West Virginia--the haves & have-nots

On Monday I'll be leaving for a retreat that will be held at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia (long story about the kind of retreat it is and why I'm going and why it's being held at a AAA Five-diamond resort--can't get into details but lets say, I'm not the one footing the bill by a LONG shot.)


I have to say that I have some mixed feelings about this trip. First of all, the last time I was in West Virginia I felt distinctly unwelcome by the hostile stares and curt responses Southern Man and I received everywhere we went. Although Greenbrier will be distinctly different from the Hampton Inn we stayed at outside of Charleston. For those of you thinking that "Greenbrier" and "West Virginia" are ringing a bell in your mind, if you are a golfer you will know that it has a world class champion golf course (the Ryder Cup has been held here) and Sam Snead was the golf pro at the resort back in the day. But its real notoriety came when it was revealed in The Washington Post in 1992 that a secret bunker underneath the hotel had been built to house the members of Congress in the event of a nuclear catastrophe (it is decomissioned and apparently you can take a tour).

But what really makes me pause is the clear class discrepancy between those who can afford to stay at The Greenbrier and the town of White Sulphur Springs. I did a google search and found this site that breaks down things like median income, race, professions, housing prices, crime stats, and other demographics in this town. Essentially, the town exists to service the resort--most people are employed in service related positions, 74% have a high school education, 9% have a college degree, and 6% a graduate or professional degree (according to the U.S. census, the national average of Americans who graduate with a high school degree is 80%, 15.5% have a college degree, and 9% have a graduate or professional degree). The median income is $28,300 (the national average according to the U.S. census as of 2004 for men was $40,798). 81% of the town is white, 15% is black, 1% Hispanic, 1% American Indian, and 2% are two more more races. They don't even LIST Asian/Asian American.

This is clearly a town of have and have-nots, with the have nots being mostly the people who work at The Greenbrier and the haves being people who show up for a few days (or weeks if they can afford that much leisure--both in terms of time and money since it's $20/hour to play tennis and $25/hour to play crouquet--can you BELIEVE they charge you to play croquet???!!!)

I'm assuming there will be wifi there, but who knows if they are going to charge $20/hour for its use, so I may not be blogging or moderating comments until I return later in the week.

So here's to an early happy father's day to all the Dad's out there (literal as well as figurative) and I'll be sure to report back on what it was like to be in THIS version of West Virginia when I get back.

Being Paranoid vs. Being a Target

I'm returning, once again, to the topic of racial paranoia, because over the Labor Day weekend I was in West Virginia visiting some friends. And over the course of three days I became aware that I must have had an invisible sign on my forehead that said "Please stare at me long and hard." While I think some of the staring was out of curiosity, there were distinct moments when the staring felt hostile. And it's hard for me to unpack whether it's because I was with my white boyfriend (which means we constituted an inter-racial couple, the only one I saw in the 3 days of our trip) or because I was visibly Asian and hence different and hence not from there (aside from looking at my face in the mirror, there were no Asian people I saw over the course of 3 days--not at rest stops or restaurants or gas stations or supermarkets or the Hampton Inn we were staying at).

I, obviously, felt paranoid. Even my white Southern boyfriend, born and raised in a Southern Capital, felt uncomfortable with the evangelical and conservative overlay we felt, at times, hitting us on our travels (which only increased my paranoid feelings, because if my white Southern boyfriend is feeling like West Virginia is uncomfortable TO HIM, you can only imagine what I was experiencing).

However, I want to be clear about one thing: nothing bad happened to us. Nothing was said. Nobody bothered us. While I may have detected a certain curtness with our Shoney's waitress (that's right, we ate at Shoneys: and for anyone traveling out there--DON'T DO IT! ONE OF THE WORST MEALS OF MY LIFE. But we were hungry and tired and looking for something quick near our hotel that wasn't fast food). And while the woman at the Dairy Queen could not take her eyes off me--kept staring at me with an expression on her face that indicated that she had stepped into something foul and unpleasant, nothing was said, nothing was done.

Which means, that all in all, it wasn't all that bad. Uncomfortable? Sure, but it is vastly different from experiencing the effects of real institutional racism.

Which is the topic of this post: The Jena 6. Again, for a more succinct (and visual) summary than I can provide here, please go to the link on the Racialicious website:

Link to Jena 6 case:

The African American teens in Jena, LA experienced people putting nooses on a tree, a man who aimed a rifle at them, being beat up at parties, and overall harassment and abuse. That's real racism. I mention this not to say that my paranoia isn't warranted--it comes from a place where I fear what is happening to these African American students could happen to me in places where I'm obviously a curiosity, at best, or an item of hostility and possible abuse, at worst. But the truth is, as much as I think it's folly to rank racism, the history of race relations in the South, of racism against African Americans in places like Jena, LA is a long and deep and troubled one. And it is different, my experiences as an Asian American woman, are different than the experiences of young African American men.