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Race in the Race
Author: BobR    Date: 2010-12-22 09:50:38

Politicians are generally thought of to be professional liars. They make campaign promises they don't plan on keeping, they tell us they respect the Constitution, they tell us they are going to Washington DC to help make the country a better place. The old joke about lawyers works well for a lot of politicians: How do you know when they're lying? Their lips are moving.

That's why it's almost shocking when they let their guard down and a moment of unadulterated truth slips out. Such is the case with former MS governor Haley Barbour.

Unless you've been under a rock, the big news is how Mr. Barbour seems to remember the civil rights era in Yazoo City, MS as not being that bad. Well - of course he doesn't remember it being that bad - he's white. Most whites that didn't have to live their lives as if they were criminals in their own country by virtue of the race they were borne to probably don't remember much bad stuff. Barbour went on to say that he went to see King speak, but paid more attention to the girls than the Rev. King. Were any of the girls black? What if some "black boys" came around and started flirting with the white girls. How much racial harmony would be happening then?

In the minds of these types of people, racial harmony occurs when each race knows "their place" in society. Sure the black man can eat at the lunch counter, sure his kids can go to the school, sure they can shop in the stores, or maybe even own one. But don't ask to be a member of the country club, and don't try to become mayor, and for God's sake, don't even think about engaging in miscegenation (I remember being shocked when I discovered there was a word for that - such was my sheltered upbringing). That's just asking for trouble, and when the black man "asks" for trouble, he is sure to find it.

So now Mr. Barbour is scrambling to explain his statements, and - like Linus and the Great Pumpkin - just one slip up can cost you everything. In this case, it may cost him his aspirations for the Presidency in 2012. Would Middle America vote for Boss Hogg over our current president? I'd like to think "no way!", but I am an optimist and generally give people more credit than they deserve.

Regardless, this is political gold for Democrats, and they are cashing in now to hopefully wreck his candidacy before it starts. Whether it works remains to be seen. If anyone remembers George Allen running for re-election in VA in 2006, he refered to a non-white reporter as "macaca", which apparently proved to be his undoing. The video showed a priviledged white male dismissing a fellow human being because of his race.

Reaching further back, then-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) made the comment in 2002 that the country would be a better place if segregationist Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948. During that election, the choice was bigot and racist Thurmond running as a Dixiecrat against Truman and Dewey in a 3-way race. Thankfully, Truman won that election. Trent Lott's comments about Thurmond proved to be his undoing as well.

These could all be considered anecdotal and unrelated, but having lived in NY, DC, and Georgia, I can speak with some personal experience that there is a certain segment of southern white males that still yearns for the plantation days when their place in society was unchallenged and a birthright. To them, "civil rights" means that the blacks and the women and the homosexuals and every other minority are getting "special treatment" (ie: being treated as equals). No longer is the white man's place at the head of the line and the head of the table assumed. They now have to prove their worth, when those of this mindset look in the mirror and wonder why their superiority is not apparent to all.

Now this may seem a little odd and perhaps hypocritical coming from a white male. I am the recipient of what might be considered the good fortune to be born a white male to a middle-class family with a genetic disposition to intelligence, at a time in this country when those attributes gave me a leg up on "the competition". Due to circumstances beyond my control (and some within my control as well), I realize that my success in life was helped because I got a head start, based on my birth. I understand that the circumstances of my birth make me lucky, not better. Had I been born non-white, or female, or poor (or some combination thereof), I am sure I would have had to work a lot harder to get to where I am today.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that he looked forward to a day when people were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Perhaps as the older generation that looks back on the civil rights era (and before that) with rose-colored glasses dies off, we will continue to shift in that direction. Kids today seem to look at different races and gays as just part of the mix, not boundaries between us. Hopefully, we can get to a point where being born a white male is no more lucky than being born a gay hispanic female.

Only then will Dr. King be able to rest easy.
 

25 comments (Latest Comment: 12/22/2010 23:41:20 by Scoopster)
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