Hostile Hospitality: an Homage to South Carolina

In my beloved Greenville, South Carolina exists a web of living time capsules. These neighborhood relics encapsulate my childhood’s sunshine-warmed, chlorine-stained summers. Amongst the historic Colonial homes, wrinkled black-and-white photographs, and Pepsi bottles so expired that sugar hugs the glass in crystals, I skipped, learned, and grew for eighteen years.

As a White, pigtailed little girl, I thought nothing more of my hometown than the comforting sense of familiarity it offered. Naiveté proved a shield from the less desirable traits of my southern upbringing: the heavy, stifling humidity, the endless mosquito bites, and the nosy, front-porch-sitting neighbors to name a few. Still, even more than these charmful quirks, my innocence blinded me from the rudimentary inequities present throughout my sheltered, day-to-day life.

My school, church, and neighborhood are “whiter” than many care to admit. I cannot remember seeing resturaunt customers, neighbors, or church friends who did not look like me. My life was monochrome; I despise that fact. Although de jure segregation supposedly no longer exists, discriminatory practices and policies continue to plague our state. In Greenville, restaurants, residential areas, and community organizations are still masked in systemic discrimination. Even our infrastructure is rooted in racism: my neighborhood’s streets do not connect to those of the adjacent, primarily Black neighborhood. This exclusory city-planning exists from the Upstate all the way down to where sand and sea meet in the Low Country, creating a lack of diversity and inclusion in countless entities and organizations.

I often wonder how so many White South Carolinians are able to turn a blind eye away from fellow brothers and sisters in need. I hear White southerners keep diversity out of their own neighborhoods by shouting “N.I.M.B.Y” while simultaneously glorifying gentrification of more diverse neighborhoods. I see South Carolina having one of the lowest- ranked educational systems in the United States then watch funding get taken away from our public schools. The list continues.

And, yet, here I am. Still in love with the fried okra and simultaneously more educated on the inequities that so many "Southern gems" embody. How do I live in South Carolina both aware of and disgusted by my privilege? How do I help others who are often discredited by people who look like I do? How do I do the right thing in a society that celebrates the preservation of so many wrongs?

Unfortunately, I have very few answers. The South is an interwoven mix of hospitality and hostility. It sure is messy. But so are all of us.

My only attempt at an answer is a request: may we each grow from our shortcomings and share in the promise of a beautiful, equitable South Carolina. Oh, how wondrous that would be.