For the last several weeks, I've read with interest the continuing saga of Wesley Snipes and his upcoming trial on tax evasion and fraud charges. Not because I'm a fan of Snipes — Your Honor, may I present exhibit A, Blade 2 — but the latest controversy surrounding the actor involves one of my former homes: Ocala.
After Snipes pled not guilty, federal prosecutors set a jury trial for January in this rapidly growing Central Florida city. In response, Snipes' attorney charged that Ocala is too racist a city for his client to be tried in, charging the government "deliberately chose the most racially discriminatory venue available to the government." He also called Ocala a "hotbed of Klan activity" and asked for the trial to be moved to a more diverse locale.
Florida media outlets jumped on the story, quoting the Ocala mayor, City Council members and chamber of commerce-types who were aghast such a claim would be made against their fair city.
But I found myself sympathizing a little with Snipes. Your Honor, I present Exhibit B: a story I always tell when the subject of Ocala comes up.
Six years ago, when I was living in Iowa, my friend Amanda and I took a cross-country camping trip that took me through Florida. As we approached St. Petersburg, our destination, I recounted my three years of adolescence in Ocala in the mid-'90s: the daily graffiti that covered school bathrooms in racial slurs; the segregated lunchrooms (not by policy, but choice); the racist, threatening letter slipped into the mailboxes of 13 African-American teachers at my school. (The superintendent and Marion County Sheriff's Department dropped the investigation, saying no crime had been committed.)
This is a city where one of the major events is "God and Country Day." The Southern Poverty Law Center lists two white supremacist organizations in the city. And then there's the Confederate flag that hangs in front of the Marion County government complex.
Intrigued, Amanda wanted to experience a backwoods Southern city for herself. I was hoping for a little nostalgia. How bad could it be?
We arrived in the Ocala National Forest just as the sun began to dip behind the pine trees. We spotted a camping sign and turned down a dusty gravel road to a clearing by a river.
All but one camping spot was filled with pickups. Tarps hung from pine trees. A huge Confederate flag hung proudly from a large oak. Nobody seemed to be around. Then we heard it. A cackle.
"Are ya hungry?"
We stopped the car.
"Hey, there, are ya hungry?"
Out of the tarps came a rotund woman in sweatpants and a sports bra. An emaciated man with a bushy head and matching beard followed her. He resembled Charles Manson.
"Hey, are ya hungry?" she asked again.
As the woman came closer, we noticed a huge scar on her belly. It looked like it might have been related to childbirth, which was somehow horrifying.
"Hey, somebody just hit a deer up the road and we got 50 pounds of meat," she spat. "Are ya hungry?!"
As she talked, we both noticed that she was covered in hair. Animal hair. Amanda, eyes wide and mouth open, looked back and forth between the two strangers.
"Oh, no thanks, ma'am," I responded.
The woman peered into our car. The man leaned on the hood. There was a small pentagram tattoo on his hand.
"You stayin' here, right?" the man asked.
"Uh, maybe," I responded. "We were going to look at the campground up the road."
"Oh, you don't want to go there," the woman said. "They steal your stuff. I know, I used to live there."
She paused and whispered, "And there are niggers there."
Her voice rose again and she cackled, "But us here? We don't steal! We're good people! We have a lot of fun here. We have anything you want: weed, acid, speed, whatever you want."
"Wow," is all I could muster.
"So you stayin'?" she asked again. Her impatience scared me.
Without answering, I motioned Amanda to put the car in gear. We drove the rest of the way to St. Petersburg without stopping.
Of course, not everyone in Ocala is a racist, road-kill-eating hair-covered yokel. And with all the growth happening in Central Florida, maybe the population's tolerance of diversity has grown, too.
That's what I'm trying to find out. After driving two hours past rolling pastures and aging trailer parks, I'm standing in Ocala's downtown square chatting to folks on a Sunday night stroll, trying to gauge the state of the city's race relations. Not surprisingly, people don't enjoy talking about racism or Wesley Snipes.
"That is ridiculous, ludicrous and everything in between," snaps one older white woman when I ask her about the controversy. I duck into O'Malley's Alley, a small dive bar, and belly up to the bar next to two 20-somethings, Christine and Dave. Christine has lived in Anthony, a small town outside of Ocala, for 11 years. Dave, sporting a large soul patch, is a lifelong resident. (They're both white.)
"I could give a fuck less what an actor thinks about anything," Dave rails after finishing his third Miller Lite. "They're actors. For all we know, they could be acting!"
"But seriously," he continued, "Ocala is rapidly getting too big and too diverse for [racism] to continue. That kind of thinking is just on its way out, but that might just be wishful thinking."
I tell them my Ocala story, and we all get a good laugh out of it. Then I ask the million-dollar question: Will Wesley Snipes get a fair trial when he goes before a jury in January?
They think for a moment, and Christine speaks up.
"Possibly," she says. "As long as that crazy river lady is not in the jury pool."
This article appears in Dec 12-18, 2007.