South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

by Imani Perry

There are still people, including children, working in Southern tobacco fields. The past isn’t even past, as Faulkner put it. Recently, public health researchers have called attention to the poison seeping into the bodies of the children in tobacco fields, who are now mostly Mexican and Central American. Children have never stopped being in American fields, nor have they ever stopped being held captive on American soil. How often are we attentive to the fact that there are still child captives? In a conversation with a friend, I remember talking about the child-removal policy of the Trump administration. And he responded that it was harrowing indeed, but how new was it really? Yes, he was right. Democratic presidents have had the same practices, only less cruelly enacted. But also, we remove children from their homes and incarcerate them all over the nation and have for years, whether immigrant or juvenile detention. That, too, is an inheritance of slavery and colonialism. The difference is one of degree but not kind. That blind eye, we turn it until we don’t. But we turn it every day.