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The Spectacle Blog
Searching on Nexis, I found that John O’Sullivan column I mentioned in a post yesterday. I’ll reproduce some of it because I think O’Sullivan’s observations on Trent Lott are relevant to the controversy engulfing fellow Mississippian Haley Barbour:
In order to soothe the South into accepting the 1964 Civil Rights Act, such politicians had to treat their constituents not as bigots but as essentially good people open to change. They had to make occasional gestures of solidarity with the southern tradition by, for instance, praising Jefferson Davis or defending the Confederate flag. And they had to make speeches to bodies like the Citizens’ Councils.
But what did those speeches say? Nine times out of 10, especially behind closed doors, they went like this: “Look, boys, I know you all are decent folks. But we gotta admit we treated the Negroes badly, and there have to be changes. Some of those changes I don’t like any more than you. Others—let’s admit it—are long overdue. And all of them will help us attract new industries and make everybody better off. To make this work, though, we need responsible leadership. And that sure as hell doesn’t mean the northern Democrats.”
This kind of politics is messy, uninspiring and not particularly noble. It explains why a master of them, like Lott, strikes Charles Krauthammer, Andrew Sullivan, the National Review, and the high-minded philosophers in the Blogosphere as shifty, insincere and opportunist. But that is how democratic politics works when the voters are attached to institutions and traditions that have to be reformed half out of existence.
And they really did work. Yesterday’s South has been transformed into—well, a region much like the rest of America. Selma has an enterprising black mayor, and public schools and colleges are integrated.
At the time, I stood with the “high-minded philosophers of the Blogosphere” and advocated Trent Lott’s removal from the Senate Republican leadership. Then and now, I thought that a major party leader in the U.S. Senate ought to be able to come up with a more convincing disavowal of racial segregation than Lott was able to muster. But there is something to O’Sullivan’s account: while the civil-rights movement was the heroic catalyst of racial progress in America, there were others who played a more conflicted yet still important role in making that progress possible.
ncatty| 12.28.10 @ 1:02PM
In order to maintain our brand of slavery, one that was eternal and passed down from generation to generation, it was necessary to believe that africans were not really human beings. Although not livestock, still they were to be regarded as property and, as such, had value. This type of racist thought was very powerful and necessary to maintain the slave system. It took from the early 1600s to 1865 to destroy slavery as a legal system. It took from 1865 to 1964 to end de jure discrimination. Does de facto discrimination still exist? Ask yourself if you would rather be born as a white person or a black one. We probably have another 100 years to go. In the meantime, the serpent under the table grows weaker, and we should be more understanding of each other. The race-baiters on either side become antiques.
serfer62| 12.28.10 @ 2:40PM
Well that settles it...of course I'd rather be black with the highest crime rate in the world but the shortest live span, the most amount of siblings with different fathers and the least wedded mothers, the highest per centage of drug users but the least literate...oh, wait.
PCC| 12.28.10 @ 8:25PM
I'd rather be born an American than a Swede. Does that make me prejudiced against Scandinavians? Ridiculous.
mark| 12.28.10 @ 1:37PM
ncatty was off base. Glen Beck had an excellent program on this yesterday. Too bad n didn't see it. Lott is known to have ties to the Democrat trial lawyer machine here in MS, and bailed when the heat started licking at his butt. He's scum; no one trusts him that has a clue. He's now a lobbyist.
Oldefarte| 12.28.10 @ 1:53PM
As one who was born [and grew up] in the same small southern town as Barbour, I can confirm the non-violence of both racial sides that existed. It makes my blood boil that the South is demonized over racial matters, while the brutal racism of the North is conveniently ignored by the MSM. The attacks upon Barbour by the MSM, etc over this is ludicrous but deliberate, since the intent is to distract the public from his outstanding accompolishments in both politics and business. His ability to get things done is being ignored purposely so as to highlight the [non] greatness of the current president. The media was successful in brainwashing and hiding this man's true personae from their viewing/reading public, and in getting him elected in 2008. Now they attack with their computer/printed arrows any/all potential challengers for racial, philosophical,etc reasons in order to get their preferred president re-elected. It's all puposeful and directed, folks, and you must read between the lines of this political assault by the MSM!!!!!
bobmontgomery| 12.28.10 @ 5:07PM
That's what I've been waiting for, Olde. Thank you. Newark, Detroit, L.A. , no need to go into all of it here, but a bunch of people on our side need to grow some, and quit letting the other side pick our candidates.
Randy Newman| 12.28.10 @ 8:33PM
"You see, down here we're too ignorant to realize that the Northerner set the black man free.
Yes, they're free to live in a cage in Harlem in New York City,
And they're free to live in a cage on the Southside of Chicago, and the Westside,
And they're free to live in a cage in East St. Louis,
And they're free to live in a cage in Hough in Cleveland,
And they're free to live in a cage in Filmore in San Francisco,
And they're free to live in a cage in Roxbury in Boston.
They're gatherin' them up from miles around, keeping the black man down.
We're rednecks! We're rednecks! We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground.
We're rednecks! We're rednecks! And we're keeping the black man down."
bobmontgomery| 12.29.10 @ 4:25PM
You keep this up and you'll give a bunch of Northern Belles the vapors.
serfer62| 12.28.10 @ 2:34PM
Lott was canned as majority leader because of his political stupidity...that and that hairdo.
Clint| 12.28.10 @ 3:19PM
Playing The Race Card is subject to the same diminishing returns as Crying Wolf.
1389AD | 12.29.10 @ 10:39PM
We have spent too many decades letting our enemies - and yes, the leftist/pro-jihadi/race-baiting contingent ARE our enemies - set the terms of political debate.
Basically, they're a bunch of criminals, and should be treated as such.
Leftist scam organization SPLC and its Cayman Island bank account
james wilson| 12.28.10 @ 5:00PM
People will kid themselves to suit their opinions, but the fact is the agent which changed the South was freon.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.29.10 @ 5:07AM
James,
(grin), that was a good one!
Heh, I grew up in Houston... no air conditioning at home until age 16 when I contracted mononucleosis. Dad installed a window unit to keep my bedroom cool to help me get well.
Marshal Kane| 12.28.10 @ 7:13PM
Lest we forget the perfect example of Mr. Lyndon B. Johnson, who did more for blacks (at least from a liberal standpoint) then any political figure in the 20th century. Of course, he happened to be a cynical (not to mention outright racist) politician who pursued civil rights and anti-poverty policies as part of an agenda to secure a solid black/minority voting block for Democrats.
Steve in Pittsburgh | 12.28.10 @ 8:27PM
But it took the SEC how long to hire a black football coach?
Clint| 12.29.10 @ 5:04AM
And the SEC still hasn't hired a Chinese football coach.
Where's The PC Police?
bobmontgomery| 12.29.10 @ 4:21PM
No, but didn't LSU have a special teams unit that called themselves the "Chinese Bandits"?
PattyMor| 12.29.10 @ 2:19PM
Yes, and notice that the RepubuRats are so quick to throw their pals under the bus, but the Demons really stick together. No matter that Clyburn lied about the racial slurs coming out of the tunnel and walking among the Tea Partiers. No penalty for Jesse Jerkson or and Un-Sharpton for lying or making racial slurs.
But the liberal "long knives" are out for any RepubuRat who might have a whiff of ambition to run for Prez. So Rats beware.
Quartermaster| 12.29.10 @ 7:02PM
The most vicious racists are Democrats, Blacks, and Hispanics. Shamefully, they are all given a pass by the lamestream media. But, then, they're racists as well.
Slavery still exists and the left, of both parties, are the slave owners by keeping the mechanisms of dependency in place.
handbags | 12.29.10 @ 10:43PM
thanks your share!