Callander: Race remains complex issue in South

The election of Barack Obama as America’s first African-American president has moved our nation to a new chapter on race relations. Stafford County, once a Civil War battleground, has experienced a transformation as well, supporting Obama with 46 percent of its vote.

One area resident that is dazed by Obama’s national victory is University of Mary Washington professor Steve Watkins, a published author known for getting to the gut of the South’s complex racial attitudes.

Raised in segregated Florida in the 1960s, Watkins admits that even to this day he struggles with internal conflicts about race. He writes a good deal about the shaping experiences of his youth, and recently published a somewhat autobiographical novel, “Down Sand Mountain,” that powerfully describes the environment of the Deep South, where race has always been an issue.

The associate professor of English and journalism credits his liberal-leaning parents with helping him to keep life in perspective, to allow him to reject the blatant biases of the culture in which he was raised. In sharing his thoughts through his writings, Watkins brings to life “the corrosive nature” of racist attitudes and actions and shows how they contradict America’s lofty ideals about freedom, liberty and morality.

Among Watkins’ accolades is “The Black O” a compelling nonfiction account of former racist hiring practices in the Shoney’s restaurant empire. Because of its gripping depiction of Southern life, Watkins’ new book, a coming-of-age novel geared to young adults, has been compared to the well-known 1960 novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

I heard the author read some passages from “Down Sand Mountain” recently. A riveting speaker and storyteller, Watkins definitely captured the audience, including me, as he recounted a visit to the poor, “colored” neighborhood of his Florida community.

That reminded me of my first exposure to “the other side of the tracks.” I took a car ride with my parents — in our Midwestern town — to drop off “the maid” at her home, which I then learned was a tiny unpainted shack. I became a liberal that day, at about age five.

Fortunately, over time I was able to overcome any notions that all African-Americans were poor, by getting to know children of racial diversity at school. My best friend in second grade was an African-American girl, and I remember riding home on the bus with her to her family’s nice two-story home in a middle-class neighborhood in the center of town.

In high school, our lilywhite school south of Chicago was integrated through busing. It was a positive experience for the white kids to get to know the black kids and vice versa.

It’s that kind of forced integration that helped break down the barriers between the races and led to Obama’s history-changing victory in 2008.

In Stafford, our population has become much more racially and ethnically diverse since I moved here in 1980. There are even interracial couples with interracial children.

Most of Stafford’s African-Americans have had successful careers with the Armed Services, the federal government, in business, and in professions like engineering and medicine. Thankfully, the stereotype of the poor, “colored people” of Watkins’s 1960’s Florida doesn’t hold here in Stafford in the 21st Century.

However, that’s not to say there isn’t prejudice. I became aware of it during the presidential campaign. From what he knows about attitudes that still exist, Watkins was particularly surprised by Obama’s wins in North Carolina and Virginia. He notes that there are still “deep pockets” of racism and what he describes as “anti-intellectualism.”

Remarkably, some outwardly racist voters (“I’ll never vote for a black man!”) were transformed during the campaign. Once Obama was elected, they joined the country in excitement over his achievement. How they voted on their secret ballots, we don’t know. However, Obama’s totals showed that he had made inroads in the demographic groups, such as white Independent males, which previously would not have supported an African-American candidate.

Thankfully, education and opportunity have brought the races together here in Stafford County as we await the inauguration of our new president.

Alane Callander is a south Stafford resident active in many local causes. Reach her at info@staffordcountysun.com.