Where??

Well, the debate is over and the questions of my immediate future have at last been answered. I have been offered a spot in an MFA acting program and I have accepted it. It is done. I'm leaving. My future beckons.

It's a three-year program that emphasizes in classical repretory acting (which means Shakespeare and the like for you non-theater people). The facilities and faculty seem top rate, and the third year includes a working internship with one of a number of prestigious professional theaters. All in all, it seems to be exactly what I was hoping for, with only one exception.

It's in South Carolina. Where's that, you ask? Well, the easy answer is just below North Carolina, but I won't be that facile with you. It's a much more complex question than you think. What on earth am I, who have never lived east of the Mississippi river, going to do on the east coast deep in the heart of the old south? I don't know anything about this state! Before this year, I've never given South Carolina more than a passing thought.

To fix this gross ignorance on my part, I decided to do a little research to see what I could find about this so-called “place.” Here's what I discovered:

1. South Carolina is not named after a woman named Carol, but after King Charles II of England (the son of the guy who got beheaded) because, apparently, Carolus is the Latin form of Charles. If the settlers had not known Latin then the state would have been called South Charlina. And that would have been dumb.

2. The current population of the state is 4,198,068 – give or take a few thousand. That's roughly 1,500,000 more people than live in Utah. It is also significantly smaller in size than Utah. It's going to be a bit more crowded, therefore. It's not standing room only or anything, but probably pretty close.

3. The state's nickname is the Palmetto State. Wow. I assume people from there are called South Carolinans, but only my friend Dai would know for sure. He has an interest in that kind of thing.

4. The state seal was displayed at the top of this post. The state flag is incredibly dull and looks like this:

5. The religious make-up of the state is 92% Christian, which includes 84% Protestants, which includes 45% Baptists. Other Christian (that's us) = 1%.

6. Historically, South Carolina was one of the original 13 American colonies. It was the 8th state to join the Union, which it did in 1788. This means it is very old, at least in American terms. Older than any state I've ever been to, let alone lived in.

7. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in the Civil War. What a troublemaker. This means I will probably see a fair share of Confederate flags there. Being a red state, part of the “heartland” of grass-roots America, I expect most of the people who own these flags are violently patriotic and fail to see the irony of them possessing such a powerful symbol of sedition and dissent (not to mention racism and bigotry).

As you no doubt have discerned already, I came to my research with a lot of preconcieved notions about South Carolina. After all, this is the site of the grand old south of the past. I immediately think of large plantation mansions, fields full of black slaves, and southern belles in large dresses saying “Ah do declah,” to each other whilst fanning themselves furiously. I wondered how I would live amongst a people who are probably even more conservative and intolerant than any other group of people with whom I have had to co-exist. I assumed that, in South Carolina, men abuse women, people of color are called horrible names, and homosexuals are shot.

It became clear to me very suddenly however that if anybody was acting like a bigot, it was me. After all, I was judging an entire group of people based on some kind of vague pre-concieved notions and not on their individual merits. I was doing the very thing that I was condemning them for – I was stereotyping. Just because they speak with a drawl, that means they are ignorant and prejudiced? How could I think something like that? I'm the liberal! I'm the one who claims to be for treating all human beings with respect and dignity and against treating them unfairly because of their race or lifestyle or place of origin. And yet I catch myself engaging in the same acts of misjudgment and intolerance that I oppose in others. I think this is the biggest problem with liberals, in all honesty. In opposing intolerance and extremism, many people become intolerant and extreme. That doesn't do much for our already struggling cause. The biggest trouble for the liberal "movement" are liberals themselves. We keep shooting ourselves in the feet. I laugh when people talk about a “liberal agenda” because nine times out of ten liberals aren't organized and unified enough to make a grocery list, let alone an agenda. Yes, this is pretty much why the Democratic Party is such a mess, but don't get me started.... I'm straying from the point here anyway.

In the end, I think living in South Carolina is really going to be good for me. If there's one group of people in America that I feel I have treated unfairly in my thoughts and speech, it is southerners. And it will be a good experience to live there and to meet people, individual people, and to make friends and break through these stereotypes and notions that I have about them. In the end, people are people, wherever they are from, and I think this will be a great lesson for me. And who knows, perhaps I will enjoy and even in my own way come to love the Palmetto State. The point is I'm going to give it a fair and open chance. South Carolina, let me shake your hand...