OPINION: In one of the most anticipated rulings since Big Joker v. Guaranteed, the BSCOTUS heard arguments on whether Washington, D.C., should be considered part of “the South.”
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Shortly after settling the defamation lawsuit against an individual who referred to a beef patty as a “Jamaican hot pocket,” the Black Supreme Court of the United States agreed to settle one of the most controversial cases of our time.
Is Washington, D.C., included in the geographic region known as “the South?”
The case was originally heard in the circuit court on the platform still known as Black Twitter. After subsequent appeals, the Black Supreme Court agreed to put the court on its docket. Instead of summarizing the South decision, theGrio has decided to print the full decision.
Statement of Facts
While filming a conversation for Variety promoting their upcoming releases “American Fiction” and “The Color Purple,” thespian Jeffrey Wright told iconic actress Taraji P. Henson that “D.C. is actually a Southern town in many ways.”
The comment sparked a furious debate on the platform that will be forever known as “Black Twitter.”
Majority Opinion
It is the opinion of this court, by a 5-4 margin, that the District of Columbia is not the South.
It is true that the capital of the United States is below the Mason-Dixon line, which “has been regarded for 200 years as the transition between the North and South.” However, that arbitrary geographical boundary was drawn by a couple of white boys more than two and a half centuries ago when constitutional, race-based slavery was also a reasonable, well-regarded institution. Moreover, the case of Trump v. Hurricanes Map firmly established that Caucasian-based geographic lines cannot be considered by this judicial body.
Having removed that precedent, we are left with the question: “What is the South?”
Again, in 2023 America, that is a difficult question to answer. Longitude and latitude alone cannot answer the question. Plus, direction is relative. Delaware and half of New Jersey are both part of “the North,” even though they are further South than Baltimore, which, according to the old Caucasian cartology, is part of the South.
Usually, when we discuss this issue, we are talking about the former confederate states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia). When Lincoln described the Civil War as “North vs. South,” Washington, D.C., was part of the North.
In addition to the historical evidence, the court must consider the perspective of the residents of the area. When a true Southerner refers to the South, they don’t include D.C. Even when residents of the South refer to people who are “up North,” they are basically referring to people who live north of New Jersey …
Or someone who is in prison.
Dissenting Opinion
In this matter, we used one metric to determine whether or not the District of Columbia should be considered as part of the South.
Slavery.
D.C. was chosen for America’s capital when Southern lawmakers objected to the nation’s capital being located in the Northeastern cities of Philadephia and New York. Until Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Emancipation Act on April 16, 1862, race-based chattel slavery was legal in the area. Furthermore, in Black History v. White Tears, this court previously upheld the lower court ruling that paying reparations to slaveowners was one of the whitest acts in American legislative history.
After the War for White Supremacy, the Compromise of 1877 allowed the formerly slave states to make up their own rules for how they treated their Black citizens. Segregated schools, restaurants and public facilities became law all across the South …
Including the District of Columbia.
Washington, D.C., was part of the slaveholding South from which enslaved Africans tried to escape. Washington, D.C., was part of the “segregated South” that civil rights leaders fought to change. The capital of the United States of America was one of the five municipalities that were defendants in Brown v. Board of Education when the white Supreme Court finally decided that separate was not equal.
When it comes to Black people, D.C. has always treated Black people like they live in a Southern city.
Everything about D.C. is Southern. Chuck Brown, the “Godfather of Go-Go,” was born in North Carolina and inspired by Southern musicians like James Brown. Marion Barry was born in Mississippi and grew up in Tennessee. If D.C. was part of the musical Northeast that’s usually referred to as the “East Coast,” it would have more rappers. And don’t give me that Wale crap. Sure, he was born in D.C. but he grew up and learned how to fight in Gaithersburg, Md. Plus, his parents are from West Africa so it’s all East Coast to him. And everyone knows that the D.C. staple go-go bands are just members of HBCU marching bands and Pentecostal church drummers playing Southern funk. It’s from the South.
Most of the Black people in D.C. are from North Carolina, a Southern state.
While the majority of justices rejected the boundaries of the Mason-Dixon line as determinative of the South, why not just stop recognizing white people’s borders altogether? Why can’t we just make Alabama and Mississippi one big state? It’s technically the same place. You know why Black people who live in D.C. hate going to Virginia?
Because White Lines Matter.
Concurring opinion
As this particular conversation is centered on Black American culture, the court created the following five-point rubric to settle this complicated issue.
- Are Black people “from” there?
Regardless of where they currently reside, all Black Americans are “from” the Southern states — where most of their ancestors were enslaved. During the two Great Migrations, millions of Black people relocated from places like Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina to cities across the United States. Washington D.C., however, was one of the cities that became home to Black Southerners who fled the South.
In the seminal BSCOTUS ruling From v. FROM From, the court determined that all Black people from Detroit are actually from Alabama. A California Circuit Court later found that while it is possible to claim a “hood,” every Black Californian is correct when they say: “My people from Mississippi.” (Your Family v. Yo Mama ‘Nem).
Furthermore, when current D.C. residents visit their cousins in North Carolina during the summer, they say they are going “down South.”
- Native cuisine
The landmark ruling Sweet Tea v. Drank established the precedent that a city’s native cuisine can serve as a legal determinant of Southern culture.
As Justice Earlina Jenkins wrote in the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise case: “It is the determination of this Body that at least 60% of a city’s restaurants must serve sweet tea to be considered Southern. And it can’t be that watered-down, whitewashed Gold Peak mess, either.”
D.C. food does not also have the grain-base that is popular in Southern dishes. There are no signature rice dishes and even when a D.C. breakfast restaurant includes grits on the breakfast menu, it’s considered a side item. As decided in the 1902 case, Grits v. Grocery, grits are an entree. (Grits v. Grocery)
You can’t be a Southern city if your default wing sauce option is Mambo Sauce. If D.C. were a part of the South, the line inside the city’s best-kept culinary secret — Saints Paradise Cafeteria (colloquially known as “Daddy Grace”) — wouldn’t be as long. In the South, you can get a plate of turkey wings and candied yams from a gas station.
But, unfortunately, much of what is called “Southern cuisine” in D.C. is actually gentrified soul food.
- Language
One of the easiest ways to determine whether or not someone is from the South is to listen to the residents talk.
People from the Bronx sound slightly different from Brooklynites, but they both have a distinguishable New York sound. Similarly, a true Southerner can tell South Carolina Geechie from Louisiana Creole, but there is a universally recognizable lilt common to all Southern accents.
Like the city that birthed it, a D.C. accent is its own separate entity. It is neither Southern or Northern. It sounds like St. Louis’ pronunciation had a baby with Baltimore’s slang and raised it in the English countryside.
Speaking of country …
- Country-ness
No matter how big the metropolis is, places in the South are never far away from “the country.”
“The country” only exists in the South. For instance, New York has more farms and more acres of farmland than South Carolina. But, while millions of people live in rural parts of New York, everyone from South Carolina is from “the country.” Someone living in the most populated part of Atlanta can make a wrong turn and find themselves on a dirt road.
People in the country call a cab. In D.C., you hail them. In the country, you can’t buy things before 11 a.m. on Sundays. In D.C., people wear Timberlands in the summertime; country people actually wear Timberlands as work boots. In D.C., going to “the sto” can mean a short walk to a WaWa. In the South, it means driving to Walmart or the Piggly Wiggly.
- Outsider regard
Do people living in D.C. consider themselves part of the South? Do residents of the “real” South include the District of Columbia as part of their homeland?
The answer to both of those questions is an unequivocal no.
Our Decision
It is for these reasons that the court has decided that D.C. is not “the South.”
Michael Harriot is an economist, cultural critic and championship-level Spades player. His New York Times bestseller Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America is available everywhere books are sold.
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