An Open Letter to North Carolina

I published this post on Thursday, April 26. Something happened in the world wide web to delete this post from my WordPress dashboard and render the links useless. My savvy friend Lawrence helped me out and found the Google cached link so I am posting it again. This is too important to get buried.

 

Dear North Carolina,

I love living here. I grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia and still feel the chirp of my home state since we share a state flower (dogwood) and bird (cardinal). Mac Daddy and I chose this area as our home, having moved here 10 years ago with no jobs and no friends. We vetted many cities and hand picked Raleigh for myriad reasons. In those 10 years we have found jobs, lost jobs, started new jobs, bought two houses, renovated two houses, had two sons, watched them start school, adopted a dog, gone gray, lost loved ones, made friends, planted our roots.

We are happily entrenched in this community. Our sons thrive in public school. Mac Daddy works for a large employer in the region and volunteers with our sons at the local food bank. I run a marketing consulting business, shop the local farmers markets, volunteer at my sons’ school, and serve on the board of SAFEchild. We adopted our dog Lark from the local SPCA. As a family, we donate our time and money to help our community. We clean up greenway trails. We have a neighborhood lemonade stand and donate the earnings. We speak at school board meetings. We restore and care for our historic home in one of the city’s oldest neighborhood. We vote. In. Every. Election. Big. Or. Small. We are a family that participates in our community. We are happy here.

Our family’s story begins in Raleigh.

For the past several months we have traveled across the United States from San Diego to Seattle to Chicago to Green Bay to Philadelphia and New York. As we traverse this continent we proudly tell people North Carolina is home. I have noted that in city to city we get the same response. And it’s not positive. Some people have snarkily even commented, “I’m sorry.” I wanted to punch those people. For the most part, people comment that our state is beautiful (it is indeed). Then they go on to wonder about what seems like age old stereotypes of racial discrimination and illiteracy. They raise a brow and ask about what it’s like to live here. Never mind that some of the richest minds reside in the Triangle and that the brain trust of some major universities call North Carolina home. Still, (mis)perceptions continue to ring true and color our country’s view of us.

Ongoing press about the debacle of Wake County schools and the push to pass Amendment One isn’t helping. Sadly, people continue to think we are bumpkins who marry our cousins while we advocate to ban gay marriage from our state constitution. Actually, this is in fact true. But North Carolina, we are better than this.

North Carolina, we need to work together to prevent the ludicrousness of Amendment One. There has been so much chatter about being the only Southern state to not pass such hate. I say why not wear that very fact as a badge? Do we want to follow the grain, even if it leads us (back) to the sullied days of discrimination? We are a state that enjoys the riches of diversity and the power of progressive voices. We must continue to be champions to lift our state up and forward. We can learn by looking back. We will fail by moving backwards.

Join me on May 8 to vote AGAINST Amendment One. And let’s show that jackass who thinks North Carolina is backwards that we kick ass.

Esse quam videri,

Ilina