You know, I’m not one of those bloggers who makes my fame out of bashing Republicans.
Don’t get me wrong. The modern Republican Party is composed of Fascist, Racist, Theocratic Morons and Wall Street Greedheads (also Morons), but it’s so obvious that it’s hardly worth pointing out except in the context of how much the Versailles Village and the Institutional Democratic Party support and cover for them instead of crushing them like these 26% on the amoral idiot end of the Bell Curve deserve.
Today’s context is the unfortunate exposure of the Southern Racism of Haley Barbour (not that he isn’t also a Theocratic Fascist Greedhead)-
The Barbour Of Yazoo City
by Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
21 Dec 2010 01:24 pm
I’ve got an observation about race, the conservative movement, and its political fortunes: the strange place we find ourselves is that being accused of racism can actually help a Republican candidate these days. Jonathan Chait gets it: “His past is not racist enough to disqualify him, but it is murky enough to spur the liberal media to raise questions. And thus Barbour will be in the position of being the white conservative attacked by liberals for his alleged racism… it will surely make Republicans rally to Barbour.”
…
Over the years, social norms in America have shifted such that being labaled a racist is tremensoulsy damaging to one’s social standing and career prospects. On the whole, that’s a good thing. We ought to abhor racists. But an unintended consequence is that false accusations of racism can be used to cynically accrue power. Compared to actual instances of racism, this sort of thing doesn’t occur very often.
…
Lots of white people fear that they’re going to be wrongly labeled racist, and it provokes the same anxiety experienced when people fear, without particular reason to do so, that they’re going to be attacked by a shark or have their identity stolen or that they’re suffering from the deadly disease they came across on Web M.D.
Umm… what lambert likes to call a ‘Category Error’.
These people ARE RACISTS!
Barbour Mistakes Black for White
by Cynic, The Atlantic
Dec 21 2010, 1:10 PM ET
In 1954, the NAACP determined to bring five test cases to force integration in the Mississippi public schools. Yazoo County exhibited some of the worst disparities in the state, spending $245.55 on every white child, but only $2.92 per black pupil. So the NAACP gathered fifty-three signatures of leading black citizens of Yazoo City, the county seat, on a petition calling for integration.
Their courage was met with outrage. Sixteen of the town’s most prominent men called for a public meeting, to form a White Citizens’ Council and respond to the petition. Several hundred turned out on a hot June night, including journalist Willie Morris, who watched in mute disbelief as the best men of the town outlined their response:
Those petitioners who rented houses would immediately be evicted by their landlords. White grocers would refuse to sell food to any of them. Negro grocers who had signed would no longer get any groceries from the wholesale stores. “Let’s just stomp ’em!” someone shouted from the back, but the chairman said, no, violence would be deplored; this was much the more effective method. Public opinion needed to be mobilized behind the plan right away. …
The craftsmen could not find work. Those with jobs were fired. So were their spouses. Merchants refused to sell them groceries or supplies. The three black merchants who had signed were cut off by their wholesalers. The grocer had his account closed by the bank. One by one, they took their names off the petition. It did no good. Soon enough, 51 names were deleted from the petition. The other two had fled town before withdrawing.
…
If Barbour wants to praise the good people of Yazoo City for their extraordinary restraint in not employing violence as they hounded from their community those black parents brave enough to demand a decent education for their children; to laud their public disavowal of the local Klan even as they turned a blind eye to its activities; or to extol their grudging cession of the inevitability of court-ordered integration after fifteen years of stalling, for its absence of lynchings or riots, that’s his prerogative. For the rest of us, though, Yazoo City should serve as a poignant reminder that the civil rights struggle really was “that bad.”
Update: And about the Versailles Villagers, no better expression of it than this-
Haley Barbour: How he hurt himself (and how he can come back)
By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post
Posted at 1:27 PM ET, 12/21/2010
While all candidates — including Barbour — will dismiss the importance of “buzz” among the Washington insider crowd, it does matter. The presidential race is like a glacier — most of it moves under the surface, away from the eyes of the average voter. Unless Barbour can get out from under the race storyline, he might not ever make it to the point where voters have a chance to assess him or, if he does make it, he could be badly damaged enough that voters will dismiss his candidacy out of hand.
(A sidebar: Barbour’s good relationships with the press have always been chalked up as a positive for a potential presidential bid. But, Barbour’s ease with the press also creates situations like the one in the Weekly Standard piece — a breeziness about a serious issue that plays far less well in print than it might in casual conversation. Barbour has to realize that his relations with the press will change fundamentally now that he is a potential presidential candidate and adjust accordingly.)
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