DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Stray Pooch on September 28, 2006, 05:06:20 PM
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Hi everyone! Nice new format. I can't spend as much time as I used to (by far) but I thought I'd drop in and toss up this tidbit.
OK, so for those who may not know me, I'm a Republican, but I am not a wingnut. I live here in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and we are dealing with Senator Allen's "macaca" comment and now the accusations about use of the "N" word back in his younger days. Now let me make this clear: I don't buy for a moment that these accusations are anything but an attempt to unseat a Republican in a red state. I was talking to our local Dem party worker and he told me that negative campaigning was perfectly OK. It's not his party's job to try to make our candidate look good. Spoken like a true Clintonite. Of course, Repubs are just as guilty of negative campagining and some around here may recall that as the reason I voted Dem last governor's race.
But having said all that, and in spite of the motivation behind the accusations, I'd bet my bippie (age alert!) that the Senator said it. Come on, is it really a surprise that a southern boy used non-PC terms to describe those of African descent in his youth? The Dems next door (West VA) have a full-fledged KKK boy in their Senate seat. And they get a whole lotta pork out of that particular barrel. If Allen is using the "N" word now - THAT's news. I say dump him and be done. But if he did idiotic things in his youth, who didn't? Our generation is the one that finally made racism (and not just discrimination) ugly and unacceptable. Our parents grew up racist and taught it to us. We are teaching our kids not to believe that nonsense. At some point, there has to be a transistional generation in any social change. Ours was that generation. That means we started out doing things like using the "N" word and making racial jokes when we were kids (Yeah, I did it.). But we ultimately rejected that idea and started thinking clearly about racial differences. It's something to be proud of, yet we are ashamed of it. If we were cancer survivors or had gone throught the great depression like our parents and grandparents we wouldn't be ashamed to talk about our troubles. But nobody wants to admit learning - and practicing - racism (even the subtle kinds) as a kid.
I started losing respect for Bill Clinton (as opposed to just disagreeing with him) when he made that idiotic comment about not inhaling. Of course he inhaled - and who cares. I personally never did pot, but most of my friends did. (I was just scared of Dad finding out - thanks, Dad!). He could have said he spent the seventies high and I wouldn't have had a problem with it. But he tried to fudge it by appealing to the "cool" crowd without losing the "straight" vote. Screw that! Tell the truth and be damned. Allen is doing the same thing here. I think if he just came out and 'fess up this nonsense would get behind him. He should say something like, "Look, I said and did some ignorant, terrible things back in my old college days. I know it was wrong now, and I'm truly sorry. But back then, it's the way everybody I knew talked and felt. We had to get over that and we have. I hope those I offended back then and now can find some peace in my coming, even belatedly, to an understanding of how wrong what I did was. But I do not intend to leave this race because someone has brought up old mistakes." The Dems would be disarmed, most people would forgive and move on, and we could get to some OTHER issues (such as who the candidates are sleeping with and whether they wear boxers of briefs).
Anyway, nice to see you all. I'll probably get to spend a bit more time here in a few weeks when I go off to a school for a week. Have a good one, Saloonies! :D
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Looks like Webb has some splainin to do also:
Webb Denies Ever Using Word as Epithet
Racial Slur Overshadowing All Else in Contest
By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006; B01
RICHMOND, Sept. 27 -- Democratic Senate candidate James Webb on Wednesday sought to explain remarks he had made a day earlier, in which he refused to say whether he had used the "N-word," but he insisted he has never used it as a racial epithet aimed at anyone.
"I don't think that there's anyone who grew up around the South that hasn't had the word pass through their lips at one time in their life," he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Tuesday. "If you read 'Fields of Fire,' that word and a lot of other words are in the book." "Fields of Fire" is a novel Webb wrote about the Vietnam War.
Spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd said Webb, an author and former Marine, "did not want to make any blanket statements that he has never, ever uttered the word. Jim has not used the word directed at another person. He's never used it himself as a racial slur."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092702062_pf.html
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I grew up in the south , with a Mama that taught me never to be so impolite.
No I don't use the N word , tho I am bemused at times at its power .
Hurry back SP and tell us how the school was .
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Yay Straypooch!
Have been missing you. Hugs.
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Good to see you back, Pooch.
You've got a point, or maybe a quarter-point, about what Allen did in his youth. Maybe EVERYONE used the N-word back then. But did everyone put a severed deer head in a black family's mailbox? And the "macaca" incident which started the whole thing was not exactly back somewhere in Allen's distant past, was it?
IMHO, a lot of Virginia voters will probably stay with Allen because they think like him and despise or resent blacks, but are too smart to say so in public. They want to be "politically correct," as does Allen himself, when he's not being careless about it, but in the anonymity of the polling booth, they will soothe the wounds of the man they think is being crucified, somewhat hypocritically, for a careless or unguarded moment.
If the white voters of Virginia really gave a shit about blacks or the fight against racism, George Allen by now would be dead in the water. His opponent would have opened a 40-point lead. The fact is, his worst sin, in the eyes of most white Virginians, is a breach of social convention - - a convention whose sole value is preventing them from looking like the racists that almost all of them are.
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But did everyone put a severed deer head in a black family's mailbox?
There's no evidence Allen did that.
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Mikey spews: If the white voters of Virginia really gave a shit about blacks or the fight against racism, George Allen by now would be dead in the water. His opponent would have opened a 40-point lead. The fact is, his worst sin, in the eyes of most white Virginians, is a breach of social convention - - a convention whose sole value is preventing them from looking like the racists that almost all of them are.
And yet Webb, his Democrat opponent is accused of doing the same thing. And Webb used to be a Reagan Republican, you know, one of those states rights types, and we all know that they are racist as the day is long.
So all things being equal, what does Webb bring to the table that Allen doesn't, other than wanting to cut and run from Iraq.
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I used the n-word once. I learned it from my grandmother. My dad politely came into my room and told me that he'd kick my ass if he ever heard me use it again (he was a drill instructor for the Army at the time). It didn't take me long to appreciate the reasons not to use it for more than just fear of having my ass kicked. It helps of course that I've always gone to schools that were very mixed ethnically, so it was never a foreign concept to me.
It amazes me to see so much racism today. There are still parents who scramble to get their kids into schools with no black children. There are towns and subdivisions that have groups of people who make a concerted effort to run out black or Hispanic families. I'm not talking about the distant past either, this is now.
As for Virginia, this really doesn't surprise me. I agree with Pooch. I'm tired of politicians that whimper away from questions, be they Democrats, Republicans, Independents, or what have you. I'm not surprised someone dug some similar dirt on the Democratic candidate either. The sad news is that there are parts of Virginia where this will probably win votes (*cough* Lee County *cough*).
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It amazes me to see so much racism today.
And yet, I see more racism in the northern states than in the south. All while the northerners complain about "southern racism."
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Two things should be noted, Ami, about your last post. "Racism" or "ethnocentrism" seems to be a peculiar form of an historical, political orientation to the world. In a sense, it's a (necessary?) scourge of the human condition until eradicated. This fits in perfectly with the conception of human nature enshrined in our constitution: vying good and evil with a stellar architecture needed to help channel people to the moral, salutary way of living. In this sense, racism exists in the North.
But just as truly, though unofficial structures may sprout up (and be deconstructed) based on these base instincts in the North, the South went ever farther in degree and official sanction of racism, making it the law, and all that implies. This phenomenon gives Southerner racism its particular virulence, historical insult and continuing threat.
While, in a sense, the North is "working things out in the social-political arena," the South is embodying a once-offficial viewpoint of the government, with all its inimical implications, a far more corrosive and dangerous phenomenon than in the North.
When will repair eradicate history in the South? Not yet, but there's hope.
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My examples, which I could go into more detail about if anyone really wanted to, are all based in the South. Of course, that is where I live so my experiences are here. I cannot truly comment on the Northern or Western United States as I don't have life experiences there beyond occasional visits to specific areas.
It would be foolish, of course, to believe that racism or general bigotry based on superficial reasons isn't possible anywhere. Yet, as Domer points out there was an official and institutional racist structure in the South that was never fully overthrown as it was in South Africa, but instead phased out.
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<<There's no evidence Allen did that.[put a severed deer head in a black family's mailbox]>>
There's plenty of evidence. One of the three men on the hunting trip has told the story, and the third hunter, who has since died, had also told the story (without the racial element) to a man who has now come forward.
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<<Mikey spews>>
Anyone who calls these racist bastards what they are is "spewing." Good, shows where YOU'RE coming from.
<<And yet Webb, his Democrat opponent is accused of doing the same thing. And Webb used to be a Reagan Republican, you know, one of those states rights types, and we all know that they are racist as the day is long.
<<So all things being equal, what does Webb bring to the table that Allen doesn't, other than wanting to cut and run from Iraq. >>
All things being equal, they're NOT equal. Webb never stuffed a severed deer head in a black man's mail-box, for one thing. Hasn't singled out any black men recently and called them "macaca." Hasn't been accused, far as I can recall, of displaying a noose (now that's really sick) in his LAW OFFICE, displayed the Confederate Flag in said office.
Look, nobody is saying Webb is the IDEAL. He might be a piece of shit just like Allen, only not as bad. Sometimes a choice has to be made between the bad and the less bad. Looks to me like the choice is crystal clear. Here, the Webb voters also get the benefit of "cut and run," which is to say, sanity, common sense, honesty and the ability to admit to a huge mistake as opposed to blindly following the road to disaster to serve the gods of Bush's ego, militarism and fascism.
Any other questions?
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So, it matters not what Allen's track record is? I honestly do notr know, but, for argument's sake, let's say he was the Second Coming as far as enlightened policies, etc. and well thought of. Would his alleged behavior some time ago disqualify him? Where does a politiicans record play into the picture, I wonder?
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<<So, it matters not what Allen's track record is? >>
Yeah, his track record is that he doesn't want to leave Iraq to Iraqis. Wants to see more coffins coming home flags. Wants to see more Americans have their faces burned off, for the sake of "Iraqi democracy." Horseshit like that.
<<I honestly do notr know, but, for argument's sake, let's say he was the Second Coming as far as enlightened policies, etc. and well thought of. >>
Well, let's face it, everybody's "well thought of" somewhere, even if it's only in KKK circles. Although I'm afraid that recent word of Senator Macacawitz's less-than-pureblooded-Anglo-Saxon ancestry has probably ruined his good name in many previously friendly Klaverns of the Sunny South.
<<Would his alleged behavior some time ago disqualify him? Where does a politiicans record play into the picture, I wonder>>
Uh, the "macaca" incident was not "some time ago," unfortunately. The earlier years, of multiple racial slurs and the truly bizarre deer's head incident serve merely to put the "macaca" incident in context and shed a little bit of light on the veracity of the good Senator's various explanations of it.
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The power of a Senator is mostly his 1/100th vote in the American Lawmakeing process.
The rest of his power would be in his ability to persuede and lead his fellow Congressmen and his constituants.
So it is the Congressional Record that will show how Allen has been useing his power.
If it is true that Virginia is loaded with Racists then why should someone who is not racist represent them?
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<<If it is true that Virginia is loaded with Racists then why should someone who is not racist represent them?>>
Not only SHOULD they be represented by racists, they WILL be. That's democracy.
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<<If it is true that Virginia is loaded with Racists then why should someone who is not racist represent them?>>
Not only SHOULD they be represented by racists, they WILL be. That's democracy.
Thank you that is exactly right.
In a Democracy the correct way to effect change is to lead and persuede the people , not to force them to do right till they get used to it.
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But just as truly, though unofficial structures may sprout up (and be deconstructed) based on these base instincts in the North, the South went ever farther in degree and official sanction of racism, making it the law, and all that implies. This phenomenon gives Southerner racism its particular virulence, historical insult and continuing threat.
Are you trying to imply that racism was not enshrined under law in the North? Because that would be an untrue statement.
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It would be foolish, of course, to believe that racism or general bigotry based on superficial reasons isn't possible anywhere. Yet, as Domer points out there was an official and institutional racist structure in the South that was never fully overthrown as it was in South Africa, but instead phased out.
As there was in the North and the West. I've lived all over the US, seen many parts of it. Found racism everywhere.
And I can tell you from recent experiences - the Southeast is less racist now than the Northeast or upper Midwest.
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<<As there was in the North and the West. I've lived all over the US, seen many parts of it. Found racism everywhere.>>
Huh? An OFFICIAL and INSTITUTIONAL racism in the North and West?
Poll taxes? Literacy tests? "separate but equal" public schools, public hospitals, railway waiting rooms, drinking fountains, swimming pools, MANDATED BY LAW?
You sure about that? Where?
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<<As there was in the North and the West. I've lived all over the US, seen many parts of it. Found racism everywhere.>>
Huh? An OFFICIAL and INSTITUTIONAL racism in the North and West?
Poll taxes? Literacy tests? "separate but equal" public schools, public hospitals, railway waiting rooms, drinking fountains, swimming pools, MANDATED BY LAW?
You sure about that? Where?
Yes all of these things have happened at one time or another in various places and times throughout the North ,West and South does it make a diffrence what year it happened?
The Abolition movement began in England and grew much faster in the north than the south , but there is no establishment of racism unique to the south.
Have you any opinion about the laws that regulated the Chineese in California ? The South was as free of such anti Chineese laws as Canada was free of anti negro laws.
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Poll taxes? Literacy tests? "separate but equal" public schools, public hospitals, railway waiting rooms, drinking fountains, swimming pools, MANDATED BY LAW?
You sure about that? Where?
Why don't you tell me where those are in the south nowadays, mandated by law.
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The opinion was advanced in this thread by JS and domer that the reason Southern racism was so virulent was due to the number of years it had been institutionally enforced as law of the land. JS specifically referred to the racist institutions as part of the law of the land. ("official and institutional")
Ami then made the preposterous statement "as it was [i.e. as racism was official and institutional] in the North and West." Which was sure news to me. So I asked, Where? When? - - hoping for some concrete examples. To which I received the following answers:
Ami: <<Why don't you tell me where those are in the south nowadays, mandated by law.>> In other words, implicitly admitting that what he had previously stated as fact might as well have been pure bullshit, since he was unable or unwilling to produce a single example of it. Asking in return a ridiculous question, "Where is racism NOW mandated in the South?" as if it had ever been in issue that racism was the current law of the land there.
plane: <<Yes all of these things have happened at one time or another in various places and times throughout the North ,West and South does it make a diffrence what year it happened?>>
Still no examples, NONE, and of course - - not that I could expect any examples of something that did not happen and legally could not happen - - but even if a single example could be provided, this is where the questions "where?" and "when?" make a huge difference, because the type of example that would likely be produced would be along the lines of "a municipal ordinance in Duluth Minnesota in 1923 prohibited blacks and whites from sitting in the same rows of movie theatres" - - or "two black men were lynched by a mob in Joliet Illinois in 1918" - - some totally obscure and statistically insignificant freak event that is meant to balance out 100 years of Southern Jim Crow laws, official disenfranchisement, lynching and state terrorism.
This is where I find debating with some of the conservatives in this group a totally surrealistic experience - - "facts" are created out of whole cloth: "the North and West were just as institutionally racist as the South;" "the Treaty of Versailles was never enforced by anyone;" "the women of Iraq have been liberated by the American invasion and can now attend schools and universities freely;"and real facts, which to every single person I know up here are as obvious as the nose on your neighbour's face - - that the Republican hold on the South is due to the Southern Strategy which is a naked appeal to the pervasive racism and bigotry of the region's inhabitants made only after the Democrats had ceased to cater to it - - are strenuously debated, as if fact can be totally erased by the spin.
It gets to the point where I have to ask, are they crazy for advancing this nonsense or am I crazy for debating it with them? So, enjoy the comfort of your delusions, gentlemen, but I am going to move on to other topics.
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<<Have you any opinion about the laws that regulated the Chineese in California ? The South was as free of such anti Chineese laws as Canada was free of anti negro laws.>>
For the record, plane, Canada had very similar laws against Chinese and our federal government recently apologized for them.
If you think that "proves" that Canada was as institutionally and legally racist as the South, then good luck and God bless to ya.
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B. 1910 Anti-Miscegenation Statutes
Prior to the Civil War, a number of states had statutes prohibiting "intermarriage ... [or] forms of illicit intercourse between the races." Notably, "during the years of Reconstruction in the South ... none of the statutes against miscegenation appear to have been repealed." Even outside the South, only a handful of states repealed their anti- miscegenation statutes in the wake of the Civil War. By 1910, 28 states still had such statutes in effect. Six of these states, all Southern, prohibited racial intermarriage through a constitutional provision.
Although the text of these statutes varied by state, all 28 statutes expressly prohibited intermarriage between whites and blacks. Seven states prohibited marriages between whites and Asians in some form. The universal application to African Americans suggests that these prohibitions primarily sought to prevent white-black intermarriage; legislators may have added Asian Americans by subsequent amendment in a number of cases, rather than including them at the time of original enactment.
Statutes prohibiting white-black intermarriage existed predominantly in the South, where blacks resided in the most significant numbers. Sixteen of the southern states in the belt between Delaware and Texas, with the single exception of the District of Columbia, prohibited black-white miscegenation by statute. This, however, also included states like West Virginia--with a 5.26 percent black population--as well as Oklahoma--with a 8.30 percent black population. Missouri, with its 4.78 percent black population, also imposed such a restriction.
Such statutes were by no means confined to the southern states, where African American numbers were the most significant. Indiana, for example, imposed intermarriage restrictions on its 2.23 percent black population. Nebraska, which contained fewer than 8,000 African Americans amongst its 1.2 million people, merely 0.64 percent maintained an anti-miscegenation provision in 1910. North Dakota, a state that was nearly 99 percent white, imposed a similar restriction. Eight western states with meager African American numbers also enacted prohibitions on intermarriage; the largest black population in the West was in Colorado, whose 11,453 African American residents constituted 1.43 percent of the state's population. The existence of anti-miscegenation statutes in states with such marginal African American populations undermines Stephenson's theory that this phenomenon correlates with multiple races living in "anything like equal numbers." In all, 91.8 percent of the African American population in 1910 resided in states where they were subject to intermarriage restrictions.
The seven states applying their prohibitions to people of Asian descent were Arizona, California, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah. The specific language in these statutes referring to Asian people varied from state to state. The statutes of Arizona, California, Mississippi, and Utah all referred to "Mongolians." Nevada and Oregon used the term "Chinese," and Montana specified both "Chinese" and "Japanese" persons. The reasons behind the inconsistent terminology are unclear, although the evidence suggests that the importance of these distinctions should not be exaggerated. First, the history of Asian American jurisprudence suggests a tendency by courts to read inclusive racial categories narrowly, while reading exclusive categories broadly. Secondly, a number of courts refer to dictionary classifications of race, such as "that of Blumenbach, who makes five ... [including] [t]he Mongolian, or yellow race, occupying Tartary, China, Japan, etc. ... and ... the Malay, or brown race, occupying the islands of the Indian Archipelago." Both of these factors suggest that any court interpreting its state's anti-miscegenation statute would be inclined to read the term "Mongolian" broadly.
Although Oregon and Nevada mentioned only "Chinese" in their intermarriage prohibitions, there is no case law from either state to illustrate how broadly the courts interpreted this term. The California case of Roldan v. Los Angeles County, however, offers a helpful analogy. In Roldan, a Filipino litigant successfully utilized Blumenbach's racial terminology to assert that California's prohibition applying to "Mongolians" did not include him, since he was a member of the "Malay" race. The California legislature, however, quickly responded by explicitly adding "member of the Malay race" to the state's anti-miscegenation statute. The holdings in cases like Rice and Hall, and the legislative response to Roldan, emphasize the multiplicity of efforts broadly to prohibit marriage between whites and any group of Asian Americans. Even, however, if such terminology were to be interpreted narrowly as covering only a smaller subset of Asian Americans, it would only further discredit Stephenson's theory that such statutes corresponded to "other race elements exist[ing] in considerable numbers."
Assuming that intermarriage prohibitions applied to the entire Asian American population within the states in which they existed, no state enforcing such a restriction contained an Asian American population even close to the "anything like equal numbers" standard posited by Stephenson. Although Mississippi contained a majority black population, its total Asian American population--to whom it also extended its intermarriage prohibition--amounted to only 259 people, or 0.01 percent of the statewide population. Even in the West, three of the states in which Asian Americans were prohibited from intermarrying with whites--Montana, Arizona, and Utah--contained fewer than one percent Asian Americans. Of the three remaining states, California had the largest Asian American population, over 77,000, but this figure amounted to only 3.26 percent of the total population of California. Thus, while over two-thirds of the national Asian American population were restricted by anti-miscegenation statutes in their home states, in no such state did Asian Americans amount to even 1/30th of the population. Such statistics strongly undermine the assertion that growing Asian American numbers, threatening to disrupt the continuing dominance of the white population, provided the primary motivation for these statutes.
C. 1950 Anti-Miscegenation Statutes
By 1950, whites had secured a majority of the population in each of the forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. The African American population had grown at a rate slightly below the national average, and the Asian American population had grown at a slightly above-average rate. In both cases, however, this growth was accompanied by increasing dissemination throughout the country. African Americans had moved west and now surpassed Asian Americans in every state except Idaho and Utah. Asian American numbers also grew significantly in eastern states with large metropolitan areas, like Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. With both groups moving away from their centers of density, the largest concentrations of population were getting smaller. African Americans constituted less than a quarter of the population in most of the southern states, and Asian Americans comprised less than one percent of the population in every state except California, where they now formed only 1.35 percent.
Despite this diffusion of both the black and Asian American populations all 28 existing anti-miscegenation statutes remained in effect, with two additional states adopting such statutes and eight states adding Asian Americans to their prohibitions for the first time. The states that adopted new anti-miscegenation statues after 1910 were Wyoming, in 1913, and South Dakota, around 1919. The Wyoming statute applied to "Negroes, Mulattoes, Mongolians, or Malays," forbidding the marriage of any of these races with "white persons." The new South Dakota statute forbade the marriage of "any person belonging to the African, [K]orean, Malayan, or Mongolian race with any person of the opposite sex belonging to the Caucasian or white race." Both statutes specifically included both African Americans and Asian Americans within their prohibitions, supporting the thesis that such prohibitions never independently targeted Asian Americans.
Examination of the population patterns of these two states during this time directly contradicts Stephenson's population-driven theory. In 1920, the first census year following the adoption of these two statutes, Wyoming's African American population had shrunk by about a thousand people from the previous census, down to only 0.71 percent of the state population. The Asian American population had similarly decreased by nearly 400, down to 0.74 percent of the total. In South Dakota, the numbers had essentially remained stagnant, amounting to combined Asian American and African American numbers of slightly over 1,000 people in a state of well over 600,000, just 0.15 percent of the population. With the addition of these two statutes, a total of thirty states prohibited intermarriage between whites and African Americans in 1950. With the dispersion of the black population, however, the total proportion of African Americans covered by such statutes had decreased--from nearly 92 percent in 1910 to 72.9 percent by 1950.
The six other states adding Asian Americans to their prohibitions for the first time between 1910 and 1950 were: Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, and Virginia. Four of these states--Idaho, Maryland, Missouri, and Nebraska--specifically added a reference to Asian Americans in some form in their anti-miscegenation statutes. Nebraska added the categories "Japanese or Chinese" in 1911. However, these two groups combined in the 1910 Census constituted only 702 people in a state of about 1.2 million, amounting to just 0.06 percent. Similarly, Missouri added the term "Mongolians" in 1919, and Idaho did the same in 1921. However, the 1920 Census shows that Missouri's Asian American population actually decreased slightly from the previous census, while the total state population had slightly grown. Asian Americans still totaled less than 0.02 percent. The same Census shows that Idaho's Asian American population had also slightly shrunk since 1910, while the overall state population had grown by almost a third. In 1920, Asian Americans in Idaho comprised less than 0.5 percent of the total population. Maryland, for the first time in 1935, added "member of the Malay race" to its prohibitions. Asian American numbers in Maryland, however, hovered around 500 between 1930 and 1940, constituting about 0.03 percent of the state's population. For reference, Filipinos--a group commonly associated by the courts with the term "Malay"--totaled only 272 in Maryland in 1940. Thus, in none of these states did Asian American numbers approach those of the white population in the period immediately preceding the inclusion of Asian Americans within anti-miscegenation statutes. Contrary to Stephenson's thesis, these numbers remained low and, in some cases, even decreased.
Georgia and Virginia did not include Asian Americans specifically within their anti-miscegenation statutes, but instead declared it illegal for a white person to marry anyone "save" a white person--Georgia in 1927 and Virginia in 1924. In the same session, however, the Georgia legislature defined "white person" as "only persons of the white or Caucasian race, who have no ascertainable trace of either Negro, African, West Indian, Asiatic Indian, Mongolian, Japanese, or Chinese blood in their veins." Therefore, the specific contemplation of Asian Americans in the adoption of the statute is unquestionable. Likewise, the Virginia legislature in the same session adopted legislation authorizing the State Registrar of VitalStatistics to certify the "racial composition of any individual, as Caucasian, Negro, Mongolian, American Indian, Asiatic Indian, Malay, or any mixture thereof, or any other non-Caucasic strains," thereby establishing the specific intent of the legislature that Asian Americans be included with all other "non- Caucasic" groups for legal purposes. Again, the Census numbers depict an unusual background for these legislative actions. Virginia contained only about 335 Asian Americans throughout the 1920s, constituting only 0.01 percent of the state's nearly 2.5 million people. Georgia's Asian American population remained at around 250, not even reaching 0.01 percent of the state's population.
In all, the proliferation of anti-miscegenation statutes targeting Asian Americans kept pace with the diffusion of this group throughout the country so that, by 1950, the 15 effective statutes covered 64 percent of the Asian American population nationwide--as compared with 7 statutes reaching 67.3 percent in 1910. However, as Asian Americans became decreasingly concentrated on the West Coast, they existed in smaller niches and communities in states across the country. While Asian American numbers may have substantially increased in areas of previous scarcity by the middle of the twentieth century, in no territory did they constitute even 1/74th of the residential population. Stephenson's model--contending that statutory "distinctions" arose when other races resembled "equal numbers" to whites--therefore fails adequately to explain the gradual proliferation over this period of intermarriage restrictions targeting Asian Americans.
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/aspi02.htm
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Antimiscegenation statutes applied throughout the south as well as in some other states. The poll taxes and literacy tests, the official segregation of public facilities, including schools, hospitals, swimming pools, beaches, water fountains, restaurants and taverns, railway and bus waiting rooms, seating etc. were unique to the south.
There is no comparison at all between the apartheid-type of legislative wall between the races in the Southern states and the occasional traces of official racism found in the north, such as the anti-miscegenation laws (thank you, I had totally overlooked them in my argument) or the Alien Exclusion Laws which I would assume was Federal legislation in the USA as in Canada, since they affected immigration which the Constitutions of both countries assigned to the Federal power.
Basically the South was as affected as the rest of the country by miscegenation legislation and Chinese exclusion and, in addition to the rest of the country, "enjoyed" the unique "benefits" of the whole complex of Jim Crow laws which made it such a delightful and picturesque place in which to live. As well as a lynching frequency which probably dwarfed that of the rest of the country.
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You stated that racist laws were institutionalized in the south and not elsewhere in the country. My posting proved you wrong.
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<<You stated that racist laws were institutionalized in the south and not elsewhere in the country. My posting proved you wrong.>>
Another example of conservative nit-picking. Wrong on that one small point, but on the much larger issue - - the entrenched racism of the south versus the much lesser racism of the north - - you actually buttressed my point. If the South's racism was entrenched by all the Jim Crow laws plus miscegenation laws and the rest of the country's racism "entrenched" only by the anti-miscegenation laws, then of course the racism runs much deeper and more virulently in the South.
This is a perfect example of the lack of perspective (some would say, lack of common sense) of the conservative POV. Of course, anti-miscegenation is racist, as is the poll tax, the literacy test and the KKK. But the conservative mind is incapable of appreciating differences of degree, even vast differences. So, to use their reasoning: anti-miscegenation laws are racist; Jim Crow laws are racist; so a part of the country that is subject to anti-miscegenation laws is just as racist as another part that is subject to both anti-miscegenation laws AND Jim Crow AND lynch law.
I mean, come on, with all due respect, that is just nuts.
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Ami: <<Why don't you tell me where those are in the south nowadays, mandated by law.>> In other words, implicitly admitting that what he had previously stated as fact might as well have been pure bullshit, since he was unable or unwilling to produce a single example of it. Asking in return a ridiculous question, "Where is racism NOW mandated in the South?" as if it had ever been in issue that racism was the current law of the land there.
Well, you did leave out the part where I said "And I can tell you from recent experiences - the Southeast is less racist now than the Northeast or upper Midwest."
Regardless, slavery as an institution was started in the northern parts of the US (Massachusetts, to be specific). Northern states were also the last states to free the slaves (some of them were allowed to keep their slaves if they fought on the side of the Union). Segregation was found in the North as well; Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march in Chicago against segregated housing, for example.
I'm surprised you're not familiar with the basics of the debate. Do you really not know that racism was institutionalized under law in the North as well as the South?
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You sure about that? Where?
You never heard of the riots in Boston after the forced busing to end segregation of schools? The Watt's Riot in L.A. (enshrined by a Buffalo Springfield tune)?
The South was nasty and brutal with their racism. They were also more brazen about it. Yet, I don't see how that makes it any better than the brand practiced in the North and West. Also note that we haven't even discussed the Indian laws and wars. We could delve into how the First Nations were brutalized by your nation (and ours) Mike. The point being that there are a lot of dirty hands involved in racism. To point out the Southern U.S. alone is a bit unfair.
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The formal and institutionalized racism of the South persisted from almost the end of the Civil War to the mid-1960s. Legally entrenched racism and segregation for over 100 years. This is so obvious that it should be beyond debate.
What part of "legally entrenched" do my interlocutors not understand? Were the Boston riots or the segregated schools they protected legally entrenched forms? I donk't think so. Were the Watts riots of L.A. protesting a legally entrenched Jim Crow society? That's absurd to suggest.
The Indians were fucked over universally - - Canada, USA, Latin America, East, West, North and South. I suggest we leave them out of the equation altogether because they are a common substratum that links all of the Western Hemisphere allowing no differentiation between any of its regions. If the measure of racism and iniquity were to be set on the basis of the treatment of the Indians, no place is different from any other place. But as you can see from the South's treatment of its former slaves, some racist bastards are very much worse than other racist bastards. That's life. Nobody's perfect. I'm sure if the Indians had won the continent back from the whites, the whites would have plenty to complain about.
Ami points out some historical anomalies - - compromises allowing some Union states to keep their slaves, etc. But the fact is that there was no formal institutionalized Jim Crow racist system of franchise denial and terrorization by law enforcement and official government comparable to the South in any other part of America. Similarly, his observations about the strength of racist feelings in various parts of the country are purely anecdotal and run counter to experience and common sense. If in fact the other sectors of America are as virulently racist as the South used to be, why don't they support a repeal of the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act to bring back the kind of society the South used to have in the past?
It was never my contention that the rest of the country was free of racism. Just that the South was more racist because of legally entrenched long-term state-wide and region-wide official formal racism. And nobody has rebutted that proposition. Hell, for the most part, nobody even addressed it.
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The Indians were fucked over universally - - Canada, USA, Latin America, East, West, North and South. I suggest we leave them out of the equation altogether because they are a common substratum that links all of the Western Hemisphere allowing no differentiation between any of its regions.
But you would agree that it was racism, including the horrible schools they were purposefully sent to?
I'd suggest that the Native Americans are used to being left out of the conversation.
Why is informal racism better than formal racism? I'm not here to defend the South and I've lived here for quite some time and know it well. And yes, racism still exists here. There are still communities where families are "run off" for being non-white. I won't defend that for anything. I'm just curious as to why non-statutory racism is somehow better.
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What part of "legally entrenched" do my interlocutors not understand? Were the Boston riots or the segregated schools they protected legally entrenched forms? I donk't think so.
What is missing for a segregated, government-run public school system to become "protected legally entrenched forms"?
I'm pretty sure they were setup using the justification of Plessy v. Ferguson, a Supreme Court decision. Is a legal decision OKing segregated schools not enough to make it "legally entrenched"?
Ditto for Chicago's segregated public housing which I also mentioned earlier.
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<<Why is informal racism better than formal racism?>>
With informal racism you can appeal for justice or police protection and you get it. Maybe not all the time but most of the time and you have a right to expect it. If there is formal racism, you are disenfranchised, the police are chosen without your input, the courts will enforce the laws that declare you unequal, if you resist the system you will legally be hosed down, savaged by police dogs, beaten by police truncheons, sometimes to death, fined and jailed. All without recourse, because that's the law. Your kids will almost never get a decent public school education and if they do it is rare and almost fortuitous. You will never work at a decent job. You will never be free of debt to the white man for his merchandise, or his share of the crop. This was the condition of black Americans in the South for 100 years after the end of the Civil War, yet - - incredibly - - the God-damned country had the fucking nerve to present itself to the world as a model of democracy and enlightenment. Un - fucking - believable. WHO did they think they were fooling?
The segregated housing of Boston or Chicago was in all probability ILLEGALLY segregated, I don't have the details but there isn't a thing in the Illinois or Massachusetts state constitutions that I'm aware of that would have sanctioned segregated-by-law facilities of any kind in either state. The riots in Boston, and I believe in Cicero Illinois, were by WHITE racists protesting the laws that gave blacks the equality that allowed them to move into their suburbs. The laws actually protected minorities against the discrimination ILLEGALLY visited upon them byu white racists and bigots.
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The segregated housing of Boston or Chicago was in all probability ILLEGALLY segregated, I don't have the details but there isn't a thing in the Illinois or Massachusetts state constitutions that I'm aware of that would have sanctioned segregated-by-law facilities of any kind in either state.
As I mentioned earlier, the Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson sanctioned "segregated-by-law" facilities. The Supreme Court speaks at a national level, not at the state level.
The riots in Boston, and I believe in Cicero Illinois, were by WHITE racists protesting the laws that gave blacks the equality that allowed them to move into their suburbs.
The group protesting in Cicero was led by Martin Luther King, Jr. You're not suggesting that King led a group of racist whites in protest, are you?
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Plane made an interesting and intriguing point about racsists representing racsists. Why mgiht this be any dfferent than whites representing whites in Congress or blacks representing blacks or cajuns representing cajuns or homeschoolers representing a town of homeschooling families or?? Is the principle similarl????
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Plane made an interesting and intriguing point about racsists representing racsists. Why mgiht this be any dfferent than whites representing whites in Congress or blacks representing blacks or cajuns representing cajuns or homeschoolers representing a town of homeschooling families or?? Is the principle similarl????
Racism is a good thing to have less of in general , in specific cases it is hard to find exceptions in which more racism improves anything .
It is not better or worse than division of peoples by other factors like class or religion , is is just one of those devils tools that almost anyone can find doing dirty work here and there almost all the time almost everywhere.
It is a conceit of the north that they are virtuous and free of this devil , well lucky them if so , I kind of doubt it.
In a democracy the people can have what they want if they want it long enough , what the people are persueded is good for them the government is sure to try.
It is possible to invade , occupy , controll a territory and force them to do right till they get used to it , but the much superior method is to teach the truth and change what the people want .
MT points out that a very rough Racism survived the abolition of slavery by at least a century , but was that racism then killed back somewhat by government or has there really been a change of heart in the course of generations? Forceable occupation and Fiat replaced slavery with chain gangs, the Boll wevel and two world wars changed our economy , scandal and embarrassment changed the chain gangs and the nonviolent SCLC was very persuasive to a generation and to leadership that was getting ready for change.
I wonder if the entire change could have been accomplished non-violently , I don't know .