Squaring off with nice racists: ♬”Bless their little hearts.”♬

Seen on the epic “day off” yesterday… It used to hang loosely a stone’s throw up the road but was always getting itself balled up. Now it’s here, hoisted inside a solid frame. It seems to me it makes a statement, something like “Any n*****s beyond this point are gonna die.” But it’s probably just something about the sweetness of southern heritage. Right? And if that’s what you’re thinking, the follow up statement is ♬”Bless your little heart.”♬ Just a bit further along I used to have the hermitage. I inherited the woodstove of the most famous moonshiner in the region back in the day. All gone now.

This is a State Road in WNC, a one-lane, no-fault, gravel mountain road with no cell-service for miles… The murders that have happened on this road are quite uncountable. Typical of back-ridge Appalachia. City-slickers travelling these parts haven’t the foggiest. All the murders go down as suicides, no matter how many shots to the back of the head there are.

Back to the flag… Some people say, really quite aggressively, that this flag is all about southern hospitality and charm, and has nothing at all whatsoever to do with racism. But the nice people who speak in this way also say, really quite aggressively, in my own personal experience, mind you, that African Americans are all stupid and immoral while, instead, white people are smart and good people. These nice people say that we must be segregationist. They speak of evolution so as to say that African Americans are still mostly beasts, like apes and chimpanzees.

It reminds me of the lady who, elsewhere, was explaining to me just how nice they are as white people, because, you know, they treat them n*****s just as if they was real people.

Three of these nice people, all pillars of the mountain community, had me cornered to the back of some buildings where no one would notice. A squaring-off kind of thing. The way to my car was blocked. Three or four big guys insisting that they are right and that I am wrong, that hating on black people and Jews, and my going against my Catholic faith was the only acceptable way for me to move forward, you know, to be part of the good ol’ boys club. They would be happy to have me, if only I thought just like them. The thing with nice people is that they’re all cowards, and as soon as they realize that you can rock and roll, they back down. You know, even if it takes some demonstration (which thankfully I didn’t have to do, but for which I’m always, always at the ready).

The reason why such nice people would bother to threaten to teach me some Appalachian justice is not because I’m a priest or have beliefs contrary to theirs (though that’s also true), but rather because – get this – because I visit the sick and suffering as a priest. That gives me way too much influence. They’re afraid that my being in solidarity with those hidden away, pretty much all around, gives me leverage with any racist ruffian whomsoever, whose great great grandma is so thankful that I come around to visit and provide the sacraments. That means that, generally, I’m protected, welcomed, however grudgingly. It’s the grandma effect. And word gets out about the One in Whom I believe. Racism and other kinds of prejudice are disarmed. Of course, lots of people are on hard drugs, so good luck with that.

I’ve always told seminarians and other priests that one of the most important things they can do as priests is to ditch the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and go to the hospitals, rehabs, nursing homes and shut-ins themselves regardless of the numbers. People never get Sacramental Confession or Last Rites any more. When people see that the priest is actually seeking out the hurting sheep, all the worldly crap like racism and prejudice fades into insignificance and is even reversed.

When the Appalachian justice dispensers do the walk of shame in failure, I’m saying, though only under my breath: ♬”Bless their little hearts.”♬