Alabama

“Why’d you come here,” the bartender asks as she pours a bottle of Budweiser into a cold mug.

She’s a middle-aged white woman with blonde, immobile waves and rhinestone crosses on the ass pockets of her jeans. The restaurant and bar (one of two in Camden, Alabama that isn’t a fast food chain) is filled with white people. The older ones throw the glances of regulars and a table of camouflage-wearing young adults sit behind me talking about their kills.

“Well I write about economics and Wilcox County is the fifth poorest county in the country. I figured I could find something interesting here.”

It’s not the kind of thing townspeople want to be known for, especially ones wearing rhinestones. The uncomfortable look she gives makes me regret saying it, although it starts up the conversation pretty fast.

“Well we’re the most well-off poor county out there,” she says, pointing to the lack of homeless people on the streets and the huge southern-style houses I had already noticed driving in.

“The people that work have to pay for the people that don’t,” she says. “That’s just life.”

There’s a blasé tolerance in the answer that’s refreshing, as if she understands that in a country full of diverse people that all have different experiences. Sometimes shit happens.

“There are those that work and those on welfare. And it’s all blacks,” she says.

I sense this is going to get a bit racist by that sensationalism, although in an area that’s population is predominantly black–African Americans make up 73% of Wilcox County–it’s likely the majority of people on welfare are also black. That’s just good deduction.

“Why?” I ask.

It’s a learned behavior from their mothers, she says. Culturally black people are so different than white people, she adds. Sure, I think, African Americans actually built this country after we brought  them here as slaves. But, that’s not the cultural difference she’s talking about.

“If you’re a boy growing up without a father, you have no male role models; it’s hard to learn how to be a man,” she says.

Positive influences are important in young people’s lives, there’s no doubt, but framing the argument as if a single mother or two moms even can’t raise a well-mannered son is absurd. I know the argument well, though; it’s frequently been an excuse to keep same-sex couples from marrying and adopting children.

She starts telling me a story to reiterate her point.

She recently went to an event at the public school where the kids, including her own, played instruments together. “And there were no fathers there,” she says.

I nod. “Was your son’s father there?”

“Well no. He was working.”

Maybe the black kid’s dads are working? When you’re trying to make a point, don’t lead with an example you can’t even answer in the way you judge it should be answered. That’s just bad logic.

My official response is “Oh right.”

At some point she starts talking about the low IQs in the area, again only a characteristic of the blacks.

“Why?”

“Well I just don’t know.”

See what’s interesting to me is that this woman, whose husband owns the bar, expects black people, who she thinks are dumb and lazy, to work for her. As she leads me to the back patio to smoke, I notice an African American man working in the kitchen. I wonder what he thinks about her assessment? I never got the chance to ask.

After a smoke, I pay for my libation and pack up. The bartender gives me the name of some lawyer that I should talk to and then tells me to come back in if I’m still around.

“I’ll try to get back in tomorrow before I leave,” I say.

“Oh we’re not open tomorrow. It’s Sunday.”

———

Alabama is quickly becoming my least favorite state.

Driving to Selma it’s all pine and palm trees, small banks and Baptists churches. I’m hoping to find a good angle in Selma about racial tensions and civil rights, but walking around the city I can’t find a single storefront open and the streets are uninhabited.

I read some historical signs about the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, take some pictures of graffiti and trash under the Edmund Pettus Bridge and then head back to the car. On the way, I run into a young African American man bouncing a basketball.

“Where should I eat around here?” I ask, famished.

“I don’t think anything’s open today,” he says.

I get back into the car and head for Birmingham, about two hours north.

Once I get into the city, I head to a cafe I find on Google, but it’s already 3 o’clock and the cafe is no longer serving food. A friend that was formerly a public relations manager for chefs texts me suggesting Jim N’ Nick’s BBQ. The closest one is 1.7 miles away and since I’ve already paid the meter, I decide to walk it. A mile in, all uphill, I’m cursing the Bible Belt for keeping holy the Sabbath.