There's the South....and then there's Mississippi (re-Haley Barbour)

There was the South....and then, there's Mississippi.

And, Haley Barbour can't run away from that.

We can't talk ENOUGH about this.

Gov. Haley "Boss Hogg" Barbour Praises the White Citizens Council (aka the Klan in Suits).

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), a potential Republican presidential candidate, has an interesting perspective on the tumults of the civil rights era that swept through his Deep South state.

As Barbour recalls it in a new profile in The Weekly Standard, things weren't so bad in his hometown of Yazoo City, which took until 1970 to integrate its schools (though the final event itself is said to have gone on peacefully). For example, Barbour says that there was no problem of Ku Klux Klan activity in the town -- thanks to the Citizens Council movement, an organization that was founded on the basis of resistance to integration and the promotion of white supremacy.

"You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK," said Barbour. "Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."

You know, this should just be under the heading..

THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE.

I know a whole lot about the state of Mississippi. From the time I was born until I was 18, I went to Mississippi 4 times a year. After that, twice a year until Mama died. I've been to the Delta. I've been to the Gulfcoast. I've been to the East. Been to the West. Been to Jackson, Vicksburg, Hattiesburg, Yazoo City, Oxford.

And, I'm here to tell you, IMO, when folks talk about the ' New South', they sure in hell aren't talking about Mississippi.

I posted a few months ago about how Boss Hogg Barbour was attempting to whitewash his past, first with some unbelievable remembrances of his time at Ole Miss. Of course, folks tracked down one of the lone Black students during that time period, and she told THE TRUTH OF THE HELL THAT SHE WENT THROUGH.

Let's not mince words here:

Haley Barbour is a RACIST. Plain and simple. No holds barred.

Oh, you can put him in a suit, but, I've been Black in America longer than 3 days.

He's had no ' come to Jesus' moment about growing up during American Apartheid and the evil that it was for the Black citizens of the South. Not one frigging moment of self-awareness.

None.

Instead, we have these repeated attempts by him to whitewash - LITERALLY - the hell that was the South during that time, and Mississippi in particular.



THIS is the Mississippi of Emmett Till.


THIS is the Mississippi of Fannie Lou Hamer.


THIS is the Mississippi of James Meredith integrating Ole Miss.


THIS is the Mississippi of Medgar Evers.

Myrlie Evers Comforting Son Darryl Kenyatta During Funeral of Husband Medgar Evers

THIS is the Mississippi of bombing the freedom riders.


THIS is the Mississippi of Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman.



There were a whole lot of White folks who resisted the Civil Rights Movement. A whole lot of folks who saw nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with Black folks being 3rd class citizens in THEIR OWN DAMN COUNTRY.

When they talk about ' taking their country back', they want it back to a time where, quite frankly,

' NIGGERS KNEW THEIR PLACE.'

Hell, Barbour's own BROTHER Bemoaned Blacks 'Not Listenin' To White People Like They Used To'

"Maybe five years ago," he said, "you could've appointed a colored man yourself. Now you simply can't get away with it. They're goin' to have to pick their own leaders. You could've gotten on radio five years ago using these very words, 'George Collins is this ni**er we've appointed,' and could've gotten away with it. I guess they're just goin' through a state of being rebellious and hard-nosed and not listenin' to white people like they used to."

The town has seventeen policeman in all, which struck me as a substantial force for a town of 14,000, and Mace is standard equipment; the policemen carry it on their belts. "You get a drunk," Jeppie says; "you either get him to come with you or you have to manhandle him. You give him Mace and he'll want to go anywhere with you. It keeps that ni**er's head in good shape."

Discipline has likewise been a problem with "the little ni**ers around town. One seven-year-old stole a pistol, but the chief has his own homemade juvenile delinquency kit. He has a belt that's bigger than a Sam Browne belt, and he calls the parents and gets them to come down and take the kid into the basement and use the belt."

Martin Luther King was the most hated man because he showed them for what they were to the ENTIRE WORLD, and when that mirror was put up to them, it showed them in all their ugliness. How dare this Negro say that American Apartheid was wrong and should end. White folks like Haley Barbour and his ilk didn't think anything was wrong with life in Mississippi during that time.

The reason why Barbour and his media apologists must be pushed back against, and not allowed

UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

to do his whitewash of American Apartheid.

Is because our ancestors who suffered under it, must NOT be forgotten.

The pain.
The degredation.
The humiliation.
The threat of physical violence that they lived under 24/7/365.
Not for one year. or two. or three.
But nearly 100 years post-the ending of Official Slavery in the United States.

The GENERATIONS that were made to live in literal hell.
See, there's a problem when you try to whitewash Mississippi during Jim Crow...

WAYYYYYY too many of us "Negroes" or is it "Coloreds" are still alive....oh, some of us weren't around during that time, but we have parents, grandparents, aunt, uncles, church elders who told us enough stories....and here's the bottom line...

And, no, we're not going to go along with you trying to make it sound better than the hell it was.

The Citizens Council was just the Klan in business suits.

Don't believe me?

Take a read at some of their literature.

The White Citizens Council at the forefront of integration according to Barbour.

REALLY?

The truth is The Citizens Councils were founded in Mississippi in 1954, in protest of the Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared public school segregation to be unconstitutional. The councils were dedicated to political activities opposing civil rights, notably boycotts of pro-civil rights individuals -- including a famous instance by the group in Barbour's town. It was distinguished from the Klan by the public self-identification of its members, and its image of suits and ties as opposed to white robes and nooses.

Like I said...the KLAN IN A SUIT.

Coates has written a couple of good posts on this.
From Coates

In part, I think, that's because with a mere click of the mouse you can discover what actual Confederates were saying:
The declaration of secession from Mississippi

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That's the declaration of secession from Haley Barbour's home state. He still proudly displays the flag of that cause, the same flag that authored the death of more American soldiers than Vietnam, World War I and World War II combined, the death of Lincoln, and the deaths of countless freedmen and descendants of freedman. In short, Barbour embraces the flag of America's most prodigious white supremacists, and foremost home-grown terrorists. Of all the United States, Mississippi has the highest percentage of African-Americans. Haley Barbour, evidently, knows very little of their history. Indeed, there may not be a governor more ignorant of his constituents in all this great land.

The blogger Cynic's conclusion in one of them:

If Barbour wants to praise the good people of Yazoo City for their extraordinary restraint in not employing violence as they hounded from their community those black parents brave enough to demand a decent education for their children; to laud their public disavowal of the local Klan even as they turned a blind eye to its activities; or to extol their grudging cession of the inevitability of court-ordered integration after fifteen years of stalling, for its absence of lynchings or riots, that's his prerogative. For the rest of us, though, Yazoo City should serve as a poignant reminder that the civil rights struggle really was "that bad."

Yes, it was THAT BAD..

And Barbour and his media apologists don't get to run away from that.

EVER.

Rachel Maddow points out Boss Hogg and his attempted whitewash of the Citizens Council.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rev. Al wasn't having it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Barbour and his ilk want to be seen better than who they were AND ARE.

The answer to that is not only NO, but HELL NO.

Town has the answer for Barbour:

Somebody needs to have a voiceover of Barbour saying "It wasn't that bad" over images of hoses and dogs on people, COLOREDS ONLY signs, the John Lewis beatdown, Rosa Parks, National Guard at people's universities, etc.

Amen.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour Also Ignored Slavery in His Confederate Heritage Proclamation

They Are Yearning for the Days of the Old Confederacy

After he defended Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell for omitting slavery from his States Confederate remembrance, it turns out that Haley Barbour made the same glaring omission in his State's proclamation. He seemed to go out of his way to purposely leave out any mention of slavery. I suspect they may be doing this to rile up their supporters. Both Governors may be interested in running for President or VP in 2012. This may be red meat for the Conservative Tea Party base.

Yes, there are definitely more important concerns that we should be focused on... and Republicans would probably love it if we were distracted by Barbour's antics. However, these reports, along with the other comments and activities by the Right point to a certain kind of state of mind that I believe should be illuminated. I think it says a lot about how they view the world, what they believe in, and who they really are. Eugene Robinson points this out very nicely in his commentary on the subject.

These kinds of political antics are taking place at the same time that we are hearing reports about segregation in Mississippi schools. Post racial my ass. I'm not even sure what year this is. I had to check the calender, not sure if I had slipped back in time into some other decade. But the calender says 2010. Notice the overriding pattern? There is a larger context to all of this. It pisses me off when apologists for the radical Right discuss these matters in a vacuum.... in separate little pieces, ignoring patterns and the larger context. Facts tell us one thing, but some in the mainstream corporate media suggest that we should ignore what is right in front of our faces. They want us to believe that the sky is pink, and that the earth is flat....that what we are seeing is just a figment of our imagination. It's not just the wider context of current events that they seem to ignore, they also love to ignore historical context, as Eugene Robinson pointed out.

What's even more annoying than all the talk about the loony Tea Party, the radical Right, and their romanticizing of the Confederacy, is the fact that thickheaded American voters are going to put these jackasses into office, certainly at the State and Congressional levels, in November of this year and in 2012, despite these reports, and despite solid recent history that shows their policies failing. This whole thing (the Right's activities over the past decade and their use of propaganda, especially since 2007) says more about the deficiencies of Progressives and their complete lack of an effective media infrastructure, than it says about how crazy the Right is. If you can't effectively mount a defense against such incredibly crazy propaganda and effectively educate the American public (which is in desperate need of good information and deprogramming).... then to me, this may be the more pressing issue. It points to an emergency within the Progressive movement in this Country. If there is no effort to fix it and fix it soon- with a complete revamping of Progressive strategy, infrastructure... and with policies like the Fairness Doctrine - then this Country is going to be in serious trouble. Progressives & Democrats are certainly going to pay a price.

I'm losing more faith in this Country and the World with each passing day.