all the news that print will fit.
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| notes from underground - societal whispers all the news that print will fit. |
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Sunday, December 21, 2003 np: josh rouse - 1972 that album was number 5 on the j's indie/rock mayhem Top 25 Albums of 2003 list. check it out if you haven't read the list. don't forget that just cos christmas is nearing and almost gone, that doesn't meant that you can't still order items from Amazon and help out the Triad Health Project. you have until january first. some money has been accumulated, which is great. but we need more. the THP needs more. take some of that christmas/holiday/festivus money you'll be receiving as presents and put it towards ordering something from amazon for yourself. you deserve something nice, yes? as i suggested over on the j's indie/rock site, take a look at the Top 25 Albums list and if you've been thinking about buying any of them, do it! think of the three fold greatness. you get a cd you'd been wanting, a deserving artist receives some more royalties and the THP gets more money. you can't lose. now, for something i've been foaming at the mouth about, silently and now out loud, these last few days. a name that has crossed my lips a few times before: strom thurmond. there is, of course, the inherent irony (and hypocrisy) in strom thurmond having fathered an illegitimate "mixed race" child. his tenure in the dixiecrat party and 1948 presidential bid for an obviously pro-lynching, pro-segregation democratic party is enough to make one's milk curdle. (thanks to atrios for that link.) however, there is some sort of revisionist response to these recent outings of information. people are coming to thurmond's defense since he was 'responsible' to his child and certainly was not a 'deadbeat dad.' he was very much a part of her life, even if he never publically, outrightly admitted his fatherhood. he provided for her during his lifetime and was always there for her and a close, father figure. we have moved so far from the ideas of segregation...no, strike that. we have forgotten so much about the ideas of segregation that now its importance doesn't cross our mind. it's more important that thurmond was a good, responsible father to his illegitimate child; a child which, given the climate of the times, he certainly wouldn't have been pressed to support. meanwhile, as he grew in ranks in the senate, culminating in his 1948 presidential bid, thurmond consistantly strove to deny people like his daughter their civil rights. despite knowing full well his kinship (both literally and as a southerner) to black people in this country, he turned a blind eye to their plight of being refused equal citizen status. so the suggestion has been starting to pass around that maybe he didn't really believe his segregationist rhetoric and instead was just going along with the political climate. in other words, performing for the citizenry in order to keep a job. to me, this just paints thurmond in an even worse light. it's one thing to think of him as a bigoted, racist jerk. it's quite another to think that he actually felt differently, but catered to the unconsitituional demands of a racist society. to me, it simply condemns him in a whole new way. there is no excuse, no matter what the tale told, for his interactions with his daughter and his subsequent political ideologies. they do not coexist peacefully. why should anyone ever feel sympathy for this man? not only was he born into wealth and privilege, but he took advantage of that. had he been black and crossed the color barrier with a white female, the result would've been thurmond strung up in a tree. not a lifetime of interaction with his daughter and a storied political career. in the interim, he took advantage of his position by betraying a large quantity of the citizens he was regularly elected to represent. any good deeds he may have performed in public office are permanently tarnished and marred by this ridiculous social injustice. i'm sure that plantation slave owners were good fathers to the children they had with slave women. but that doesn't make them good people. and while this isn't the same, it is. and you know it. posted by J. Neas | 12/21/2003 10:09:00 PM
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