Southern Cities

I hit a bit of a depressive spell in mid-February, and it made me unable to post.  But that's ok because I'm doing better now, and I've always believed that the best, happiest things in life must be twinged with a bit of sadness.  To really enjoy something, it has to be a bit unpleasant.  Jane Austen noted this in Pride and Prejudice saying, "a scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation.” If something is supposed to be uniformly wonderful, one is sure to be unhappy with it.  That's why I like my tea boiling hot, my candy sour, my food spicy, and my cities Southern.

I took some beautiful photos on my most recent trip to Charleston.  On my last day, I toured a beautiful plantation.  It's definitely one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life.

And, of course, none of it would have been possible without slave labor.  Humans can create the most beautiful things, but at what cost?  And what did it mean that I was there touring it now?  Should I really be spending money touring and admiring the beauty of a place built on slave labor?  In doing this, am I not continuing to contribute to the problem?  Is my pleasure is worth more than people's lives?

Even before going to the plantation, just walking around a Southern city, to me, there is an air of guilt.  Our cities are beautiful, our weather lovely, our charm indisputable, but we continue to make the world and our own country a worse place by the way we vote and treat people.

And the cities are an especially odd reminder of that.  Our Southern cities are often blue dots in a sea of rural red.  It's an odd tension.  It seems to me that a Southern liberal must be different than a Northern one.  Maybe we're a bit more cynical about the possibility of change, a bit more measured in our speech and our goals, but maybe a bit more resilient because of the constant challenge.

I haven't visited many Northern cities on my own.  I will someday.  But I worry that the expectation of some enlightened utopia may prove extremely disappointing.  In the South, you know what you're getting, or at least I do.  I can enjoy the beauty knowing all of the pain that created it.  And maybe knowing that I can't %100 enjoy it allows me to enjoy it to its full potential.