A Good Neighborhood

by Therese Anne Fowler

“Why doesn’t half white equal white the way half black equals black?” Her answer, i.e., the history of the one-drop rule, etc., made sense but didn’t satisfy him. Factually he was just as white as he was black.

The main thing to emphasize here is that the state of Mississippi’s largest airport bears the name of a black hero of the civil rights movement, while the state itself continues to fly a flag that has as a significant part of its design the entire flag of the Confederacy. This kind of dichotomy is the South in a nutshell.

“Same as books. Paper and ink’s all a book is, but when I was little, books made me feel hopeful. Like I had friends. Like maybe there were good things to look forward to someday.”