Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Hypnosis Edition

Drugs are for losers, and hypnosis is for losers with big, weird eyebrows!
--Philip J. Fry

Just as today there are many who will insist--no matter what professionals have to say--that homosexuality is a mental disorder, there were those who believed that anyone, but especially a white woman, who married outside of their race was legitimately insane.

My favorite example of this involves a 1909 case in San Francisco. Helen Gladys Emery was going to marry Gunjiro Aoki (the paper I'm about to quote gives his name as Gungiro, but other sources say Gunjiro). There was quite a bit of attention given to the marriage, and the story was turned into a play (Uncle Gunjiro's Girlfriend) by the grand-niece of the groom, Brenda Wong Aoki. She also wrote an article about it.

If you followed those links, you probably caught the headline that I'm referring to: "Friend of Emery Family Seeks Medical Advice as to Whether Hypnotism Can Explain Girl's Wild Infatuation for Japanese". That was part of a March 12, 1909 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. From page 2 of that issue:

THEORY OF HYPNOTISM.

An interesting fact in connection is the determination of Miss Emery to marry Aoki in spite of her father's violent opposition, which he has carried so far as to leave home, is that some time ago a relative of the Emerys called upon Dr. J. Wilson Shiels and asked him if it were possible that Aoki could be exercising a hypnotic influence upon Mrs. Emery and her daughter. Such a theory was held by the friends and relatives who are opposed to the match.

It was said that Miss Emery was a very strange girl and never made friends with young people of her own age, but was secretive and reserved. Not only has Aoki gained an influence over Miss Emery, but also over Mrs. Emery.

WHAT DR. SHIELS SAYS.

Dr. J. Wilson Shiels was seen at his residence, 2421 Green street, last night regarding the visit made to him by a friend of the Emery family, who had a theory that the Japanese suitor of Miss Emery had used hypnotic power to gain control of the young woman's affections and to acquire the consent of the mother. Dr. Shiels said:

"A woman who said she was a close friend of Archdeacon Emery called upon me a short time ago and asked me if it was possible that this Japanese had hypnotized Mrs. Emery and her daughter, and if I could do anything to counteract the influence. I told her that it was a matter which concerned the Emery family alone, and that an outsider would be showing bad taste, to say the least, if any attempt was made to interfere. I said that I would not under any circumstances take it upon myself to act in the matter, and I advised her to let the Emerys attend to their own affairs. Regarding the hypnotism theory, I told her that I did not take any stock in such a far-fetched idea, and that in my opinion it was simply one of those cases of unaccountable fascination of which we often head."

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Inhofe Invasion

A while ago, my brother asked me to find a clip of an exchange he saw briefly during Al Gore's testimony to Congress. Through a bit of serendipity, I stumbled across it today--now you too can watch Barbara Boxer tell James Inhofe that Republicans don't run things now because "elections have consequences."

Poor Senator Inhofe. Not only because Senator Boxer pointed out that he can't unilaterally make decisions anymore, but because he has to suffer through Gore's testimony about global warming in the first place. Because, as he knows, global warming is like Hitler's "Big Lie", and "An Inconvenient Truth" is tantamount to Mein Kampf.

But don't bother to call Inhofe names. He's heard 'em all, and he's proud of them.
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Crap, now I've gotta scrap that seder

Apparently marijuana isn't kosher for Pesach:

Marijuana is not kosher for Passover, a pro-cannabis advocacy group says, advising Jews who observe the week-long holiday's special dietary laws to take a break from smoking the weed.

The Green Leaf Party announced Wednesday that products of the cannabis plant have been grouped by rabbis within a family of foods such as peas, beans and lentils that is off-limits to Jews of European descent during Passover.

Of course, these dedicated stoners are seeing an upside:

"Logic dictates that if the rabbis say cannabis is non-kosher for Passover, it is apparently kosher during the rest of the year," Michelle Levin, a spokeswoman for the party, told the YNet news web site.

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Irony is delicious

And this, ladies and gentlemen (and droug too) is what happens when you hotlink:

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And here we thought it was video games

According to Michael "with God's will ... we shall nuke Iran" Savage, sexual reassignment surgery is responsible for Columbine.
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Godwin was truly the prophet of our times

Tom DeLay has decided that "liberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler" because... they lied (according to him).

This kinda makes me wonder if he even knows who the hell Hitler was.
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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Equilibrium Edition

Victorian ladies had to fear education because their poor, inferior brains might overheat if subjected to such subjects as math and physics. But their woes are as little compared to blacks, who if educated would be unable to stand up.

The negro is incapable of an erect or direct perpendicular posture. The general structure of his limbs, the form of the pelvis, the spine, the way the head is set on the shoulders, in short, the tout ensemble of the anatomical formation, forbids an erect position. But while the whole structure is thus adapted to a slightly stooping posture, the head would seem to be the most important agency, for with any other head or the head of any other race, it would be impossible to retain an upright position at all.

The form or figure of the Caucasian is perfectly erect, with the eyes on a plane with the horizon, and the broad forehead, distinct features and full and flowing beard, stamp him with a superiority and majesty denied to all other creatures, and relatively to all other races of men. On the contrary, narrow and longitudinal head of the negro projecting posterially, places his eyes an angle with the horizon, and thus alone enables him to approximate to an erect position. Of course, we are not to speculate on what is impossible or to suggest what might happen if the negro head had resemble that of the Caucasian, for the slightest change of an elementary atom in the negro structure would render him an impossible monstrosity. But with the broad forehead and small cerebellum of the white man, it is perfectly obvious that the negro would no longer possess a centre of gravity, and therefore those philanthropic people who would "educate" him into intellectual equality or change the mental organism of the negro, would simply render him incapable of standing on his feet or of an upright position on any terms. Every one must have remarked this peculiarity in the form and attitude of the negro. His head is thrown upwards and backwards, showing a certain though remote approximation to the quadruped both in its actual formation and the manner in which it is set on his shoulders. The narrow forehead and small cerebrum—the centre of the intellectual powers—and the projection of the posterior portion—the centre of the animal functions—render the negro head radically and widely different from that of the white man. This every one knows, because every one sees it every day, and the universal and all pervading law of adaptation which God has eternally stamped upon the structure of all His creatures enables the negro to thus preserve a centre of gravity and comparatively an upright posture. But were it true that men can make themselves, can push aside the Almighty Creator Himself, as taught by certain "reformers" of the day, and vastly improve the "breed" and, as the "friends of humanity" hold, that the negro can be made to conform in his intellectual qualities to those of the white man, then it is certain that their difficulties would become greater than ever. That the cerebrum or anterior portion of the brain is the centre, the seat, the organism, in fact, of the intellectual nature, is as certain as that the eye is the organ of sight, and that in proportion to its size relatively with the cerebellum—the centre of the animal instincts—is there mental capacity, however latent it may be in the case of individuals, is equally certain. And should these would-be reformers of the work of the Almighty change the intellectual nature of the negro, they would necessarily change the organism through which, and by which, that nature is manifested, and thus enlarging the anterior and diminishing the posterior portion of the brain into correspondence with their own, it is perfectly evident that they would destroy the harmony which exists between the negro head and the negro body, and instead of a black-white man, or a being with the same intellectual nature as ours, they would render him as utterly incapable of locomotion or of an upright position at all as if they had cut off his head, instead of re-creating it on the model of their own!

--John H. Van Evrie, White Supremacy and Negro Subordination, pp. 93-95, 1861. Referenced in Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, p. 263, 1963.
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Next, a push for a National White History Month

Hoo boy. Georgia, like Missouri, is being pushed to pass a resolution apologizing for its role in slavery, a proposal that's not being met with a warm reception. However, another proposal is getting some approval--it passed out of the Senate Rules committee with a unanimous vote. The resolution would declare April to be Confederate History and Heritage Month:

A panel of Georgia lawmakers signed off Thursday on a plan to create a Confederate heritage month, even as legislative leaders reacted coolly to a push to apologize for the state's role in slavery.

Sen. Jeff Mullis' bill would dub April as Confederate History and Heritage Month to honor the memory of the Confederacy and "all those millions of its citizens of various races and ethnic groups and religions who contributed in sundry and myriad ways to the cause of Southern Independence."

The unanimous vote by the Senate Rules committee — which sent the plan on to the full Senate for consideration — comes days after black lawmakers announced plans to ask the state to officially apologize for its role in slavery and segregation-era laws.

...

Democratic Rep. Tyrone Brooks, chairman of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, said it's discouraging to see the Confederate month proposal moving ahead after leaders of the Republican-controlled House and Senate said they're not in favor of apologizing for slavery.

...

The state's branch of the NAACP called the push for a Confederate month hypocritical.

"Although the supporters of the Confederate history bill feel responsible to honor the past deeds of their ancestors through official governmental action, they resist all notions that they have any responsibility to apologize to their ancestors' victims through official governmental action," said Edward Dubose, president of the group's Georgia chapter. "That reeks of hypocrisy."

Compiling a list of "all those ... various races and ethnic groups ... who contributed in sundry and myriad ways to the cause of Southern Independence" may be kinda hard, so let me help the Georgia legislature out:

• Whites
• ...

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"God has a tremendously great sense of humour"

Texas is home to the "world's biggest gay church."

They say everything is bigger in Texas.

But the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas makes one Texas-sized claim that few would expect in the conservative Bible Belt state -- it says it is the world's biggest gay church.

"I think this shows that God has a tremendously great sense of humour," said senior pastor and rector Jo Hudson.

On a more serious note, she says the church, affiliated with the United Church of Christ, is a spiritual refuge for gay people of faith in a region associated with more conservative brands of Christianity.

...

Hudson estimates that over 90 percent of the Cathedral's 3,500 members are gay, lesbian or transgender.

Founded in 1970 by a dozen gays and lesbians who gathered in a home and decided they wanted a safe and tolerant place to worship, it has grown into a large and affluent institution centred on a cavernous church that can seat up to 900.

Last year it became part of the United Church of Christ, which claims 1.3 million members in 5,725 U.S. congregations and traditions of diversity and pioneering action on social justice.

...

Members of the congregation said that while the church was a place of spiritual comfort for gays, its focus was on ministering to the wider community, especially the poor.

"We don't talk much about gay stuff here," said Coy James, who has been attending the church for almost 30 years.

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Now that can't be right

Due to the comments on this thread at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, wherein a number of loons are popping out of the woodwork to defend the Confederacy, I've been looking through some historical censuses again.

And in 1860 supposedly there were 18 slaves in New Jersey, and 0 slaveholders.

I'm not sure how that's supposed to work.
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I think you should be more explicit here....

Over at Crooked Timber there's a post describing a BBC program that aired videos of two envisioned futures for Iraq: one "pessimistic", one "optimistic."

His "optimistic" scenario has Iraq descending even further into the mire of sectarian killing, US withdrawal and Iranian and Saudi invasion ... but then the character who utters his script tell us: "we were at the brink, and then, for some reason—a miracle—we stepped back". ... I'm all for looking on the bright side. But miracles?

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"But you're licensed." "No."

Wayne Besen, of Truth Wins Out, an organization devoted to countering disinformation spread by ex-gays and anti-gays, appeared on The Daily Show the other day. YouTube video here.

All I can say is--that kiss at the end? Hot.

...well, I could probably say more. But maybe after a cold shower or something.
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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Japanese Edition

Your proposal to send translations of my two letters to Count Ito, the newly-appointed Prime Minister, is quite satisfactory. I very willingly give my assent.

Respecting the further questions you ask, let me, in the first place, answer generally that the Japanese policy should be, I think, be that of keeping Americans and Europeans as much as possible at arm's length. In presence of the more powerful races your position is one of chronic danger, and you should take every precaution to give as little foothold as possible to foreigners.

It seems to me that the only forms of intercourse which you may with advantage permit are those which are indispensable for the exchange of commodities and exchange of ideas—importation and exportation of physical and mental products. No further privileges should be allowed to people of other races, and especially to people of the more powerful races, than is absolutely needful for the achievement of these ends. Apparently you are proposing by revision of the treaty powers with Europe and America "to open the whole Empire to foreigners and foreign capital." I regard this as a fatal policy. If you wish to see what is likely to happen, study the history of India. Once let one of the more powerful races gain a point d'appui and there will inevitably in course of time grow up an aggressive policy which will lead to collisions with the Japanese; these collisions will be represented as attacks by the Japanese which must be avenged; forces will be sent from America or Europe, as the case may be; a portion of territory will be seized and required to be made over as a foreign settlement; and from this there will grow eventually subjugation of the entire Japanese Empire. I believe that you will have great difficulty in avoiding this fate in any case, but you will make the process easy if you allow any privileges to foreigners beyond those which I have indicated.

In pursuance of the advice thus generally indicated, I should say, in answer to your question, that there should be, not only a prohibition to foreign persons to hold property in land, but also a refusal to give them leases, and a permission only to reside as annual tenants.

To the second question I should say decidedly, prohibit to foreigners the working of the mines owned or worked by Government. Here there would be obviously liable to arise grounds of difference between the Europeans or Americans who worked them and the Government, and these grounds of difference would immediately become grounds of quarrel, and would be followed by invocations to the English or American Governments or other Powers to send forces to insist on whatever the European workers claimed, for always the habit here and elsewhere among the civilized peoples is to believe what their agents or settlers abroad represent to them.

In the third place, in pursuance of the policy I have indicated, you ought also to keep the coasting trade in your own hands and forbid foreigners to engage in it. This coasting trade is clearly not included in the requirement I have indicated as the sole one to be recognized—a requirement to facilitate exportation and importation of commodities. The distribution of commodities brought to Japan from other places may be properly left to the Japanese themselves, and should be denied to foreigners, for the reason that again the various transactions involved would become so many doors open to quarrels and resulting aggressions.

To your remaining question, respecting the inter-marriage of foreigners and Japanese, which you say is "now very much agitated among our scholars and politicians," and which you say is "one of the most difficult problems," my reply is that, as rationally answered, there is no difficulty at all. It should be positively forbidden. It is not at root a question of social philosophy. It is at root a question of biology. There is abundant proof, alike furnished by the inter-marriages of human races and by the inter-breeding of animals, that when the varieties mingled diverge beyond a certain slight degree the result is invariably a bad one in the long run. I have myself been in the habit of looking at the evidence bearing on this matter for many years past, and my conviction is based upon numerous sources. This conviction I have within the last half hour verified, for I happen to be staying in the country with a gentleman who is well known as an authority on horses, cattle and sheep, and knows much respecting their inter-breeding; and he has just, on inquiry, fully confirmed my belief that when, say of different varieties of sheep, there is an inter-breeding of those which are widely unlike, the result, especially in the second generation, is a bad one—there arises an incalculable mixture of traits, and what may be called a chaotic constitution. And the same thing happens among human beings—the Eurasians in India, and the half-breeds in America, show this. The physiological basis of this experience appears to be that any one variety of creature in course of many generations acquires a certain constitutional adaptation to its particular form of life, and every other variety similarly acquires its own special adaptation. The consequence is that, if you mix the constitutions of two widely divergent varieties which have severally become adapted to widely divergent modes of life, you get a constitution which is adapted to the mode of life of neither—a constitution which will not work properly because it is not fitted for any set of conditions whatever. By all means, therefore, peremptorily interdict marriages of Japanese with foreigners.

I have for the reasons indicated entirely approved of the regulations which have been established in America for restraining the Chinese immigration, and had I the power would restrict them to the smallest possible amount, my reasons for this decision being that one of two things must happen. If the Chinese are allowed to settle extensively in America, they must either, if they remain unmixed, form a subject race in the position, if not of slaves, yet of a class approaching to slaves; or if they mix they must not form a bad hybrid. In either case, supposing the immigration to be large, immense social mischief must arise, and eventually social disorganization. The same thing will happen if there should be any considerable mixture of the European or American races with the Japanese.

You see, therefore, that my advice is strongly conservative in all directions, and I end by saying as I began—keep other races at arm's length as much as possible.

I give this advice in confidence. I wish that it should not transpire publicly, at any rate during my life, for I do not desire to rouse the animosity of my fellow country-men.

P.S.—Of course, when I say I wish this advice to be in confidence, I do not interdict the communication of it to Count Ito, but rather wish that he should have the opportunity of taking it into consideration.

--Herbert Spencer, Letter to Kentaro Kaneko, 26 August 1892.
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What he said

After being set off by an article by one Garrison Keillor, Dan Savage writes:

People opposed to same-sex marriage are just fucking addicted to double standards. Marriage is about children—unless you're straight, in which case you can get married without having children. Marriage is about monogamy—unless you're straight, in which case you can get married and swing and cheat or have threeways. Marriage is about a life-long commitment—unless you're straight, in which case you can marry multiple times, like Keillor.

Now marriage is about gender-appropriate behavior. So you shouldn't get married and have kids if you're not a manly man and a womanly woman—unless, of course, you're straight. Straight female tomboys marry and have kids without attracting Keillor's ire, as do effeminate straight men. (How many NPR listeners have over-decorated apartments, I wonder?) And straights can obsess about their hair (they're not selling all that RoGain to gay men) and wear appalling clothes (they're not selling all those low-rise jeans to lesbians)—it's only when gay men have children that it becomes a problem.

Amen, Mr. Savage.
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Math is fun!

Today the House passed a couple of bills that the White House didn't like and threatened to veto--all by huge margins, I note. One of which overturns a previous order of President Bush's:

The presidential papers bill nullifies a November 2001 order, criticized by historians, in which Bush allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president's papers and put the onus on researchers to show a "specific need" for many types of records.

Among beneficiaries of the Bush order was Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, a former vice president and president.

The order gave former vice presidents the right to stop the release of their papers through an executive privilege that previously only presidents could use. And it extended to deceased presidents' designees rights to keep their papers secret indefinitely.

The House bill would give current and former presidents 40 business days to object to requests to view their papers, allow a sitting president to override a former president's claim of executive privilege and strip former vice presidents and the designees of deceased presidents of the power to use executive privilege to block access to their historical documents.

All very nice, but I noticed this while reading the article:

Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archives at George Washington University, said the average time to release presidential documents has grown to 78 months from 18 months since the Bush order, which he said directly contributed to one year of the lag.

Remember, the Bush order was in November, 2001. That's only 64 months ago. I'm not sure how Blanton calculated "direct[] contribut[ion]", but that's a lotta lag.
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Coulter and Savage actually suffering consequences??

After their homophobic rantings, Michael Savage and Ann Coulter seem to be suffering some repercussions.

I'd like to believe that Coulter is "losing fans at a rapid rate; people are rejecting and repudiating her hate-filled rantings." But these people have built their entire professions out of vomiting such vitriol--their "hate-filled rantings" are precisely why their fans adore them. And as Coulter said in the wake of her gay-bashing, "[T]his is the same thing we go through every six months.... This is my seventeenth allegedly career-ending moment." Hopefully this one will be the end of her, but I doubt it.
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Anyone who's really surprised, raise your hand

Remember Newt "Who the hell names their child 'Newt'" Gingrich? How he declared during the Lewinsky mock-scandal that Clinton had turned the presidency into the "rough equivalent of the Jerry Springer show" in the eyes of the world?

Turns out he was having an affair at the time.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

What's great about this is that he's saying so in front of James Dobson, of Focus on the Family. And surely, if they truly care about the family, and not just about trying to destroy gay people, they'll rebuke his actions? I mean, this is a man who's been twice divorced--way to stick up for the sanctity of marriage! And look how he broached the topic with his first wife:

Gingrich, who frequently campaigned on family values issues, divorced his second wife, Marianne, in 2000 after his attorneys acknowledged Gingrich's relationship with his current wife, Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide more than 20 years younger than he is.

His first marriage, to his former high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, ended in divorce in 1981. Although Gingrich has said he doesn't remember it, Battley has said Gingrich discussed divorce terms with her while she was recuperating in the hospital from cancer surgery.

Gingrich married Marianne months after the divorce.

Dump her while she's recovering from cancer? Classy!

But no, Focus on the Family instead is focusing on 'Radical Islam'. Way to stay on message, Dobson.
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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Sexism Edition

White men, especially Southerners, . . . are dead set against any measures that will lift the Negro's status, because they are certain that such measures will bring the Negro one step nearer to the white woman's bedroom. Meanwhile it is a common saying in the South among white males that "a man is not a man until he has slept with a nigger."¹

Around two weeks ago, I made a post about the double-standards of miscegenation attitudes--that is, white men/black women were generally acceptable, but the reverse was unthinkable. And galamb_borong replied,

I can't quite make sense of this. Did people think men had the dominant traits or something? Because miscegenation is going to happen either way.

In this post I'm going to try to answer that question. Be warned, though, that I'm hardly an expert on this facet of racism/sexism, and I have little idea of what is cause and what effect--whether something contributed to this hypocrisy, or whether it was a result of already-entrenched ideas.


The simplest answer to the question is "white men made the rules," so naturally the rules were going to be biased to give them the greatest amount of freedom. For example, in the 1895 constitutional convention for South Carolina, the delegates inserted an anti-miscegenation provision into the constitution (which was not repealed until 1998) reading "The marriage of white persons with a Negro or a mulatto, or person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood, shall be unlawful and void." Robert Smalls, a former Representative, proposed that it be amended to read

The marriage of white persons with a Negro or a mulatto, or person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood, shall be unlawful and void; and any white person who lives and cohabits with a Negro, mulatto, or person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood, shall be disqualified from holding any office of emolument or trust in this State, and the offspring of any such living or cohabiting shall bear the name of the father, and shall be entitled to inherit and acquire property the same as if they were legitimate.

This would have affected most of the other delegates present; it was fairly common for Southern whites to have black mistresses. Naturally, the amendment was voted down.

Additionally, racist attitudes didn't arise in a vacuum; there were already-present sexist ideas that were incorporated. One of these being the treatment of women as objects that belong to men. The notorious question that was inevitably bandied about was "Would you want your daughter (or sister) to marry a Negro?" This was of course asked of white men. The women who might be involved were mere possessions of their male relative: "his" daughter, "his" sister. So white women/non-white men was resisted because it was an encroachment onto the property of white men.

And here we enter supposition territory. In the post that prompted the post that prompted the question that prompted this post, I quote William Benjamin Smith as saying that this hypocrisy, while deplorable, was not earth-shattering and civilization-devouring because while it "has poured a broad stream of white blood into black veins", it has not "poured even the slenderest appreciable rill of Negro blood into the veins of the Whites." That is, women were the guardians of the race, and so a white man sleeping with a black woman adulterated black blood (which only would wind up improving it), while a black man sleeping with a white woman would adulterate white blood. I'm not sure where this idea came from, but I have a guess.

Most of the early miscegenation laws were created to determine precisely how slavery would work: if a slave and a free person mated, what would be their offspring's condition? free or slave? The states mostly decided that if the child's mother were a slave, the child would be; and if she were free, so would it--a doctrine Byron Martyn refers to as partus sequitir ventrem. The first miscegenation law was, in fact, titled "Negro womens children to serve according to the condition of the mother."²

The principle that offspring follow the condition of their mother "was adopted by all of the Southern Commonwealths, with the exception of Maryland during a part of the colonial period."³

That exception was Maryland's 1664 law, which declared that a child would be slave or free if their father was. However, in 1681 Maryland switched to partus sequitir ventrem, and re-affirmed this with its 1715 statute.

Since traditionally a mother's condition determined that of her offspring, that might have morphed into the idea that a mother's race determined that of her child. A white woman would give birth to a white child that happened to have black blood, while a black woman would give birth to a black child that happened to have white blood. Again, just a guess.

More supposition, but a bit better-documented. Some of the hypocrisy may stem from stereotypes about sexuality. Blacks--both male and female--were hyper-sexualized.

As an unidentified Southern white woman wrote in The Independent in 1904,
"I cannot imagine such a creature as a virtuous black woman."⁴

This had some interesting consequences for miscegenetic relationships involving black women. First, it absolved white men of some of the responsibility:

Not only did the Negro woman's warmth constitute a logical explanation for the white man's infidelity, but, much more important, it helped shift responsibility from himself to her. If she was that lascivious--well, a man could scarcely be blamed for succumbing against overwhelming odds.⁵

But also a black woman was presumed incapable of being raped:

Black women were also burdened by the prevalent belief that they were sexually promiscuous. This belief offered white men a convenient excuse. How could they be condemned, after all, for engaging in sexual relations with women who were, by dint of their race, inherently aggressive and unchaste? How could they be faulted for taking advantage of women whose racial character impelled them to give sex for the asking, without need of persuasion, much less violence? And how could they be blamed for raping a sexually voracious species of human property? These beliefs put down deep and hardy roots. Over seventy years after the abolition of slavery, the white antilynching activist Jessie Daniel Ames would remark on the continuing influence exerted by the mythology of black female lasciviousness: "White men have said over and over . . . that not only was there no such thing as a chaste Negro woman--but that a Negro woman could not be assaulted, that it was never against her will."⁶

One case of this being said explicitly rather than just as a summary of other's beliefs is in the 1889 book The Plantation Negro as a Freeman. During his discussion of crimes committed by blacks, he explains that black men don't understand the concept of rape because their own women are so sexually wanton that they are always willing.

The average plantation negro does not consider rape to be a very heinous crime. He is so accustomed to the wantonness of the women of his own race that it is not strange that his intellect, having no perception of personal dignity or the pangs of outraged feeling, should be unable to gauge the terrible character of this offense against the integrity of virtuous womanhood.... The rape of a negress by a male of her own color is almost unheard of, a fact that is a strong proof of the sexual laxness of the plantation women as a class; for if they attached any importance to sexual purity, and strenuously resisted all improper encroachment upon it, the criminal records of the negro men would contain details of many such assaults. As it is, their careers are comparatively unblemished in this respect.⁷

In fact, Louisiana's antebellum rape law "explicitly excluded Black women from its protection."⁸

On the other hand, white women were perceived of as pure, immaculate, chaste. "[E]ven when white women are married and become mothers, southern white men still refer to them as chaste!"⁹

Two court cases may point out the significance of this. First, the Florida Supreme Court in 1918 declared that

an unchaste female being a comprehensively rare exception is no doubt true where the population is composed largely of the Caucasian race, but we would blind ourselves to actual conditions if we adopted this rule where another race that is largely immoral constitutes an appreciable part of the population.¹⁰

On the other hand, Alabama's Supreme Court ruled six years earlier that

though a white woman be a prostitute, the presumption is strong, nearly conclusive, among both the races, that she will not yield--has not yielded--even in her confirmed depravity, to commerce with a negro charged with an offense against her person. The consensus of public opinion, unrestricted to either race, is that a white woman prostitute is yet, though lost of virtue, above the even greater sacrifice of the voluntary submission of her person to the embraces of the other race.¹¹

In other words, the presumption of chastity is thrown out when blacks become involved. Yet even a prostitute, the most debased of women, is assumed to be "above" voluntarily sleeping with a black man. So the black woman/white man relationship was presumed voluntary for both sides--the woman, in fact, was just asking for it--no matter the actual circumstances. And in the reverse situation, the exact opposite is true: there's a strong presumption of rape in a white woman/black man relationship, even if it's completely voluntary. Although, I don't know whether this was a result of, rather than a contribution toward, the sexual hypocrisy of miscegenation attitudes.

Anywho. I hope someone found this informative, as well as coherent, since I skipped sleep to write this post.

1. Calvin C. Hernton, Sex and Racism in America, p. 6
2. Byron Curti Martyn, Racism in the United States: The Anti-Miscegenation Legislation and Litigation, p. 19.
3. Ibid., pg. 20. Quoting Lewis C. Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States, 1958, p. 360.
4. Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, p. 11.
5. Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812, p. 151.
6. Randall Kennedy, Interracial Intimacies, p. 176.
7. Philip A. Bruce, The Plantation Negro as a Freeman, pp. 84-85.
8. Roberts, Killing the Black Body, p. 30.
9. Herton, Sex and Racism in America, p. 18.
10. Dallas v. State, 76 Fla. 358, 364 (1918).
11. Story v. State, 178 Ala. 98, 104 (1912).
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Wednesday Dead Racist Blogging: Anniversary Edition

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Dred Scott v. Sandford. A passage from the decision:

The other colonial law to which we refer was passed by Massachusetts in 1705, (chap. 6.) It is entitled 'An act for the better preventing of a spurious and mixed issue,' &c.; and it provides, that 'if any negro or mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the English or other Christian nation, such negro or mulatto shall be severely whipped, at the discretion of the justices before whom the offender shall be convicted.'

And 'that none of her Majesty's English or Scottish subjects, nor of any other Christian nation, within this province, shall contract matrimony with any negro or mulatto; nor shall any person, duly authorized to solemnize marriage, presume to join any such in marriage, on pain of forfeiting the sum of fifty pounds; one moiety thereof to her Majesty, for and towards the support of the Government within this province, and the other moiety to him or them that shall inform and sue for the same, in any of her Majesty's courts of record within the province, by bill, plaint, or information.'

We give both of these laws in the words used by the respective legislative bodies, because the language in which they are framed, as well as the provisions contained in them, show, too plainly to be misunderstood, the degraded condition of this unhappy race. They were still in force when the Revolution began, and are a faithful index to the state of feeling towards the class of persons of whom they speak, and of the position they occupied throughout the thirteen colonies, in the eyes and thoughts of the men who framed the Declaration of Independence and established the State Constitutions and Governments. They show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings, that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed upon the whole race.

We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day spoke and acted. It is necessary to do this, in order to determine whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States, as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any of its provisions.

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Scooter convicted

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted today in the Valerie Plame case:

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted today of lying and obstructing a leak investigation that reached into the highest levels of the Bush administration.

Libby is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s. The case brought new attention to the Bush administration's much-criticized handling of weapons of mass destruction intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.

The verdict culminated a nearly four-year investigation into how CIA official Valerie Plame's name was leaked to reporters in 2003. The trial revealed how top members of the administration were eager to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused the administration of doctoring prewar intelligence on Iraq.

...

He faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced June 5 but under federal sentencing guidelines is likely to face far less. Defense attorneys immediately promised to ask for a new trial or appeal the conviction.

...

Libby was convicted of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame's identity and whom he told. Prosecutors said he learned about Plame from Cheney and others, discussed her name with reporters and, fearing prosecution, made up a story to make those discussions seem innocuous.

Libby said he told investigators his honest recollections and blamed any misstatements on a faulty memory. He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI about his conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

On the bright side, as Mr. Greenwald says, this shows that "[n]ot only are Bush officials subject to the rule of law (their radical theories of executive power to the contrary notwithstanding), they are also vulnerable to legal consequences (the defeatist beliefs of some Bush critics notwithstanding)." And though Mr. Greenwald remains optimistic, claiming that Fitzgerald "left open that possibility [of further indictments] in the event that new information came to light that warranted further proceedings", I remain dismayed:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has led the leak investigation, said no additional charges would be filed. That means nobody will be charged with the leak and Libby, who was not the source for the original column outing Plame, will be the only one to face trial.

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God bless this great state!

Once again, I am proud to live in Indiana.
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Oh god, and I just ate....

Professor Myers got a bizarre letter in the mail today. He posts excerpts from it so go to his site to read, but I'll give you a teaser: the author tries to show that homosexuality is a Communist plot.

Not kidding.
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They're after our wimmin

Francis Coombs, managing editor of the Washington Times, is a vile, vile man:

The day before, there was a brief discussion on the foreign desk about a pending series by religion writer Julia Duin on the abortion of girls in India. The Times had expended a lot of money for Julia Duin and photographer Mary Calvert to travel to India to produce this series.

In the discussion with colleagues on The Washington Times foreign desk, editor Jones said: "The reason we are running this story is that Coombs thinks all the aborted girls means that Indian men will be immigrating to the United States to marry our girls." That is an exact quote, what Jones told his colleagues on the foreign desk.

Coombs has told me and others repeatedly that he favors abortion because he sees it as a way to eliminate black and other minority babies.

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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Evolution II Edition

Since I managed to trick Professor Myers into putting me on his blogroll, today's Friday Dead Racist Blogging is about evolution! Sort of.

The Three Species of Man

The tap roots of our social, political and economic orders are buried deep in the oozes of antiquity. Any accurate comprehension of a present difficulty, and any hope or possibility of its valid solution, is augmented by an understanding of its origin and development. The vastness of the subject and the lack of time and space prevent but a very superficial treatment here. In so far as the ancient and remote past is concerned, we do partially know where we HAVE BEEN and from WHENCE WE HAVE COME. This should teach us something of how and why we are where we are today.

So, at some time in the distant past, we need not be concerned about the exact date, during the earth's eternal pilgrimage about our sun, the insurgence of vertebrates and mammals took place. Man was created last, and it was then that the origin of all our problems occurred. This creation, as detailed in "The Conquest," by Dr. Breasted, took place in the "Great Northwest Quadrant." This territory embraced "All of Europe, all of Africa north of the Sahara. Its eastern boundary extended to the Ural Mountains, which divide Europe and Asia, and a line parallel to the 60th Meridian east of Greenwich, extended from the Ural southward into the Indian Ocean. In addition, it includes the Near East, which embraces Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia and Arabia. This is the original home of the Great White Race, Homo Caucasius."

"On the east of and adjoining the Northwest Quadrant, in the secluded plateaus of high Asia, there arose and developed a man with straight and wiry hair, round head, almost beardless face, and a yellow skin, Homo Mongoloideus."

"South of the Northwest Quadrant, separated from the Great White Race by an impassable desert barrier and to the west by unconquered seas, lay the teeming black world of Africa, the home of Homo Africanus. Isolated to themselves, their evolutionary development was very homogeneous. They are wooly-haired, long-headed, dark-skinned Negroids."

Thus it is that at the dawn of history we find these three species of man all well started on their respective evolutionary roads. Although they started at approximately the same time, startling differences of development soon became irrefutably apparent. The popular concept of a superior race has no place in this treatise. The civilizations of Egypt, Babylon and Persia each made contributions to human knowledge, advancement and culture. The Age of Pericles, the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome, all produced for us knowledge and benefits without which today we would be much poorer.

Subsequent to the time of the advancement made by the Great White Race, the Mongolian trek had begun with Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. The Chow and Ming and Manchu dynasties of China came into being with their art, literature and high moral codes. Culture in the Orient was rapidly reaching adolescence.

To the north of the Roman Empire we find the Anglos, the Britains, the Slavs, the Teutons and the Huns, also on an evolutionary march. Although quasi-barbaric and largely military in organization, they developed a well regulated, efficient form of government. In each instance race consciousness was a definite factor in this marvelous and complex evolutionary development.

All the while the negroid man, like the modern lizard, evolved not. While the two other species of man were in the violent throes of change and growth, the negro remained in a primitive status. Although both the other races of mankind had for some time tabooed it, cannibalism was an expected risk in the life of the negro of this period.

Why was it that the negro was unable and failed to evolve and develop? It is obvious that many rationalizations and explanations will be offered by minority group leaders and educators, but the fact remains that he did not evolve simply because of his inherent limitations. Water does not rise above its source, and the negro could not by his inherent qualities rise above his environment as had the other races. His inheritance was wanting. The potential did not exist. This is neither right nor wrong; it is simply a stubborn biological fact.

--Tom P. Brady, Black Monday: Segregation or Amalgamation...America Has Its Choice, 1955, pp. 1-2.
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Surprise

Today's zombie racist had the following to say about why he hates black people:

Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years. It's unbelievable that it took them that long to fight back.

This, of course, was put forth all the time by dead racists. The notion that blacks didn't rebel against slavery was "proof" that they were docile, meek, and servile by nature. Slavery was simply their natural state, and there was therefore nothing immoral about whites enslaving them.

He continues to say that blacks are stupid, cheaters, and only are respected because of white people bending backwards for them:

In high school, I only remember one black student ever attending any of my honors and AP courses. And that student was caught cheating.

It is rather troubling that they are treated as heroes, but then again, whites will do anything to defend them.

He also has had in the past unkind things to say about his own people--how they constantly side with other races; how because of "societal brainwashing" they have "little pride", constantly adopting the mannerisms of other races.

This person, however, is not white.

He's Kenneth Eng, a self-styled "Asian Supremacist".

The full text of two of his articles, "Why I Hate Blacks" and "Why I Hate Asians" are available below the cut. Taken from this forum thread.

Why I Hate Blacks
Kenneth Eng, Feb 23, 2007

Here is a list of reasons why we should discriminate against blacks, starting from the most obvious down to the least obvious:

• Blacks hate us. Every Asian who has ever come across them knows that they take almost every opportunity to hurl racist remarks at us.
  
  In my experience, I would say about 90 percent of blacks I have met, regardless of age or environment, poke fun at the very sight of an Asian. Furthermore, their activity in the media proves their hatred: Rush Hour, Exit Wounds, Hot 97, etc.


• Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years. It's unbelievable that it took them that long to fight back.
  
  On the other hand, we slaughtered the Russians in the Japanese-Russo War.


• Blacks are easy to coerce. This is proven by the fact that so many of them, including Reverend Al Sharpton, tend to be Christians.
  
  Yet, at the same time, they spend much of their time whining about how much they hate "the whites that oppressed them."
  
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Christianity the religion that the whites forced upon them?


• Blacks don't get it. I know it's a blunt and crass comment, but it's true. When I was in high school, I recall a class debate in which one half of the class was chosen to defend black slavery and the other half was chosen to defend liberation.
  
  Disturbingly, blacks on the prior side viciously defended slavery as well as Christianity. They say if you don't study history, you're condemned to repeat it.
  
  In high school, I only remember one black student ever attending any of my honors and AP courses. And that student was caught cheating.
  
  It is rather troubling that they are treated as heroes, but then again, whites will do anything to defend them.

Why I Hate Asians
Kenneth Eng, Jan 12, 2007

It seems like an odd title for an article written by an Asian Supremacist, but there are very good reasons why I hate many of my own kind.

The first thing I hate about Asians in America is how so many of them want to suck up to whites. I have had fistfights and verbal altercations with many who discriminated against me and my people. Sadly, however, the Asians who witness or hear about these battles often hate me for being "hypocritical," and tell me that "two wrongs don't make a right." Do these sycophants think it's "cool" to mindlessly side with whites and blacks? Is it not enough that we have to fight against discrimination? Now we have to fight amongst ourselves as well?

The second thing I hate about Asians is how little pride most of them have. This may be the result of societal brainwashing, but whatever the cause, it must stop. I am repulsed when I see Asian guys speak with British accents in an attempt to sound sophisticated. British people can't be all that sophisticated if they don't yet understand the concept of dental hygiene. I am also sickened when I hear Asian people imitate Negro slang in an endeavor to sound "ghetto." Am I supposed to be impressed that such a person emulates the attitude of a supposed slum resident? More importantly, whatever happened to being yourself?

The third thing I hate about Asians is how apathetic many of them are in terms of honor these days. If I saw an Asian being stereotyped in a movie theater, I would immediately stand up and shout incessantly at the screen so that none of the white audience members could enjoy the film. When I saw a white man yelling at an old Asian woman a few months ago, I walked up to him and hollered slurs right back in his Aryan face. But most other Asians, I am disappointed to say, would rather just chuckle at their own stereotypes on screen and ignore the problems of their brethren. At the risk of sounding corny, whatever happened to the days of the samurai? When honor meant more than life? Whatever happened to the age of Sun Tzu when we used to kick ass?

Don't get me wrong. I love the Asian race, but every race has its inferiors.
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