Life in a Red State...s/o of The party of Women

lotstodo

lotstodo

aka "The Jackal"
The short essay below is written by a California Liberal who was forced to move to Indiana. Her experience is repeated quite often, but never believed outside the flyover territory.

One personal anecdote here. When I worked for a large corporation with our largest office in Chicago, we were visited here in Atlanta by a new VP of Human Resources who happened to be a black female about 35 or 40 years old. When she first showed up she stayed away from everyone but the VP in charge of our office and our sales people. She would scurry through the production facility like she was late for supper.

That evening, the boss invited a few of us out to dinner to meet her at a steak house in Buckhead. When we got there, the boss held the door for her, something that obviously puzzled her a bit. We had a nice dinner, and afterward, a man and his wife in the parking lot had a car that wouldn't start. I always have jumper cables and jumped them off with the help of our Sales Manager. We all shook hands and they drove away. The couple happened to be a black man and a white woman.

On the way back to her hotel riding with our VP she asked if all of that was for her benefit, if it had all been staged or something. Fortunately, after the boss realized that she was dead serious, he gave her what for and dropped her off outside her hotel to catch a plane the next morning. One of the salesmen begrudgingly picked her up to take her to the plane the next morning and she told him to drive her back to the shop.

She gathered everyone around and apologized. She said that not since she was a girl had a white man held a door for her, and she couldn't believe that "Georgia people" would help a mixed race couple like that. We told her to come back some time and we would show her what manners are.

When she returned to Chicago, she wrote a nice memo to the entire Atlanta Division and thanked us for her "continuing education".

Anyway, here is the essay by the California Liberal:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...-my-life-better-leah-singer-column/668263001/
 
Good article!

In spite of my on-line attempts at humor; I am a southern gentleman. I hold open doors for people, I smile at most everyone I see and nod hello, if someone near me drops something I lean over and pick it up for them.

I was taught that there is never a reason NOT to be nice until a person gives you a reason. Now...I'm not saying I've always lived up to that philosophy, I have bad days like anyone else; but typically that's how I behave.

Like you, I usually carry jumper cables and I keep a boost box and some tools with me. I can't count the times I've helped out a stranded motorist, and I want absolutely nothing in return. I think my favorite was last winter (it was cooooold!) when I came out of Rite Aid to find a mother and daughter trying to jump off the daughter's truck, to no avail. I offered to help, and quickly saw why they were having no luck. The battery was fine, the clamp on the positive battery cable had corroded to the point to where only half of the clamp was still there, and what did go all the way around the battery terminal was now c-shaped. I tapped my inner MacGyver and used a pair of Vice Grips I had in the truck to clamp what was left of the terminal to the battery post. Worked like a charm, and I advised them to go purchase a new terminal and replace it for a more permanent repair. Both of them hugged me, which made me feel very good about what I had done. I wasn't too worried about my Vise Grips, but the mom asked me how they could return it to me, so I gave them my business card with my office address, and sure enough the daughter came by about a week later and returned them.

I don't care what gender a person is or what their skin color is; I try to treat them like they are my brother or sister in the human race (and in Christ if that belief applies to you).

I have noticed that people are often surprised and visibly moved when I hold the door open for them or show them kindness; especially black and Hispanic women for whatever reason.

Portraying some of us as being racist and/or misogynists is one of the things that ticks me off the most about the policies of the political left. I consider it to be character assassination.
 
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I honestly think that good old southern manners are the reason why Atlanta got the reputation as the city too busy to hate. That is certainly changing and has been for a few decades now. I don't know if parents quit teaching manners to their kids or if the influx of "outsiders" has thinned the blood, but the difference is noticeable. Every time I used to hold the door (man, woman, black, white, whatever) I always got a thank you. Now it's probably only 70% of the time, and sometimes I don't even get looked at or acknowledged in any way. I still do it because that's how I was raised and I still say yes ma'am and no sir even to people younger than me. One kid did make me feel good the other day though, he was a baggy pants black kid with a comb in his hair, probably 18 or so. He was following behind me leaving a store and I held the door. He got just past me and actually stopped in his tracks to say "thank you sir". I'll admit, I wasn't expecting it.
 
"I was taught that there is never a reason NOT to be nice until a person gives you a reason"

Great line. I relate to that completely. I think I annoy my neighbors when I always wave to them as I pass by while they're outside. It's like it obligates them to reciprocate.
 
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