Meet Better South's John Simpkins

The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier recently published a long profile about John L.S. Simpkins, a co-founder of the Center for a Better South and a professor at the Charleston School of Law.

Not only will you learn about Simpkins' work in Africa through the years, but you'll find out about how he dropped a couple of passes in a high school football game - - one of the few errors he's made. From the piece:

Simpkins writes on occasion of topics related to race, space and place, his extended family, the forbidden fruit - watermelon - in such publications as The Oxford American and The New Republic. His profile of "Boondocks" comic strip creator Aaron McGruder appeared in The New York Times Magazine.

His next piece will deal with fear, and more pointedly a society based on fear: gated communities, bulky SUVs - manifestations against perceived threats. At the same time, he'll touch on race relations in the South, the strange dance, he calls it, of blacks and whites.

"(Blacks and whites) know each other and have these relationships that exist on a separate plane," Simpkins says. "These aren't the friends who you have over for dinner. But they're also not the people with whom you just exchange a hello. It's somewhere in between."

He questions its nature.

"What is to fear from someone who works in your office who essentially has the same experiences, but happens to belong to a different racial group?"