The Bible Belt's Daughter

"The Bible Belt's Daughter" by Nadia Lee Owens (twitter/instagram/tumblr). "If you are from the south, I'm sure you are familiar with the Bible Belt, a region of America where there is a church on every corner. A region of America where people like me can feel the most at home yet the most in danger. Here is a collection of fifteen poems inspired by memories of the Bible Belt from its very own black, bi, agnostic, daughter." There are a lot of things people who have never lived there get wrong about the south. It's frustrating when people who live on coasts or up north say that "we" (they) should just "get rid of those states". The south has the highest LGBTQ+ population in the United States, and is certainly less white than the west coast. The same sort of centrists or DemSoc's who act that places like New York are less racist than southern states seem to be ignoring how segregated, gentrified, and violent the places where they live are. The NYPD is notoriously anti-black, and white people of all political persuasion with children in New York schools violently protest black students attending the same schools as their kids. The concept of "good schools" and "bad schools" being divided along racial lines is so backwardly ingrained in many places across the ENTIRE United States, that explaining this to non-Americans sometimes shocks them. Maybe it shocks Americans too; but only the ones who can afford not to pay attention. The same people who claim to be progressive as they come make next to no commitment to being anti-racism, or challenging anti-blackness in their local communities.

Nadia's book is an actually factual answer to nearly every untruth and fucked up mentality people have about the disposability of the south. She is a writer who is black, bi, and agnostic - and she put a church on the cover of her chapbook. Nothing about her or her writing is nor should be "disposable" and that so many self-labelled "leftists" think aiming for that is fine and productive says a lot about whiteness within organizational spaces. Bible doesn't attempt to evoke a "southern vibe" or a "southern aesthetic". It is southern through and through. The south is not and never was just made of angry racist white people. The violence that resides there (it's a deeply religious place, unwelcome to all marginalized people, and maintaining stable employment is hard just like anywhere.) is real and palpable and something people can clearly point to as wrong, but it's still home to millions of people who matter and who are systemically kept from ever migrating to one of the cities people tend to care about. Nadia's book isn't trying to tell you that, because all of that is the bare minimum foundation of the situation.

Her writing is about the weather, the rain and the storms, the heat, the humidity, the land, the water, the rivers, the lakes, the seasons, the houses, the neighborhoods, the sweat, the tears, the joy, the pain, the sadness, the food, the cooking, the family, the crushes, the lovers, the friends, the communities, the sidewalks, the churches, the mornings, the afternoons, the evenings,  and the moments that she knows and that she understands. It's her life and the lives of the people she's known. I can say I know a semblance of the surroundings and the scenery because it's where I grew up, but I'm never going to know or comprehend her experiences with southern life. I don't have to know it to tell you this book is some essential reading. A lot of people get the south wrong, but Bible gets even the minute detail of every part that matters . . . exactly right.

"What do you know of the south? Of how we live down here? You see, up north, y’all are crammed in, packed together like sardines, close enough to inhale each other’s stench. But you never close that tiny gap to touch. You choose to shut your eyes to the sins haunting her crowded streets and subways."

[CW // mentions of racial violence; drowning]