hid from Nashville down

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Speaker 3: in Memphis on I forty, as soon as I hit

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Speaker 3: those Memphis exits, the sun roofs, open the windows down

400
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Speaker 3: because I'm like, we have to take all of this in.

401
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Speaker 3: And the thing that I loved so much about growing

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Speaker 3: up in Memphis was that blackness was celebrated.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, Memphis is a really powerful place. Of course.

404
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Speaker 1: You know, it has a tortured history, from King's assassination

405
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Speaker 1: to the recent Tyree Nichols killing. You know, but it's

406
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Speaker 1: the place that embodies all those contradictions. And you know,

407
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Speaker 1: Tiffany ends up leaving her home city of Memphis and

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Speaker 1: she heads to the mountains. She has to the University

409
00:23:50,676 --> 00:23:53,276
Speaker 1: of the South, where you know, it's a small number

410
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Speaker 1: of black students, a small number of black people. They

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Speaker 1: only tenured their first black professor and like, you know,

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Speaker 1: hired their first black professor, like nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we had at the conference a few

414
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Speaker 2: black graduates of the school. And I remember one woman

415
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Speaker 2: told me about going to Swane in the nineteen nineties

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Speaker 2: and out of about seventeen hundred students, she said, thirteen

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Speaker 2: were black students.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like, wow, that's a.

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Speaker 2: Pretty small number.

420
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there're more.

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Speaker 2: It is a higher percentage today, but it ain't that many.

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Speaker 5: Yep.

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Speaker 1: And Tiffany told us something that happened her first year

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Speaker 1: teaching at Sewanee. There was a racist incident at a

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Speaker 1: lacrosse game. She said that Suwanee white students in the

426
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Speaker 1: stands watching the game yelled racist epithets at the opposing

427
00:24:40,396 --> 00:24:44,236
Speaker 1: teams black players bananas, and it made national news. Some

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Speaker 1: Swanee students were protesting and demanding that these students from

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Speaker 1: their own school be reprimanded, and the whole thing just

430
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Speaker 1: like was very unsettling to Tiffany.

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Speaker 4: I was so.

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Speaker 3: Uncomfortable that I went back to my office. I wrote

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Speaker 3: my students an email and said, I don't feel comfortable

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Speaker 3: here today, so we're I'm going to cancel class. I'm

435
00:25:07,116 --> 00:25:11,156
Speaker 3: going back home. I'll see y'all in a few days.

436
00:25:11,476 --> 00:25:14,396
Speaker 3: Because it was just something bubbled up in me that

437
00:25:14,556 --> 00:25:16,196
Speaker 3: was like, you have to get out of here.

438
00:25:17,676 --> 00:25:21,636
Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, like, uh, this is even crazier,

439
00:25:21,716 --> 00:25:26,156
Speaker 1: right because Tawani had actually hired its first black president.

440
00:25:26,476 --> 00:25:29,276
Speaker 1: He carried the title of president of the university, and

441
00:25:29,276 --> 00:25:32,716
Speaker 1: he was the vice chancellor, which is the title subordinate

442
00:25:32,756 --> 00:25:35,956
Speaker 1: to the episcopal bishop who is the quote unquote chancellor.

443
00:25:36,396 --> 00:25:39,796
Speaker 1: He's president at the time of the lacrosse incident. And

444
00:25:40,396 --> 00:25:43,036
Speaker 1: what comes out of this is that he has to

445
00:25:43,116 --> 00:25:47,156
Speaker 1: represent this school with this racist, fucking historysed so like

446
00:25:47,196 --> 00:25:47,956
Speaker 1: the whole world.

447
00:25:47,876 --> 00:25:51,156
Speaker 2: Is to her, he lasts less than a year there.

448
00:25:51,196 --> 00:25:52,396
Speaker 2: He quits after a year.

449
00:25:52,356 --> 00:25:54,316
Speaker 1: Well he quits after a year, but but he quits

450
00:25:54,356 --> 00:25:59,236
Speaker 1: within the context where his home is vandalized and there's

451
00:25:59,356 --> 00:26:04,956
Speaker 1: racial epithets you know, directed towards him on campus. And yeah,

452
00:26:05,156 --> 00:26:10,076
Speaker 1: people you remember, like people told us that he told

453
00:26:10,116 --> 00:26:13,076
Speaker 1: them that he was wearing a bulletproof vest on campus

454
00:26:13,116 --> 00:26:15,516
Speaker 1: because he didn't feel safe.

455
00:26:15,996 --> 00:26:21,156
Speaker 2: That is crazy, That is totally crazy. Yeah, all right,

456
00:26:21,196 --> 00:26:23,436
Speaker 2: So that that also gets me back to Tiffany's work.

457
00:26:23,956 --> 00:26:26,876
Speaker 2: So part of her job at Sewanee at the university

458
00:26:27,476 --> 00:26:30,476
Speaker 2: is to uncover and start to make sense of the

459
00:26:30,516 --> 00:26:35,396
Speaker 2: school's racist past. She works with the school's Roberson Project

460
00:26:35,556 --> 00:26:40,156
Speaker 2: on Slavery, race and Reconciliation, and through that project, she

461
00:26:40,276 --> 00:26:43,116
Speaker 2: has to dig through the school's archives. She looks at

462
00:26:43,116 --> 00:26:46,956
Speaker 2: old documents, old letters, you know, these personal papers between people,

463
00:26:47,236 --> 00:26:51,756
Speaker 2: and it's really like yeah, but it's specifically like if

464
00:26:51,796 --> 00:26:57,156
Speaker 2: only you looked at, you know, excavating examples of racism

465
00:26:57,476 --> 00:27:01,756
Speaker 2: of when people who were part of the school did something. Yeah,

466
00:27:02,036 --> 00:27:04,156
Speaker 2: and so you know, she was in the So she's

467
00:27:04,196 --> 00:27:06,516
Speaker 2: looking at the university sort of all their entanglements with

468
00:27:06,596 --> 00:27:08,356
Speaker 2: slavery and segregation and racism.

469
00:27:08,596 --> 00:27:14,556
Speaker 3: So Swannee is very much so the poster child for

470
00:27:14,636 --> 00:27:19,836
Speaker 3: celebrating the Lost Cause. It doesn't go away from the

471
00:27:19,996 --> 00:27:24,116
Speaker 3: very beginnings of the university, you know, words in our

472
00:27:24,236 --> 00:27:27,316
Speaker 3: university charter saying that, you know, the university is founded

473
00:27:27,356 --> 00:27:30,076
Speaker 3: in the land of the Sun and the slave founded

474
00:27:30,236 --> 00:27:35,236
Speaker 3: to make benevolent masters slash and slaver. And it's just

475
00:27:35,276 --> 00:27:37,796
Speaker 3: sort of this thing that never goes away, and that

476
00:27:37,836 --> 00:27:41,156
Speaker 3: in many ways, the university begins to feed, right, And

477
00:27:41,196 --> 00:27:45,836
Speaker 3: if you feed something, it grows. And you see that here,

478
00:27:45,836 --> 00:27:49,556
Speaker 3: it's all over this landscape. You cannot throw a stone

479
00:27:50,116 --> 00:27:52,556
Speaker 3: and not hit a building that has some kind of

480
00:27:52,636 --> 00:27:54,236
Speaker 3: connection to the Lost Cause.

481
00:27:56,076 --> 00:27:56,396
Speaker 2: Yeah.

482
00:27:56,596 --> 00:28:00,796
Speaker 1: No, I remember her saying that, and it made my

483
00:28:00,916 --> 00:28:06,276
Speaker 1: skin shiver because in most context, you know, people are

484
00:28:06,276 --> 00:28:08,876
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of the name on a building,

485
00:28:09,156 --> 00:28:09,436
Speaker 1: you know.

486
00:28:09,716 --> 00:28:12,676
Speaker 2: Building a singular building, one building. And I remember asking her.

487
00:28:12,676 --> 00:28:14,636
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, well, let's start throwing the stones, like,

488
00:28:14,716 --> 00:28:17,436
Speaker 2: let's look in all directions. She was like, yeah, it

489
00:28:17,476 --> 00:28:20,156
Speaker 2: wouldn't just be the name of buildings, yep. She was like,

490
00:28:20,236 --> 00:28:23,116
Speaker 2: it would be the names of grants and awards. And

491
00:28:23,156 --> 00:28:27,116
Speaker 2: they actually like named trees and gardens. So it's like

492
00:28:27,236 --> 00:28:29,596
Speaker 2: every tree too, like you have to look at those

493
00:28:29,676 --> 00:28:33,716
Speaker 2: like there were placards, there were scholarships, there were literary societies. Yeah,

494
00:28:33,716 --> 00:28:36,276
Speaker 2: I mean it was really meaningful to talk to Tiffany

495
00:28:36,316 --> 00:28:39,316
Speaker 2: about this, a black professor at that college, at that

496
00:28:39,436 --> 00:28:44,036
Speaker 2: university talking about these experiences, and it's both like she's

497
00:28:44,076 --> 00:28:46,676
Speaker 2: physically there and then this is also her her actual

498
00:28:46,716 --> 00:28:50,156
Speaker 2: work is to look into this past. And so before

499
00:28:50,196 --> 00:28:52,916
Speaker 2: you know, I asked her the exact same question that

500
00:28:52,956 --> 00:28:56,556
Speaker 2: we had been exploring at swani as part of these salons.

501
00:28:57,316 --> 00:29:00,676
Speaker 2: What is this expanded notion of Southern identity? I wanted

502
00:29:00,676 --> 00:29:01,876
Speaker 2: to hear what she had to say.

503
00:29:03,356 --> 00:29:08,436
Speaker 3: I would say that being here at Swanee has not

504
00:29:08,556 --> 00:29:11,516
Speaker 3: affected her how I see myself as a Southerner. I

505
00:29:11,556 --> 00:29:15,156
Speaker 3: see my connection to Swanne as a completely different thing.

506
00:29:17,556 --> 00:29:17,796
Speaker 4: To me.

507
00:29:17,996 --> 00:29:20,956
Speaker 3: My Southern is who I am as a Southerner is

508
00:29:20,996 --> 00:29:25,036
Speaker 3: informed by my roots. It's informed by my childhood in Memphis.

509
00:29:25,036 --> 00:29:30,236
Speaker 3: It's informed by my parents' childhood and in Arkansas and Mississippi.

510
00:29:30,356 --> 00:29:34,836
Speaker 3: And that that's what I latch onto it. It's a

511
00:29:34,996 --> 00:29:38,316
Speaker 3: it's a for me. It's like an ancestral connection to

512
00:29:38,436 --> 00:29:46,716
Speaker 3: the South. And despite the the some of the tragedies

513
00:29:46,756 --> 00:29:49,316
Speaker 3: of the South. Right, some days it's it's when I'm

514
00:29:49,316 --> 00:29:53,236
Speaker 3: in that archive and I come across some of those documents,

515
00:29:53,276 --> 00:29:56,236
Speaker 3: it's hard to think of myself as as as southern,

516
00:29:56,316 --> 00:29:59,596
Speaker 3: so I but it's but when I think of my

517
00:29:59,796 --> 00:30:03,876
Speaker 3: family and the in the context of my life, that's

518
00:30:03,876 --> 00:30:06,996
Speaker 3: where that that connection rings true and comes back home

519
00:30:07,036 --> 00:30:07,316
Speaker 3: for me.

520
00:30:08,516 --> 00:30:09,476
Speaker 1: Oh man, ma'am.

521
00:30:10,516 --> 00:30:13,156
Speaker 2: She's holding those two things separate, She's telling us that,

522
00:30:13,196 --> 00:30:17,716
Speaker 2: and even as she's saying it, they're like combined. It's like,

523
00:30:17,756 --> 00:30:20,356
Speaker 2: I'm holding these two things separate, my southern identity as

524
00:30:20,396 --> 00:30:23,036
Speaker 2: a black person and what we've been talking about. And

525
00:30:23,076 --> 00:30:25,116
Speaker 2: then even as she's saying it, they get blended together.

526
00:30:25,636 --> 00:30:30,836
Speaker 2: And there is something amazing about that campus that the

527
00:30:30,876 --> 00:30:33,956
Speaker 2: coexistence of these and even the actual work of the past,

528
00:30:34,036 --> 00:30:36,956
Speaker 2: like it is that you know, their boots are muddy,

529
00:30:37,156 --> 00:30:38,676
Speaker 2: like they're in it. They're in it in a way

530
00:30:38,716 --> 00:30:42,036
Speaker 2: that's meaningful, like because they're also they're also grappling with

531
00:30:42,116 --> 00:30:42,636
Speaker 2: this past.

532
00:30:43,356 --> 00:30:48,156
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I had a little different experience with

533
00:30:48,276 --> 00:30:54,676
Speaker 1: thinking about Tiffany's place there because I think this is

534
00:30:54,716 --> 00:30:59,596
Speaker 1: where like the line between northern and southern gets really thin,

535
00:31:01,556 --> 00:31:05,076
Speaker 1: you know, that sense of like carrying the contradictions of

536
00:31:05,196 --> 00:31:08,476
Speaker 1: like I belong here just like anybody else, and yet

537
00:31:09,596 --> 00:31:12,596
Speaker 1: so much of this place tries to erase me. Is

538
00:31:12,676 --> 00:31:16,756
Speaker 1: not just something that you experience at Swani or anywhere

539
00:31:16,836 --> 00:31:17,316
Speaker 1: in the South.

540
00:31:17,516 --> 00:31:19,556
Speaker 2: You're talking about like the boys in the Tunis.

541
00:31:19,796 --> 00:31:22,356
Speaker 1: Yeah, the boys in the Tunis, but in just being

542
00:31:22,396 --> 00:31:25,276
Speaker 1: black in America, I mean like yeah, And so there's

543
00:31:25,316 --> 00:31:29,276
Speaker 1: something really visceral, I think in what Tiffany shared in

544
00:31:29,356 --> 00:31:34,236
Speaker 1: that moment. And there's certainly something visceral about uh being

545
00:31:34,276 --> 00:31:37,716
Speaker 1: surrounded from the flora and fauna to the signage and

546
00:31:37,756 --> 00:31:43,556
Speaker 1: the plaques and tombstones with this celebration of systemic racism

547
00:31:43,596 --> 00:31:44,436
Speaker 1: and white supremacy.

548
00:31:44,996 --> 00:31:45,116
Speaker 2: Uh.

549
00:31:45,676 --> 00:31:48,436
Speaker 1: But you only have to crash scratch the surface in

550
00:31:48,516 --> 00:31:50,716
Speaker 1: so many other ways, in so many other parts of

551
00:31:50,756 --> 00:31:54,556
Speaker 1: the country, uh, to get at that same route. And

552
00:31:55,556 --> 00:32:01,516
Speaker 1: I applaud Tiffany for for being so honest with herself

553
00:32:01,676 --> 00:32:05,196
Speaker 1: and with herself her colleagues about what she's experiencing. That

554
00:32:05,276 --> 00:32:10,396
Speaker 1: to me is inspirational. It's courageous, is me fuel, you know,

555
00:32:10,476 --> 00:32:13,836
Speaker 1: like the for these moments when I feel alienated in

556
00:32:13,876 --> 00:32:15,556
Speaker 1: other places.

557
00:32:15,356 --> 00:32:18,796
Speaker 2: Man, I want to say that I loved going on

558
00:32:18,796 --> 00:32:21,956
Speaker 2: this trip with you. It was amazing to experience it

559
00:32:21,996 --> 00:32:24,796
Speaker 2: all and to talk about it while we were going

560
00:32:24,796 --> 00:32:26,196
Speaker 2: through it, and now get to talk about it a

561
00:32:26,276 --> 00:32:30,716
Speaker 2: year later. I do need to add that my favorite

562
00:32:30,756 --> 00:32:35,756
Speaker 2: moment of the entire trip, this poet was, you know,

563
00:32:35,836 --> 00:32:38,596
Speaker 2: in a salon with thirty people. There was reading this

564
00:32:38,756 --> 00:32:43,676
Speaker 2: powerful poem about animal cruelty and about caring for dog

565
00:32:43,996 --> 00:32:46,716
Speaker 2: that was dying and was suffering, and it was like

566
00:32:46,756 --> 00:32:51,756
Speaker 2: a metaphor for having to deal with this ugliness but

567
00:32:51,836 --> 00:32:53,836
Speaker 2: still loving it. And she was deep into it and

568
00:32:53,836 --> 00:32:56,556
Speaker 2: there was total silence, but all you could hear in

569
00:32:56,596 --> 00:33:01,196
Speaker 2: the room was her reading and you chewing almonds, Like

570
00:33:01,276 --> 00:33:04,676
Speaker 2: the whole room is looking at you eat almonds while

571
00:33:04,676 --> 00:33:07,996
Speaker 2: this woman is reading this poem thirty people. That was

572
00:33:08,036 --> 00:33:11,396
Speaker 2: my favorite moment. I'm sorry to say, I will die

573
00:33:11,636 --> 00:33:13,276
Speaker 2: on my grave and remember that moment.

574
00:33:15,036 --> 00:33:18,676
Speaker 1: Well, all right, so I wasn't being disrespectful, but I

575
00:33:18,716 --> 00:33:23,636
Speaker 1: had no no, I had a choice to make. It

576
00:33:23,676 --> 00:33:27,516
Speaker 1: would either fall asleep because that poem wasn't hitting me,

577
00:33:29,076 --> 00:33:31,236
Speaker 1: or eat these almonds so I could try to stay awake.

578
00:33:31,436 --> 00:33:33,796
Speaker 1: So I chose you. I chose the almonds.

579
00:33:33,956 --> 00:33:35,596
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just me. We went back to the

580
00:33:35,636 --> 00:33:37,236
Speaker 2: dorm and I said, there was a group of twenty

581
00:33:37,316 --> 00:33:39,836
Speaker 2: of us and I said, hey, just curious, did anyone

582
00:33:39,956 --> 00:33:43,876
Speaker 2: here here Khalil eat those almonds in the whole room?

583
00:33:43,876 --> 00:33:45,596
Speaker 2: Then talked about it for like three hours, like we

584
00:33:45,636 --> 00:33:47,956
Speaker 2: had another salon just about you eating almonds?

585
00:33:49,476 --> 00:33:53,396
Speaker 1: All right, man, fine, listen. I think there's one other

586
00:33:53,436 --> 00:33:57,916
Speaker 1: thing to point out, and that is that in these

587
00:33:57,916 --> 00:34:01,596
Speaker 1: conversations with people like Tiffany, with Woody, with Andrea, all

588
00:34:01,636 --> 00:34:04,916
Speaker 1: these amazing people who share their personal connections to the South,

589
00:34:04,996 --> 00:34:09,636
Speaker 1: help me understand the contradictions that they wrestle with and

590
00:34:09,756 --> 00:34:13,916
Speaker 1: the courage that they have to help other people do

591
00:34:14,036 --> 00:34:17,476
Speaker 1: better and understand and particularly Suwanee like to be a

592
00:34:17,476 --> 00:34:19,756
Speaker 1: better institution, which in some ways is why we were

593
00:34:19,796 --> 00:34:22,876
Speaker 1: all there. It was a very curated group of people.

594
00:34:23,716 --> 00:34:26,716
Speaker 1: So amongst the curated group of people, you know, if

595
00:34:26,756 --> 00:34:32,036
Speaker 1: Woody is representing a white Southerner from Alabama coming of

596
00:34:32,076 --> 00:34:37,276
Speaker 1: age in the seventies, where was the you know, tennesseean

597
00:34:37,396 --> 00:34:40,796
Speaker 1: white Southerner coming of age in the seventies who actually

598
00:34:40,916 --> 00:34:46,716
Speaker 1: fought against desegregation of schools, who didn't believe that Suwane

599
00:34:46,796 --> 00:34:50,036
Speaker 1: should be a place that welcomed black students and how

600
00:34:50,076 --> 00:34:53,036
Speaker 1: do they fit into a conversation about reckoning with the

601
00:34:53,036 --> 00:34:53,756
Speaker 1: school's past.

602
00:34:54,636 --> 00:34:56,596
Speaker 2: Well, you kind of made me seem really shallow. I

603
00:34:56,636 --> 00:34:58,516
Speaker 2: was talking about almonds and you came with this really

604
00:34:58,636 --> 00:35:04,716
Speaker 2: deep thing. But I'll just say that it really was important,

605
00:35:04,836 --> 00:35:06,996
Speaker 2: and I still think it is to explore this idea

606
00:35:07,036 --> 00:35:11,476
Speaker 2: of like this expansive idea of sou because it really,

607
00:35:11,476 --> 00:35:13,756
Speaker 2: as I said earlier, it made me think of an

608
00:35:13,796 --> 00:35:18,556
Speaker 2: expansive notion of americanness, that this is our past, this

609
00:35:18,676 --> 00:35:21,516
Speaker 2: southern past that we're talking about is our past. And

610
00:35:21,876 --> 00:35:24,196
Speaker 2: as divided as we are today, as much as these

611
00:35:24,236 --> 00:35:28,156
Speaker 2: issues are present, it is continuing to do this kind

612
00:35:28,196 --> 00:35:32,676
Speaker 2: of exploration. And maybe it is always living with a

613
00:35:32,756 --> 00:35:36,676
Speaker 2: kind of tunis, but finding ways to also reconcile that

614
00:35:36,916 --> 00:35:38,156
Speaker 2: and to reclaim it.

615
00:35:38,756 --> 00:35:43,476
Speaker 1: Man, man, look at you all right? All right, Doctor Austin.

616
00:35:43,676 --> 00:35:44,116
Speaker 1: Proud of you.

617
00:35:44,276 --> 00:35:46,996
Speaker 2: Next next time I'm on the trip, Man, I love you.

618
00:35:52,676 --> 00:35:55,036
Speaker 1: Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of

619
00:35:55,076 --> 00:35:58,436
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me

620
00:35:58,676 --> 00:36:01,636
Speaker 1: Khalil Dubon Muhammad and my best friend Ben Austin.

621
00:36:01,876 --> 00:36:05,756
Speaker 2: It's produced by Lucy Sullivan. Our Associate producer is Rachel Yang.

622
00:36:06,276 --> 00:36:09,516
Speaker 2: It's edited by Sarah Nix with help from Kishell Will Williams.

623
00:36:09,916 --> 00:36:13,716
Speaker 2: Our engineer is Amanda ka Wang and our managing producer

624
00:36:13,916 --> 00:36:15,996
Speaker 2: is Constanza Guyardo.

625
00:36:16,196 --> 00:36:20,516
Speaker 1: At Pushkin thanks to Leital Mollad, Julia Barton, Heather Fain,

626
00:36:20,996 --> 00:36:25,996
Speaker 1: Carly Migliori, John schnarz, Retta Coone, and Jacob Weisberg.

627
00:36:26,276 --> 00:36:29,996
Speaker 2: Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan the

628
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Speaker 2: Brilliant Avery R. Young, from his album Tubman. You definitely

629
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Speaker 2: want to check out his music at his website, Averyaryong

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Speaker 2: dot com.

631
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Speaker 1: and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin

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