Where’s That Leave You?

You know?...I read a line once, in a book (at least I thought it was in a book) and it has haunted me ever since. I finally Googled it and -- much to my surprise -- I found it was in the movie Mississippi Burning. Maybe it was in the book. I don’t remember reading the book but I don’t remember a lot of things I’ve done in life.

Anyway, it’s a ugly line. I guess the language of hate always is. But there’s a truth in it that won’t leave me alone. I knew at the time I read it (or heard it) that it explained much about what I knew of the South. It still does.



Think about that line -- "If you ain't better than a nigger, son, who are you better than?” -- in today’s reality.



If you were brought up to believe whites were better than blacks, where’s that leave you when a black man is President of the United States?

”Where does it come from, all this hatred?”

Mostly, it comes from fear. Mixed with shame. It bred a hatred that still lives today. And if you don’t think so, you haven’t read this story.

Protester Is Stomped Before Debate in Kentucky

”With tensions running high in the Kentucky Senate race, a volunteer for Rand Paul, the Republican candidate, assaulted a liberal activist in Lexington Monday night, stomping his foot on her neck and shoulder.”

Do you really think a Republican volunteer stomping a woman’s head into a curb in Kentucky is any different that what happened in the South back in the 60s? Do you not think this evil has the same roots? Mr. Paul will throw his supporter under the bus of course. That is how this game has always been played. The point is that Rand Paul empowered him in the first place.

Do you think Sharron Angle with her “Second Amendment remedies” is any different?

”TPM reports this morning that Angle was a member of the far-right Independent American Party, a pro-gun, states-rights party...”

I’ve told you about “States rights” before. It is still a message of hate no matter how you dress it up. It always has been. Remember where Ronald Reagan gave that speech? That’s right, Mississippi. Just a few miles down from where those young men were murdered in Mississippi Burning. Maybe you should watch that clip again.

Election day is coming up. You need to get out the vote. You really don’t want The Confederate Party to win. Trust me on that one.

Don Brown
October 30, 2010