“Where do you come from?” he asked me. This is the number one most-asked question in all of South Carolina. We want to know if you are one of us, if your cousin knows our cousin, if your little sister went to school with our big brother, if you go to the same Baptist church as our ex-boss. We are looking for ways our stories fit together. It was rare, though, for Negroes to ask white people where they’re from, because there was nothing much to be gained from it, as their stories weren’t that likely to link up.
