Remember

53 years ago today, Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She wasn't the first, though she may be the most famous, but this was a truly pivotal moment in American history.
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I wish I'd checked my e-mail sooner

Then I would've known that today is Native American Heritage Day!

It may be a small step, but a day meant to honor American Indians' contributions acknowledges a history and culture that many say is often overlooked.

For the first time, federal legislation has set aside the day after Thanksgiving — for this year only — to honor American Indians in the U.S. Few celebrations are planned this year, but backers say they hope to make the commemoration annual.

Frank Suniga, 79, of Salem, Ore., a descendant of Mescalero Apache Indians, said he and others began pushing in 2001 for a national day that recognizes his and other tribes' heritage.

...

Congress passed legislation this year designating the day as Native American Heritage Day, and President Bush signed it last month.

There's a bit of a question, though, of which day would be best. I think the day after Thanksgiving is a poor choice, myself, in that it would get overshadowed by everything else. But some advocates say that linking it with Thanksgiving, which is supposedly about European-Native American relations, is a good idea.

The Portland and D.C.-based organizations said they would support an annual commemorative day. It isn't certain, however, that all tribes would agree that the fourth Friday in November is the best day to recognize their contributions and traditions.

"The question is, should it be the day after Thanksgiving?" said Joe Garcia, director of the National Congress of American Indians. "Thanksgiving is controversial to some people."

...

Recognizing American Indians the day after Thanksgiving, the Native American Heritage Day Act of 2008 says, emphasizes the nation's relationship with tribes now.

"I think the recognition is important," Garcia said. "The most important thing it does is give a little more perspective from the American Indian side."

I hope they succeed in making this an annual thing. That would be great.
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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Why Won't Jesse Helms Just Hurry Up and Die? Edition

Alternate title: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead Edition.

I was planning on posting something else for today's DRB (well, actually, I was planning on just saying "fuck it" and shutting the blog down). But with the news of Jesse Helms' passing, I feel obligated to post, as have so many others (and there's a big round-up here).

I was unprepared for this development, so I'm basically just cribbing the same quotes as on all those pages, and some earlier stuff, too. So here goes:

While working on the primary campaign against Frank Porter Graham, Helms helped create an ad that read, "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man.

Wikipedia summation of the portion of the FAIR article citing the Charlotte News and Observer article "To Mold a Nation - Part 1", 26 August 2001.

Here are some of Jesse's more fair-minded quotes:

On homosexuals: "degenerate, morally sick wretches."

On blacks: "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced."

On black civil-rights activists: "communists and sex perverts."

His record on race is, in fact, a step below deplorable. In his 1990 U.S. Senatorial campaign, in which he ran against a black man named Harvey Gantt, he eagerly used the politics of race to his advantage.

Helms' campaign ran this television ad: On the screen a pair of white hands appears. The hands crumple up a rejected job application while a voice-over intones, "You needed that job ... but they had to give it to a minority."

"Prehistoric Republicans bid adieu", Daily Nebraskan, 10 September 2001

Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced.

New York Times Magazine, 8 February 1981

She's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that [assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development]. If you want to call me a bigot, fine.

Part of that can be found in this MSNBC article.

I was a senior when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Roughly 2,000 of us joined a vigil on the quad for several days. The vigil was an instrument of our grieving and a voice for racial justice on Duke's campus. Higher wages and union recognition for the non-academic employees—cooks, food-servers, maids, and janitors, most of whom were black—became the focal issue. We sat peacefully and largely silent day and night, studying for finals, listening to Dr. King's speeches and singing "We Shall Overcome" every hour. To this day I count it as a major event in my spiritual formation.

Jesse Helms came on the television and said that all of the students sitting on the quad at Duke should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to "marry a Negro" (Duke students were practically all white in those days). Unless the student's parents approved of that prospect, Helms advised, he or she should go back to class. We all took the words as vindication for our cause.

From this article.

And this is just skimming the surface; that man had a lot more hate he shared with the world.
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To celebrate, go and get interracially married

Happy Loving Day, everybody!
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Just when you thought it was safe to ignore this blog... I post!

Christmas is the one time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ.

--Bart Simpson, and possibly George W. Bush, too

Today is Jesus Day! So happy Jesus Day, everybody!

What, don't believe me? See for yourself:

Four months ago in Texas, Gov. George W. Bush signed a proclamation declaring June 10 to be Jesus Day, and urging all Texans to "follow Christ's example by performing good works in their communities and neighborhoods."

Yeah, that article is back from 2000, so it's not exactly recent. But we shouldn't forget about it. And it really should have given people an idea of what a Bush administration's feelings towards separation of church and state would be.

The proclamation, which Ms. Edwards said was written by the governor's staff, begins: "Throughout the world, people of all religions recognize Jesus Christ as an example of love, compassion, sacrifice and service. Reaching out to the poor, the suffering and the marginalized, he provided moral leadership that continues to inspire countless men, women and children today.

"To honor his life and teachings, Christians of all races and denominations have joined together to designate June 10 as Jesus Day," it reads. "Jesus Day challenges people to follow Christ's example by performing good works in their communities and neighborhoods."

Yes, people of all religions love Jesus. Like the Jews, who killed him--I mean, you always hurt the ones you love, right?

The phrase in the proclamation signed by Governor Bush that "people of all religions recognize Jesus" was proposed by the March for Jesus, said Mr. Pelton, particularly to avoid offense. But it is this assertion that seemed to most outrage observers.

"With the exception of Islam," said Bruce Lincoln, the Caroline E. Haskell Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, "all the major religions emerged before Christianity, so there is no place for Jesus in their original foundations and scriptures.

"They carefully worded this thing to make it look like they've just got a good guy here, and so the state of Texas can have a party for him without running into church-state problems," Mr. Lincoln said. "It's patently fraudulent."

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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Tom Brady is a Racist! Edition

I chose that title just to see how many hits I'd get from people Googling Tom Brady of the New England Patriots to see if he's a racist. So for those of you who do find this page because of that search, you can stop reading now--I wouldn't even know that Tom Brady existed were it not for Family Guy. The person I'm actually going to discuss is Tom P. Brady, and his pamphlet Black Monday: Segregation or Amalgamation ...America Has Its Choice. This was originally an address before the Sons of the American Revolution in Greenwood, Mississippi, the author informs us in a prefatory note, and later transcribed and published by the Association of Citizens' Councils.

But what is "Black Monday"? Well, in this pamphlet at least, it refers to Monday, May 17, 1954--the date the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in Brown v. Board of Education. Since tomorrow is the 54th anniversary of the decision, I felt it would be worthwhile to look back at what certain people thought of it at the time. Let's start with the appellation, Black Monday. In the foreword, Brady writes:

"Black Monday" is the name coined by Representative John Bell Williams of Mississippi to designate Monday, May 17th, 1954, a date long to be remembered throughout this nation. This is the date upon which the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its socialistic decision in the Segregation cases on appeal from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware.

"Black Monday" is indeed symbolic of the date. Black denoting darkness and terror. Black signifying the absence of light and wisdom. Black embodying grief, destruction and death. Should Representative Williams accomplish nothing more during his membership in Congress he has more than justified his years in office by the creating of this epithet, the originating of this watchword, the shouting of this battle cry.

Black Monday ranks in importance with July 4th, 1776, the date upon which our Declaration of Independence was signed. May 17th, 1954, is the date upon which the declaration of socialistic doctrine was officially proclaimed throughout this nation. It was on Black Monday that the judicial branch of our government usurped the sacred privilege and right of the respective states of this union to educate their youth. This usurpation constitutes the greatest travesty of the American Constitution and jurisprudence in the history of this nation.

Not much for hyperbole, is he? Yes, the Supreme Court "usurped the sacred privilege and right of the ... states ... to educate their youth" by commanding that they actually educate all their youths, and not just the white ones. Strange, that. You'll notice also that he keeps calling the decision "socialistic"--this is because he was rather unabashedly trying to tie it to Communism and say "See? This is what Stalin would have wanted, so it must be bad. Because Stalin was evil, because he was an atheist and evil."

No, really. The inside cover bears this bit of text underneath portraits of Jefferson and Stalin:

Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Stalin were both instrumental in the establishing of secular governments. Both men made mistakes and both men are dead. Their respective governments survive them.

Jefferson's government is founded on a firm belief in God, the dignity of the individual and on the institution of capital. Stalin's government is based on atheism, the absolute sovereignty of the State, and collectivism. Jefferson's government is the father of freedom and liberty. Stalin's government is the master of regimentation and slavery. Jefferson's government symbolizes light, truth, peace and life. Stalin's government represents darkness, deceit, war and death.

The principles upon which these two governments are founded are irreconcilable. They cannot be fused any more than can day exist in night. The twilight of the martyrdom of man will result. They are now engaged in a mortal conflict, and only one can survive. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve."

The United States of America had nothing at all to do with slavery, no sir! That's what commies do.

There's that much insanity, and we haven't even actually started the speech yet.

The pamphlet's main portion starts with a section labeled "The Three Species of Man". I can't be sure if he was a polygenist or just was stupidly using the word 'species' in place of 'race', but I'm kinda leaning towards the former given this passage:

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 M1ountains, 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."

He seems to be quoting someone (Charles Wallace Collins and his book Whither Solid South to be precise) to say that people sprung up fully-formed in their respective habitats, and hence are members of different species with different taxonomies. Or he could just be butchering biology, or both. He certainly thoroughly butchers biology and evolution in the following paragraphs, where he discusses how far the white and Asian "species" had progressed in history, describing it as an "evolutionary march" and a "marvelous and complex evolutionary development." Then he goes on to discuss blacks in his made-up evolutionary context, spouting nonsense like "the negroid man ... evolved not", and "he did not evolve simply because of his inherent limitations."

Brady then spent several pages trying to show that amalgamation with blacks had destroyed Egypt, India, the Mayans, and he does so by quoting James Densons Sayers' Can the White Race Survive? solely and repeatedly. Nothing shows your mastery of history like quoting a man who thinks that only blacks and whites exist and everyone else is just a product of black-white couplings.

Brady's abhorrence of miscegenation and its supposed consequences is hard to overstate. He refers to it as "the white man [drinking] the cup of black hemlock", and countries which he believes are in a dilapidated state because of such miscegenation as having "the mark of the beast":

The mark of the beast is apparent today, even to the most casual observer, in the various types in Mexico, the Yucatan Indians, the Hondurans, the North Central Americans and Caribs. The Proto-Negro sign withs its accompanying destruction cannot be disputed.

This might also be Sayers' influence, as in the following section ("Purity of Jewish Blood", where he continues quoting Sayers), he writes

The word negro does not occur in the religious writing, but the word Ethiopian (negroid Egyptians) is present and later came to mean negro. Frequently "the beast" is referred to. To lie before the beast was prohibited and punishable. The beast too was required to sit in sack cloth and ashes and repent. (Jonah, 3rd Chapter; Exodus, 22:19; Leviticus, 18:23; 20:15, 16.)

And we already know that Sayers thought 'the beast' meant 'Negro'.

Much later he returns to the topic of miscegenation in a seemingly-random two paragraphs, which have no relation to the preceding or following paragraphs:

The loveliest and the purest of God's creatures, the nearest thing to an angelic being that treads this terrestrial ball is a well-bred, cultured Southern white woman or her blue-eyed, golden-haired little girl.

The maintenance of peaceful and harmonious relationship, which have been conducive to the well-being of both the white and negro races in the South, has been possible because of the inviolability of Southern Womanhood. Cases of moral leprosy and degeneracy have produced sporadic instances of amalgamation of whites with negroes. It is such instances as these which produced the negro hybrids of America.

This of course explains the whole real reason behind his, and many others', resistance to Brown--they didn't want whites and blacks mingling, or at least not white women and black men. Their supposed peace and harmony was based on white women not having sex with black men... however that works. So by providing black schoolboys access to white schoolgirls, the Supreme Court threatened the peace and harmony of the South. Generally because the white men would then kill the black men.

Of course, Brady had to include a masturbatory, self-congratulatory paean to whites in the midst of his nonsense (separate from the above paragraph on white women), so he talks about Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Milton, Galileo, and so on, and gives a special nod to the biologists whose works he so thoroughly and unabashedly mangles to support his preconceived notions of how the world works. "The true miracles," he says, were not the discovery of the New World by Columbus but were those which "were to be discovered by Darwin, Huxley, Hall, Mendel, and their contemporaries." Maybe if he actually read Darwin, though, he wouldn't have been talking about "three different species of man" in the next paragraph, since Darwin was a monogenist. Or maybe he did read Darwin and just dismissed him when he felt like it, since he had a higher authority to rely on for his racism--God!

The Supreme Architect of the Universe saw fit that there should be, and are today, on this planet, three distinct species of man. If God had deemed it wise and just that there should be only one specie of man on this earth, the laws of heredity and the stimuli of environment would have produced this uniform man. There are those today who would improve upon the handiwork of the Divine Architect and would cause the amalgamation of all races if they had the power to do so. If the Omnipotent Creator had willed it, this single specie of man would have been located over all the face of the earth. The three species of man would not have been placed in different locales.

Of course, by this logic, if God had intended to prevent people of different races from having kids, he would have made it so that they couldn't, so clearly God's plan is for everyone to go out and have a multiracial baby, and Brady was being blasphemous for trying to stop that. Right?

The next bit is your typical racist claptrap. Blacks are incompetent savages who are unable to do anything; slavery was good for them but I don't support it but really the abolitionists were the evil ones and hey the South wasn't responsible for slavery anyways because all we did was keep buy and keep slaves, we didn't sell them; whites like me are so awesome, just look at how many accomplished whites I can list off the top of my head, and the fact that I don't know of any accomplished blacks means that they must not exist; Reconstruction was hell brought to earth because Negroes had civil rights and we hadn't taken them away yet. And finally, he gets to the court case in question, starting his discussion of it by essentially accusing the court of being 'judicial activists':

The Supreme Court does not possess the legislative power. When a case comes before the Court, as does a case before any court, the issue is joined, arguments are made and a decision rendered. That decision binds the parties to that particular case. The legislative power of the Federal Government is vested in the Congress of the United States. The Supreme Court has no power to make a decree which could have the effect of an Act of Congress. The Supreme Court can, of course, exceed its powers and violate the Constitution and invade the province of Congress and that of the state legislatures--as has frequently been the case. Has the Supreme Court the power to establish by decree a national segregation policy which would bind all of the forty-eight states--a power which Congress itself does not possess?

This is the true question which "Black Monday" actually decided.

Yes, there's nothing in the case itself about constitutionality of state's actions at all.

He starts out by quoting some from the Attorney General's brief, mocking most of what he quoted, and then turns to the opposing briefs and several other sources for "warnings" of what would follow the decision:

In addition to giving the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the
amendment, and the enactment of the constitutional provisions and statutes of South Carolina, they also point out the grave dangers which are attendant upon the abolition of segregation in the schools of that State. These warnings the Supreme Court completely ignored.

These warnings basically consisted of the fact that whites would riot in the streets if blacks were allowed in their schools, so if you want peace and safety you'd better not rule against us. Brady quotes one of the briefs describing the testimony of a superintendent, putting in bold the conclusions

that there would not be community acceptance of mixed schools at this time; that there would be a probability of violent emotional reaction in the communities; that it would be impossible to have peaceable association of the races in the public schools; and that it would eliminate the public schools in most, if not all, of the communities in the State

I wonder how people think this is a compelling argument before the Supreme Court? "This law must be constitutional because we really, really, really wouldn't like it if you found it wasn't." Yet Brady laments that "The Supreme Court's mind was impervious to the pathos of this appeal and these arguments."

Later he says that while the Supreme Court should be respected, you shouldn't actually abide by what it says. In fact, if you do think that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the law and hence its decisions should be followed, then you're unpatriotic.

The Supreme Court should be accorded all the deference and respect possible because of the nature of the office. It should be given at least the esteem accorded Pontius Pilate. It should, however, be borne in mind that it is not infallible, and it is not clothed with "the divinity which doth hedge a king." To blindly submit to an erroneous decision which breaks all long established rules of law, violates the principles of stare decisis, and adopts sociological assertions instead of laws as its guide is not loyalty or patriotism. It is simple folly or ignorance. Since when has a fallacious opinion of the Supreme Court been above review or censure? There are those who confuse freedom of thought and criticism with subversiveness. Each decision stands on its own legs and if it is unsound, is not based on solid rules of law which have been in force and effect it should be so classified. If the result of the decision will be harmful to the bulk of the people of this country, will be calculated to foster those forces which seek this country's destruction, then to fail to resist the decision is morally wrong and the man who fails to condemn it and do all that he can to see that it is reversed is not a patriotic American.

Hm. If "each decision stands on its own legs and if it is unsound, is not based on solid rules of law which have been in force and effect it should be so classified", then why are you making such a big deal about stare decisis? Maybe he's saying that he can decide if a decision is unsound and thus should be ignored, but the court itself cannot. He later repeats the sentiment that the decision should be resisted because it's un-American, it's communistic.

Communism disguised as "new democracy" is still communism, and tyranny masquerading as liberalism is still tyranny. The resistance of communism and tyranny, irrespective of whatever guise they may adopt, is not treason. It is the prerequisite
of freedom, the very essence of liberty.

And then he continues quoting people who chastised the court for not realizing that the decision was wrong because it pissed off a lot of white people. One was an editorial from the Jackson Daily News in Mississippi:

"Human blood may stain Southern soil in many places because of this decision, but the dark red stains of that blood will be on the marble steps of the United States Supreme Court building.

"The Supreme Court is responsible for our being bloodthirsty savages, because surely we're not responsible for our own actions."

Brady also quotes Senator James Eastland, who seems as confused as he is:

"Let me make this clear, Mr. President: There is no racial hatred in the South. The negro race is not an oppressed race.

If it weren't so tragic that he actually believed that, that statement would be hilarious.

Free men have the right to send their children to schools of their own choosing, free from governmental interference and to build up their own culture, free from governmental interference.

Gee, if Eastland actually believed that, he would probably have approved of Brown v. Board because, well, it just concluded that yes, "free men have the right to send their children to schools of their own choosing, free from governmental interference." But of course Eastland doesn't believe that black people are free, or have rights, or that it's governmental interference when the state governments interfere with the right of black kids to go to school, or however the fuck he rationalized this in his own mind.

And he goes on and on about Communism, ranting about how "Marxian Christianity" and "Marxian Education" (the headings of two sections) are to blame for people thinking that blacks actually have rights. And they're to blame for miscegenation, which blacks go along with because they all recognize that they're stupid, inferior trash, and want to improve themselves by fucking whites. So some of his suggested solutions are "I. We must stop the influx of Communists in our country", "II. We must teach our children the truth about Communism, its infiltration of our country, and the facts of ethnology", "III. The Neo-Socialist and Marxian Christians should be exposed".

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"Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens"

That's an actual headline from the Washington Post:

It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."

By voting against it?

Via LG&M.
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Your ironic statement of the year

Today is Confederate Memorial Day, commemorating the surrender of General Joseph Johnston to General William Sherman. Mostly it's an occasion to remember the people who died in the Civil War, which is fine.

Up to a point:

"That's important because we are where we are today. We have the rights and freedoms that we do because our ancestors were willing to stand up and fight for what they thought was correct, and for the right of us to decide our own futures," said Adele Whitlock, president of the Robert E. Lee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Yes, that's right. The Confederacy was fighting for rights, freedoms, and the right to decide your futures. Specifically, the right to keep slaves, the freedom to do so without Northerners butting in, and the right to decide not only your future, but also the future of four million black people, who couldn't be trusted to do that for themselves.

I know that "they died to give us freedom" is the knee-jerk eulogy for any deceased soldier, but can't these people at least think about it for a second first?
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Now Zoidberg is the popular one!

Five thousand visitors!

Thanks, y'all!
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South Korea's got the right idea about this 'love' crap

We oughta get on this in the US:

South Korea celebrates Valentine's Day, where local custom dictates women give gifts to men. It has taken on a popular event born in Japan but sweeping Asia known as White Day on March 14 when men return the favor with gifts for women.

But Black Day, on April 14, is a South Korean original. It is marked by people who have not found love dressing in dark colors and commiserating over meals of black food, with the dish of choice being Chinese-style noodles topped with a thick sauce of black bean paste.

"I had a miserable time on Valentine's Day, felt even lonelier on White Day and now I'm crying over a bowl of black noodles," said a young women who asked only to be identified by her family name Na out of embarrassment.

...

At universities across the country on Monday, students without lunch dates ordered black noodles, dined with other lonely hearts and searched for companionship.

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40 years

Today is the 40th anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us take a moment to reflect that while, yes, Dr. King did have a dream that this nation would one day be one where people would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, he was also well aware that this was still just a dream, and that we still had much to do to work towards it. Let us reflect that Dr. King also fought against war, militarism and imperialism. Let us reflect that while he battled to demolish forced inequality, he also fought to foster true equality--a battle that many, perhaps most, whites would not join him in. An excerpt from Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, his last book:

With Selma and the Voting Rights Act one phase of development in the civil rights revolution came to an end. A new phase opened, but few observers realized it or were prepared for its implications. For the vast majority of white Americans, the past decade--the first phase--had been a struggle to treat the Negro with a degree of decency, not of equality. White America was ready to demand that the Negro should be spared the lash of brutality and coarse degradation, but it had never been truly committed to helping him out of poverty, exploitation or all forms of discrimination. The outraged white citizen had been sincere when he snatched the whips from the southern sheriffs and forbade them more cruelties. But when this was to a degree accomplished, the emotions that had momentarily inflamed him melted away. White Americans left the Negro on the ground and in devastating numbers walked off with the aggressor. It appeared that the white segregationist and the ordinary white citizen had more in common with one another than either had with the Negro.

When Negroes looked for the second phase, the realization of equality, they found that many of their white allies had quietly disappeared. The Negroes of America had taken the president, the press and the pulpit at their word when they spoke in broad terms of freedom and justice. But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood. The word was broken, and the free-running expectations of the Negro crashed into the stone walls of white resistance. The result was havoc. Negroes felt cheated, especially in the North, while many whites felt that the Negroes had gained so much it was virtually impudent and greedy to ask for more so soon.

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Hooray for computus

Happy Chocolate Bunny Day, y'all.
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"It's been St. Patrick's Day for hours and I'm still not drunk yet!"

I didn't know it was St. Patrick's Day, so I was wearing tan and black today by accident.

If I'd known, I'd've done it on purpose.

May your day have been liquor-filled, unless you drive.
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Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

It's Dr. Seuss's birthday! Spend the day looking over some of his political cartoons.


Hitler the taxidermist:


Hitler, Queen of the Sea:


Of course, Dr. Seuss wasn't perfect. Even though he ostensibly didn't like racism, he still had some... ah... well, he didn't like the Japanese:


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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: 1500 Posts Edition

I've had this post in mind for quite some time now, but even so I wasn't planning on writing it up this week. I had instead been going to make a quick post with just a quote that I found a while back.

However, as you may have noticed from reading the title of this post, or adding up the numbers on the right-hand menu bar, or by skipping to the end of this sentence, this is my 1500th post. An occasion such as this--which serendipitously occurred with a DRB post (no, I didn't plan this)--I feel demands something more elaborate than a quote thrown at you.

So join me under the cut, for cake and party hats!

Ha ha, I lied! There's only racism in here.

Specifically, I wanted to share something of a revelation that I had in the course of my readings. This is something that my readers may already be aware of, and some of you may in fact be shocked at my naiveté. When I attended school we learned about Jim Crow, about segregation, and about the Civil Rights movement in U.S. history classes. Time constraints naturally prevented us from broaching any subject too deeply, much less one as broad as the Jim Crow regime, so it was more or less a superficial treatment: "Blacks were separated from whites, until Rosa Parks sat on a bus and Martin Luther King went to jail." Or at least, that's about all I remember of class.

We didn't delve into the segregationist psyche at all, so I came out of class with the impression that all this happened--that segregation was made legal fiat--simply because whites (southern whites in particular) didn't like blacks. They in fact hated blacks; hated them so much that they couldn't stand for blacks to be around them. You might chalk this up to a failure of education, or a failure of my own imagination, but that was the belief that I had.

However, such was not the case. I'm not trying to suggest that Jim Crow laws didn't exist, of course. Rather, I mean that it was not nearness of blacks that whites hated, but equality of blacks, or even the impression of equality. Institutions that were labeled "Whites only" did not prevent blacks from entering, as long was it was clear that they were in a position of inferiority or subservience to whites. A whites-only restaurant or cafe might have a staff of black waiters or cooks. A black man could enter a whites-only library if he was checking out a book on behalf of a white patron.

[Edit 8/27/08]
I had read some time ago something to the above effect, but couldn't find it in time for this post. In the course of my research I found it again, so here 'tis. From George W. Cable's "The Silent South":

Visiting the principal library of the city, he was eagerly assured, in response to inquiry, that no person of color would be allowed to draw out books; and when a colored female, not particularly tidy in dress, came forward to return a book and draw another, it was quickly explained that she was merely a servant and messenger for some white person.

[/Edit]

A black woman could enter a whites-only train car if she were the nanny or nurse of white children. Here's an important section from Peter Wallenstein's Tell the Court I Love My Wife, with him quoting from one of the briefs in Plessy v. Ferguson:

Another of Plessy's lawyers, James C. Walker, developed that approach. "A white man, married to a colored person, boarding the train has the right to enter and take his seat in the white coach with his black servant, if the servant be the nurse of his children; but the [mixed-race] children themselves . . . must occupy the colored coach, if the conductor please so to assign them." Meanwhile, Walker continued, "although the white man and his black servant, employed as nurse, may occupy the white passenger coach, not so is it permitted the colored wife." If traveling with her husband, she must travel separately from him, for "she is required to part with her husband at the coach door and take her seat in the coach intended for colored passengers." Walker concluded that "thus the bottom rail is on top; the nurse is admitted to a privilege which the wife herself does not enjoy, and which is refused to the children whom she is attending."

A black person could not enter the white compartment of a train as just another passenger, for that would put them on a level of equality with whites. However, if they were a white person's servant, then clearly they were not a white person's equal, and so they could be let onto the supposedly whites-only boxcar.

This was likely a holdover from the antebellum period, where blacks were (almost) always slaves and hence inferior to whites. Rayford Logan writes in The Betrayal of the Negro:

After emancipation personal contacts became social relations. The etiquette of slavery permitted, for example, a slave girl to travel as maid for her mistress on a train. The etiquette of freedom found it intolerable that a colored woman paying her own fare should travel in the same coach with a white woman.

Yet as we just saw, a colored woman could still travel in the same coach--again, as long as she were a maid and not a real passenger.

Just as slaveholders were okay with blacks being in the country as long as they were slaves (something that some opponents of slavery objected to--more on that in a later post), segregationists were okay with blacks being around as long as they were kept subservient to whites.

"When you ask me why I do not associate with a Negro," wrote a Texan in 1911, "I do not say it is because the Negro is poor and dirty and ragged and uneducated. I and all the white men I know and all I want to know object to a Negro because he has a black face and other physical characteristics of the race." It was "the presence of an undue proportion of negroes in the southern States" which created troubles of enormous proportions and threatened the peace, happiness, and prosperity of the section. And presumably the troubles would continue as long as the races lived together.

...or maybe not.

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Happy Brigadoon Day!

'Cause it only comes every couple a years, right?

...y'know what? Screw it.

Just remember, fellows, if a lady proposes to you today you must accept, unless you're already engaged. It's the law.
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This is not for you

Just wanted to say "Happy Valentine's Day!" to my reader in the U.K. who apparently went through my entire archive of posts.

Thanks, fellow. You totally increased my page views and average visit length.

The rest of you can go to hell.
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Hooray for Zoidberg!

Over a thousand visitors in six weeks!

Congratulations (and thanks) to the person from Shallotte, North Carolina, who at 12:19 today read this post after I left a comment at Orcinus--you're my thousandth visitor!

I'd like to take a moment to review some of the stranger phrases that people have Googled and come out at my blog:
genesis verse 29 segregation
ku klux klan in visalia, ca
john van evrie     [I'm probably gonna do a DRB post entirely on John Van Evrie at some point]
how were slaves mistreated in united states
charles carroll
biblical intermarrying of israelites with foreigners
miscegenation god
atavism black child
judaism and race mixing

I hope these people were just doing research, and I hope they found my posts useful.

But the one that freaked me out the most was probably the guy who googled '"a practical guide to racism" skemono'. Wh-why are you googling my nick? What do you care what I have to say about that book?
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Happy New Year, y'all!

Here's to a productive year, and the election which will throw that abominable screw-up out of the White House!
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Heathen's Greetings, y'all!

Happy Dies Natalis Solis Invicti!
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