Code: Understanding the Hidden Meaning Behind What Southerners Say

Recently, I've had the occasion to spend some time abroad. Being away from Americans, except for the occasional tourist or US government employee, gave me time to disconnect from the language mainframe, to reboot, and to examine upon my return the coded language used by Americans when they wish to hide their real intent. I got the opportunity to hear anew how coded questions are phrased to feel me - a middle-aged white male - out on where I stand politically, racially, on sexual orientation, and on religion.

One of the first people I spoke with at length was my dermatologist at the VA. The Code he employs is the use of American football references. As he was examining me - I tend to have skin issues being a light-blond, fair-skinned, sun-loving Caucasian (that's "Aryan GOD" to you swarthy, hirsute motherfuckers!) - I noted that his 2 assistants, one female and one male, were also examining me, but they weren't interested in my skin, only in my answers to the doctor's questions. They put a pair of tanning goggles on me while he used a tremendously bright light to look deeply into my skin. The goggles gave me the shield of anonymity behind which to watch the looks on the faces of the two nurses and see the exchange of glances, shrugs, shaken heads, and other non-verbal communications they used to signal their disgust at my answers. And trust me, I gave them fuel for a whole-body workout: I'm gay, an atheist, a Democratic Socialist, and particularly, vehemently, violently non-racist.

On several instances, I would laugh as the two nurses mugged, clearly oblivious to the fact that I could see them pretty well through the tiny, dark-green-tinted lenses of the goggles. The doctor would ask me what was funny, and I told him that I would laugh sometimes when I was in pain; he was giving my skin hell with an abrasive-tipped device, poking, rasping, prodding, and he took a biopsy none-too-gently and without a local anesthetic, something they all seemed aghast that they'd forgotten once it was too late to do anything about it. I guess they were too busy being shocked to remember why it was that they were there...you know...assisting the physician.

At any rate, the doctor began by asking me about "them Dawgs", the University of Georgia football team. When I told him that I didn't watch football, the room fell silent, the nurses looked at each other and nodded, but after an awkward moment, he drove on as if I had said yes, that I had watched last Saturday's game. He kept asking me what I thought of such-and-such a player or the quarterback or of some player's off-field antics. I would reply each time that I didn't keep up with football, didn't know any of the players, and didn't really care what they did off-field. But then I floored them when I said that I thought that football ought to be a separate entity from academics, that it had supplanted the real reason for attending university, and that I thought it should be removed completely from colleges and universities. The doctor stopped, took a step back, raised his glasses, rested them on his forehead, and said, "You mean you don't like FOOTBALL?", while slowly looking for the sign that must say "FAGGOT" somewhere on my body. So, I came out with it: "Nope, I'm gay". The male nurse rolled his eyes, confident I'm sure that I couldn't see him. The female nurse pursed her lips and shook her head while looking at me like I'd just admitted to screwing the family dog or something. But the doctor's reaction was best; he set down the miniature torture device he had been scraping my skin with and carefully snugged each glove, then nodded to his assistants that they should do the same, which they both did. I almost laughed out loud. It's pretty well known in Podunkia that all gay men have AIDS, even the ones what don't. Or maybe it's cooties. I forget.

So, "doesn't like football" = "gay as fuck". Got it.


"Where do you go to church?" Well, first of all, that's a pretty big assumption, but what you really mean is, 'are you one of them godless atheists?' Or worse, 'are you a Catholic?' Or worse STILL, 'are you a Jew, one of them what killt THE LORD (Jesus)?' Yes, I am a godless heathen, but no, I don't worship Satan because, you know, that would be a form of theism.


"Them up yonder in Washington done rurnt the country, ain't they?" "You mean the Republicans in Congress?" Short silence, followed by a derisive laugh, then "Weellll, nooo, I think they's done 'bout good as they could havin' to deal with that nig...I mean Obammer".

Gotcha. "Obammer" = "that nigger", because that's what you were going to say, huh Reverend? Well, that's mighty Christian of you. Is that a Confederate flag on the butt of your shotgun, Rev? Thought so. And no, I don't listen to (now US Congressman) Rev. Jodi Hice's radio show. Never have, never will. Well, not unless my future home - the one you're pretty sure I'm heading to - experiences temperatures below 0 degrees Celsius. (And I'm sure that my use of Celsius is code for "science-loving Commie faggot atheist" too, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

So, references to "Obammer" or "them up yonder in Washington" or the like are tossed out to see how one responds. If you nod and show disgust, then you're a Real American, which you damn well better be if you're WHITE, MALE, and MIDDLE-AGED, but if you show any sign of disagreement at all, then there's a crack in the firmament and they will, if necessary, use your body as caulking to fill the gap in order to keep the...I don't know...stupid-gas, or whatever, from leaking out of their tiny widdle universe.

Not-Republican = Commie pinko bastard.

And then there's Not-Code: The blatant use of the word "nigger" right to your face.I guess they figure that, hey, if you're white, you're a racist, so...BLAMMO! And it's use is ubiquitous in the South. I lived in the Pacific Northwest for 18 years and trust me, it's a racist as the South is, they just hide it better. For example, in that entire period, I never - not even once - heard a white person say "nigger" unless they were friends with, and speaking to, an actual black person. Still, it makes me cringe. But here in the South, it's just, "blah blah blah the weather, blah blah blah The Lord, blah blah NIGGER!" I'm sorry, WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? "Um, you mean about the weather?" Uh, nooo... "Oh, you mean when I was talking 'bout Jesus?" You're getting warmer, Dweezil...  How about when you said "nigger"? "Why, what's wrong with that??"

Fuck me with a dictionary.


It's like this in a lot of America, now; I just pick on the South because it's the low-hanging fruit. There's a ton of Code, way more than I could catalog at one sitting because it makes my brain sore thinking about it. Add to the list in the doobley-do below. I'm curious what others have heard.

Moovz.com: Yet another gay site that excludes many rural gays

Yet another gay site that elides the fact that 18% of the population of the US resides in rural areas. Go through their city list for Georgia and you'll find NOTHING in rural northeast Georgia.

Having lived in large cities - Atlanta, NYC, Munich, Seoul, Houston, Portland - much of my life, I know that they're magnets for gays from the most remote of areas who often want to connect with the people they love back home: Their friends who also use the same site. But, sites like Moovz don't seem to wish to have those people participate, or if they do, they have to choose a random city an hour or more away, and often have to choose between random cities, none of which make any sort of geographic sense because of the distance, and therefore get lost to their friends and acquaintances who give up looking for them online.

I'm sure the folks behind these sites would say that they reach some high percentage of the population, but think about this for a moment: The ones left out in the cold because of this behavior are the ones ALWAYS left out in the cold. They're the same people, over and over, who basically get a hand held up indicating to them that they don't matter on these sites.

I've heard from some that I've written to about it - one being one of the Top 3 gay sites...you know, the one with the orange themed background - whose responses are so hilariously off-topic that even a cursory glance shows that they didn't bother to read your request. Or, like that same orange-themed site, will have some bizarro geographics (check out Georgia's geographic breakout on it when you need a good laugh - overlapping areas using terms created by a state tourism department which NO ONE actually uses. One city will be in one named area, and the next over will be in a different one, but then the one past that city will be in the same area as the first city..?!?!)

Occasionally you'll get a response from other users like, "Well move then!", but they completely fail to grasp that your career is often tied to the area you live in. There aren't many farms in the middle of cities. There are no mines in the middle of cities in the US that I know of. Timber isn't cut for lumber or fiber in many cities. So, the very people who bring you your food, your mined minerals (to create things like the gadgets this very technology operate on), and the building materials that built the buildings you reside in are wholly forgotten. Again. And again. And again. Ad nauseum.

OK, if you launch with a non-inclusive list, that's fixable. That orange-themed site added a few towns...after years of requesting them, although they have one town in Georgia - Fitzgerald - listed as being in the Atlanta metro area when in reality it's 175 miles away, so they're listening, just not very well. And they're clearly too distracted to simply google it.

On almost any gay site, there is a gulf of philosophical difference between rural and urban gays, and without a doubt, the majority of that can be laid right in the laps of our urban-residing brethren. It would be nice to have a fabric of unity that stretches from coast to coast, but you can't achieve that if you have giant holes of exclusion in the very areas where the products that sustain you come from. True, there is animosity going both directions, but I remember a time when rural gays looked for support from their urban peers, and got nothing, despite the fact that rural gays showed up at Prides all across the republic - and yes, I'm aware that Prides are usually civic ventures. But the support comes from the community, as far out as it reaches. Now though, with our online lives becoming increasingly important to us, the support that rural gays showed is not only not reciprocated, it's shunned by virtue of exclusion from participating in any community-oriented - and I mean the rural communities in which we live - sort of way. If I don't have the tool to round up a group of my local gays readily available, then it will be difficult to get them together at all.

The old Gay.com used to do a stellar job of giving everyone - urban, suburban, exurban, or rural - a chance, a place, and a tool that might act as...pardon the Tolkienism..."One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them".

Every time I hear of a new gay site launch, I hope it will give us that chance. It seems like Moovz isn't that site, but I won't rule it out. Yet.

The US Constitution, the Founding Fathers, Homosexuality, and Religion

Homosexuality is as old as mankind, or even older. Religion is not.

The Founding Fathers, well-educated and well-travelled men, would have been very aware of homosexuality, but yet they make no mention of banning or outlawing it in the Constitution.

But the Constitution does say, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" thereby limiting the power of religion by 'making no law respecting establishment of it' (my paraphrase).

The point is that the Founding Fathers were so unconcerned with homosexuality that they didn't even mention it, but they were so worried about theocracy that they placed a caveat in the First Amendment.

I'd say that pretty well delineates where the Founding Fathers' concerns were.

Our LGBT kindred in Russia, after the Winter Olympics in Sochi

I know it's been a while since I blogged, but I've been very very busy. However, here's something I think we need to be aware of.


If you're truly committed to helping LGBT Russians, you may want to consider how many you'll be able to take in after the Winter Olympics are over. 

Yep, that's what I said, take in. Vlad tipped his hand before the Olympics by supporting legislation outlawing homosexuality in Russia, and between the police and the hate groups, the LGBT community there very well may see a pogrom of epic proportions executed against them. 

I spent 14 years in special operations intelligence with a focus on the Soviet Union. I speak Russian. I've been to Russia. They hate gays and lesbians! They merely dislike Jews, but they hateLGBT people. 

Russia is huge. There are already prisons scattered throughout central Russia and Siberia that would take very little to be turned into prison labor - or extermination - camps. Basically, modern day concentration camps or gulags. Russians have a history of dealing harshly with those who oppose authority or who go against the grain. 

This is a pot that I've watched simmer since I was a soldier and it was still the USSR. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the Soviet Union, and "democratization" - as such as it exists there - have kept the focus off LGBT issues and the real hatred a-bubble right under the surface. It took very little for it to boil over, though.

Post-Sochi, the best these folks can hope for is for Putin to denounce violence against gays. Putin is well respected among the Russians and they'll pay a certain amount of attention to his demands, but that's only if he requires this. Frankly, he probably won't. 

When Adolf Hitler began his persecution of homosexuals, Jews, and foreigners, he began with gays. All of those he sought to suppress needed to flee the country as even hiding would do no good once the pervasive cloud of Naziism took hold. Other nations reached out to Jews and foreigners, but then, as now, no one reached out to gays (or lesbians, bisexuals, or transgendered).

If others won't, who will? Will we be the new Germans, those who turn aside when they see their neighbors oppressed, or will we step up and say 'not only no, but HELL NO? 

Electronic activism won't do a damned thing for the LGBT community in Russia after the Olympics, if things should go sideways; the Russians don't give a damn what people do on Facebook and Vlad damn sure doesn't care. 

There may soon come a time when we - WE - will be called upon to open our wallets and our homes and not merely our gadgets. There may come a time when WE become the partisans who find it necessary to create an Underground Railroad for our sisters and brothers in Russia. Will we? Will we step up and say 'count me in', or will we scroll past that TowleRoad item and look for a slightly less disturbing article?

Well, I'll go on the record here, and now:  Count ME in! My home and my resources will be open to help. I hope that a peaceful solution can be achieved, but I give it almost zero chance.

Be vigilant, because when it starts, it will go like wildfire. One thing about having so many former military members, as Russia does, is that they know how to assault an objective and overwhelm it. They're actively organizing, even now, so they're already ready to attack. 

The Soviets kicked off invasions of both Poland and Czechoslovakia with single-word radio transmissions. My point is, violence against our brothers and sisters could happen at any time, like a lightning strike.

Let's not let the worst happen.