The second semester of my freshman year of college, when I first transferred to USC, I was in a history class whose objective was to research and create historical markers for African-American history in Columbia, SC. We focused on the Civil Rights Era, specifically a neighborhood that was home to many influential blacks and a powerfully unified community. For my historical site, I chose the childhood lot (the house was destroyed a few years ago) of Judge Matthew J. Perry Jr., one of the first black federal judges in the South. He was a lawyer who argued the case which ended segregation at Clemson University, and was important in many of the key civil rights battles in South Carolina. The new courthouse in Columbia is named for him.
I interviewed him there, in a library in his private offices on the top floor of the courthouse. An eighteen-year-old, middle-class, white girl who has never had to face true hardships and who has been, to this point, incredibly lucky in life. It was difficult to sit there and ask questions about things I didn't understand of a man who'd lived through real strife and had a cross burned in his yard by the KKK. How do you possibly pose questions to understand what it was like without coming across as completely disrespectful of the magnitude of the experiences? I actually bothered asking if there was one specific instance he could recount that stuck out in his mind as a prime example of racism and segregation. It was a stupid question, and I cringe when I think back on how unprepared I was for the interview. I honestly hadn't expected to actually get the opportunity, but that hardly excuses it.
He told me that there was no answer to the question. No one experience that sticks out more than any other, no one thing that defines the period of time or gives a proper perspective because it was all-encompassing. Racism and segregation wasn't a series of events, of incidents where he was mistreated or disrespected. It was every moment of a lifetime. It was coming home from World War II in Europe, dressed in uniform and turned away from a restaurant because of his skin tone while Italian prisoners of war dined comfortably inside. It's being turned away from a local store because even though your skin is pale enough to pass as white, your address gives you away as living in a black neighborhood. It's paying a $5,000 fine or 3 months in jail for setting foot in a public park that's only for whites. It's every time someone glances at you and sees you as different, every time parents pull their children away from yours because they aren't the same color. It's looking in the mirror every day and seeing a person so many people hate for no reason at all, for something you couldn't control if you wanted to.
The culmination of the semester was a walking tour of the neighborhood and a small gathering of local politicians and the people still around from that time, the people we interviewed and recorded down as part of our history. I got in there and was told I'd have to make a speech, which I hadn't known about in advance, on heroics and what I'd learned from the experience. I don't remember what I said. I know that standing there in front of Judge Perry, the City Council and Mayor, a handful of people over 80 who only in the last decades of their lives got to enjoy the freedom we're all born with, I felt like a fraud. Little spoiled white girl trying to explain personal heroics in a time of trials. Two years later and I still don't have a clue what it's like to have the world stacked against you from birth.
What I do know is that I'm ridiculously proud to have Barack Obama sworn in as our 44th president today. It's not the panacea for our problems; racism is alive and well from all directions and there will always be bigots in the world. But it's a step forward. And maybe with hope at the helm instead of doom, we as a nation can learn to walk.
Obama's daughters stood up there with their dad as he took his oath, wearing their adorablely coordinated coats, scarves, and gloves. The world they're growing up in, the world they'll inherit, is a far cry from the one left to their parents. And I can't wait.
Tonight with dinner, I drank a wine older than I am. 1981. My host 'dad' bought it (a huge bottle) at an auction and tonight at dinner let me have a glass. It was good, but I guess there's a reason I'm no wine connaisseur: I honestly can't see anything different or better about it than other wines I've had for much cheaper.
Tomorrow my mom hops on a plane to come over here and I go to pick up the key for our apartment that we've rented out for the week. Then my mom'll be here early (really early) Wednesday morning, and I get to spend time being taken to nice little bistros and having someone else pay. I also have a nice excuse to go be tourist-y in a city where I live. And let's be honest, living somewhere is different from visiting. When you live there, you don't end up seeing all the monuments except for in passing or in your first few weeks in town, and you don't go to all the cool shops except when you need to, and you don't eat out at all the cool places you see because you either have class, or laundry, or studying, or grocery shopping, or some other real-life thing to get done. I rarely ever leave my two areas of Paris: the 5th and the 15th.
That's not a complaint. It's just a fact. There are parts of Paris I've never seen or only seen once because I just don't have time to go over there, and why would I when everything I need is right around? With my mom, I'll be staying in the 4th, the Marais, over by the Hotel de Ville, and I'll get to explore an all new section of Paris.
Battlestar Galactica is back on. It makes me happy even if the show just gets more and more frakking sad. It's much better than Smallville, anyway, that seems determined to keep Clark Kent from taking back his balls from Lana Lang.
Okay, yes, my TV shows are important to me. Even when said TV show is horrible. It's like a trashy romance novel. Not really worth the time but entertaining none the less, and once you start you can't stop til you see it through.
And in other news . . .
In 25 hours, we'll have a new president. President Barack Hussein Obama. I like feeling hopeful for the future instead of dreading the next four years.
I wish Ann Coulter's jaw was still sewn shut.
The other pictures are Paris with snow. Some were taken Monday as the snow was falling, others on Wednesday out my classroom window when it was around 10 degrees outside but the light was gorgeous.
It can't be a good thing when you walk outside in 30 degree weather, thinking it's actually not that bad out.
Of course, considering that when I left my house this morning at 9, it was 10 degrees, 30 seems practically balmy in comparison, which I suppose is the point. I've been told countless times today that this weather is incredibly rare for Paris. In fact, it supposedly hardly ever snows here, which it did on Monday as I was on my way to school. I have photos, even. Because snow in Paris? It's like a fantasy. I'll pass the metro bridge and the little pastry shops on my way to the metro, making sure not to slip on the icey side-walk, and little white flurries getting caught in my hair and settling in the trees, and all along the balconies and the roofs of Paris. Then I get to the Latin Quarter for school, across the street from Cluny, and it's this old, medieval abbey with a park next to it, covered in snow. Like a nice, historical dream, only one in which my eyeballs are freezing.
I've spent much of the past few days asleep thanks to jetlag and hormones, both of which suck and can be a serious distraction from getting back into the swing of school. Today was actually the first day back that I've felt like a real human being, and not a monster out to eat anyone who disturbs my slumber.
This morning was one of my last French Society classes, in which we discussed French politics, which are, not always obviously, very different from ours. We as Americans know, for the most part, that they're a more left-wing country than we, having an actual established, semi-popular Socialist party (that was in power for a few years in the 80s). For instance, up until 1877, the French executive branch (the "government", not the president) had the ability to dissolve at will the Parlement, which had the same power to dissolve, at will, the "government". Very effective, yes? You can imagine what happened when you had a royalist president and government against a republican Parlement.
It's weird being here without a roommate; I got used to having someone in the room with me. Not to mention, there are only about 4 or 5 other AIFS students left here until February, so my classes are empty and it's just—weird. Very different from when I left, even though it doesn't really feel like I actually did leave.
Ah, well.
My mom comes in two weeks. This is the major sale time of year for Paris, with 50% to 70% off in many major stores. Understandably, considering it's not tourist season and there's definitely a reason for that.
Brrrr.
Pictures of the snow to come tomorrow.
