Rosalea Barker: South Carolina

Several months back, I got it into my head that I’d like to have a little vacation in South Carolina just to be surrounded by people who speak with that lovely SC accent. You can hear one here.

So I sent away for a brochure from the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism. and when it arrived was immediately confronted by my very deep misconceptions about the state.

First off, being brought up with British history, the words “Atlantic Ocean” conjure up for me images of a cold, turbulent body of water swarming with herrings and German submarines. Somehow the significance of the palmetto that graces the SC state flag hadn’t sunken in yet.

Secondly, I had this idea in my head that South Carolina—being a slaveholding state and all—had a high proportion of African American inhabitants. Plus, back in 2004, I’d been to see the play “Yellowman” which is about some people of Gullah/Geechee origin from the Sea Islands off South Carolina’s coast. (As an aside, both Michelle Obama and Justice Clarence Thomas are listed on Wikipedia as having Gullah ancestry.)

So it was with some surprise that I opened the travel brochure—“Smiles and Places”—and saw very little about African Americans, and lots of articles about and ads for beach resorts, filled with tanned, smiling white folks of all ages. Understandably though, most of the brochure is about places inland from the sea. South Carolina is shaped like a ginkgo leaf and its coastal edge accounts for only a small part of it.

According to Wikipedia, most of the African-American population—which is the largest ancestry group in the state at 29.5 percent, unless you aggregate those of American, English, German and Irish ancestry to 39.6 percent—lives in the Lowcountry and the Midlands; “areas where cotton, rice and indigo plantations once dominated the landscape.”

And it is to one of those Lowcountry counties that I now turn to illustrate what is not shown in “Smiles and Places”. According to data from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates, South Carolina as a whole has 15.6 percent of its population living below the federal poverty line; in Williamsburg County, that figure is 33.1 percent. (The figures are from data collected in 2005-2007. The income thresholds used to establish poverty are here.)

Further analysis by the Food Research and Action Center shows that Williamsburg County also has the highest level of people living in extreme poverty in the state—14 percent. According to US Census Bureau figures, the ratio of black to white residents of the county is almost the exact reverse of that for the entire state—68 to 30 percent.

The Governor of South Carolina is Mark Sanford, who famously said he wouldn’t take a penny of the money the federal government was going to give states under the economic stimulus bill. On March 17, he wrote this letter to President Obama, decrying recent Democratic National Committee attack ads and outlining what he proposes to do with any money received—basically, using the funds to pay down debt rather than to extend services.

Williamsburg County’s representative in the US House of Representatives is the Majority Whip, James Clyburn. This past Saturday, Clyburn spoke at a meeting in the county seat, Kingstree, and a news report of the event included the following:

“We are not going to enter the twenty first century in rural South Carolina without broadband access, he said. In Bamburg County, where he recently visited, just 55 miles from Columbia, ‘…I might as well throw away my cell phone and my Blackberry,’ he said. ‘Our youth won’t get the education they need to be fully competitive, if we do not allow them full access to the Internet.’

‘The Senate took out the $6 billion we had put in for broadband for rural communities, and I jumped on top of the table, when I heard that.’ Clyburn succeeded in getting $2.5 billion restored. ‘I want South Carolina; I want Williamsburg County, to step up to the plate. We’ve got to use this opportunity to get ourselves launched as never before. Don’t just pay attention to what is on the news. Put together your plan. This is an opportunity that you will never have again.’ ”

Aside from the fact that broadband access ain’t gonna put any food on the table of people living in extreme poverty, Clyburn seems a little out of touch with facts on the ground. In the small town of Hemingway, the week before, the council voted unanimously to pass a Juvenile Ordinance which implements a curfew between midnight and 6am. Breaking the curfew can result in imprisonment.

According to an online news report of the meeting, Joe Lee, the Town Manager, also “shared some comments about stimulus packages saying, ‘Stimulus money comes with stipulations’ He added that the town was considering different things for the police department and the water and sewer departments, but that he had lots of questions.

“ ‘Hold on to your money,’ he told the council. ‘Financially we are looking good. We are in the black right now. Let’s not let spending get out of control.’ “

Perhaps the contracts for doing the public works Joe Lee refers to will go to the same company that recently won the bid to bore some waterlines under a couple of local highways. That would be Lee Construction—no relation, I’m sure. And maybe the bid for landscaping the park that will be drained by those waterlines will go to Joe Lee Landscaping in nearby Conway—again, no relation, I’m sure.

I’m absolutely not implying any corruption, but it’s hard to imagine there’s no room for corruption all over the country with this cornucopia of free money going begging. Whose hands will those federal dollars end up in?

I’m betting it won’t be the hands of the unemployed and destitute folks of Williamsburg County, even if it was Clyburn who co-sponsored the economic stimulus bill. Will he think it’s all OK if those juveniles locked down in their homes in Hemingway have the ability to surf the net looking online at the food their family couldn’t afford to buy even before they started getting bills for broadband access?

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--PEACE--

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