Let’s Make Fun of a State: Alabama

If You Think This Post Sucks, Blame the Racists Who Ruined It

The 2018 season has started, so it’s time to add to our “Let’s Make Fun of a State” series. This tired old saw is good for two or three posts a year. You may or may not be aware that the whole series is a lead-up to making fun of California. Everyone likes to make fun of California! I suspect that even if the post about California is the crappiest entry in the series it will have a good chance of going viral. You might wonder why I wait. Why don’t I just jump to California? Well, once the California post augers, nobody is going to read anything after that. Are you going to read a post making fun of Utah AFTER reading an unfunny post mocking California?

I didn’t think so.

That’s why you’re here. You can’t wait to read about California. The Californians, for their part, can’t wait to get indignant about the inaccuracies included in our mockery of them. In my mind’s eye, the comments of Californians are better than the post itself. People like Lon Shapiro writing, “Gutbloom, nobody in California believes that the soul resides in the glovebox of their car. Where did you get that? BTW, you misspelled “Bernardino.”

But we are not there yet. We’re something like 46 states away from California. If we are lucky we can do three of these this year. It’s hard to do more of them because each time I publish a “Let’s Make Fun of a State” I get a ton of comments saying things like “you forgot to add XXX to the list of beloved Alabamians”, then I “edit” the post again, and each time I “edit” something I add mistakes, so then I have to go and fix those mistakes, which means, you know, more mistakes.

Eventually one of the “smart women” in editorial goes in and fixes all the mistakes, then tells me not to make any more changes. When I get the next response saying that any list of famous artists from Alabama that doesn’t include XXX isn’t worth the toilet paper it is printed on, I am truly torn.

That said, I’m confident leaving people off the list won’t be a big deal this time. I mean, think of your favorite person from Alabama.

Did you just say, “Tallulah Bankhead?” What the fuck? You must be from Alabama!

Perhaps we should begin.

The Most Racist State

I guess that before we start to make fun of the state that gave us Brown vs. the Board of Education, George Wallace saying “… segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”, The Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the Selma to Montgomery Marches we should acknowledge that Alabama is the most racist state. I understand that the Alabamians among you are pointing at Mississippi, but really, there are three or four “Most Racist States” and Alabama is definitely one of them.

When you read about Alabama, it’s amazing how everything about the state is tainted by the slavery and disenfranchisement of African-Americans. Alabama fought a war to preserve slavery, fought against reconstruction when it lost that war, and then as soon as reconstruction was declared “over” the state instituted a breathtakingly effective system of segregation to disenfranchise roughly half of its population. Alabama segregated bus stops in 1945. 1945! They were in the business of segregating MORE THINGS when my father was 16. Desegregation only began in my lifetime.

How can we make fun of Alabama? Racism isn’t funny. Slavery, segregation, and the complete political disenfranchisement of African Americans isn’t funny.

But if we don’t make fun of Alabama, that isn’t fair to the non-racists from Alabama. Look at it this way, the non-racist people from Alabama would ask “why don’t you do a ‘Let’s Make Fun of a State’ about Alabama?” I would reply, “because racists aren’t funny.” They would then say, “Oh, so our state isn’t going to be included in your series because of the racists? How is that fair to us? Racists ruin everything!”

The Non-Racists of Alabama

I think that it’s important to point out that while Alabama is definitely chock-o-block full of racist assholes, it also has a lot of non-racist residents. You may not believe this, but Alabama has a long period of non-racist history. Check out this timeline I made for you:

I’m not sure when paleo-indians first settled in Alabama. Let’s be generous and say that there were people in Alabama from 10,000 BCE on. While the Alabama people might not have liked folks from other tribes, it doesn’t count as racism because… well, if you got to ask, you’ll never know. Anyway, you can still go to Alabama today and see some fine examples of non-racist architecture:

No, that wasn’t built to burn crosses on.

The other thing we should keep in mind is that Alabama has a lot fewer racists, in terms of percentage, than many other states. Look at this pie graph I made for you:

45.1 % of Alabama’s Population are African-Americans (“probably not racist”)

At some point in Alabama’s history, roughly half of the state’s population was African-American. Don’t ask me when, this is a blog post not a fucking term paper. Anyway, those African-Americans are probably not racists.

Now, let’s compare that to the state of New Hampshire, where minorities only make up 1.9% of the population.

Now, if we are saying “racist” as in “racists like the white characters in ‘Get Out’”, then I would say that we could change the “Might Be Racist” label to “Racist”.

Last, as racist states go, Alabama just hasn’t been a racist state for that long on account of the fact that it didn’t become a state until 1819. If you follow sports you know that professional athletes acknowledge that Boston is a racist city. We all know that Boston is a racist city. What you might not know is that Worcester, Springfield, Lowell, Fall River, Provincetown, and Edgartown are also racist cities. Massachusetts is a racist state, and has been from the start. Thanks to the fact that it has been a state since 1788, it has been a racist state for much longer than Alabama. Look at this fancy graphic:

Now, before all you Massholes start flipping out. My family comes from Massachusetts, so I have first hand experience of Massachusetts racism. In fact, when my family immigrated to Massachusetts from Ireland in 1855, WE WEREN’T EVEN RACISTS YET. Since then, I wouldn’t say we’re ALL racists… unless you mean racist like the white people in “Get Out”.

Can We Move On?

Can we start talking about Yellowhammers and Cahaba lilies yet? We won’t get far before we have to mention racists again, I promise.

Creation Myth

It’s important to know how a place came into being. If you know, for example, that Charleston, South Carolina was founded when the slave-holding families of Barbados ran out of land, the history of South Carolina starts to make sense. Likewise, if you know that New Hampshire was founded to stop the state from being dominated by Massholes, you understand why I hate Dunk’n Donuts.

Parts of Alabama were founded by the Spanish (“Spanish West Florida”) and the French (Mobile was part of New France), but most of that settlement was along the coast. To populate the interior of Alabama, or what you might call “the rest of the state”, a Georgia governor named George Matthews illegally sold land at sub-market prices to his political flunkies. The event is known as the Yazoo Land Scandal.

So, it turns out, much of central Alabama’s colonial settlement came at the hands of fraudulent dirtbags from Georgia. Let me say that again. Fraudulent dirtbags from…. Georgia. Georgia, the state where plans for good government go to die.

A Diverse State

You might think that the state’s settlement created a monoculture of dirtbags. Not true. Alabama is an incredibly diverse state. Biologically diverse, that is. Alabama may be #1 when it comes to “biodiversity”, a word coined by Alabamian E.O. Wilson in 1985. I read Wilson’s autobiography The Naturalist, and in it he paints a portrait of the state that would make anyone a fan.

The great thing about growing up in old Mobile was not the history that was all around me, and it was wonderful history, but the natural history that I had available to me. In just a few minutes, I could leave on my bike and be on my way to the Mobile dock area, or I could get on the causeway that cuts off Mobile Bay from the Mobile-Tensaw Delta Wilderness Area to the north. I wish every child could have a chance to wander and experience natural environments, natural history, the way I was able to do it. — E.O. Wilson

Wilson in 1942. From the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

If Alabama is So Diverse, What Is Wrong With The Way They Choose State Symbols?

You would think that Alabama would want to play up the “biological diversity” talking points, but they seem to have some trouble with that. Is it any wonder that the decedents of people who originally obtained their land through political corruption have trouble understanding how to market real estate?

Here are five super cool species that are endemic to Alabama.

Alabama Beach Mouse, Alabama Sturgeon, Alabama Heel Splitter

You would think that the state fish would be one of the fish that is only found in Alabama. You would be wrong. The state fish of Alabama is…. get this… the largemouth bass. The largemouth bass??? I’m bored by even writing the name twice. Is there any more boring fish than the largemouth bass? I understand why guys with one foot on a trolling motor and their thumb on the reel of a bait casting rod are fans of the largemouth, but to everyone else even the bluegill is a more interesting fish.

The Vermilion Darter is beautiful, unique, and endangered. I think it has about a 97% chance of going viral on the Internet if someone pays a little attention to it. If I had a coffee shop in Birmingham, I would call it “The Vermilion Darter” and put a sign in the window that said, “No Chubs Allowed”. The fish has an incredible amount of potential hipster cred. I can even prove that it hasn’t been “discovered” yet. Check out its tiny entry in Wikipedia.

Bad Fish, Worser Bird

The state bird of Alabama is what they call a “yellowhammer”. As I pointed out in the discussion of “bluebonnets” in the Texas entry, localized names don’t make a species “special” to your state. The yellowhammer is nothing special. It is, in fact, a northern flicker.

I have nothing against the northern flicker, but you have to wonder why they are the state bird of Alabama. I thought that maybe I had found the answer when I discovered that they like to eat European corn borers. Corn, however, is not an important crop to Alabama. Alabama ranks 28th in corn production. You know what agricultural product Alabama ranks #1 in?

No, it’s not cotton. Alabama is 8th in cotton.

Alabama is number one in catfish production. That’s why their state fish is the… largemouth bass.

There are a lot of birds in Alabama besides the northern flicker that would be a better choice for state bird. Alabama is home to many beautiful and, to my mind, exotic birds. They have summer tanagers, sandhill cranes, wood storks, and indigo buntings. It is also one of the places where there may still might be ivory billed woodpeckers.

King God Bird, order of magnitude cooler than the northern flicker

Most people think that the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is extinct. That’s a selling point. If it was the state bird of Alabama and somehow in the future it became associated with something racist (and there is a good chance that it would), you could say, “That’s the point. We’re trying to extirpate racism.”

How can a bird be racist? Well, it turns out that the northern flicker is kind of a racist bird. You see, Alabamians call the northern flicker the “yellowhammer.” When some of their sons went off to war to defend the practice of slavery dressed in uniforms with yellow piping reminiscent of the bird’s plumage, those soldiers were called “Yellowhammers”.

The choice of the northern flicker as the state bird has more to do with Confederate soldiers than birds. The state made the declaration in 1927, during the high tide of Jim Crow and the Neo-Confederate restoration. The state bird is smeared. It can’t symbolize half the state’s population. Racism ruins everything.

Racist Yellowhammer Plumage, left, Non-Racist Yellowhammer Plumage, right.

The State Flowers

I’m happy to report that as far as I can tell, there is nothing racist about the state flowers of Alabama. In fact, the state flowers of Alabama are kind of inclusive. Both are recent immigrants from China! Alabama changed the state wildflower from Goldenrod (which is native) to the Oak Leaf Hydrangea (a Chinese import). I’m not sure why the Alabamians are so prejudiced against the plants native to the Heart of Dixie. It is home to a huge variety of azaleas and other beautiful plants.

When Alabama got rid of the natives… I mean the native plants, not the native people (but they did that too!)… they replaced goldenrod with the the oak leaf hydrangea (state wildflower) and the Camellia Japonica (the state flower).

State Flower of Alabama, Camellia Japonica (not from Alabama), and the state wildflower of Alabama, the Oak Leaf Hydrangea (also not from Alabama)

What’s mind-numbing about these choices is that Alabama is one of the the only places in the world where you can find the thoroughly mesmerizing Cahaba Lily.

Uh, oh. Bad news. You guessed it. When I was researching the Cahaba Lily I discovered that there is a Cahaba festival. At the Cahaba festival they name a “Miss Cahaba Lily”. What is the chance that there has been an African-American Cahaba queen? Well, I’m sorry to say I couldn’t find one.

Is it just my imagination, or do those bouquets lack cahaba lilies? Aren’t those Asian lilies?

But I did find these two pictures:

Tasting Cahaba Lilies with the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, left, Cahaba River Society Annual Meeting, right

So, clearly, everyone can appreciate and enjoy cahaba lilies.

The Culture of Alabama

Let’s try to get away from racism and make fun of the other parts of Alabama. I’m desperate to make fun of things like Bible Study, barbecue, and football. There are lots of things that apply to both black and white Alabamians that are worth mocking, like shopping at Piggly Wiggly while smoking yourself to death.

I bet you don’t know this, but Alabama is noted for its tradition of Renaissance Fairs. In fact, the Alabama Renaissance Faire is “is one of the largest running all volunteer events in the nation.” Now, I know you folks think I’m going to start making fun of Ren Faire nerds, because, after all, we are here on the Geek Hierarchy chart:

But I wouldn’t do that. That comes under the, “Hey, there are a lot of people having fun and not hurting anyone. Let’s make fun of them!” prohibition. But as I was looking at the Ren Faire photos…

Standard Earl of Nerdlington, Captain Jack Sparrow and his wife, both contemporaries of da Vinci and Francis Bacon

One of the Knights Who Say “Ni” and an anachronism that protects the 2nd Amendment from the edicts of Kings

I started to wonder, “where are the black people?” Doesn’t Alabama have a lot of black people? Where are they? Do people of color not like eating meat pies and saying “wench” a lot? That seems unlikely. Hey, are Renaissance Faires only popular in Alabama because there weren’t a lot of black people in Medieval Europe? If you are black and you want to have fun at the Ren Faire, what do you do? Can you dress up as Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth I? Do people make jokes about the “Black Knight” no matter what you do? The only picture I could find was this one:

Is it just me, or does the potter look like he is not quite into the pageantry of the Renaissance Faire? I think he might even leave off the “e” when he writes the date on his calendar. So, whereas we should be able to celebrate nerds having fun and not hurting other people, we have to wonder what this is REALLY about because it is happening in Alabama. See how racism ruins everything!

Food and Football

I’m losing heart. I looked up a lot of foods that are associated with Alabama and none of them were invented in Alabama. Peanut Butter was invented in Montreal, Canada, Pimento Cheese in NYC, and fried pickles come from Oakland, CA. There is cake called a “Lane Cake” that comes from the same town as George Wallace. This is what it looks like. The chances that this isn’t some kind of super special racist cake seem pretty slim, don’t they?

What’s the chance this isn’t a racist cake?

As for football, I am a fan of many Alabama football players, but I know not to look. Just the story of Joe Namath’s nickname while he was at Alabama is enough to turn me back. See, racism is ruining this post!

The Art of Alabama

Let’s try to look on the bright side, shall we? Alabama is a state with many great artists. Bill Traylor was from Alabama.

So was William Christenberry.

There are also lots of great musicians that come from Alabama. Usually, I start the list of famous people with the folks I don’t like. Since this has been a tough installment, I’ll start with the Alabamians I like.

People From Alabama That Gutbloom Likes

Tobias Wolff

People From Alabama That Gutbloom Could Do Without

Conclusion

Alabama is a beautiful state filled with many great people. Perhaps it’s best days are ahead of it. That’s more than you can say for lots places in our country. I won’t tell you what the state motto of Alabama is, because its annoying, but I think they should adopt the motto of Rhode Island, which is simply; “Hope”.

I hope Alabama becomes a state that celebrates all kinds of diversity. It certainly has the natural resources to do just that.

Others in This Series