The Other Alabama - Can It Prevail?

Fairhope pier

Beach below Bayview Avenue, Fairhope, Alabama

I often lament what has happened to Alabama politically in the years since I lived there years ago.  I blame much of the state's political insanity on the rise of the Christofascists within the Republican Party, something that has occurred literally all over the country, but the most toxic in the Bible Belt states and even states like Virginia where the urban areas are finally gaining the ability to out vote the religious extremists of the hinterland in statewide contests.  Sadly, Alabama has not yet reached that point where Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville, etc., can out vote the lunacy that prevails in rural areas and where pastors preaching hate and division are the norm.  When I lived in the Mobile area, I never lived in Mobile proper.  Instead, I lived first in Fairhope on the east side of Mobile Bay and then latter in Spanish Fort (to lessen the commute to work).  The first home that I owned was a creole cottage on Bayview Avenue situated on the bluff overlooking the beach pictured above adjacent to the Fairhope pier.  Although a member of the Athelstan Club in Mobile through my old line law firm, the more laid back atmosphere of the Eastern Shore as it is called with its many northern transplants was appealing.  I knew many good people during those years and many remain trying to bring Alabama into the 21st century (just this past week, Birmingham passed a non-discrimination ordinace protecting LGBT citizens).  A column in the Washington Post reminds us that there is still good in Alabama and that those who are fighting the good fight and opposing the batshitery of Roy Moore and those of his ilk need to be remembered and supported.  Here are column highlights: 

Fairhope, Ala.

There’s a vast barn and field at Oak Hollow Farm 15 minutes from my house that gets rented out as a party venue. This week it served as the media-thronged site of a rally for Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, with celebrity guest Stephen K. Bannon, invoking God, guns and making Alabama great. At the same hour, at the University of South Alabama across Mobile Bay, a panel discussion was underway on the topic of inclusion. With more than 600 in attendance, six of us from an array of backgrounds — Jewish, Christian, black, white, Asian American — conversed with moderator Soledad O’Brien, the broadcast journalist, about connecting across lines of race, religion, gender and ideology. Such differences challenge not just those of us in this community but also those far beyond.

That these events went on simultaneously was coincidental, but looking back, I see them as representing the two forces at work in my home state, which now is a bellwether for the nation: coming together vs. staying apart. When O’Brien asked me what our state does well and what it doesn’t, I spoke of Alabama’s famous and often well-deserved reputation for hospitality. Newcomers such as the immigrants of my grandparents’ generation arriving at Mobile’s downtown blocks and speaking little English felt welcomed enough to stay and put down roots. “Come on in, y’all!” But running against that grain, I added, was the counter-impulse of a culture anxious about outsiders and fearful of those who look, act, pray or speak differently, even if they live on the other side of town. “Trespassers beware!”

This push-pull, this embracing change or bracing against it will still be with us whether our next senator, as predicted, is the far-right Moore, a longtime public figure who’s made no secret of his disdain for Muslims, gays and those whose sense of faith differs from his evangelical Christian fervor, or mainstream Democrat Doug Jones, in a possible upset. Either way, I feel strongly that an ever-increasing openness, a cultural diversity, is inching forward, if not evidenced by raw numbers, then in the kinds of people who increasingly call Alabama home. Demagogues can still win at the ballot box, but the opposition — those who yearn for and work toward inclusion, a sensibility that crosses political lines — is growing stronger.

In recent weeks, for example, I have enjoyed being among hundreds of Indian families, all from our area, celebrating the Hindu festival of Navaratri by lighting candles to the goddess Durga. I have visited a Muslim friend who teaches in a Muslim school in Mobile, and I have gone to lunch with a buddy who tells me his daughter, who is gay, stays in Mobile because she loves it as home and does not want to move to some strange, far-off metropolis. . . . I have seen mixed-race couples, if still a rarity here, strolling hand in hand, unbothered, on Fairhope Pier.

These stories, under the radar in the nation’s perception of my home, continue, like the prayers we say at High Holy Day services as part of a small but observant Jewish community in our area. At my temple in Mobile, Moses, with the Ten Commandments in his arms, looks over us from a stained-glass window as we ask forgiveness for our litany of sins.

One of those prayers on Yom Kippur, this weekend, asks pardon for the sin of xenophobia, as well as for the mindfulness to do better in the new year.  I pray it for my fellow Alabamians, too.

Living in the opposition can be exhausting as I know first hand from living in Virginia which remains far from perfect.  In Virginia, like Alabama, gays still have no statewide employment non-discrimination protections, are not protected by public accommodation and fair housing laws, and parts of the southwest part of Virginia remain down right scary.    The choices are to either move or stay and fight for change.  For now, the husband and I have chosen to stay and fight to make Virginia a good place for all to live.  Many in Alabama are doing the same thing.