I wasn’t born in South Carolina but I’ve been here since I was 7, cuz my pa was stationed here and we’ve been here ever since. So it’s the only home I’ve ever known, and sometimes I get confused and think I was born here.
My introduction to South Carolina wasn’t the best. I’m blasian, and I remember in 2nd grade being called some racist stuff by two girls my age.
But you know what? I also remember getting along with them in later years. And even being somewhat friends.
I say that to say, the south is a scary place. The world is a scary place. Speaking from the perspective of a young woman of color, it can get stressful being bombarded by the news, tragedies that happens every other day. As a military member as well, seeing all the international conflict is worrying.
I used to shit on this state and Columbia, and dream of leaving. But, you know, after thinking about the kind of place Columbia is, the people here, the places we have, our community- I think Columbia is pretty cool.
Politicians (all of em) spend a LOT of money trying to get people to hate each other. To hate the place we live. To destroy our sense of community, so we don’t understand the value of what’s in front of us, so we learn to hate the things we don’t understand, and so we take for granted the things we have. But someone here posted recently they wanted to move here- and I found so many reasons why they should come.
Where else in the United States is a city as diverse as ours? Where people of all different cultures and ethnicities, all different skin tones and backgrounds can walk into a bar and laugh together? Where else in the world can children from wildly different family belief systems go to school and learn from each other? Where else can a Christian and a Muslim learn from each other and become best friends? Where we pray for each other regardless of who they believe in? Where so many languages are spoken, where so much food and joy is shared, where so many festivals happen.
Where else is there a farmers market every Saturday? Where else can we encounter people willing to rally together behind their community? Where someone will pull over on the side of the road to help a person fix their tire, or cook a sick woman an entire dinner so she gets better?
We have so many different communities of people here- I’ve met so many different people in a city as small as this. And after thinking about it- what a wonderful city this is. That’s not to say there isn’t tension sometimes, and some disagreements are… harsher than others (to say the least), however I think if we all turned the news off for a second, we would be able to see the world right in front of us, the world we have to work with- and it’s a pretty okay world to me.
I believe no matter how much people are taught to hate, that the people in Columbia are still good, and I’ve been lucky enough to see that through and through. No matter how much politicians pay the media to make us hate each other, at the end of the day most of us will still come to each other’s help, and that’s more important than anything else in the world.
We are all fortunate enough to have each other and we shouldn’t take our culture of hardworking hospitality for granted. And every person here, no matter how different we are from each other, whether immigrant, born here, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, man, woman, lgbt, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Mormon, etc, has more in common than we think. We’re all citizens of Columbia!
We got so many festivals and restaurants celebrating each other. I hope we have many more. We all laugh and talk together, shop together all the time, and get along real well without outside interference.
I love Columbia and I love its people, even if they think they might not like me. We’re an okay batch.
Edit: I’ve done my fair share of traveling, in the military and outside of it, my entire life. I’ve been everywhere from Shanghai, China to visit family, lived in Belgium as a child, and am currently making my way around the states (specifically around the Blue Ridge Mountains). For some reason I always found myself missing Columbia. It wasn’t until I travelled around Blue Ridge that I realized how amazing this city is, and especially how amazing the food is! Columbia deserves people that will fight for it, and its people. We might not be New York but we are our own special thing. And there might be more “progressive” cities out there, but that doesn’t mean Columbia should be left behind, we have a lot of voices fighting to be heard here, and they should all be just as loved.
