Reconciling Being a Southerner
Today’s article from The Bitter Southerner is nothing short of brilliant.
I enjoy reading their posts whenever I get the chance, and anytime they write about music I always make sure to pay special attention.
Today’s article speaks of the up and coming artists, The Glory Fires, and Chuck Reece of Bitter Southerner says of listening to the song “I was dumbstruck. This was … hell, I didn’t know what it was. My head was spinning. I walked downstairs and said to my wife, Stacy, ‘I think this kid Lee has made the record I’ve been waiting for somebody to make since before he was even born.'”
” ‘Dereconstructed’ is, at its heart, a document of Lee Bains’ personal struggles with the question of Southern identity. Bains dearly loves the South and wants to proclaim his love to the whole world, but he knows that telling the world you’re proud of the South can have dark and unintended consequences.”
This is terribly fascinating to me. I’ve always struggled, and especially here lately with, how do I reconcile being proud of being a native daughter of The South along with the shame of the same?
I was taught to be proud of the fact that my great-grandmother in Birmingham served as the Treasurer for George Wallace’s Presidential Campaign, because many women were not so involved in politics at the time. My family still laughs, saying this is when she got in the habit of carrying a gun in her purse- and you learned quickly not to put your hand in it.
How can I be simultaneously proud of my heritage but yet also be so ashamed of it? Proud of my great-grandmother who was one of few women to be involved in politics and also be afraid to tell people just who exactly she worked for? Some reconcile this by citing that politicians like Wallace and Strom Thurmond would recant their racist ways, hell Thurmond even had a black daughter. But I don’t think that’s enough. It doesn’t quite get down to the meat of it.
There are many of us Southerners who do not feel this way, I feel like I’m always having to explain to people that I’m not “one of those Southerners”- and all of us here in the South know what that means. We’re not the typical far right leaning, paranoid hate spewing, Bible beating brimstone and hellfire Christians who need to carry our guns in to church. For me, my worship doesn’t even take place in a Baptist church- I’m one of what feels like very few Episcopalians. I don’t like to claim allegiance to one particular party, and this is after what i would say is akin to a spiritual awakening out of the depths of the Republican party.
But back to the music: I am in love with the lyrics and the quality of writing behind them. As a writer myself, informally trained thus far, I am struck to see a quality of writing in music. With some many Miley’s and Christina’s out there singing about some lovesick non sense it’s incredibly refreshing to see a new artist writing about his struggles with being a Southern Christian and the shame of the Civil Rights movement that still lingers over many of us today.
Are you intrigued yet? Go here to read the article in Bitter Southerner to see exactly what I am talking about, and be sure to be somewhere that you can listen to the music samples:
http://bittersoutherner.com/lee-bains-iii-dereconstructed
And by the way- for those of us in Macon- we will be treated to see Lee Bains III and his band The Glory Fires at Bragg Jam this year. In a brilliant chance of research, and my own ADD, I was looking at the Bragg Jam website and noticed they were listed.
Love to all y’all,
Molly
