Who Says There Are No Racists in the Senate?
As reported by Timothy Noah in What’s a little segregationism among friends?:
I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had of followed our lead we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either. — Trent Lott at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party
I want to tell you, ladies and gentleman, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches. — Strom Thurmond, then-governor of South Carolina, in a speech from his 1948 “Dixiecrat” presidential campaign.
December 10th, 2002 at 5:28 pm
I already posted in response to the post that followed this one… but one more thing…
And as for Strom… when I was in 11th grade I flew to Columbia SC to visit my boyfriend at the time, and Strom was seated next to me. He told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, and rubbed my thigh the entire flight. Yes, it bordered on molestation, but I was still tickled that the elder statesman took such a liking to me.
This tidbit has nothing to do with anything I just said, but anytime anyone mentions Strom I feel obliged to recount my one relavent anecdote
But seriously, speaking of relevance, why not post a quote of Thurmond’s a little more timely than, say, a half century ago?! I certainly hope my world view has grown and revamped in 50 years; by his own account, Strom Thurmond’s has too.
Juxtaposing something he said before my parents were born with something Lott said this week seems a bit asinine. Clinton heralds some of the biggest segregationists of their day amongst his heroes, not because of their former views- but in spite of them.
As for Trent’s quote “all these problems”- the vaguest phrase of all. Who’s to say he would have been wrong?
My free-thinking Americans embarrass the hell out of me by harping on this NON story.
December 12th, 2002 at 12:07 am
In the now frequently quoted passage from Strom Thurmond’s presidential candidacy speech, “…to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes,…” it’s extremely important to quote correctly the historical text as it was spoken. Thurmond did not use the word “Nigra”. He said “Nigger”.
The difference to the modern ear is quite startling and brings home the extreme hatred and appaling vulgarity of the Dixiecrats of that era. It also makes the allusions to this candidacy by the leader of the Republicans in the Senate that much more frightening.
How can you pretend to work against racism if you become a mechanism to soften the language of the racists and make it more palatable? How can you justify rewriting historical documents to fit your politically correct ideology?
How can you possibly have an intelligent discussion about racism if you bar the direct expression of the ideas and the language of the ideology you are focusing on?
I understand you not wanting a site that banters white supremecist rhetoric, but to sanitize a historic document to fit your own language preferences is an extreme disservice. If you can’t deal with the truth, how can you ever expect to make any progress?
December 12th, 2002 at 1:11 am
How can you pretend to work against racism if you become a mechanism to soften the language of the racists and make it more palatable? How can you justify rewriting historical documents to fit your politically correct ideology?
This is *so* out of line and over the top. First, no one here is *pretending*. Second, and most importantly, no one here has REWRITTEN historical documents! It might have been more prudent on your part to ask, rather than to spread untruths and slanders.
I took Thurmond’s quote from an AP wire story; I don’t know which version of that hateful word Thurmond uttered, and I don’t know whether the AP wire reporter “rewrote” anything. I do know that I didn’t rewrite anything, your untrue accusations to the contrary.
How can you possibly have an intelligent discussion about racism if you bar the direct expression of the ideas and the language of the ideology you are focusing on?
I don’t believe you have to use racial slurs and epithets to have an “intelligent discussion about racism”, and there are other considerations, including the fact that such language is or may be hurtful to people.
So, to review: 1) I didn’t rewrite anything; 2) this issue is far more complex than you make it out to be; and 3) you shouldn’t make accusations and slanders until you know they’re accurate. You make a lot of false accusations for someone who blusters about not “dealing with the truth”.
December 12th, 2002 at 8:04 am
I apologize for taking this out on you.
It is common in a lot of news services to misquote this document in the manner above which I do feel is a frightening example of political correctness defeating truth.
I have seen it quoted as “Nigra”, “Negro” and “Black”. It was wrong for me to assume that you had seen the actual speech when there is so much misinformation being spread about this topic. Again I apologize for this assumption.
The points I make in the post (if you excuse the fact that I directed them at you erroneously) are very valid in the overall discussion of race. It’s nearly impossible for someone who wasn’t alive before 1960 to understand how pervsive and unyielding segregation actually was. As bad as racism is now, the segregationist days are another level entirely. That history needs to be protected and preserved lest we allow the horrors of that time to be softened by filtering them through our more modern standards.
I agree with you that there are very few times when these hateful words can legitimately enter into the discussion, but the case of a historical document is certainly one of those times. To soften the words, as a great deal of the press has done, is to give Thurmon a pass on the true venom of his rhetoric.
I focused on you as a culprit and that was wrong. The sanitization of history for political correctness that is happpening so blatantly with this story is infuriating and dangerous and it finally got the better of me. I apologize to you. But the points I made are extremely valid pertaining to the discussion in general and definitely worth consideration.
December 12th, 2002 at 11:07 am
Mike,
Thanks for the apology. I still disagree that it’s necessarily the case that printing historical speeches exactly as uttered, in every situation or context, is preferable to the alternatives. However, it’s not something I really want to discuss further.
I do wonder what your source is for Thurmond’s speech in ‘48 accepting the Dixiecrat nomination (in Houston, TX, alas, my hometown, in the year my mom was born there) and whether you can email it to me or send me a URL to it on the web. I’ve searched on the web extensively and cannot find a transcription of his remarks. Clemson University’s “Strom Thurmond Institute” (GAG!!!) has a copy, but not web-accessible.
Last, I printed the version of Thurmond’s remarks with “Nigra” because it seems to me the mostly likely thing he said, not having the transcript to verify, since I cannot imagine anyone substituting “Nigra”, which is a definite Southern archaism with slightly different connotations than n*****.
Focusing so much, as you do, on the actual *slur* Thurmond used threatens to miss the point; his real crime, in my view, was to do all he could to perpetuate a systematically and racially unjust social system. He could have done that in the most temperate and modest language (in fact, that’s in large part *what* he’s done since the early 1980s, in my view) and that would have reduced the harm he did only slightly.
But, again, thanks for the apology.
December 17th, 2002 at 3:16 pm
I finally found an actual tape of the statement on NPR. It’s pretty unmistakeable.
Here:
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=865900
I have to disagree with you that insisting on the correct transcript of a historical document is missing the point. Revisionism is the tool of the White supremecists who want to deny the Holocaust. It is a singular danger. When the language is allowed to erode so that hate is softened and the true intensity of racism of that time is blurred, then there is no path to the truth.
I’m with Orwell on the importance of preserving language, even the nasty bits!
December 17th, 2002 at 5:28 pm
I have to disagree with you that insisting on the correct transcript of a historical document is missing the point.
There are at least two things to distinguish: first, the historical record per se, which I agree should be maintained accurately; second, citations of what someone said at some point, which may or may not need to include words which by their very presence cause pain and give offense.
The n-word, being the most vile epithet in American English (so vile, in fact, that it flattens out, even conceptually, I think, the use versus mention distinction — I wonder if Randall Kennedy makes this point in his book?), is an exception to many rules, and I’m not sure what is lost by substituting, as I did in this sentence, some other form which is less likely to offend or to harm.
Should another form be substituted in *every* instance? No, because in that case the historical record is marred. But it’s not at all clear to me that the historical record is marred when one substitutes “n-word” for the n-word. (In other words, I don’t think “Negro” or “Nigra” should stand in for the n-word in any context, so in that sense I agree with you.)
Revisionism is the tool of the White supremecists who want to deny the Holocaust.
Well, sure, they suck and should be opposed. But it’s not at all clear to me that any modification (as I’ve suggested) of every citation of a text is revisionism in just this odious sense. In fact, it’s clear to me that there is an exceptional space to be carved out here, at least in principle.
It is a singular danger.
I don’t know what that means, but I do know that it’s not the only danger; there are other issues and other dangers, like unintentionally giving offense to people you consider to be political and moral allies.
When the language is allowed to erode so that hate is softened and the true intensity of racism of that time is blurred, then there is no path to the truth.
This seems overwrought. Thurmond said and stood for a great many very evil things, including opposition to antilynching laws — where the literal lives of people were at stake. Compared to that, I suspect his use of the n-word in the original context was seen by most African Americans as less troubling than his support for lynching (though that is, of course, just a guess, it could be confirmed by looking at the editorial about Thurmond’s campaign written by Roy Wilkins in the November ‘48 issue of The Crisis).
But in our context — given that the historical record is preserved — I don’t think I should blithely ignore the possibility that using-or-mentioning the n-word can give offense. (However, as I implied above, I agree with you that journalists substituting “Negro” or other soft forms for the n-word is problematic.)
I’m with Orwell on the importance of preserving language, even the nasty bits!
I think this may be a misreading of Orwell. His point, or so I take it, was that language was used by the powerful to mystify, to blunt critical inquiry, to help them get away with their bullshit. The question of language as a means of stigmatizing, dehumanizing, or oppressing some group isn’t precisely the same issue, and so there may be other considerations, as I suspect there are.
I’m not confident that the n-word is something Orwell would have insisted be used (or mentioned) in a way that was unthinking and insensitive to its potential for giving offense.