South Somewhere Else

It was assumed that the South was a thing
That took place somewhere else
We grew up in a town that our parents just found
On a job search and liked it quite well
Who had so many friends who arrived just like them
So their kids were our kin for a spell

It was assumed that the South was a thing
That took place somewhere else
Like the feeling of home was a book on a loan
From a college town private school shelf
We took in every chapter with interest and laughter
But never quite a sense of ourselves

A dangerous narrative, haunting imperative
Led us little kids to believe
That the place we were from shed a sheen we should shun
Like the salt of the sweat dripping down from our sleeves

It was assumed that the South was a thing
That took place somewhere else
Like the sun that went down on the edge of my town
Progressed no further west as it fell
And on visits to relatives, couldn't quite tell
'Cause his pounding heart sank as they swelled

It was assumed that the South was a thing
That took place somewhere else
As if Jim Crow geographies didn't haunt all of the
Streetscapes we'd come to know well
Not just the old neoclassical mansions we passed
Or the high school had stories to tell

I mean, the segregate sound of that old college town
Rings so loud to me now, I must say
As we worked all-white restaurants, trash-talking debutantes
Our nascent class conscience, obnoxious displays

It was assumed that the South was a thing
That took place somewhere else
And maybe it was, which I say just because
We weren't noticing where power was held
Captivated, the capitol's capitacratical
White liberal logics prevailed

It was assumed that the South was a thing
That took place somewhere else
Multiracial resistance to greedful ambitions
Cast out in revisionist spells
Power concedes 'bout as much as it leads
As we started to see for ourselves

It was assumed that the South was a thing that took place
In a retrograde rendering of absolute space
As though everything left in the world wasn't traced
By production, subjection, resistance, escape
Seen squarely through this disidentified gaze
And through textbooks and TVs, our modernist ways
Could never quite focus our participating
Renewing, rejecting, affirming, negating