Category: white racial resentment

Arlington ISD turns thumbs down on Cesar Chavez holiday (yet again)

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By Alan Bean

To the surprise of no one, the students of Arlington were once again denied a May holiday honoring civil rights legend Cesar Chavez. 

Last night’s meeting of the Arlington ISD school board reminded me of the climactic scene in To Kill a Mockingbird.  An all-white jury convicts the black defendant even though the case against him has crumbled to dust.  As the article below suggests, last night’s decision was a foregone conclusion.

Last year, the statements of support for a Chavez holiday, mine included, were polite and deferential.  This year was different.  

I used my five minutes to address the elephant in the room.  The school board trustees are both politicians and public servants, I said.  There is no political upside to voting to rename a generic “May holiday” in honor of Chavez.  The majority of voters in Arlington have little interest in honoring a Latino icon, and many would staunchly oppose the move.  This is, after all, one of the most conservative demographics in America. 

On the other hand, 65% of the students (and therefore a solid majority of the parents) are people of color who would love to see Chavez honored.  There is a disconnect between the political imperative to please the voters and the moral imperative to do what’s best for the children.  The heart sides with the kids; the head craves political security. (more…)

The day Elizabeth and Hazel were dissed by Oprah

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By Alan Bean

I have been inspired by the story about how Elizabeth Eckford (the black woman walking stoically into Little Rock’s Central High School in 1959) and Hazel Bryan (the white woman in the rear screaming, “Go home to Africa, nigger!”) had bridged the racial divide and become best friends.

Not surprisingly, it isn’t that simple.

Racial reconciliation comes hard.  Everybody needs to feel good about their people, their heritage, their roots.  At least Sir Walter Scott thought so:

Breathes there there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,

As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand!

If such there breathe, go, mark him well;

For him no minstrel raptures swell . . .

African Americans and American whites, particularly in the South, have a hard time feeling good about their ethnic heritage.  Few Black Americans chose to come to this country.  In most cases, their ancestors were hunted down like dogs, manacled, separated from family, culture and religion, stowed into the hulls of slave ships, transported across the Atlantic ocean, and put to work under the lash beneath a blazing son.  The Emancipation Proclamation hardly improved their lot.  In its own strange way, Jim Crow was every bit as degrading as slavery.  (more…)

Girl Scouts, civil rights, and white racial resentment

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Below is an interesting article detailing a lawsuit filed against a Georgia Girl Scouts organization. The lawsuit, filed last week, was a result of the expulsion of two sisters from their Girl Scout troop after they gave a presentation on the civil rights movement. 

The audience and other troop leaders did not respond well to the civil rights presentation. According to the suit, “The only applause [the presenters] received was from the other two African American girls and one Indian girl in attendance.”

The response to the young girls’ presentation is not surprising coming from a largely white audience. In fact, this reaction is all too common. The civil rights movement does not reflect favorably on most Southern whites and, therefore, discussion of the movement is often met with resistance and resentment from white audiences. It will be interesting to watch the suit unfold and hear the response (if any) from the Girls Scouts of America . MW

Ga. mom sues Girl Scouts claiming daughters were expelled after civil rights presentation 

By Associated Press

ATLANTA — An Atlanta-area mother has filed a lawsuit against a Girl Scouts organization alleging that her twin daughters were expelled from their troop after they gave a presentation on their family’s involvement in the civil rights movement.Angela Johnson filed the suit last week in Gwinnett County State Court, claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence. The suit says the troop leaders knew an expulsion would cause the girls harm and that the organization had a responsibility to repair the situation.

In a statement, the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta says the girls weren’t expelled and calls the incident a “disagreement between well-intentioned moms,” referring to Johnson and the troop leaders. (more…)

Jena, Louisiana five years on

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 By Alan Bean

Reed Walters doesn’t think he did a very good job explaining his prosecution of the Jena 6.  It wasn’t for lack of opportunity.  The New York Times invited the LaSalle Parish DA to write an op-ed and the Christian Science Monitor published a curious piece of historical reconstruction written by a Walters supporter at the Jena Times. 

In his NYT op-ed, Walters defended his refusal to charge the boys who hung nooses from a tree at the Jena High School with a hate crime.  It didn’t take much ingenuity to make the case.  Charging the noose boys with a hate crime was always a really bad idea.  The kids needed a history lesson on lynch law and the South’s history of racial violence.  A few months in prison would simply have left them traumatized and unchanged.

Things got out of hand in Jena because nobody in a position of power could acknowledge that the noose hanging was racially motivated.  The nooses appeared the morning after a freshman asked if it was okay for black students to sit under the tree in question.  But when the noose hangers insisted they were just acting out a scene from the popular miniseries Lonesome Dove, men like Reed Walters and Superintendent Roy Breithaupt were eager to believe them.

Why?

You don’t talk about the South’s racial history in towns like Jena.  That’s why. (more…)

Dreaming a Christian aristocracy: The evolution and meaning of Dominionism

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By Alan Bean

Our twenty-four hour news cycle doesn’t lend itself to careful analysis of complex social movements.  Rick Perry, the pugnacious presidential hopeful, raised eyebrows when he used a loose network of organizations associated with the New Apostolic Reformation to organize a big religious-political rally in Houston.  Interest quickened when the mainstream media learned that some of Perry’s friends were “Dominionists,” folks who want to bring secular politics (and everything else) under the dominion of God.

The questions couldn’t be avoided.  If elected, will Rick Perry pack his cabinet with Christian preachers?  Since that didn’t sound likely, the pundits too-easily assumed that politicians like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann are just standard-issue conservatives with close ties to the religious right.  (more…)

All Eyes on Jackson, Mississippi

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 By Alan Bean

The convergence of three events is directing a lot of attention to the Magnolia State: “The Help” is #1 at the box office, a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. is being unveiled on the Mall in Washington, and a televised hate crime has rekindled memories of the state’s brutal past.

A spate of connect-the-dots articles appeared over the weekend, and this lengthy piece in the Los Angeles Times is probably the best of the batch.  How much has Jackson, Mississippi changed since the civil rights era?  A whole lot, and not enough. (more…)

Asked about the civil rights movement, Perry changes the subject

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By Alan Bean

The post below comes from Chris Kromm at The Institute for Southern Studies.  Asked to comment on the contribution of the “Friendship Nine”, Perry made the obligatory tip of the hat to racial equality and then launched into a standard (and off-topic) defense of small government politics.  Perry didn’t comment on the groundbreaking heroism of nine civil rights pioneers because his audience of choice gets angry at the very mention of the civil rights movement.  They don’t hate black people, and they aren’t calling for a return to the days of racial segregation; but the civil rights movement is a touchy topic because it makes white Southerners and conservative politicians looks really, really bad.  So Mr. Perry, fearful of alienating his base, changed the subject.

Gov. Rick Perry flunks civil rights lesson in South Carolina campaign stop

FriendshipNineJail.jpgEach presidential election, Republicans declare that this could be the year they might win over African-American voters, or at least enough to tip the balance in key battleground states.But if surging White House hopeful Gov. Rick Perry of Texas ends up clinching the GOP nomination, he may have irreparably hurt his chances of luring black voters — already a challenge when facing President Obama — this past weekend at a campaign stop and fundraisernear Rock Hill, South Carolina.During the media presser, a TV reporter noted that Perry was visiting a “very important place in Rock Hill’s and the nation’s civil rights history,” it being the 50th anniversary of a historic sit-inby a group of students from nearby Friendship College, known as the “Friendship Nine.” (more…)

“Perrymandered” electoral map could backfire

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By Alan Bean

Once upon a time, the red-red state of Texas was Dixiecrat Blue.  That changed at the federal level a long time ago, but as late as 2004, the State House was still controlled by Democrats.  Recent elections have changed that in a big way–Republicans are now firmly in control of the Texas Legislature.  Texas has always been a politically conservative state; it just took a few decades for the Southern strategy to kick in.

One quick glance at the Texas Legislature’s “face-book” and the racial implications of this political re-orientation is immediately obvious: most Democrats are black and brown and the delegation boasts a large number of women; flip over to the Republican delegation and you see lots of white males, a few white females and the occasional conservative Latino who was elected with Anglo votes.

Meanwhile, the complexion of the Texas electorate has been rapidly changing.  The state population has been exploding in recent years and almost all the growth has come from the Latino segment of the population.  Thanks to this growth, Texas was recently awarded four additional congressional seats.  Here’s the problem; the Republican dominated Legislature is responsible for drawing up a new electoral map, but the folks responsible for creating four new seats rarely pull the red lever in the voting booth.

As this article in the National Journal indicates, the GOP initially looked to Rep. Lamar Smith for guidance.   Smith suggested that they create two strong Republican districts (to ensure continued GOP hegemony) while cobbling together two heavily Latino districts a to avoid questions about fairness and possible legal challenges.

Led by Joe Barton and Rick Perry, Texas Republicans decided to ignore Smith’s advice and play for all the marbles.  They controlled the Legislature, so they ought to be able to reconfigure the electoral lines in their favor.  This kind of thinking produced a “Perrymandered” map designed to give the Republicans four new seats while doing absolutely nothing to increase Latino political influence.  In fact, the new map was designed to frustrate Hispanic voters.  The snub was obvious and intentional.

Texas Democrats have only themselves to blame for these developments.  The party’s best bet (morally and politically) is to embrace ethnic diversity and market itself as “the party that looks like Texas.”  Unfortunately, many older Democrats are still mired in the bad old days when Jim Crow values dominated Texas politics.  What’s the use of fielding an inclusive mix of black, brown and white candidates, they reason, if conservative white voters rally around The Party of White?  The idea that white voters might reconsider their biased ways if presented with a compelling new vision is beyond the comprehension for most Anglo Democrats in Texas.

Latino Texans are frustrated.  For decades they have been exploited by Democrats and ignored by Republicans.  Texas Latinos have a hard time getting excited about the Democratic Party (why should they), but they do want their growing numbers to translate into real political influence (why shouldn’t they).   (more…)

Where are the personal apologies for the freedom riders?

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Kung Li with Facing South wonders why so few white Southerners have ever apologized for their behavior during the Freedom Rides.  The same question applies to the civil rights and Jim Crow eras: why have so few white Southerners (or southern legislatures) acknowledged being part of an organized “massive resistance” movement dedicated to keeping African-Americans in a subordinate caste?  Is it because few good opportunities for face to face apology present themselves; or could it be that the generation described in Mr. Li’s column feel their actions were justified?  The young people graduating from southern high schools and colleges are certainly less bigoted than their parents and grandparents, but there has never been a day of reckoning in the South.  AGB

Freedom_Riders.jpgBy Kung LiThe 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides generated a burst — however brief — of remembrance. There was Oprah Winfrey’s gala show on May 4, commemorating the day the southbound Greyhound and Trailways buses pulled out of Washington, D.C. A few weeks later, a large group of Freedom Riders gathered in Jackson, Miss. at the invitation of Gov. Haley Barbour, surrounded by reporters eager to watch the interaction between the Freedom Riders and a man who had a few months earlier said about segregation, “I just don’t remember it being that bad.” (more…)

The Help: as good as Hollywood gets on race

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By Alan Bean

I wanted to like The Help, Hollywood’s adaptation Kathryn Stockett’s popular  novel.

Having read the reviews, I was pretty sure what I was getting myself into.  I did like the movie–as a movie.  Given the limitations of Hollywood storytelling, The Help was an enjoyable slice of popular entertainment.

Reviewers often refer to the movie as a “surprise success;” which is odd when you consider that the book was a big hit, especially with women, and the movie appears to be a faithful adaptation.  The middle-aged black woman standing in line next to us assured us that the movie got it right–she was seeing the film for the second time.

The Help is a chick flick.  There are few male characters (none of any consequence) and the audience was at least two-thirds women, most of them middle-aged or older.  The movie reminded me of Fried Green Tomatoes, a film about women in the South that centers on a particularly shocking image that is funny because it is shocking (humor is rooted in surprise).  I won’t spoil the story by telling you about the shocking image in The Help, but it definitely made the story go. (more…)