Have you ever used the phrase "cakewalk"? You probably have, in the context of seeing something very, very easy.
You awful, awful racist, you.
The original cake walk was conducted on plantations in the South, and surely you can already see where this is going. Its original intent- or at least, its stated intent- was to give slaves a temporary chance to get back at their masters. Were they to actually get back at their masters, they likely would have done so through grievous bodily harm, which would be kind of bad for the master, so that wasn't done. Instead, they could just mock him for a little while, parodying overly genteel aristocratic mannerisms. This is something they were already doing in private, only now it was done in front of the master. (That's a $12 article, by the way.)
At the conclusion of this mocking, the slaves would pair up to form couples, and do a high-stepping walk, a promenade. The master would then judge all the walks, and award a cake to the best one. Thus the term.
The issue, of course, is that it's no longer really mocking the master if the master's throwing the party, awarding the prize for the best mocking, and has the last laugh by sending everyone back to work as his slaves afterwards. But that was never brought up much.
In fact, the whites eventually took the cakewalk for their own purposes, using it in minstrel shows by whites in blackface. Some tellings go that the whites didn't know they were being mocked, and maybe some never did, but now it was a moot point. Now the blacks were the ones being mocked, and it wasn't exactly subtle. No longer sending up their masters, now they were portrayed as really, honestly trying to be like their masters. And, of course, the other whites in the audience ate it up. Ha ha, look at those black people that aren't really black people but we'll pretend they are because then that makes it okay!
Eventually, though, the black community managed to take the cakewalk back, using it as something of a forerunner to other dance styles, such as the Charleston and the Lindy Hop. If those whites like the cakewalk, maybe they'll like some other dances of ours.
Over time, the meaning of the word 'cakewalk' shed all connotations except the recreational nature of the original event, and from there changed into a term meaning something easy (even though the dance itself isn't).
The cakewalk still survives to this day, though partially due to its history and partially due to its age, its usage has shrunk drastically. It survives in a very unlikely home: the Highland Dance community, where the high-stepping fits in with the generally athletic, ballet-like nature of the other dances used.
No word on if they bake any cakes for the occasion.
Showing posts with label race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Capped
The Chicago Cubs are not having a good season. Their record, as of today, is third-worst in baseball; the injury bug has not been kind; bad multiyear contracts abound; the players in the bad contracts aren't good trade bait; they're owed too much money to release; you can't very well send them to the minors and bring up someone else, so all you can do is watch bad players lose again and again. Manager Mike Quade and general manager Jim Hendry are both on the hot seat. I have contemplated wearing a paper bag over my head.
But I'm a Cubs fan. It could be worse.
MLB Network likes to do what they call a Prime 9 list- a top-ten list, but with nine items. "Why nine? That's baseball. Nine players, nine innings, Prime 9." With apologies to them, here's my Prime 9- or Subprime 9, more to the point- of the darkest hours in Chicago Cubs history...
9. Sammy Sosa's role in the steroid era
8. The June Swoon, 1977-79
7. The College of Coaches
6. Ball goes through Leon Durham's legs in 1984 NLCS
5. The black cat at Shea Stadium heralding the collapse of 1969
4. Trading Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio
3. Curse of the Billy Goat placed
2. Steve Bartman's foul ball in 2003 NLCS
1. Cap Anson
Cap Anson was one of baseball's first all-time greats. He was the first man to reach 3,000 hits (though the exact number has long been in dispute), played a still-record 27 consecutive seasons (and was the only player to do so at all until Nolan Ryan), and pioneered such things as the third-base coach, spring training, the hit-and-run, and the pitching rotation. His name is still, to this day, featured prominently in the Cubs' record book.
Because of his skill, he was also a very influential racist.
In the 1880's, Reconstruction was on the ropes, as ex-Confederates in the south took any means they deemed necessary to restore their pre-Civil War way of life. And, of course, the pre-Civil War way of life entailed treating blacks as subhuman, and treating people who gave blacks basic humanity as an enemy to be dealt with harshly. The period was rapidly approaching, 1890-1940, that historian Rayford Logan described first as "the nadir of American race relations", a period that might make one wonder if the Civil War had actually settled anything at all.
It is in this environment that the first black player in major league history took the field. It wasn't Jackie Robinson; he would not break through until 1947, after the nadir had passed. In order for Robinson to break through the color barrier, someone had to have put it up.
And so we return to the 1880's. In 1883, Moses Fleetwood Walker signed as a catcher with the Toledo Blue Stockings. It should be noted that catchers did not have any of the equipment back then that they do today. There was no catcher's mask, no pads, not even a glove. Nobody had a glove. You were catching everything the pitcher threw barehanded. Catchers as a result proved a perpetually-endangered species by default. (Here is an 1889 photo of the hands of catcher Doug Allison. Either that year or the year after, Allison would become the first known catcher to don a glove.) Despite several prior years of strong play, Walker was subjected several times to opponents who refused to play if he was permitted on the field. Sometimes he was allowed to play. Sometimes he wasn't.
On August 10, 1883, the then-Chicago White Stockings, led by Anson, arrived in Toledo for an exhibition game. Anson, like the others before him, refused to play with Walker on the field.
Or, as Anson put it that day, "Get that n****r off the field!"
Anson relented only when told that the White Stockings would forfeit unless Walker was allowed to play-- "We'll play this game here, but we won't play never no more with the n****r in." The irony here is that Walker was scheduled to take an off day anyway, but after Anson spoke up, Walker was inserted. Not to make a statement, but rather to see if Anson would forfeit, and therefore, give up his share of the gate receipts.
Walker, who was suffering injury, played in right field. Chicago won 7-6; (PDF) Walker was the only Toledo player without a hit. He did, however, reach base on an error, scored a run, and was serviceable in right due to having a much better glove (so to speak) than bat.
The following year, Toledo had joined the professional ranks of the American Association, and would see the White Stockings again on July 25, but this time, Anson had procured an agreement in writing that Walker would not play. (Chicago won that game 10-8. Anson had a home run in the 4th.)
Walker was not in much of a position to perform in any case. His batterymate, pitcher Tony Mullane, also harbored racist tendencies. According to Mullane, "[Walker] was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used anything I wanted without looking at his signals." As a result, Walker- the unpadded, ungloved catcher- was bombarded all season long with pitches he was not ready for, suffering a series of injuries, and ultimately being limited to 42 games. He batted .263 with 23 runs, two doubles and three triples. RBI's were not recorded. Despite the game limitation, Mullane's deliberate failures in communication caused Walker to lead the league in passed balls.
Walker would not get another chance for Toledo. While he could, with great difficulty, handle the prejudice of other players, Anson's influence was simply too strong. Even for the era, Anson's racism was, for lack of a better word, pioneering. People followed his example. There is dispute as to whether Walker's release at the end of the season was due to his injuries or due to the color barrier being put into place by the American Association.
Walker had not seen the last of Anson, though. He continued his career in the minor leagues, and in 1887, he turned up with the International League's Newark Little Giants, and drew a much friendlier arm: George Stovey, a fellow black player. They formed the first black battery in baseball history.
Stovey had had his own run-in with Anson during the offseason. The New York Giants made an attempt to sign Stovey for 1887. However, after Anson, who shared a league with the Giants, protested vehemently, the Giants relented. Newark claimed Stovey instead.
A few months of harsh treatment from fans later, the White Stockings arrived on July 11. Walker was off that day, but Stovey was set to pitch. Once again, upon seeing a black in uniform, Anson screamed "Get that n****r off the field!" But unlike in 1883, this time he would not back down for anything. Stovey, not wishing to embarrass Newark's management, faked an injury and was forced to the bench.
Cap Anson is not the only racist element in the formation of baseball's color barrier. That has already been shown, and ultimately, the owners could have signed whoever they wanted whether Anson liked it or not. But he was the opinion-driving straw that broke the camel's back. On the same day as Anson's forcing Stovey from the diamond, the International League voted 6-4 to institute what was in the day called the "gentleman's agreement" to not sign any new black players from their rosters. Over the next decade, all other professional leagues would do likewise. Despite winning 33 games, Stovey was released from Newark at the end of the season. (So was everyone else; Newark went bust in 1888.)
Anson was still not done with Walker. In 1888 and 1889, Walker, not a new black player, had found himself with the International League's Syracuse Stars. Anson's White Stockings turned up again in September 1888, and again Walker was forced to the bench.
Walker, for his part, was a shattered man after being so forcibly separated from baseball. He had been born on the Underground Railroad, and now he had been driven back from whence he came. He would try to find other pursuits- he obtained US Patent 458026 (PDF) in 1891 for an exploding artillery shell, applied for other patents on motion-picture equipment, even published a weekly newspaper- but ultimately, he could not escape the nadir of race relations. In April 1891, Walker was confronted and attacked by a group of whites in Syracuse. In self-defense, Walker pulled a knife and stabbed one of his assailants, Patrick Murray. The knife wound, entering Murray's groin, proved fatal. Now the whites wanted to kill Walker. He escaped, but was later arrested and charged with second-degree murder. In the nadir of race relations, especially in the South, a black could expect to be convicted, but in Syracuse, Walker was acquitted. Amazingly, the jury that acquitted him was all-white.
Walker, however, over the years would turn to the bottle, and as race relations deteriorated further, he abandoned all hope of integration. In 1908, Walker, fully embittered by a nation that had repeatedly wronged him, published a pamphlet (47 pages was considered a pamphlet back then) titled Our Home Colony: A Treatise on the Past, Present, and Future of the Negro Race in America. In the pamphlet, Walker advocated that blacks return to Africa, feeling that "separation of the races is the only true solution."
Meanwhile, in 1907, Anson created a semipro team called Anson's Colts. One theory goes that Anson, being the best player in his day, was concerned about black talent potentially overshadowing him, and that part of his campaign against integration was a desire to shrink the talent pool so that he might maintain his status at the top. This may explain why, after his prime had passed and he was relegated to the semipro ranks, Anson was willing to take the field against black players. In fact, in 1908, the same year Walker released Our Home Colony, Anson's Colts played against an all-black team, Leland's Giants. Anson would even consent to a photo with black manager Rube Foster.
But it no longer mattered what Anson thought of black baseball players. The damage he had contributed to, caused and inspired had been done. Foster had no alternative but to found the Negro Leagues, and all other black players had no alternative but to bide their time until 1947.
Were Walker to gaze upon Wrigley Field today, the home of the Cubs, he would see something that would please him, and something that would not. The names of six players fly from the foul poles at Wrigley, their names honored and their numbers retired. Two commentators, Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray, are also honored, albeit not with flags. The bad news for Walker is that Jackie Robinson, the man whose number 42 was retired across Major League Baseball in 1997, is not among those names.
The good news for Walker is that Anson, a future Hall of Famer, is not honored at Wrigley either.
But I'm a Cubs fan. It could be worse.
MLB Network likes to do what they call a Prime 9 list- a top-ten list, but with nine items. "Why nine? That's baseball. Nine players, nine innings, Prime 9." With apologies to them, here's my Prime 9- or Subprime 9, more to the point- of the darkest hours in Chicago Cubs history...
9. Sammy Sosa's role in the steroid era
8. The June Swoon, 1977-79
7. The College of Coaches
6. Ball goes through Leon Durham's legs in 1984 NLCS
5. The black cat at Shea Stadium heralding the collapse of 1969
4. Trading Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio
3. Curse of the Billy Goat placed
2. Steve Bartman's foul ball in 2003 NLCS
1. Cap Anson
Cap Anson was one of baseball's first all-time greats. He was the first man to reach 3,000 hits (though the exact number has long been in dispute), played a still-record 27 consecutive seasons (and was the only player to do so at all until Nolan Ryan), and pioneered such things as the third-base coach, spring training, the hit-and-run, and the pitching rotation. His name is still, to this day, featured prominently in the Cubs' record book.
Because of his skill, he was also a very influential racist.
In the 1880's, Reconstruction was on the ropes, as ex-Confederates in the south took any means they deemed necessary to restore their pre-Civil War way of life. And, of course, the pre-Civil War way of life entailed treating blacks as subhuman, and treating people who gave blacks basic humanity as an enemy to be dealt with harshly. The period was rapidly approaching, 1890-1940, that historian Rayford Logan described first as "the nadir of American race relations", a period that might make one wonder if the Civil War had actually settled anything at all.
It is in this environment that the first black player in major league history took the field. It wasn't Jackie Robinson; he would not break through until 1947, after the nadir had passed. In order for Robinson to break through the color barrier, someone had to have put it up.
And so we return to the 1880's. In 1883, Moses Fleetwood Walker signed as a catcher with the Toledo Blue Stockings. It should be noted that catchers did not have any of the equipment back then that they do today. There was no catcher's mask, no pads, not even a glove. Nobody had a glove. You were catching everything the pitcher threw barehanded. Catchers as a result proved a perpetually-endangered species by default. (Here is an 1889 photo of the hands of catcher Doug Allison. Either that year or the year after, Allison would become the first known catcher to don a glove.) Despite several prior years of strong play, Walker was subjected several times to opponents who refused to play if he was permitted on the field. Sometimes he was allowed to play. Sometimes he wasn't.
On August 10, 1883, the then-Chicago White Stockings, led by Anson, arrived in Toledo for an exhibition game. Anson, like the others before him, refused to play with Walker on the field.
Or, as Anson put it that day, "Get that n****r off the field!"
Anson relented only when told that the White Stockings would forfeit unless Walker was allowed to play-- "We'll play this game here, but we won't play never no more with the n****r in." The irony here is that Walker was scheduled to take an off day anyway, but after Anson spoke up, Walker was inserted. Not to make a statement, but rather to see if Anson would forfeit, and therefore, give up his share of the gate receipts.
Walker, who was suffering injury, played in right field. Chicago won 7-6; (PDF) Walker was the only Toledo player without a hit. He did, however, reach base on an error, scored a run, and was serviceable in right due to having a much better glove (so to speak) than bat.
The following year, Toledo had joined the professional ranks of the American Association, and would see the White Stockings again on July 25, but this time, Anson had procured an agreement in writing that Walker would not play. (Chicago won that game 10-8. Anson had a home run in the 4th.)
Walker was not in much of a position to perform in any case. His batterymate, pitcher Tony Mullane, also harbored racist tendencies. According to Mullane, "[Walker] was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used anything I wanted without looking at his signals." As a result, Walker- the unpadded, ungloved catcher- was bombarded all season long with pitches he was not ready for, suffering a series of injuries, and ultimately being limited to 42 games. He batted .263 with 23 runs, two doubles and three triples. RBI's were not recorded. Despite the game limitation, Mullane's deliberate failures in communication caused Walker to lead the league in passed balls.
Walker would not get another chance for Toledo. While he could, with great difficulty, handle the prejudice of other players, Anson's influence was simply too strong. Even for the era, Anson's racism was, for lack of a better word, pioneering. People followed his example. There is dispute as to whether Walker's release at the end of the season was due to his injuries or due to the color barrier being put into place by the American Association.
Walker had not seen the last of Anson, though. He continued his career in the minor leagues, and in 1887, he turned up with the International League's Newark Little Giants, and drew a much friendlier arm: George Stovey, a fellow black player. They formed the first black battery in baseball history.
Stovey had had his own run-in with Anson during the offseason. The New York Giants made an attempt to sign Stovey for 1887. However, after Anson, who shared a league with the Giants, protested vehemently, the Giants relented. Newark claimed Stovey instead.
A few months of harsh treatment from fans later, the White Stockings arrived on July 11. Walker was off that day, but Stovey was set to pitch. Once again, upon seeing a black in uniform, Anson screamed "Get that n****r off the field!" But unlike in 1883, this time he would not back down for anything. Stovey, not wishing to embarrass Newark's management, faked an injury and was forced to the bench.
Cap Anson is not the only racist element in the formation of baseball's color barrier. That has already been shown, and ultimately, the owners could have signed whoever they wanted whether Anson liked it or not. But he was the opinion-driving straw that broke the camel's back. On the same day as Anson's forcing Stovey from the diamond, the International League voted 6-4 to institute what was in the day called the "gentleman's agreement" to not sign any new black players from their rosters. Over the next decade, all other professional leagues would do likewise. Despite winning 33 games, Stovey was released from Newark at the end of the season. (So was everyone else; Newark went bust in 1888.)
Anson was still not done with Walker. In 1888 and 1889, Walker, not a new black player, had found himself with the International League's Syracuse Stars. Anson's White Stockings turned up again in September 1888, and again Walker was forced to the bench.
Walker, for his part, was a shattered man after being so forcibly separated from baseball. He had been born on the Underground Railroad, and now he had been driven back from whence he came. He would try to find other pursuits- he obtained US Patent 458026 (PDF) in 1891 for an exploding artillery shell, applied for other patents on motion-picture equipment, even published a weekly newspaper- but ultimately, he could not escape the nadir of race relations. In April 1891, Walker was confronted and attacked by a group of whites in Syracuse. In self-defense, Walker pulled a knife and stabbed one of his assailants, Patrick Murray. The knife wound, entering Murray's groin, proved fatal. Now the whites wanted to kill Walker. He escaped, but was later arrested and charged with second-degree murder. In the nadir of race relations, especially in the South, a black could expect to be convicted, but in Syracuse, Walker was acquitted. Amazingly, the jury that acquitted him was all-white.
Walker, however, over the years would turn to the bottle, and as race relations deteriorated further, he abandoned all hope of integration. In 1908, Walker, fully embittered by a nation that had repeatedly wronged him, published a pamphlet (47 pages was considered a pamphlet back then) titled Our Home Colony: A Treatise on the Past, Present, and Future of the Negro Race in America. In the pamphlet, Walker advocated that blacks return to Africa, feeling that "separation of the races is the only true solution."
Meanwhile, in 1907, Anson created a semipro team called Anson's Colts. One theory goes that Anson, being the best player in his day, was concerned about black talent potentially overshadowing him, and that part of his campaign against integration was a desire to shrink the talent pool so that he might maintain his status at the top. This may explain why, after his prime had passed and he was relegated to the semipro ranks, Anson was willing to take the field against black players. In fact, in 1908, the same year Walker released Our Home Colony, Anson's Colts played against an all-black team, Leland's Giants. Anson would even consent to a photo with black manager Rube Foster.
But it no longer mattered what Anson thought of black baseball players. The damage he had contributed to, caused and inspired had been done. Foster had no alternative but to found the Negro Leagues, and all other black players had no alternative but to bide their time until 1947.
Were Walker to gaze upon Wrigley Field today, the home of the Cubs, he would see something that would please him, and something that would not. The names of six players fly from the foul poles at Wrigley, their names honored and their numbers retired. Two commentators, Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray, are also honored, albeit not with flags. The bad news for Walker is that Jackie Robinson, the man whose number 42 was retired across Major League Baseball in 1997, is not among those names.
The good news for Walker is that Anson, a future Hall of Famer, is not honored at Wrigley either.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Birthinators
In the wake of Jon Stewart's admonishment of the media concerning whether it's time to let the Obama-birth-certificate matter drop (his point being, they pick what the news is, so why not just stop talking about it instead of talking about whether to stop talking about it), I labored for a while on whether to go ahead with a rant of my own.
My determination: I'll make one comment on the matter, and then that is it.
In the wake of Obama releasing his long-form, and the birthers immediately asking next for his school records, a lot of the media has been talking about whether the whole matter isn't just a bunch of closet racism. After all, no white candidate has had to jump through so many hoops to prove themselves to people as eligible. One could probably expect the birthers to complain about having the race card played against them, if some haven't made such a complaint already. They would surely say, if a suspected foreign-born candidate came out of their party, or was white, they'd be just as hard on them.
If you hear this point put forward, I'd like you to respond that the opposite has already happened.
We only have to travel back to 2004- the most recent pre-2008 election. Ultimately, of course, the Republicans kept George W. Bush. However, in the early stages of the primary season, Arnold Schwarzenegger's name was placed into consideration for 2008. Schwarzenegger is widely known to have been born in Austria, a place equally as widely known for not being the United States.
Schwarzenegger was not merely suspected of being a foreign-born candidate. He was known to be foreign-born; the pride of Graz, Austria until the day he didn't pardon Tookie Williams. (But that's another story.)
Were there to be intellectual consistency on the part of those who would ultimately become birthers (we can reasonably assume that many if not most of them are currently over the age of 7 and thus were around for that campaign; in fact, many if not most of the same people from 2004 are still in the political arena today), you would think that Schwarzenegger's campaign would... really, it wouldn't have even become a topic of discussion at all, come to think of it.
This was the opposite of what happened. In fact, there were calls from some Republicans, including Orrin Hatch, to amend the Constitution to allow foreign-born candidates, so that Schwarzenegger might be able to run.
Contrast to now, in the wake of that 2008 election. About 30% of people on either side of the aisle supported a so-called 'Schwarzenegger amendment'. While Hatch, for once, admitted as early as 2009 that Obama was natural-born, there is no foreign-born amendment on tap, being discussed, being supported, or in anyone's fever dreams. Nobody is going 'well, if he is foreign-born, why don't we make an amendment to make it okay?' Nobody has polled it lately, but if 30% of Republicans currently support a Schwarzenegger amendment, I will eat my house.
So what changed between then and now? Given that the first debate centered around Schwarzenegger, one would have to think that what changed was the candidate involved, and little else. And there are two (2) blindingly obvious and mutually-inclusive differences between Schwarzenegger and Obama:
1. Schwarzenegger is a Republican, and Obama is a Democrat.
2. Schwarzenegger is white, and Obama is black.
There are, of course, substantial differences in policy, but those always have a measure of doubt and cloudiness from the general population. There is also the fact that Obama was actually born American, while Schwarzenegger was born Austrian, but unfortunately, some people are going to be unsure of that until the day they die. We've already covered that phenomenon here a year ago. Those two factors shown are the only differences that are indisputable to even the most delusional.
After this sentence, I for one stop giving them the time of day.
My determination: I'll make one comment on the matter, and then that is it.
In the wake of Obama releasing his long-form, and the birthers immediately asking next for his school records, a lot of the media has been talking about whether the whole matter isn't just a bunch of closet racism. After all, no white candidate has had to jump through so many hoops to prove themselves to people as eligible. One could probably expect the birthers to complain about having the race card played against them, if some haven't made such a complaint already. They would surely say, if a suspected foreign-born candidate came out of their party, or was white, they'd be just as hard on them.
If you hear this point put forward, I'd like you to respond that the opposite has already happened.
We only have to travel back to 2004- the most recent pre-2008 election. Ultimately, of course, the Republicans kept George W. Bush. However, in the early stages of the primary season, Arnold Schwarzenegger's name was placed into consideration for 2008. Schwarzenegger is widely known to have been born in Austria, a place equally as widely known for not being the United States.
Schwarzenegger was not merely suspected of being a foreign-born candidate. He was known to be foreign-born; the pride of Graz, Austria until the day he didn't pardon Tookie Williams. (But that's another story.)
Were there to be intellectual consistency on the part of those who would ultimately become birthers (we can reasonably assume that many if not most of them are currently over the age of 7 and thus were around for that campaign; in fact, many if not most of the same people from 2004 are still in the political arena today), you would think that Schwarzenegger's campaign would... really, it wouldn't have even become a topic of discussion at all, come to think of it.
This was the opposite of what happened. In fact, there were calls from some Republicans, including Orrin Hatch, to amend the Constitution to allow foreign-born candidates, so that Schwarzenegger might be able to run.
Contrast to now, in the wake of that 2008 election. About 30% of people on either side of the aisle supported a so-called 'Schwarzenegger amendment'. While Hatch, for once, admitted as early as 2009 that Obama was natural-born, there is no foreign-born amendment on tap, being discussed, being supported, or in anyone's fever dreams. Nobody is going 'well, if he is foreign-born, why don't we make an amendment to make it okay?' Nobody has polled it lately, but if 30% of Republicans currently support a Schwarzenegger amendment, I will eat my house.
So what changed between then and now? Given that the first debate centered around Schwarzenegger, one would have to think that what changed was the candidate involved, and little else. And there are two (2) blindingly obvious and mutually-inclusive differences between Schwarzenegger and Obama:
1. Schwarzenegger is a Republican, and Obama is a Democrat.
2. Schwarzenegger is white, and Obama is black.
There are, of course, substantial differences in policy, but those always have a measure of doubt and cloudiness from the general population. There is also the fact that Obama was actually born American, while Schwarzenegger was born Austrian, but unfortunately, some people are going to be unsure of that until the day they die. We've already covered that phenomenon here a year ago. Those two factors shown are the only differences that are indisputable to even the most delusional.
After this sentence, I for one stop giving them the time of day.
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Golden Age Of Travel (Sort Of)
The 1950's and 60's are considered by many to be the 'golden age' of travel. Planes came into vogue and had a reputation of 'Yay! I get to go in an airplane!' as opposed to 'Stupid freaking delays in an uncomfortable metal tube WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T TAKE MY SODA ON THE PLANE I'M A TAXPAYER I PAY YOUR SALARY'. The world was exotic and romantic and a little on the dangerous side but that was okay because it wasn't all touristy yet. It seemed like everyone wanted to go to Cairo, Hong Kong, Rio, Bora Bora and Hawai'i (always with the pronounced second I), and, on a second tier, Paris, Morocco and 'Meh-he-co'. All the travel pictures were washed out and grainy.
All of them. Even National Geographic's. My mom kept a bunch of old issues of National Geographic; they still sit up in our attic after a redecoration. One is from July 1959; it chronicles Alaska's entry into the United States, and the 49-star flag that would last only a short time before Hawaii joined as well. Another is from April 1967; it includes an ad (I love these old ads) for Expo '67 in Montreal; the namesake for the Montreal Expos that showed up two years later. All the photos are grainy, slide-showy, a few were so bad that I thought they were artist's interpretations until I found out that 'super anscochrome' did in fact mean a photograph.
As if to prove my point, the older issues are loaded with ads in the front and back of the magazine, many offering travel every which way. April 1967 runs ads for travel to not only Montreal, but also southern California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Missouri, Wisconsin, Mississippi's gulf coast, Pensacola, Washington DC, Nantucket, the Canadian Pacific, Manitoba, Newfoundland/Labrador, and cruises to the Mediterranean and South America, as well as two pages of classified ads for camps and schools. (One entire page and half of the other is for 'boy's schools', which include military academies; the other half-page is for camps, girls' schools, co-ed schools, home study, and a secretarial school.)
There is one important thing to note, however, about these two National Geographics from the Golden Age of Travel:
Every single person that is doing any traveling is white.
In fact, the only non-whites that show up anywhere in either issue, be it ads or articles, are the drawn-in South Pacific dancers in an ad from the 1959 issue. When they said 'golden age of travel', they meant a golden age for white people. Minorities, particularly blacks, were busy fighting for civil rights at the time. There were many, many places where blacks- or some or all other demographics- were simply not welcome. We're not talking individual diners or stores. Entire towns made a point of actively driving out non-whites and preventing them from living in town by any means necessary. These were referred to as 'sundown towns', because if you weren't white, you had best be out of town by sundown, or else. A number of them went so far as to prominently display a sign on the outskirts of town, most saying "N*****, don't let the sun set on you in (name of town)", or some paraphrasing of same. (Jews were a popular secondary target.) Some sundown towns are still of a sundown mentality even today.
Needless to say, most of the sundown towns don't like to talk about it anymore, as James Loewen found out when he wrote the 2005 book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. His website contains a database of possible sundown towns across the country.
But these people still wanted to travel too. How could they travel with minimal fear of harassment?
If they're black, they would turn to the Green Book.
Have you ever heard of the Green Book? If you're not black, and you said no: good. That was the point. You weren't supposed to know unless you were in it or might need it. Beginning in 1936, the Negro Motorist Green Book was published and distributed within the black community in order to inform black travelers places which were safe to travel to without fear of harassment. The quality of said places was a secondary concern; no ratings were given, though if travelers wrote in and found that a destination was simply awful, they could see to removing it.
As the intro to the 1949 edition stated (available here in PDF): "There will be a day sometime in the future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year."
That time came in 1964, when that year's Civil Rights Act was passed. The Green Book was promptly discarded, and almost completely forgotten until recently, when Calvin Alexander Ramsay discovered it. He is currently working on a documentary about the Green Book, in order to raise awareness of just what travel was like in those days.
And, perhaps, get people considering that the Golden Age of Travel might just be now.
All of them. Even National Geographic's. My mom kept a bunch of old issues of National Geographic; they still sit up in our attic after a redecoration. One is from July 1959; it chronicles Alaska's entry into the United States, and the 49-star flag that would last only a short time before Hawaii joined as well. Another is from April 1967; it includes an ad (I love these old ads) for Expo '67 in Montreal; the namesake for the Montreal Expos that showed up two years later. All the photos are grainy, slide-showy, a few were so bad that I thought they were artist's interpretations until I found out that 'super anscochrome' did in fact mean a photograph.
As if to prove my point, the older issues are loaded with ads in the front and back of the magazine, many offering travel every which way. April 1967 runs ads for travel to not only Montreal, but also southern California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Missouri, Wisconsin, Mississippi's gulf coast, Pensacola, Washington DC, Nantucket, the Canadian Pacific, Manitoba, Newfoundland/Labrador, and cruises to the Mediterranean and South America, as well as two pages of classified ads for camps and schools. (One entire page and half of the other is for 'boy's schools', which include military academies; the other half-page is for camps, girls' schools, co-ed schools, home study, and a secretarial school.)
There is one important thing to note, however, about these two National Geographics from the Golden Age of Travel:
Every single person that is doing any traveling is white.
In fact, the only non-whites that show up anywhere in either issue, be it ads or articles, are the drawn-in South Pacific dancers in an ad from the 1959 issue. When they said 'golden age of travel', they meant a golden age for white people. Minorities, particularly blacks, were busy fighting for civil rights at the time. There were many, many places where blacks- or some or all other demographics- were simply not welcome. We're not talking individual diners or stores. Entire towns made a point of actively driving out non-whites and preventing them from living in town by any means necessary. These were referred to as 'sundown towns', because if you weren't white, you had best be out of town by sundown, or else. A number of them went so far as to prominently display a sign on the outskirts of town, most saying "N*****, don't let the sun set on you in (name of town)", or some paraphrasing of same. (Jews were a popular secondary target.) Some sundown towns are still of a sundown mentality even today.
Needless to say, most of the sundown towns don't like to talk about it anymore, as James Loewen found out when he wrote the 2005 book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. His website contains a database of possible sundown towns across the country.
But these people still wanted to travel too. How could they travel with minimal fear of harassment?
If they're black, they would turn to the Green Book.
Have you ever heard of the Green Book? If you're not black, and you said no: good. That was the point. You weren't supposed to know unless you were in it or might need it. Beginning in 1936, the Negro Motorist Green Book was published and distributed within the black community in order to inform black travelers places which were safe to travel to without fear of harassment. The quality of said places was a secondary concern; no ratings were given, though if travelers wrote in and found that a destination was simply awful, they could see to removing it.
As the intro to the 1949 edition stated (available here in PDF): "There will be a day sometime in the future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year."
That time came in 1964, when that year's Civil Rights Act was passed. The Green Book was promptly discarded, and almost completely forgotten until recently, when Calvin Alexander Ramsay discovered it. He is currently working on a documentary about the Green Book, in order to raise awareness of just what travel was like in those days.
And, perhaps, get people considering that the Golden Age of Travel might just be now.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Arizona's Amazing Transformation
UPON SB 1070'S PASSAGE: A state illegal immigrants don't want to be.
AS SB 1070 NEARS THE TIME OF ENFORCEMENT: A state no Hispanics period want to be. Illegal, legal, lifelong citizens, doesn't matter.
Considering that Arizona is famous for its significant Hispanic population, this has pretty much killed Arizona's economic recovery dead, or at least Phoenix's. The local economy has crashed so hard it's amazing.
AS SB 1070 NEARS THE TIME OF ENFORCEMENT: A state no Hispanics period want to be. Illegal, legal, lifelong citizens, doesn't matter.
Considering that Arizona is famous for its significant Hispanic population, this has pretty much killed Arizona's economic recovery dead, or at least Phoenix's. The local economy has crashed so hard it's amazing.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
I Get Beck All Over Your Nice Internet
I've reached the point with the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh that I try to just cut them, and any mention of same, entirely out of my day. Complaining about them just gives them ratings and you're really not going to convince anyone about them that's not already on your side. Just leave them to wallow in their own muck.
But then this came across the Fark wires, showing such a fundamental lack of basic understanding of American history by Beck that it deserves special mention. He tosses out some trees, but completely missed the forest. I'll allow Beck the courtesy of having his um's and uh's cleaned up for ease of reading...
Race relations in America went wrong when we politicized slavery. Apparently. I think we all know why slavery was being politicized- because the north thought it was wrong for whites to keep blacks as slaves (which would tend to be a mildly questionable moment in race relations) and the south rather militantly begged to differ.
But... that said, back to ignoring Beck.
Go Yanks today.
But then this came across the Fark wires, showing such a fundamental lack of basic understanding of American history by Beck that it deserves special mention. He tosses out some trees, but completely missed the forest. I'll allow Beck the courtesy of having his um's and uh's cleaned up for ease of reading...
"Tonight, you will see that... I'll show you clippings from the newspapers of the war heroes as they were buried with full honors from the Revolutionary War, where they were getting full benefits. I will show you, I held in my hand, the statement on benefits from George Washington. It was the last thing he did as the general. And it was-- this is-- these are our benefits, for the troops. There was no delineation between white and black. It was white, black, it didn't matter, if you fought... there was nothing like that from our founders. And when you see the newspaper clippings of African Americans who fought heroically and recieved full military honors and are buried at such-and-such. You see-- I'm gonna give you a piece of a sermon that was preached in the first real megachurch. It was a white and black megachurch. The preacher, at one point, wanted to separate and say 'Hey, let's just do a black church.' The congregation of the church- both white and black- said 'Why? Why would we separate ourselves?'
The things that have happened in the country where it really started to go wrong was in the leadup to the Civil War. And it became politicized and it was all about slavery. Before then, we were moving on the right track. You'll learn things tonight you've never, ever learned before, and ask yourself 'Why?'"
Race relations in America went wrong when we politicized slavery. Apparently. I think we all know why slavery was being politicized- because the north thought it was wrong for whites to keep blacks as slaves (which would tend to be a mildly questionable moment in race relations) and the south rather militantly begged to differ.
But... that said, back to ignoring Beck.
Go Yanks today.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The South Shall Rise Again (Or At Least Erect)
Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, breaking from the precedent set by the previous two governors, has brought back Confederate History Month in the state. He also managed to omit the word 'slavery' from all traces of the proclamation, for which he caught so much heat that he ended up apologizing.
Despite the apology, you would be mistaken if you're inclined to think this kind of thing stopped with McDonnell. Whitewashing the Civil War and race relations, or even glorifying the Confederate side, is a problem throughout the South.
Nathan Bedford Forrest has 32 historical sites dedicated to him in Tennessee, more than any other American in a single state. Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, is most famous for his command at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, during the Civil War. According to 'Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong' by James W. Loewen, which speaks extensively on our topic today, the Union surrendered, but Forrest was not inclined to offer quarter. Or at least, he was not inclined to offer quarter to the black Union soldiers. 64% of black Union soldiers died compared to 33% of the whites. Some black soldiers attempted to get on their knees to the Confederates, but they were ordered back to their feet, then shot. Acording to a later Congressional inquiry, some soldiers were buried alive, and others were crucified and burned on tent frames.
In Louisiana, there is a statue called, alternately, 'Uncle Jack' and 'The Good Darky'. It depicts a disheveled black man with poor posture, tipping his hat in content subservience. Originally standing in Natchitoches, and reading "Erected by the city of Natchitoches in grateful recognition of the arduous and faithful services of the good darkies of Louisiana," has been since moved to Baton Rouge's Rural Life Museum, and has since seen the inscription covered up, but that only leaves the statue with no context at all.
And then there's Stone Mountain, Georgia, which sees three people carved into the mountain: Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee, a project undertaken by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (who are responsible for a large quantity of historical monuments glorifying the Confederacy, though this one proved beyond their financial means), and has over the years been used repeatedly for KKK rallies. One incarnation of the Klan was in fact founded at Stone Mountain. For everyone else, it's a nice picnic area. With fireworks.
These are only three examples, but similar occurrences can be found throughout the South; monuments that seek to deny racial injustices or atrocities, or even glorify them.
They should be monuments of apology. Or maybe, not even monuments at all.
Despite the apology, you would be mistaken if you're inclined to think this kind of thing stopped with McDonnell. Whitewashing the Civil War and race relations, or even glorifying the Confederate side, is a problem throughout the South.
Nathan Bedford Forrest has 32 historical sites dedicated to him in Tennessee, more than any other American in a single state. Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, is most famous for his command at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, during the Civil War. According to 'Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong' by James W. Loewen, which speaks extensively on our topic today, the Union surrendered, but Forrest was not inclined to offer quarter. Or at least, he was not inclined to offer quarter to the black Union soldiers. 64% of black Union soldiers died compared to 33% of the whites. Some black soldiers attempted to get on their knees to the Confederates, but they were ordered back to their feet, then shot. Acording to a later Congressional inquiry, some soldiers were buried alive, and others were crucified and burned on tent frames.
In Louisiana, there is a statue called, alternately, 'Uncle Jack' and 'The Good Darky'. It depicts a disheveled black man with poor posture, tipping his hat in content subservience. Originally standing in Natchitoches, and reading "Erected by the city of Natchitoches in grateful recognition of the arduous and faithful services of the good darkies of Louisiana," has been since moved to Baton Rouge's Rural Life Museum, and has since seen the inscription covered up, but that only leaves the statue with no context at all.
And then there's Stone Mountain, Georgia, which sees three people carved into the mountain: Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee, a project undertaken by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (who are responsible for a large quantity of historical monuments glorifying the Confederacy, though this one proved beyond their financial means), and has over the years been used repeatedly for KKK rallies. One incarnation of the Klan was in fact founded at Stone Mountain. For everyone else, it's a nice picnic area. With fireworks.
These are only three examples, but similar occurrences can be found throughout the South; monuments that seek to deny racial injustices or atrocities, or even glorify them.
They should be monuments of apology. Or maybe, not even monuments at all.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Aftermath of Dred Scott
This is a classic example of how history can gloss over things inconvenient to the storyline, and how things can turn completely on their head after people have stopped paying attention. Dred Scott, of course, is famous for being the slave who went before the Supreme Court in 1856 and argued for his freedom, only to be told in a 7-2 decision that he was not only a slave, but that he was not human but rather a piece of property.
The event is always told in the context of injustice towards blacks, and/or the runup to the Civil War. As such, the story always seems to end at the Supreme Court decision. Nobody ever goes any further. One is left to assume that Dred was simply led away and lived out the rest of his life as a slave. Perhaps he was starved or beaten to death by his owner.
Not quite.
To understand the aftermath, you must first note the full name of the case, 'Dred Scott v. Sandford'. Don't look at Scott. Look at Sandford. Sandford is John F.A. Sandford, Scott's owner when he brought his case to federal court. This was Scott's second attempt; he had previously lost a Missouri Supreme Court case against another owner, John Emerson. Somewhere along the line, Sandford had been committed to an insane asylum; he would die there two months after the Supreme Court ruling.
Clearly, he was in no position to reclaim Scott, though his name would remain on the name of the case the entire way through. John Emerson had died in 1843, three years into proceedings. Scott had passed to Emerson's widow, Irene Emerson, whom Scott had tried to buy his freedom from for $300; her refusal was the spark that caused this whole endeavor.
Since losing in Scott v. Emerson, though, Irene had remarried.
To an abolitionist.
Member of Congress.
Say hello to abolitionist Calvin Chafee of free-state Massachusetts, Irene's new husband. It was February 1857, shortly before Chafee was to begin his second term in the House of Representatives. (Terms started in March back then.)
Apparently, Irene had never told Chafee about Dred. He found out in the newspaper like everybody else. By the time he woke up one day, looked in the paper, and did the spit take to end all spit takes, it was too late. The Springfield Argus wrote "All the long years of servitude through which this [Scott] family has been doomed to labor has this hypocrite kept their ownership by his family from the public, while he had profited, not only by their labor, but by his extraordinary professions of love for the poor Negro."
It was one month before the verdict would be rendered, far too late to do anything about it. His political career went off a cliff right then and there. The abolitionist Congressman owned the most famous slave in America and didn't tell anyone. There was no way back from that.
But there was still the matter of Scott. The obvious move would be to simply free Scott. That was not possible. Chafee and Emerson were from Massachusetts, but Scott was from Missouri, and only a Missouri resident could free him. Chafee frantically tracked down Scott's original owners, the Blow family. Taylor Blow, the son of Scott's first owner and a childhood playmate of Scott's, did the deed.
Dred Scott v. Sandford was decided on March 7, 1857. Dred Scott was formally emancipated May 26, 1857, two and a half months later.
Scott would settle in St. Louis and take a job as a hotel porter, where the locals regarded him as a celebrity. Which he was. However, 16 months after his freedom was granted, Scott would die of tuberculosis at approximately age 59.
But Dred Scott would die a free man.
He is buried in St. Louis, and if you're ever at the Calvary Cemetery, and happen past it, local tradition is to place a Lincoln penny on the gravestone.
As for Calvin Chafee, he would not even attempt re-election; his seat would be filled by Charles Delano. However, after his term was over, he would become Librarian of the House of Representatives for two years, and then return home to Massachusetts to practice medicine.
No word on whether he stayed married to Irene Emerson.
The event is always told in the context of injustice towards blacks, and/or the runup to the Civil War. As such, the story always seems to end at the Supreme Court decision. Nobody ever goes any further. One is left to assume that Dred was simply led away and lived out the rest of his life as a slave. Perhaps he was starved or beaten to death by his owner.
Not quite.
To understand the aftermath, you must first note the full name of the case, 'Dred Scott v. Sandford'. Don't look at Scott. Look at Sandford. Sandford is John F.A. Sandford, Scott's owner when he brought his case to federal court. This was Scott's second attempt; he had previously lost a Missouri Supreme Court case against another owner, John Emerson. Somewhere along the line, Sandford had been committed to an insane asylum; he would die there two months after the Supreme Court ruling.
Clearly, he was in no position to reclaim Scott, though his name would remain on the name of the case the entire way through. John Emerson had died in 1843, three years into proceedings. Scott had passed to Emerson's widow, Irene Emerson, whom Scott had tried to buy his freedom from for $300; her refusal was the spark that caused this whole endeavor.
Since losing in Scott v. Emerson, though, Irene had remarried.
To an abolitionist.
Member of Congress.
Say hello to abolitionist Calvin Chafee of free-state Massachusetts, Irene's new husband. It was February 1857, shortly before Chafee was to begin his second term in the House of Representatives. (Terms started in March back then.)
Apparently, Irene had never told Chafee about Dred. He found out in the newspaper like everybody else. By the time he woke up one day, looked in the paper, and did the spit take to end all spit takes, it was too late. The Springfield Argus wrote "All the long years of servitude through which this [Scott] family has been doomed to labor has this hypocrite kept their ownership by his family from the public, while he had profited, not only by their labor, but by his extraordinary professions of love for the poor Negro."
It was one month before the verdict would be rendered, far too late to do anything about it. His political career went off a cliff right then and there. The abolitionist Congressman owned the most famous slave in America and didn't tell anyone. There was no way back from that.
But there was still the matter of Scott. The obvious move would be to simply free Scott. That was not possible. Chafee and Emerson were from Massachusetts, but Scott was from Missouri, and only a Missouri resident could free him. Chafee frantically tracked down Scott's original owners, the Blow family. Taylor Blow, the son of Scott's first owner and a childhood playmate of Scott's, did the deed.
Dred Scott v. Sandford was decided on March 7, 1857. Dred Scott was formally emancipated May 26, 1857, two and a half months later.
Scott would settle in St. Louis and take a job as a hotel porter, where the locals regarded him as a celebrity. Which he was. However, 16 months after his freedom was granted, Scott would die of tuberculosis at approximately age 59.
But Dred Scott would die a free man.
He is buried in St. Louis, and if you're ever at the Calvary Cemetery, and happen past it, local tradition is to place a Lincoln penny on the gravestone.
As for Calvin Chafee, he would not even attempt re-election; his seat would be filled by Charles Delano. However, after his term was over, he would become Librarian of the House of Representatives for two years, and then return home to Massachusetts to practice medicine.
No word on whether he stayed married to Irene Emerson.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
An Open Letter To The Racists
It's Black History Month, so this seems like a good time to bring this up. In case you haven't noticed, we have a bit of a race problem in this country. True, we have shown enough progress in race relations to elect a non-white President, in this case black. Good for us.
The problem is that there are people who would not say 'good for us'. Most people who are not these people can take a fairly educated stab at who they are. They're in all likelihood the ones screaming that Barack Obama is Muslim or born in Kenya or Indonesia and thus ineligible to be President, and wanting to 'take our country back'. Sometimes all at the same time.
And the thing is, this isn't just some wild-eyed play-the-race-card conspiracy theory. People have admitted it openly. It hasn't been polled for a year, only as recently as the second half of December 2008 and the first few days of 2009 by ABC News- after Obama's election but before his inauguration- but one would be a fool to think racism has gone completely away since then. And in that poll, 35% of all respondents, and more specifically 34% of white respondents, answered yes to the question "If you honestly assessed yourself, would you say that you have at least some feelings of racial prejudice?"
If I asked you if you were one of these people, you would almost assuredly tell me no, whether you actually are or not. And I will not call any one person a racist in this space. But, just in case one happens to be out there listening, listen carefully.
A black man has been elected President. A black man is serving as President. It's too late to prevent it. You are not Doctor Who, and you cannot change history. What is done is done. Some little reptilian corner of your mind might be driving you to desperately search for some way you can turn back the clock and stop it from happening, but no matter how loud you scream, no matter how much you threaten, no matter how much legislation you pass or prevent from passing, even if you manage to gain sufficient power to strike Obama's name from the rolls and act as if he was never really President, and annul every bill he ever signed into law, nothing you can ever do will change the fact that, from the period spanning January 20, 2009 to today, a black man sat in the Oval Office. That fact will always be true, from now until time immemorial. Even if he were to suffer a heart attack and die tomorrow, he will have served longer than at least one other President.
It's bigger than Obama now. The larger process of acceptance has started, however long it will ultimately take. The first black anything always has to deal with people like you. It doesn't matter what, really. Take baseball. Jackie Robinson was the first player to break the color barrier, and everyone knows what he had to deal with. That was the beginning. Larry Doby, the second black player, didn't have it easy either, coming in only three months after Robinson, and since he wasn't the first, he didn't have the support structure Robinson did.
But things slowly got better. By the time Pumpsie Green integrated the Red Sox 12 years after Robinson, the pressure was less on Green for being black, then it was on the Red Sox for not integrating sooner. Green wasn't a new thing anymore. The grief he got was largely due to the fact that he simply wasn't all that much of a ballplayer; his best year was 1961, in which he hit .260 with 4 home runs and 27 RBI, all career highs. Robinson and Doby never would have been able to get away with those numbers, especially not as career highs.
By the time the Pittsburgh Pirates fielded the first all-black starting lineup in 1971, black ballplayers were so accepted that not even the players noticed until the 2nd inning. (The Pirates won that day, beating the Phillies 10-7.)
The same thing will happen with Obama. Maybe not with you. In fact, almost definitely not with you. But look at those younger than you. Everyone in America born after 12 noon on January 20, 2009 will never know a world in which there was never a black President. They will go to school, open their history textbooks, and when they see that gallery of headshots of all the Presidents in order, from Washington to Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and on down the line, somewhere in there is going to be Barack Obama. Not a blank space. Not "Barry Soetoro". Barack Obama, with no further context of how he got there or what he dealt with after his election. It will not be a strange thing to them. Maybe a little because for a time he will be the only one there, but he will be there nonetheless. He will be alongside Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln and the Roosevelts and Kennedy and, yes, even Reagan, for as long as the nation endures. The fact that a black man might be President in the future will not shake them as it shakes you. And after they reach voting age, if another qualified candidate comes along who happens to be black, they will not think twice about electing that candidate.
After all, it's happened before, hasn't it?
The problem is that there are people who would not say 'good for us'. Most people who are not these people can take a fairly educated stab at who they are. They're in all likelihood the ones screaming that Barack Obama is Muslim or born in Kenya or Indonesia and thus ineligible to be President, and wanting to 'take our country back'. Sometimes all at the same time.
And the thing is, this isn't just some wild-eyed play-the-race-card conspiracy theory. People have admitted it openly. It hasn't been polled for a year, only as recently as the second half of December 2008 and the first few days of 2009 by ABC News- after Obama's election but before his inauguration- but one would be a fool to think racism has gone completely away since then. And in that poll, 35% of all respondents, and more specifically 34% of white respondents, answered yes to the question "If you honestly assessed yourself, would you say that you have at least some feelings of racial prejudice?"
If I asked you if you were one of these people, you would almost assuredly tell me no, whether you actually are or not. And I will not call any one person a racist in this space. But, just in case one happens to be out there listening, listen carefully.
A black man has been elected President. A black man is serving as President. It's too late to prevent it. You are not Doctor Who, and you cannot change history. What is done is done. Some little reptilian corner of your mind might be driving you to desperately search for some way you can turn back the clock and stop it from happening, but no matter how loud you scream, no matter how much you threaten, no matter how much legislation you pass or prevent from passing, even if you manage to gain sufficient power to strike Obama's name from the rolls and act as if he was never really President, and annul every bill he ever signed into law, nothing you can ever do will change the fact that, from the period spanning January 20, 2009 to today, a black man sat in the Oval Office. That fact will always be true, from now until time immemorial. Even if he were to suffer a heart attack and die tomorrow, he will have served longer than at least one other President.
It's bigger than Obama now. The larger process of acceptance has started, however long it will ultimately take. The first black anything always has to deal with people like you. It doesn't matter what, really. Take baseball. Jackie Robinson was the first player to break the color barrier, and everyone knows what he had to deal with. That was the beginning. Larry Doby, the second black player, didn't have it easy either, coming in only three months after Robinson, and since he wasn't the first, he didn't have the support structure Robinson did.
But things slowly got better. By the time Pumpsie Green integrated the Red Sox 12 years after Robinson, the pressure was less on Green for being black, then it was on the Red Sox for not integrating sooner. Green wasn't a new thing anymore. The grief he got was largely due to the fact that he simply wasn't all that much of a ballplayer; his best year was 1961, in which he hit .260 with 4 home runs and 27 RBI, all career highs. Robinson and Doby never would have been able to get away with those numbers, especially not as career highs.
By the time the Pittsburgh Pirates fielded the first all-black starting lineup in 1971, black ballplayers were so accepted that not even the players noticed until the 2nd inning. (The Pirates won that day, beating the Phillies 10-7.)
The same thing will happen with Obama. Maybe not with you. In fact, almost definitely not with you. But look at those younger than you. Everyone in America born after 12 noon on January 20, 2009 will never know a world in which there was never a black President. They will go to school, open their history textbooks, and when they see that gallery of headshots of all the Presidents in order, from Washington to Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and on down the line, somewhere in there is going to be Barack Obama. Not a blank space. Not "Barry Soetoro". Barack Obama, with no further context of how he got there or what he dealt with after his election. It will not be a strange thing to them. Maybe a little because for a time he will be the only one there, but he will be there nonetheless. He will be alongside Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln and the Roosevelts and Kennedy and, yes, even Reagan, for as long as the nation endures. The fact that a black man might be President in the future will not shake them as it shakes you. And after they reach voting age, if another qualified candidate comes along who happens to be black, they will not think twice about electing that candidate.
After all, it's happened before, hasn't it?
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