The hyacinths in my mother’s flower garden woke last week. The crocuses have almost finished their blooming for the year. The harbingers of daffodils and tulips are beginning to break through and will be fully woke soon.
I added a label to my LinkedIn profile last week. Along with “Essayist | Editor | Retired Educator” I have added “Woke Liberal.” There are state-wide elections here in Alabama, along with the scary presidential election cycle we’re enduring in the United States. As I watch the ads for state-wide elections, it seems that the Republicans are out to extinguish “woke” liberals, etc. so I seem to be in their NRA-loving sights. As they scramble to establish their bona fides with the previous insurrectionist U.S. president, I shudder.
One ad for a candidate for chief justice of the state Supreme Court brags that “If you like Trump’s judges, you’ll love” him. I say Thanks for the warning. Another, by a candidate for a spot on the state school board, features the voice of an apoplectic woman having the vapors because her son came home from school with a Black Lives Matter book. A candidate for reelection to the state’s Public Service Commission makes a thinly-veiled promise to continue her tradition of letting the big utility lobbies have their way with her, including photos of “woke” Hollywood celebrities to, I guess, make her point. Still another says that “Republicans can trust” her; apparently, the rest of us cannot.
Some of these candidates will be elected and their bigotry makes me want to be even more “woke” than I already am. Since the label “woke” began to break into the mainstream as a common adjective for progressively-minded people, I haven’t always been able to fully play along. On occasion, presented with a challenging new idea, I have been known to quip that “I’m not sure that I’m that ‘woke’ yet.” (For example, I am not woke enough to turn down pork barbecue.) Yet, as books get targeted, immigrants get dehumanized, women’s control over their own bodies is increasingly threatened, education is tyrannized, health care is ridiculed, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is not considered a worthy goal, and Capitol insurrectionists are called “hostages” and “patriots,” I am leaning more than ever to the increasingly saner “woke” points of view.
For a group of politicians that claim to be for “less government,” these politicians seem determined to interfere with our private lives and most personal decisions.
No matter how much we love Alabama, it is our legacy to be regularly embarrassed on the national stage by our elected politicians. The recent atrocity put to paper by the current duly elected chief justice of our Supreme Court is jaw-dropping, even by our standards. Who votes for these people? I’m not aware of many people who do vote for them, but those candidates seem to get elected, anyway. I guess I don’t get around much anymore.
And then there’s Sen. Katie Britt.
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When I named this journal “Professional Southerner” a decade ago, it was intended as a riff on a gibe I received while living in the Midwest in the ‘90s. There, I seemed to be the go-to person for all things Southern. Somebody referred to me as “our professional Southerner.” Those gibers were the ones who breathlessly reported that, as a Southerner, I had to see the new movie Forrest Gump – that I would love it. I did see it; to their dismay, I didn’t love it that much.
I read a book recently that referred to the keepers of the “Lost Cause” mythology as “professional southerners.” Hopefully, anyone who knows me or reads what I have to say knows that I am not an advocate for the “Lost Cause” version of the Civil War. A while ago, I read a quote from Alabama writer Rick Bragg saying, “I never wanted to be a professional Southerner … but at the same time, I’ve never been more proud to be anything but a Southern writer.” I, too, never intend to be a spokesperson for my region – it is too diverse for anyone to take that mantle. But I like to express my views and experiences. And I’m Southern.
Truth be told, “Professional Southerner” was supposed to be an escape from the stressors of everyday life, but events – both personal, social, and political – have made it necessary to speak up on occasion and this current election cycle makes it more urgent than usual to take a stand.
In the meantime, I watch the birds in the backyard feeders, prepare the hummingbird feeders for their impending return, and tend the garden. And I vote. Even if the options are slim pickings, I look for the less threatening, non-Republican choice.
“Woke” is akin to springtime – opening oneself to the clear light of day, to new ideas, to new challenges, to new solutions. “Woke” = Not Asleep at the Wheel.
Professional Southerner 