Dancing with Myself

Southern Myth vs. Southern History

Today I read E.L. Doctorow's, The March, another one of those historical novels that purports to be mostly the truth, just with a few personal details thrown in.  It was too hot around here to do much besides read.  You Southerners go ahead and make fun of me, but it was up to 98 degrees today.  Hot, huh?  Of course, it's cooled down to 70 right now, and will further cool down to the upper 50s before the night is over.  But I'm not here to talk about the weather.

This is not Doctorow's best book.  Ragtime and Billy Bathgate were both better.  The March purports to give a perspective of Sherman's infamous (to Southerners) March to the Sea where he laid waste to much of the South in a determined effort to rob the Southern population of the will and resources to continue to wage their insurrection.  It worked.  So did the half-million troops put into the field by the United States, and the incredible wealth of the northern states. 

Like most Southern children, I was taught about the myth of the Civil War, and being a romantic little queen, I imagined all of my family to be rich, noble, White, etc.  While in most cases, it is the victor who writes history, that was reversed in the South following the Civil War.

It wasn't until I started studying genealogy that I discovered that not all Southerners embraced the Confederacy and its stupidity.  On one hand, I was only two or three generations removed from people who fought in it.  My great-grandfather, A.S. Droddy, Jr., and his brother, John G. Droddy, both either joined or were drafted into the Confederate Army in the Rapides Parish area of Louisiana, near Alexandria.  No one in my family ever talked about papa or grandpa or great-grandpa's Civil War stories.  When I was researching them for genealogical reasons, I discovered that they were both charged with desertion not long after they went in.  Great-granduncle John, was also accused of being a Copperhead, a word used to describe Southerners who had deserted from the Confederacy and spent a few years dodging both Southern and Union forces as well as the dreaded Home Guard.  It appeared to be a matter of survival.  You know there had to be some good stories there.

On my maternal grandmother's side, her grandfather named a son Ulysses in 1867.  Hello?  That seems pretty obvious to me where his sympathies lay.  Those two anecdotes are from my mother's side of the family.  No hotbed of rebellism there.  On my father's side, only one branch of the family bothered with the Civil War.  The Bridges family were caught in the middle of the war in Georgia.  I think it was pretty hard to hide from the war there.  Still no stories about it from that branch of the family.  They weren't too proud of their foolishness.  My father's mother's father's family were another story altogether.  The Willises hailed from Winn Parish, Louisiana.  Winn Parish was a hot bed of anti-secessionist feelings in Louisiana.

What a rich and diverse history of the Civil War exists in my immediate family, yet when we were taught about the Civil War in school, we were all White, we were all for the war, we all had slaves but we were all good to our slaves who were like family to us.  Yeah, right.  I can only imagine the response I would have gotten in the 8th grade if I had suggested to my American history teacher that not everyone in the South wanted the South to win.

This is not just another one of my disjointed free association ramblings.  Let's make a list of books about the Civil War that young Southerners should read.  We can also add to that list books that most Southerners have read, even to their own detriment.  We could start with Gone with the Wind in that particular category.  Talk about Southern romanticism unchecked!

How about

• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
• The March by E.L. Doctorow (well, I did just read it)

Without listing them, I would also include both Sandburg and Vidals biographies of Abraham Lincoln, but neither are exactly on point.

Actually when I started with this idea, I thought I would have dozens of titles dancing around my fingers.  I think I've forgotten most of the real onerous, propaganda-type books I read in my youth.  There were a bunch of books I read around the centennial of the Civil War, but none of them stand out in my mind.  Mostly what I remember from that time of reading was how incredibly bloody the war was.

What books do you think Southerners should read to help them harmonize history and myth?

Confronting Fundamentalism

All day Monday there were two groups of fundamentalist Christians demonstrating in front of City Hall, protesting the beginning of same-sex marriages.  

This group consisted of four men with professionally printed signs.  Interestingly enough, they were dressed like the Village People.  Across the street were some members of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church.  I'm told it was Phelps' daughter Shirley and two of her daughters.  Pretty little things physically, but ugly spiritually.

 I was told the one with her ass wrapped in the American flag is Shirley.  As you can see, they're being kept in a pen away from normal people.

This guy was cute, but brain dead. He kept on preaching, even as I attempted to engage him in Christian debate.  "Why do you make homosexual behavior such a major issue?  Jesus didn't preach on it.  None of the gospels mention it.  It couldn't have been that big a deal.  Why is it so big a deal for you?"  "The Bible says," says he.  No, says I, the Bible doesn't say.  Only Paul, who never knew Jesus, had anything to say about male-on-male sex.  So if Jesus and his apostles didn't have anything to say about same-sex relationships, why was it so important to him (the guy in the hat) to leave his home and come to my city to preach his bigotry?  All he could do was fall back on THE BIBLE SAYS, but you know what, no it doesn't.  The crowd in front of City Hall was overwhelmingly pro-celebration, and each time my cute young bigot would use his megaphone to preach, the crowd would drown him out with "BLAH BLAH BLAH!"

If you're just a stranger passing through and would like to know more about what the Bible does and does not say about same-sex relationships, there are a couple of excellent resources available to you.  The first, Soulforce:  whose purpose is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.  They bear witness all around the country and force religious bigots to own their actions.  Another good site is the Gay Christian Network.

All I can say is some people ought to think more about what Jesus taught and look at his life for example and inspiration.

Same-Sex Weddings

The ruling which came down 30 days ago became state law Monday at 5:01 p.m.  Across the state, couples who have been in committed relationships, some for as long as 56 years, wed their spouses.  It was a joyous, emotionally intense day.  Below is another picture which allows you to read what's on the card.

Here are a few pictures.

As you can see, same sex couples come in all sizes and ages. Someone care to tell me how these folk threaten heterosexual marriage?  There were plenty of witnesses to this joyous occasion. Music was provided at different times by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus and Sistah Boom. The Chorus was featured on CNN. Sistah Boom is featured here.

There were plenty of other well wishers.

My favorites of all of those at the SF City Hall were these kids from Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, our GLBT neighborhood synogogue. They were there Monday night passing out pieces of cake to newly weds and witnesses alike, as a mitzvah and wishes for a sweet beginning to the newly wedded. A lot of cultures do that, you know, offer sweets as a blessing and a wish.

I know I've been missing in action lately, but besides being sick for two weeks in late May, we have a new staff director at work, and we've been busy. I'm back blogging at this address. The other address was always meant to be temporary. To all of you who wished me well in my little diversion, thank you.  I think it worked well enough. 

Now let's get back to our regular programming.