They Still Don't Know They're Bigots

Hi, I’m back. Thanks, to the dozens of readers who thought to send “bon voyage” messages – and to the two who actually did: my wife’s mother and an old buddy from school.

Boy, was his a surprise! I didn’t think any of my old – and they must be really old by now – friends from high school were still alive. They actually closed our school the year I graduated. Seriously, they turned it into a cultural arts center – in Glen Allen, Virginia. Let me tell you about the culture.

I went back to see the place about 20 years ago, and there it remains: a small cottage where they taught home economics (how to cook and keep house – that should tell you something), a two-story red brick building to hold the students, and an auditorium big enough to hold a basketball court and 20 or so rows of auditorium seating to hold the bigots who came to watch the games.

We had the winningest sports teams in the state. No kidding. Our football team won every game and the state championship every year for the four years I was there. (I was on the track team; 400-yard dash and mile relay – for safety’s sake.)

Those good ole boys were all from the Deep South. And there is no place deeper south than Richmond, Virginia, let me tell you. The “Capitol of the Confederacy,” they claim proudly. And they all knew where I was from: a bit north of there. They had read about Philadelphia in history books (those who could read), but they had never actually met a “Damn Yankee.” Neither had I. I was fourteen, raised in the city where we had gangs, sure, but they were mostly just to meet girls, and … well, I was too young to be a damned anything.

In 1950, Glen Allen High was coming to the end of its term as a school. Still, we had a lot to learn. From Mr. Johnson, our government and history teacher, I learned to love the stage; he directed a series of one-act plays we performed around the state every year. We actually had a teacher who taught Latin. Latin, for God’s sakes! (Amo, amas, amat.) Few of my classmates knew “y’all” was two words, and fewer still could tell a verb from a hemorrhoid.

My best buddy was the star basketball player. (He sent one of the “bon voyage” notes I received a few weeks ago. I’m pretty sure he was being nice.)

I never got to play first-string sports. My excuse was I didn’t have time to practice; I had to be home every night to milk the cows. But I was the guy who told the announcer the name of our players at the football games. (Bryant Gumbel got his start that way, didn’t he?) I remember the good times, my first real date, living just down the road from the “Carter Sisters from the Mountains” (I took Anita to my Junior-Senior Prom). So, I know for sure, there were good-hearted, smart, talented people who lived south of the Mason-Dixon line.

But no black student ever attended Glen Allen High School. Black kids had their own schools, their own side of the street to walk on, their own side of the tracks, their own place on the bus.

Well, I’m home now, back to the best city on the planet. (I realize that’s a very prejudiced claim.) It seems strange that in 2013 almost every newspaper columnist, magazine editor, and television pundit is talking about bigots – not just from Virginia, Florida, and Texas. Bigots are in the news, big time! They’re writing laws!

For over a hundred years they were called, “rednecks” – mentally challenged white males, usually from the South with an IQ of a beaver, characterized by ignorance, intolerance of others, and sunburned necks. It’s unbelievable – they still don’t know they’re bigots!

Glen Allen High School, Glen Allen, Virginia.