NASHVILLE — The news emanating from the American South this year has been one long litany of assaults against human decency. In Alabama, a physician who performs an abortion in the case of rape may soon spend more time in prison than the rapist himself. In Mississippi, a family is suing the county and its sheriff for beating a black man to death in jail. Tennessee just executed a deeply repentant Christian convert who had lived an exemplary life in prison. Proponents of a “culture of life” don’t seem to recognize the incoherence of their position.
Unsurprisingly, the news about race relations is no better. Four fraternity members at the University of Georgia were expelled when an overtly racist video came to light. Fires at three historically black churches in one Louisiana parish are being investigated as cases of arson. A South Carolina man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempting to hire a white supremacist to lynch his black neighbor. And don’t even get me started on all the new voter-suppression tactics. White Southerners in power have been trying to keep black people from voting ever since they got the right to vote.
I’m tempted to say there’s never been a worse time to be a sentient human being in the American South, but I know that’s not true. I spent my entire 1960s childhood in Alabama, and I don’t care how bad you think it is right now, it’s nothing to the days when Bull Connor and his ilk still walked the earth. But it’s also true that things can be “better” and still be shamefully, irredeemably bad.
