My Home is Hurting
I can't go back to South Carolina.
They have a fucking heartbeat bill in South Carolina now? I can't get an abortion after 6 weeks? Fuck you. I'm not coming.
I was born in Florence, 24 years ago, when my mom had the option to abort me up until the 20-week mark. She still had that option 5 years ago, when she birthed my baby brother. The option is gone now. We are living in backwards times, my friends.
Now that I’m at the age my mother was when she started a family, I am facing a political, social, and economic climate that makes it undesirable and expensive for me to start my own. The solution Republicans have for this problem is not to make the conditions better for young adults, it is simply to force pregnancy.
I see a grim future for the Southeast, and red states across the country. I see a cycle of poverty being exacerbated by lack of choice. I see a public system that fails to meet the needs of a growing population. I see what is already a housing crisis becoming a catastrophe. I foresee climate disaster that the state will fail to consider preparing for until after Charleston is underwater.
When I was in grade school, I knew people and families who immigrated from northern states to SC, who fell into the trap of "the housing is cheaper there" only to be stuck with our cheaper wages too. Plenty of people who were doing okay in their home state only to come South and suffer under the weight of alienation and lack of support. I saw people who moved to SC get evicted from their first home within a year.
I have an awareness that my job is selling legal pot while the drug war is still alive and well there. People in jail for simple possession. For dealing an ounce of weed. I have free healthcare now, and I have an awareness that if I was in South Carolina, I wouldn’t get state health insurance unless I had a baby, and it would only last 12 months. South Carolina doesn’t have its own minimum wage. They don’t have paid sick leave, or maternity leave. But they do have forced pregnancy.
It hurts to know these things, to know that what was already a hard place to live is becoming even harder, even more volatile and violent. I wish I could take all my people with me, or bring the social progress back to them, but I can't. It's up to them if they leave, and it's up to political power to decide if South Carolina deserves more freedom or not.
I should feel way more relief at the fact that I have escaped the South. It’s the main reason I tried so hard in school, so I could go to college and get out. I have escaped the oppressive laws and downtrodden economy, and I have benefitted from leaving. But my heart breaks for all the people still living there. My heart breaks for the part of myself who wishes I could feel safe and comfortable in the place I was born, with the people I grew up with. I wish I could call South Carolina home and really feel like it is home, but it never has. It has always felt like an unwelcoming place. A toxic environment that will smother you and attempt to choke you on your way out.
It is this way by design. The mechanisms for an unjust society were outlined and followed during the slave trade, and the history of the South is a failure to repair the damage. The history of the South is one of holding a constant grip on whatever oppressions they can justify enough to keep. “Oh sure, we’ll let black men vote now, but only if their grandfather did too” From grandfather clauses to redlining to generational poverty and credit scores and forced pregnancy, we have always had our methods of keeping an underclass of people. We have always made sure we have a bunch of poor people to exploit and give cheap wages for hard work.
White people fall into these cracks of poverty as well, but we have a culture that encourages pointing the finger at immigrants and minorities rather than wealthy people in power. We have our own mental gymnastics we use to make ourselves think we’re not as low as we really are, because there are people even lower than us. We enjoy being distracted from the real issues. We don’t want to face them, because we feel emotionally implicated, even though the solutions benefit us all. Too many white southern folk won’t stand to listen long enough to find that out.
These same regressive folk are the ones who show out to vote the most. I don’t actually think it’s because there’s more of them, I think the rest of us are just too damn discouraged from trying. I know so many people, black people, queer people, poor people, disabled people, women, men, who are unsatisfied with how things are in the South but still don’t vote! They aren’t even registered! Because “what’s the point?” People choose the pain that they’re used to over the pain of trying and being disappointed.
Even if you live in a red state and think your vote doesn’t matter, take a shot, register, and vote. The balance of democrats and republicans in red states is a lot closer to 50/50 than you think. Even if you know the general election is a bust in your state, you can achieve smaller wins in local elections and ballot measures. Here’s just a few ballot measures happening this year. YOU DESERVE TO HAVE YOUR VOICE HEARD!
2024 ballot measures - Ballotpedia
Abortion is on the ballots of 10 states! - AZ, CO, FL, MD, MO, MT, NE, NV, NY, SD
Minimum wage and paid sick leave! - AK, AZ, CA, MA, MO, NE
Legalization of marijuana! - FL, ND, NE, SD
Ranked choice voting system, which is one way to increase democracy! - AK, AZ, CO, DC, ID, MT, NV, OR, SD