Being Southern means carrying a responsibility to shake off the comforting blanket of myth and see ourselves clearly. I was bringing a child into this world, and into our long history of trying to do the right thing while benefitting mightily from the wrong thing, and I wanted her to love our home and our family, but to see it clearly and without the nostalgia that so often softens my anger and desire to tear it all down and build a new world in its place.
