Southern Politics, of the Heart

In the early Spring of 2018, a mentor gave my name to the Chair of Georgetown County's Democratic Party—their convention was coming up, and would I consider providing the keynote address? 

There is most definitely a first for everything.  I accepted with gratitude and a healthy amount of anxiety. 

Below is an excerpt from my speech, which I'm sharing now because I know many good-hearted, rational folks shy away from politics.  I get it, it can be uncomfortable, and it's certainly been divisive of late.  But we've gotten to a point in our country where we can't afford you not showing up to cast your ballot.  

So maybe my interpretation of politics helps you a little, or maybe it totally pisses you off—either way, I hope it nudges you towards the polls on November 6th.   

***

I'm biased, but my name is pretty special. I inherited it from my grandmother, who was a pretty special woman.  Most people called the first Caroline Mauldin "Happy," a nickname that came along a loooong time before I did, and with good reason. 

Happy was somethin’—at the towering stature of 4'10," she lit up every room she walked into. 

She was a lifelong learner—she graduated from USC in 1933 and went on to become a social worker and special education teacher in Columbia. She received her masters, also from South Carolina, in 1966, and she truly never stopped reading, exploring, or connecting. 

Happy LOVED South Carolina. At every step of her 95 years loving and living in this state, she was fiercely compassionate and radically optimistic. …or maybe it was the other way around. In either case, I like to think that when I got my name from her, I got all of that ferocious, radical, compassionate optimism, too.  

I grew up in Columbia in the same house Happy and her first husband, Tom, raised my dad and two aunts in. I’m now in Charleston, but for about 14 years I found my way outside of South Carolina, sometimes really far outside. I mean Kenya and Ethiopia are long flights; but Boston is just an entirely different country, y'all. 

While I was away, I was a bit of a fascination to many.  I was southern, and proud of it. I was also a Democrat. "How did you get so progressive," they’d ask? "Was it hard growing up in a red state?"

The truth is, it wasn’t hard at all. In fact, few in my extended family diverged from the example of compassion and inclusivity that our matriarch, Happy, set for us. So, to me, being progressive in South Carolina felt as natural as being South Carolinian. 

I do, however, remember the first time I felt out of place. I was in the 11^th grade. 

It was the day after the Bush v Gore “hanging chad” debacle of a presidential election. When Katherine Harris certified W the winner, I burst into tears. In Spanish class. A classmate, aware of my early political persuasions, tried to comfort me: “Don’t worry Caro, there'll be another election in four years. You’ll probably be a Republican by then anyway.”

Say what? My eyes welled up again. Was I really going to be a, gasp, Republican some day?  The feelings I felt, the values they were grounded in—they were as real to me as having two eyes, two ears, and a beating heart.

I ran to Happy after school. She told me she’d been a Democrat so long she used to be a Republican. The label didn’t matter, she said. What’s in your heart is what matters. 

My heart told me—and still tells me—that America is a place of extraordinary opportunity, of compassion; a place where we thrive from our differences and protect every person’s right to be different.  

My heart tells me that to whom much is given much is expected; and to see God in every person I meet—to recognize their struggle, and to help lighten their load if I can.  

My heart and my faith call me to consider the plight of others every day of the week, not just on Sunday’s; and that prayer without works isn’t nearly enough for our disenfranchised neighbors. 

My heart tells me that we must recognize and rectify the racism that pervades our society, and that we can do so without violence or anger.

My heart tells me that South Carolina is a special, special place, and that we are capable of so much more than being the last in education, the first in domestic abuse, the lowest in social mobility, the 11th in gun killings, and so on. 

And about two years ago, my heart told me that, after 10 years of trying to help folks in other countries, it was time to help people in the state that raised me.

But friends, I’ll share with you today, because I know many of you feel the same: my heart gets tired sometimes. Particularly in the last year. This work—of listening to our hearts, of standing strong for what we believe in—is hard.  

Don’t get me wrong, I knew it would be hard coming home—that systems resist change, that short-term wins are few and far between when you’re playing the long game, that allies would be sparse and funding would be scarce. I knew all that.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the quiet assault on my identity as a southerner once I returned home.  Here I was, a daughter of South Carolina, and in the middle of a policy discussion, I’m told “that’s just not how it’s done in this state” and “you'll understand once you've been here, Caroline.” 

Understand what? Was I not raised in this very same place? Am I somehow less South Carolinian because I believe in equal rights for all;

that love is love;

that transparency and accountability is critical for our elected officials;

that our democracy thrives when more people vote, not less;

that a conservative monopoly over policy and civic debate isn’t great for policy or civics?

that the mark of a strong economy is upward mobility rather than rising inequality?

Of course not!  These are not lessons I learned off in some faraway land—I got them right here at home.  And they make me every bit as southern—every bit as South Carolinian—as my conservative friends and loved ones. 

Actually, really, is there anything better than being a southern Democrat? When you think about it, we are in fact the most authentic of our brethren: because when we talk about southern hospitality, we’re actually serious about inviting EVERYONE to our supper table.

***

In March, the Atlantic Magazine published an article entitled “When the South Was the Most Progressive Region in the Nation.” Naturally, I stopped everything to read it—surely this was fake news. 

The article told the story of an extraordinary bi-racial convention that came together in Charleston in 1868 to rewrite South Carolina’s constitution. Such conventions were happening through the Confederate States, but no group made more headway than those in South Carolina.  (They also had the most work to do given how outdated and unjust our laws had been prior to the Civil War).  

Across the South, the “Reconstruction" constitutions guaranteed black men the right to vote—a right not yet enshrined in the North. South Carolina’s new constitution also protected black civil rights, abolished debtors’ prison, and got rid of the requirement that any person running for office had to own property.  It even expanded the property rights of married women, black and white.  

Shortly after the reconstruction constitutions took effect, African Americans became the majority of the voting population in the South, and upwards of 90% turned out to cast their ballots.  Of all the southern states, the Atlantic reports "Black political power was strongest in South Carolina, where African American legislators controlled the lower house of the General Assembly” for eight years.  

And their agenda was unabashedly progressive. Again, quoting from the Atlantic article, "They outlawed racial discrimination in theaters, hotels, and restaurants. They instituted public welfare and relief programs, building hospitals and orphanages and establishing boards of health. Some Southern cities provided firewood and food to the poor. Perhaps the most significant accomplishment was the wholesale creation of public-school systems that were open to every child, regardless of race."

These southern progressives, led by formerly enslaved Africans, were 100 years ahead of the modern Civil Rights movement. Let that sink in for a moment. 

Of course, the progress of progressives was prematurely halted by the rise of that era’s Democratic Party, white nationalism, and Jim Crow. Ever since, we have been fighting against ourselves, against our better angels—battling a system that too often favors the wealthy and punishes the working class.  And our hearts have grown tired. 

Despite decades of nonlinear progress on social justice, we know that love for the vulnerable and equality for all are still not popular topics outside of Sunday mornings. And our southern sensibilities often keep us from activating these values in politics, or even in conversations—god forbid we create an awkward silence at the office or a cocktail party. 

But let’s also be clear: as a progressive, I am not advocating for charity. I don’t believe government exists to give handouts. I believe government exists to balance the results of a capitalist system on overdrive. 

Unlike many of my beloved market-will-solve-all-things friends, I don’t believe “poor” people are lazy or undeserving—I think they are some of the hardest working people I know—healthcare assistants and grocery clerks and farmers and teachers—all laboring day and night to provide for their families in a state that doesn’t have a livable wage, doesn’t have great public transportation, doesn’t have an equitable school system, and so on.  But you know what that state does have?

It has YOU! 

So as we approach Election Day, consider Happy's advice of what's in your heart—and where you see those values reflected on the ballot. Know that in South Carolina, we do in fact have a two-party system, and that we have options.  

Know that we don’t have to favor corporate profit over individual welfare. Know that our laws can help the poor come up the economic ladder, not fall down it. Know that our communities benefit when we have people in power who look like them, were raised like them, and dream like them.  Know that our public education system can work for all children—as soon as we get real about the equity we seek and the inequity we face.  

And no, I’m not accepting the answer that “that’s just not how we do things in South Carolina.” 

That IS how I do things in South Carolina. And I think it’s how a lot of y’all do it too.

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