Senator Jim Webb certainly decided to take advantage of the moment to inject his ideas on racial matters into the conversation, didn’t he? I guess Webb has always been an advocate for the non-elite whites of the South.
After five more novels, he wrote a work of nonfiction, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, tracing the role people of Scots-Irish ancestry have played in American history and culture. Webb argues that, contrary to the “cracker” and “redneck” stereotypes often applied to the Scots-Irish, many of whom settled in Appalachia, the American Midwest and the American South, the Scots-Irish were central to defining American working class values and culture. He lauds the fiercely independent streak and individualism of the Scots-Irish, and explains how their political pragmatism has often led them to play the role of swing voters in elections, for example as Reagan Democrats, and as voters for Ross Perot and Reform Party. Critics complain that errors in this book include incorrect time frames, omissions, misinterpretations (such as viewing the American Civil War as a continuation of the centuries-old Celtic-Saxon conflict), and bias stemming from Webb’s feelings of persecution as a veteran of the Vietnam War.
I think his column suffers from some of the same shortcomings as his book, but I don’t begrudge him his self-anointed role as champion of the cracker/redneck. I guess my main objection to his piece is that he whitewashes poor white southerner’s role in fighting for slavery and then supporting Jim Crow. I mean, in one sense he is only echoing Shirley Sherrod’s observation that white elites pitted poor whites against poor blacks in order to control both of them. That’s true, but it seems irrelevant for assessing how blacks experienced Jim Crow. I don’t think anyone can plausibly argue that the Ku Klux Klan was an elitist institution, for example.
I see his point about enforced diversity helping people (like Korean immigrants) who never faced anything like Jim Crow. And he’s right that the demographics of the country are changing and have been changing since immigration policies were relaxed in the 1960’s. But he falls into the trap of thinking that Affirmative Action is primarily about atoning for slavery. Affirmative Action actually has done more for women than it has done for blacks.
I don’t know. I’m not wedded to policies put in place 45 years ago, as if they can’t be revisited. But I don’t think Webb has an accurate picture in his head about where the balance of injustice lies in this country. He points out some legitimate shortcomings in our policies and he balances the picture a bit by talking about the historic academic and economic underachievement of poor Southern whites, but his solution is too all-embracing and a bit premature.
His ideas are provocative, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What do you think?
I met Jim Webb in 2006 when he was running for the senate at a Young Democrats meeting. This was before I was really partisan; in fact I got annoyed at how he didn’t talk about what he believed in so much as “Republicans suck.” But this was at a YD meeting, so I guess the venue wasn’t right for “ideas” so much as putting them down.
Before I even discovered that article that he wrote about women in the military, I felt that he had an air about him that he didn’t feel women were on his level. This may have been more evident because the YD’s are mostly women on my campus. Very macho type guy.
So I didn’t like him then, and I don’t like him now.
For the purposes of countering white privilege, white people are a fungible monolith. A poor white Southerner still has a degree of privilege over a poor black Southerner identical in every other aspect purely because of his colour. Any honest liberal should agree that both are deserving of government aid over the rich, but to pretend that white privilege is a “myth” because some black people are rich and some white people are poor is just ridiculous.
In terms of this subject? My senator can bite me. However, what I do know is that if his vote is desperately needed on important legislation, he will be there to vote for Obama’s agenda. He’s popular here in a state that just elected two women-hating protofascists to head our state government. So, I’ll take him over any Republican in this state any day. Our GOP is just as crazy as Texas.
Webb writes:
“Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes.
“Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away.”
This is Pleasantville magical thinking, the idea that if people of good will could just do what is in their hearts, then prejudice would magically fade away, and because everyone would be treated fairly then no one would feel aggrieved or resentful or angry anymore.
Unfortunately, of course, this isn’t true.
If it really was that easy, discrimination would not have happened in the first place, and we wouldn’t have needed civil rights acts, equal pay legislation, gay marriage court decisions, etc, etc.
I’m not an expert in this field of law by any means, but it’s somewhat off track to talk about the government ‘picking winners.’
You take a university admission’s board and look at their policy. They don’t have a strict numbers-based criteria where you get in if you have such and such a GPA and SAT score. They look at all kinds of other things, like your activities, your essay, your recommendations, what you’ve overcome, where you grew up, and whether your family has a connection to the institution. Like fielding a baseball team, you look for different skills and assets to fill out your class of new students. I grew up in Princeton which made it harder for me to get into Princeton than almost any kid who did not grow up in Princeton. Why? Because more kids applied from my high school than any other high school in the country. A kid from Alaska or Pakistan had a much better chance than I did. Is that fair? Well, no. But Princeton doesn’t want to have 20 kids from Princeton High School in every class of freshmen.
The government doesn’t make these decisions. At most, they say that you can’t have an all-white admissions policy. You pick someone because their daddy went there. You can pick someone because they’re the best applicant from Oklahoma. The government doesn’t care.
When it comes to a job application, it’s a little murkier, but it’s still not a matter of picking the person with the best objective score on some test. As long as you don’t demonstrate a pattern of discrimination, you’re going to be okay in the eyes of the law.
Was this “reply” misplaced? ‘Cause it has absolutely nothing to do with the comment it’s replying to.
It’s about Webb’s position on the government ‘picking winners’ referenced in the comment above.
As far as I’m concerned, that final statement about fairness and bitterness is absolutely laughable, and is all you need to know about the article and Jim Webb. It’s like either saying: “The market will sort things out…eventually” or “You just move to the back of the bus Rosa. Everything will work out fine in a few years. Just be patient.”
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Justice Achieved – Congratulations to Shirley and Charles Sherrod!
We have wonderful news regarding the case of New Communities, Inc., the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960’s. At the time, with holdings of almost 6,000 acres, this was the largest tract of black-owned land in the country.
… Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations.
… The cash (settlement) award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. … New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Glickman.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."until he opens his mouth to declare WHITE WOMEN AS THE MAIN BENEFICIARIES of ‘ such governmental policies’, then I know he’s just blowing smoke and can kiss my Black ass.
Hmmm… where to begin. Scots-Irish settled in the uplands of the South where plantation slavery wasn’t economically viable. From Blount County, Alabama on up into Washington County, Maryland, southern highlanders were seldom pro-Confederacy and rarely pro-secession. That is the reason why the western counties of Virginia broke off to become the State of West Virginia in 1863. But such resistance was widespread throughout the uplands of the South.
The tension between the lowland planters and poor whites in the South was at least as old as Bacon’s Rebellion in 17th century, and continued through the Regulators of 18th century North Carolina. While southern planters largely stayed with the British during the Revolution – why not? they were doing fine – more marginal southern whites tended to support it.
After the Civil War, poor whites – especially upland whites – were in alliance with southern blacks in the Republican Party of the South. The founder of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, was born poor but was a rich plantation owner before the war. The KKK recognized the danger of an alliance between the newly-freed slaves and poor whites and attacked both with equal ferocity on behalf of a ‘white man’s government.’ In 1876 a cynical alliance between northern Republicans and southern Democrats sold both of them down the river. Southern politicians like Tom Watson who sought to reconstitute the alliance quickly learned the value of shouting “nigger” at election time in the South.
The Neo-Confederacy (think “Birth of a Nation”) made the entire nation accept Jim Crow. By this time, elite southern whites routinely denounced the KKK, preferring such “genteel” organizations as White Citizens’ Councils, but the KKK got it’s money and impunity from the elite. And who the hell knows who was under those sheets. Webb has some serious points.
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– Citizens’ councils used economic and political pressure to achieve their ends. The election of Ross Barnett as governor of Mississippi, on the promise of defending the state’s traditions – which meant white supremacy – was one display of the council’s success.
“The Negro today is the best treated human being in the United States”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Sarcasm to follow….Oh, I’m sure if we get rid of all these awesome affirmtative action programs that have elevated minorities into so many positions of power, the majority white populations (75%) wouldn’t possibly discriminate again. We are sooooo beyond race these days, cough, spit, vomit….
For about a half a minute when Jim Webb came on the scene, I thought he was pretty good, a military guy who claimed to be a democrat. But he has really shown his true colors in recent years. This column really shows his true colors.
I don’t know how Webb talks about these periods of history, but it is more complex than one might think. And folks outside the South by their action and inaction don’t come off so well either.
About the Civil War: Non-Southern states tolerated slavery from the creation of the Republic under the Articles of Confederation, through the Constitution, and up until the 1850s. A question about non-Southern states is “What made them change their minds?” The Abolitionist movement, always a minority of non-Southerners? Economic interests? And on the Southern side, what drove them into war? The Southern provocations are easier to describe and mostly self-inflicted. In 1830 the largest slave rebellion of the 19th century occurred in Southhampton County VA – the Nat Turner rebellion. The local newspaper editors, the Glenn Beck’s of their day, hyped this event all over the South. Innocent blacks in Missisippi and Alabama were shot by plantation superintendents on suspicion of being part of the rebellion. And for the next thirty years, the hyping of the dangers of abolition did not stop in the Southern newspapers, whose audience was local lawyers, preachers, and planters and a few others who could read. When Lincoln was elected, these newspapers flipped out like Glenn Beck and the Secessionist movement was born, Secession hastily declared beginning in SC, and hotheads fired on Fort Sumter. It would be interesting to study the muster rolls and see who enlisted between 1861 and 1863; there were a lot of poor whites who didn’t because they were conscripted in 1863, my ancestors among them. I have no idea what their opinions of slavery were or why did not dodge the draft (one of their brothers evidently did). But I suspect it was much like the folks in the 1960s who were against the Vietnam War but nonetheless went to fight.
Jim Crow: Once again it was non-Southern states’ apathy (or support) that allowed an oppressive system to be implemented. The Jim Crow laws were passed a generation after the end of the Civil War. The movement began in legislatures in the 1890s, by 1895 the laws were in place. In 1896, the court of the rest of the country decided they were Constitutional. The KKK, a small or large minority in almost every community were the political arm devoted to keeping the laws in place, and they ruled by terror of blacks and whites. Blacks were lynched. “N****er-loving” whites were threatened, even killed other ways. Whites who had gotten beyond racism were silent, circumspect, and careful. And in the reign of terror during the agricultural depression of the Coolidge administration, the federal government looked the other way. The Appalachian Scots-Irish had few blacks living in their communities; there were a significant number of “Sundown towns” in Appalachian Georgia, Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia.
Labor movement: What Jim Webb most like ignores is the relationship between whites and blacks during the organizing of labor unions in the 1930s. I am not familiar with the history of the mine unions but I am with the textile unions that were organized in the textile workers strike of 1938. The textile workers movement was organized by folks from outside the South, some socialists and Communists among them. One of the first principles they pursued was to have blacks and whites in the same union so as to avoid one being played off against the other. It was a bitter strike, one that has made the South a right-to-work law area. It was suppressed by company goons; in Honea Path, SC, a one-mill small town then, goons killed 8 strikers. The governors mobilized their state guards (now called the National Guard) to suppress the strikers. FDR stood aside. The national unions did not support the strike because a number of them were segregated unions that didn’t want the precedent of a desegregated union. The whites who joined with blacks in that movement were mostly Scotch-Irish.
About the Jim Web opinion piece:
First of all, he is pandering to the Wall Street Journal audience, which is not by any stretch of the imagination “poor whites”. He is seeking support for his re-election campaign–from the national and local elites.
Second, there are black and Hispanic managers who prefer predominately black or Hispanic staffs. Not a significant number but enough to turn a lie into a half truth.
Third, immigrants comprises not just undocumented workers, or even documented Hispanics. It includes H1-B technical workers, the managers that foreign corporations send to run their American operations. Which immigrants are the focus depends on the occupation of the person you are talking to. Increasingly in the South Hispanics have been taking construction jobs and leveraging them into their own small companies, some of which are large enough to employ white and black workers. I’m not sure what advantages immigrants have over other workers; that one baffles me.
Fourth, from the beginning of the Republic, the economic relationships between the rest of country and the South have been that of an internal colony. Having already a slave system and only a few plantation owners to deal with made that colonial relationship easy. That relationship persists with the tax breaks Southern governors give out-of-state (and international) corporations for locating plants and jobs in the South, an action that prevents adequate funding of public education. And now there are other regions of the country that are in the same position. Ordinary taxpayers are subsidizing the corporations that were to bring them prosperity.
Fifth, there is a class problem in the South. Historically there were as many as six tiers in the class system (see the discussion by Bill Cecil-Fronsman in Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina. Today, that system is becoming more like the rest of America. And it is slowly becoming de-racialized. So that in some of the New South cities, segregation occurs by income.
Sixth, he is absolutely wrong about equal opportunities for blacks. And about his understanding of affirmative action, sad for a Senator to be that ignorant of what the law is. Affirmative action has gotten the reputation for advantaging blacks over whites because either (1) that’s the way the manager has managed it or (2) that’s the story that managers give whites who experience occupational disappointment (it’s a dodge for the manager not to say “Buddy, that black guy was more qualified and performed better than you did.”
Last, asserting that white privilege does not exist does not make it so. Especially in the case of a Senator. More especially in the case of a Senator from Virginia.
One sure way to spot a white racist is when the person suggests, even obliquely, that policies that help people who are not white somehow preclude policies (other policies, the same policies) that help white people. Whoever says that is not an ally.
Remember Paul Hackett? He was submarined by Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid in favor of Sherrod Brown as the Democatic Ohio senatorial candidate in 2006. Why? My take is and was that they didn’t trust Hackett to play ball.
Money ball. The only game that they really play.
Here is what Hackett said at the time in Mother Jones:
There it is.
Deal with it.
To take any successful member of the U.S. Senate seriously is to be a willing fool of the media. It’s a shell game. A money game. All of it.
How much more do you have to know?
Turn your media off and wake the fuck up.
AG
P.S. Harry Reid actually said the following with a straight face. There’s even a video to prove it.
This is the Majority Leader of The United States Senate saying this!!!
In 2010!!!
Jim Webb is one of his boys. Jim ain’t gonna be putting his feet up on the table anytime soon.
And you pay serious attention to these go-along-to-get-along motherfuckers?
Please.
Lord save us all.
Damn, AG, it’s getting harder for politicians to talk out of both sides of their mouth.
The game continues apace.
Bet on it.
There’s a sucker born every minute.
Bet on that as well.
The hustlers are making…and collecting…on that bet daily.
Watch.
2010? Just another shell to pick wrong.
Riiiight…
Then 2012…? The same game. Only bigger.
Watch.
AG
I’m having a hard time deciding how to read that article, and a harder time trying to figure out what to make of it. I think I agree with the gist of the argument that I think he’s trying to make, but I don’t think this piece makes his case very well. It doesn’t read like other Webb WSJ opinion pieces I’ve read. It has the feel of a much longer piece edited for length. It that is the case, I don’t think it survived the edit particularly well. He makes many of the same points in other WSJ articles and does a better job of it in my opinion.
If Webb can initiate a realistic discussion on class differences in America, I am all for it. The upper class always divide the rest of us along ethnic differences.
My favorite dialogue from the best film on class differences in America, Matewan: