*

Over the years I’ve noticed that when I read local Virginia crime news, I can often determine the race of a named suspect, even without seeing a mug shot. There are various clues about race that one learns subliminally if one lives in the Upper South for a long time. Race is significant, yet there is often a taboo against discussing it, except of course when a perpetrator is white and a victim is black. Nevertheless, when the news is very local, one can almost always tell. Another example: When I read the obituaries in the local paper, I can tell whether the deceased is black or white, even if there is no photograph, by the name of the funeral home serving the family. In the little town nearest us, there are two funeral homes, one for white people and one for black people. This is not a matter of law, but simply a long-established custom, like separate black and white churches. I can’t tell you why things work that way out here — I’m a “foreigner”; I’ve only lived here for forty years. But that’s the way things are done. Black and white people mingle totally in other contexts, usually quite amiably. The woman who cuts my hair (and Dymphna’s), for example, has both white and black customers. Funeral homes and churches seem to be an exception, and for some reason the federal government has never forced them to “integrate”.

