For a long time, I’ve banged the drum for the notion that the only hope for the South will be when everyone for whom segregation is living memory is dead and gone – and quite possibly their kids too (and yes, I know this means me). The counter-argument has always been that you need that living memory – you need the people who remember what it meant to have separate drinking fountains, the people for whom To Kill A Mockingbird rings dangerously true, the people who can say with authority “no, I know this sounds absurd but it really happened.”
The problem is, having living testimony isn’t worth it anymore. Having people around who want to go back? That’s a much greater impact now. And it’s spreading, especially now that they’ve discovered an “immigration crisis” to allow them to try to legally crap on brown people and “assaults on freedom of religion” to let them lash back at gay Americans, or even ordinary women who might want preventive care without mortgaging the house to pay for it. And now that you can show The Other a great big middle finger with the simple expedient of eating the right fast food – has there ever been a more perfectly Teatard demonstration? Ever? – I’m more convinced than ever that the whole alternate reality occupied by the Old Ones is going to be a problem going forward.
And that’s why it’s not worth it. If nobody who remembers segregation (and wants to go back) is still around, that living memory isn’t going to be all that necessary anyway. And right now, the Old Ones form far too much of the rank-and-file of the army of delusionals who want things back “the way they used to be” – even if much of it is a figment of the popular imagination.
History and memory are important, but we’ve gotten to the point where the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.