Quote of the Week (a TOTF Instant Tradition)

The sheep proudly raised their heads. "Justice!" they bleated in chorus. "Justice!"
     --Leonie Swann (from Three Bags Full)

Earth to Tangipahoa Parish, LA: You need to let go

With hat tip to Julie Dermansky (jsdart) of Flickr, I found several "man on the street" video follow-ups to the Jim Crow flashback story of Keith Bardwell, the "Marryin' Sam" who, in 2009, wouldn't marry interracial couples.

This one is African-American Tangipahoa resident "John Brown":




There are a couple more by the same interviewer. Just to, uh, be complete (but not fair and balanced, thanks) I am including the following video comments of "John Green," a Ponchatoula resident. File under hoist on own petard:

Part 1:


Part 2 (has plenty of US history, Southern-style):

NewBlackMan

NewBlackMan

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Louisiana: so much for my nice post-Katrina story

Hat tip to JJP for the first post I saw about this one, "Interracial couple denied marriage license in Louisiana. It's not 2009 everywhere." Apparently it's not even 1909 in some places.
Oooh! ®

Here's the original story from the Hammond (LA) Daily Star. My first glance at the comments there was enough...

JP refuses to marry couple

By Don Ellzey

A justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple last week because of concern for the children who might be born of that relationship.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward, also said it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

“I’m not a racist,” Bardwell said. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”

Beth Humphrey, 30, said she and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, intend to consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.

Time out for a post-Katrina story

Well, if you put it that way, as a matter of fact I do want some fried chicken. Wanna make something of it?

Leah Chase: The embodiment of New Orleans determination
Many stories have been told about the devastation wrought by Katrina, and Leah Chase, who is 86, probably embodies the struggles of rebuilding as much as any other person.

It took two years, and help from friends and customers, before she could open a take-out window. And even today, her restaurant Dooky Chase is only open for lunch three days a week.

Yes, I'm glad to see people still kicking butt at 86. But I also like this part of the story, about the photos of G. W. Bush and Obama in her reconstructed, reopened restaurant:

At the end of the meal I asked about Obama and her eyes took on a joyous sheen as she practically sang his praises in her deep, rich voice.

I couldn't resist: "So you seem to be an equal opportunity cook," I said, as I drew attention to the other President [Bush II --ed.]. Her twinkle shifted a bit.

"He's a lovely man," she said. "He's invited me to the White House twice and he's such a gentleman." After a short pause she said: "However some men just find themselves in the wrong job."

Some of Us Are More Equal than Others, or Hold the Dionne

Yes, it has been quiet around here. Not so quiet in real-- er, physical-- life. I think the capper was last week's passing of one of our community elders who was also one of my former students. An IT colleague's heart attack the same week was a close second. So I shifted to mostly reactive mode, commenting & composting elsewhere, as my online cohort (see sidebar) provided the regenerative fodder I needed. Thanx & a tip o' th' battered fedora to P6, Sea Mist, soulbrother v.2. Thanks even to JJP, where there is far too much mess going on in the comments, but I learned a couple things scrolling through.

If it's all right with you, at this point I'm going to catch up bit by bit, item by item, on matters of human (in)equality in current events, until the task completely overwhelms me.

No?

In that case let's just pick one. The fact that there are so many to choose from is telling.

One should always be wary of citing a columnist whose name sounds like a boutique brand of mustard, but E. J. Dionne's Washington Post column of October 12 cuts across several current issues and is worthwhile for that reason. Here's the disease in terms of the latest symptom, the Nobel Peace Prize award to President Obama:

His opponents are describing the award as premature. The deeper problem is that the Nobel will underscore the extent to which Obama is a cosmopolitan figure, much loved in European capitals because he is the change they have been looking for. [emphasis mine]

Yes, now the President is reviled for being much loved. I will go a step further and suggest that Obama is not just a cosmopolitan figure, but is truly cosmopolitan in the sense described by Kwame Anthony Appiah in Cosmopolitanism. As Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says in her review of Appiah's book, "Cosmopolitanism... provokes attacks from the left for whom it is dilettante and elitist. The right despises it because cosmopolitans make bad nationalists and patriots. All authoritarians detest the internationalist spirit."

That about wraps it up, as wrapped as it can be without bringing race directly into it. Had Dionne stayed with this theme... But no, he had to go there even as he denied the whiteness of "angry white men" (his quotes):

There is no doubt that some of the anger is fueled by racial feeling, which is not the same as saying that all opposition to Obama is explained by racism. Most Obama opponents are simply conservative Republicans who disagree with him. But there are too many racist signs at rallies and too many overtly racial pronouncements in the fever swamps of the right-wing media to deny that racism is part of the anti-Obama mix.

This is the current race-not-race meme as it has evolved across the media. No longer able to deny the racist displays, statements, jokes and diatribes that have been there since Obama announced his candidacy (thanks, YouTube) pundits seek to acknowledge and then immediately nullify them. "Most Obama opponents are simply conservative Republicans..." perhaps, but they're conservative Republicans who tolerate, support, laugh with as opposed to laughing at, and definitely fail to decry the bigots in their midst. When called on it, our angry white non-racist conservatives will briefly denounce the occasional bad apple or isolated instance, no pattern and certainly no systemic issues here, folks, and then they move on, as if that settles the matter.

Let me throw Dionne a bone. I commend him for citing the example of Australia's One Nation party. That does allow us to pick up a hint, a soupçon of a pattern across former British colonies such as ours.

Though [Australian deputy PM] Gillard diplomatically avoided direct comment on American politics, she said what's happening here reminded her of the rise of Pauline Hanson, a politician who caused a sensation in Australian politics in the 1990s by creating One Nation, a xenophobic and protectionist political party tinged with racism.

Hanson to Palin... there and back again. Hm. Go on, now.

[Editor's note: Hat tip to P6 whose earlier post on the reappearance of invisibility caused me to slow down and read and not merely skim the Dionne original. Also for the single-word linking trick.]

A brief visit to the other side

Yesterday morning I learned of the passing of one of the perennial students on my campus, Helen Jones. Helen was in her early 80s and had been taking undergraduate and graduate classes for years, dragging scores of younger students in her wake as she showed everyone what "lifelong learning" actually looked like in practice.

I have seen both joy and concern on her face, as various African American-- students, staff, and faculty-- chose to excel or not. She never let us have it with anger, always with love. She did a lot of behind-the-scenes counseling, trying to keep people on the path, but somehow everyone on campus always knew who was getting straightened out. In the past several years, we heard a little more about personal ailments and a little less about her next academic achievement or whether we were acting right, but that goes with the territory of aging. We'll all have our turn.

I last saw Helen about two weeks ago, sitting in our campus library regaling one of the reference librarians with some tale or other. She was big on regaling. I've asked around, and she was busy on campus as recently as last Thursday. Friday, she went into the hospital.

She developed a quilt project for her Master's degree that reflected her Southern upbringing and aspects of Black history that most of us don't choose to remember most of the time. I'll post a photo if I can find one.

One of my colleagues wrote the following yesterday, and I don't think she'll mind if I reproduce it here:

So many of us will remember this woman of vision, determination, and courage.
I will miss her stories, her wisdom, our travels and unexpected errand running.
Her untamed guidance and ways of modeling how to be an extraordinary Student
has rubbed off on all of us who studied.
She gave us a greater purpose of being,
and in so many ways defined a Strong, Independent, Black Woman.
We'll never forget you Mrs. Jones.