My Truth in Gone with the Wind

My fascination with Gone With the Wind began when it first aired on TV in 1976, 1977. The drama, the romance, the clothes! I used to put on my mom's 1950s dresses with a hoop and pretend to be Scarlett O'Hara. Goofy, huh? From there I began to collect posters, plates, books about the movie, the VHS when it became available; I red the book 3 times. I recently put up my collection in my classroom where I teach U.S. History. Why you might ask? Some would suggest that perpetuates the vision of slavery as no big deal. That is far from the truth. I put that stuff up for two reasons: to prompt the question of "why do have that stuff" and to hold myself accountable for the dark truth of my cultural privileges. My journey with GWTW began with a childish, girlish fascination - drama, romance, clothes. (As an ironic twist, my family is from Ohio and fought for the Union in the Civil War.) I had no concept of the complexities and truths of the issues. In fact I swallowed the Lost Cause Myth whole. The south was the land of cavaliers and ladies, manners and honor. Slaves were well cared for, so I thought, and were nothing other than a type of working class. Everyone was content until the Yankees swept in to disrupt the system. I had no experience with People of Color in my upper middle class and very white upbringing. Typical U.S. History did not challenge that assumption either. Later, as I became an older teenager and embraced my identity as a smart, independent female in a male dominated world I saw Scarlett differently. My feminist sensibilities awoke, and I saw her as a women who broke the rules forced on her by a patriarchal system. She lied, stole, cheated, and killed to make her world her own and stopped relying on men. In fact, it was Ashley Wilkes who made her weak because he was weak! The only strong men were her father and Rhett, who believed in the women in their lives and supported them. She was a bad-ass anti-heroine who made her own world. I still love Scarlett for that, and this is one reason why I have my collection up in my classroom. To inspire young women to make their world, care for their family, and not apologize for being themselves. As I matured into adulthood and then studied history, the truth of the evil system GWTW represented haunted me. African Americans were sold, abused, exploited to bolster a system for which the O'Haras and Wilkes et al were a minority. Most whites couldn't own slaves, or only one or two who were immensely valuable to their family. Three to five percent of those owned more 10 slaves, and even less owned 20 or more. Those people made money by driving those slaves mercilessly and by leasing or selling them without regard to family structures. The system predicated white success on ownership of other human beings, and indeed praised it as a core vale in the pursuit of happiness. This is how the Confederate states were able to get whites who had no slaves to fight for the continued ownership of slaves. It was a perverse and evil system along the lines of tyranny. It took away humanity from the slaves for the purpose of profit through violence and intimidation, compelled whites to support it at risk of violence and ostracism, treated women -black and white - as non entities and all for the benefit of a few and the insidious lie of false aspirations. Disgusting. You can see my horror at my childish fascination. So, I packed away the collection for well over a decade. My disgust continued as I understood the criminal way Jim Crow destroyed the promises and progress the Civil War bought with blood. As whites fatigued with the intransigence of a racism most struggled to define (whites mostly), it was deemed "enough" to have ended slavery. The radicals in Congress had even enforced the right to vote for black men, an act that many educated women resented. (of course, the white patriarchy assumed they could return to a variation of the violence and intimidation of the past to return their power. As a result, women getting the vote was a non-starter.) Jim Crow segregation and its subtler version of exploitation allowed racism to persist and white America to sleep at night. The Lost Cause Myth gave meaning to the blood cost of the Civil War and made radicals (those who wanted equality) seem reckless. This is underlying message of GWTW, although Margaret Mitchell was probably unaware of how that myth shaped her story. Age and experience, or maybe just age, softened my perspective on my GWTW collection. The ability to explain what made GWTW symbolic of this complex history grew and so I pulled out and put it up in my classroom - kind of. I really sort of hid it behind other knick knacks and only the most observant teenager (oxymoron?) noticed it. However, 2015 and 2016 happened. Freddie Gray, Philando Castille happened. Trump happened. The 13 white, male Senators writing healthcare happened. Jess Sessions happened. Black Lives Matter and the Women's March happened. There are insidious systems at work that are designed to take away equality. These forces pick and choose which parts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution they follow. They ignore the pledge to each other, the common welfare that is a part of those documents in favor of strict legalistic interpretations and the word "liberty." The very systems that created slavery, Jim Crow, oppression of women and all people of color have reared their ugly head to undo the last 60 years. My conviction is that I can no longer hid what I know. I cannot be ashamed of my own journey in understanding race and oppression. So, this year my collection is at the forefront along with other concepts about dissent, equality, oppression, and freedom. I hope students ask me about GWTW. I want to explain to them that while I did not participate in slavery specifically, I benefit every day from the system that created it. I am responsible for that privilege and the least I can do acknowledge it. This is not about a trite "check your privilege." Every day in my classroom I will be reminded to embrace how power creates haves and have nots and provide them homage. Every day I can choose my words carefully and accept their are phrases and words I don't "own" because of my privilege. (Conversely, there are a few words and phrases I do own because I am a woman.) Every day I can share my own journey with the world around me and maybe help someone take their own step toward empathy and love and responsibility.