Oh, dear, Penni!!! I would not dare get any of my opinions about Texas from the media. Why, since you, Del, and those three cretins who murdered that poor black man all live there, it is obvious that it is just as diverse a place as anywhere on earth once you get past the surface stereotypes.
I do know that my family members who lived there were very, very racist. Their comments made me very uncomfortable, but what was more uncomfortable was that they felt perfectly normal saying them out loud, in public. My aunts lived in San Antonio, and that is where I have visited. I just drew my observations from going to the grocery store, a Willie Nelson concert, fast food places, the zoo, and everywhere else I went. It seems to have a lot more social stratification than I am used to, a lot more subservience by the people at the bottom of the heap. Out here, poor people are angry, and they aren't going to take it anymore!! My last visit there was fourteen years ago, though, and I hope a lot of things have changed.
A woman from San Francisco did write an article for our Sunday Examiner magazine, about the experience her family had moving to a small town in the deep South recently. What she said that stuck with me is that the social agreement is different there. There would be a special weekend in town, for example, and the whites would be having one kind of celebration, and the blacks would be in a different part of town having theirs a different way. Now out here all the races mingle at every event, so that was foreign to me. Also, she invited black children to her little daughter's birthday party, the way we would. Our parties look like the U.N.!!
Someone finally told her that it wasn't done that way, by general agreement. None of the black children attended. This woman ended up liking the South, incidentally, although she never felt at home there. There was no apparent negative intent in her article. Having never been there, I have no way of knowing if what she observed is common. Does anyone live in a small town in the deep South who would care to comment?
I have a mint julep recipe in my Southern cookbook. If I weren't so lazy, after smoking three huge joints, attending a big gay rally this morning under the Rainbow Flag at Castro and Market, and roasting a small child on a skewer for lunch with Starhawk and her minions while we did nude rituals at the beach, I might have enough energy to make one. But since I am exhausted from the orgy and everything, I think I will stick with the Southern Comfort in the garden. Pagan women never wear any underwear either, so at least it will be relatively easy to cool down!!!
Come back and tell me what you had for dinner at the Irish pub. I am intrigued!! |
