His question was another example of the “polite racism” of the New South, much like the way Black people in Atlanta coexisted around Confederate soldier statues and venues containing the words plantation and Dixie. The expectation was that such things were harmless symbols of white heritage. They weren’t. They were relics of slavery and a secessionist society that stirred hurtful messages of racism. And now, a board member wanted to know where my family’s slave owners were from.
