Kimberly Brown
My “Southern card” has been revoked, apparently.
I love to scroll through Facebook, and if anyone is my Facebook friend, you know I don’t post much, except photos of my cats and dog. While I don’t usually comment on public forums, one of my favorite comedy sites, “It’s a Southern Thing,” recently had a post about the wonders of that southern favorite, okra.
The thing is, I hate okra. I don’t like it boiled (but really, who does?). I don’t like it grilled. And for everyone who automatically asks if I’ve had it fried, I have and would only eat it if there’s so much breading you can’t tell what’s inside and if there was nothing else on the table.
I decided to let the “It’s a Southern Thing” friends know, so I commented on their okra post, “Born and raised in the south. I hate okra and (get ready) I hate sweet tea. There, I said it.”
In hindsight, I was obviously trying to stir up a hornet’s nest. Maybe I got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. But boy, I wasn’t ready for the hubbub that ensued. I got 333 reactions (like, laugh and wow emojis) and 91 comments, some from my own family members.
A handful of people agreed with me, mostly about the okra. But many of the commenters expressed shock and dismay.
People demanded I “turn in my southern card.” Some told me I must be adopted from up north. Some invited me to head back to the north where I obviously belong. A few blessed my heart. And one particularly shocked individual informed me that I was surely going straight to – well, it’s a place that’s much hotter than Georgia in the summertime.
Of course, I know they were joking. Weren’t they?
I’m a southerner through and through. I grew up smack in the middle of Georgia, where I spent many blistering summer days at my grandmother’s house, playing in the sandy dirt, listening to the train go by at night, and swatting gnats. I know how to use “y’all” correctly. And a bowl of buttered grits is one of my favorite things, ever.
Even though I’m a self-proclaimed hater of sweet tea, I grew up drinking it at every meal.
Back then, if it had even occurred to me to ask for water instead, my family would have looked at me like I had two heads. When we were kids, it was my sister’s and my job to set the table, get the ice and pour the tea. When we were older, we actually made the tea, steeping big family-sized tea bags in boiled water for a while, then adding a cup of sugar and water to the 2-quart pitcher while it was still warm. And while the smell of steeping tea takes me back to my mother’s kitchen, I still don’t care for it.
My grandmother, who was the best southern, country cook I’ve ever known, somehow decided that the easiest way to make tea was to buy lemon-flavored, sweetened instant tea, then add a cup of sugar on top of that. The stuff was truly undrinkable. And after the doctor told her to watch her sugar, she used saccharine – those little white tablets that were the go-to sugar substitute back then, making it even worse.
But my family forgave her for her tea missteps, because she made the best fried chicken, turkey dressing and coconut cake on the planet.
So while I’ve learned my lesson about making bold, controversial statements on social media, I will firmly hold onto my “southern card.” I deserve that, if for nothing else than growing up below the gnat line.
Kimberly Brown is a staff writer for The Northeast Georgian. Reach her at kbrown@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.