IÂ’d like to see the movie Banished.

There are ghosts haunting Marco Williams’s quietly sorrowful documentary “Banished,” about the forced expulsion of black Southerners from their homes in the troubled and violent decades after the Civil War. Dressed in what looks like their Sunday best, in dark suits and high-collar dresses, they stare solemnly into an unwelcoming world. A couple ride in a cart along a pretty country road, and others stand awkwardly before houses with peeling paint. There are few smiles. Photography was then a serious business, though being a black landowner, part of a fragile, nascent Southern middle class, was more serious still.

The events and the period covered are clearly one of the great missed opportunities of American history, one of those “what ifs” that those of us who are students of history often look at and think of with a heart-felt sadness.

And it looks like Williams has done a great job, hitting many important but little-known incidents.

Mr. Williams isn’t one for hysterics or histrionics, even when seated across from a Ku Klux Klan leader who says he wouldn’t be happy if this African-American director moved in next door. The Klan leader lives in a nice-looking house adorned with white supremacist banners in Forsyth County, Ga., which in 1912 brutally expelled an estimated 1,000 of its black residents. Mr. Williams guides us through this terrible history, often while strolling on camera through the scene of the crime, talking to white residents and dredging up memories. He also uncovers some repellent images of a white mob trying to stop a peaceful, interracial civil rights march in the county in 1987. The marchers sing “We Shall Overcome.” The mob throws rocks.

There is so much more to the story than can be told by this 87-minute movie, which only casts glances at Reconstruction, the question of reparations and the bitter, enduring, living legacy of slavery. Although Mr. Williams somewhat overstates his case when he says that racial cleansing has “remained hidden,” there’s no denying that this ugly chapter deserves more than an occasional well-meaning documentary. (A national day of mourning might be a good start.) The 1997 fiction film “Rosewood” recounted one such expulsion that took place in central Florida in the 1920s, and journalists, activists and descendants, including those who appear in “Banished,” have dug into the archives and sifted through the evidence. Mr. Williams has done his own part to shed needed light, though I wish he had dug longer, harder.

In late 2006 The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., published a series about an 1898 white riot to destroy a political alliance between blacks and poor whites in Wilmington, N.C., where the literacy rates for black men were higher than those for whites. One agitator, a former Confederate soldier and the future mayor of Wilmington, vowed that he and other like-minded whites would never surrender “even if we have to choke the Cape Fear River with carcasses.” What followed was a coup d’état, possibly the only time that a municipal government was toppled in American history. Black residents were murdered; the local black newspaper was torched, and survivors exiled. Reconstruction died, and Jim Crow moved right in.

But what I find interesting in this review, even with the commentary on the Wilmington incident (which I wrote about earlier), is the fact that a single word appears nowhere in the entire piece. This despite the fact that it is crucial to the story being told, and the evil being perpetrated. It points to the thing that linked the overwhelming majority of the perpetrators of these great evils, and the overwhelming beneficiary of them.

The missing word?

Democrat.

After all, the guilty individuals in most of these acts of domestic terrorism would have been Democrats, and the political party that benefited would have been the Democratic Party. It is an institution that today still benefits from the legacy of its own racism, even while trying to place the label of “racist” on its political opponents to obscure its racist past while exploiting black misery in the present. It is the party that placed a Klansman on the Supreme Court in the 1930s, and which still has an old Kluxer serving in the US Senate today.

For some reason, Manohla Dargis leaves those details out of the review. I hope that Marco Williams didnÂ’t leave them out of the movie.

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I’ve stayed out of this controversy, because every time I’ve tied to examine the facts the incident seems more and more muddied. After all, something is clearly wrong in Jena, Louisiana – but the facts underlying the incident are often obscured by the haze induced by the heated racial rhetoric (often amazingly fact-free) surrounding the incident.

The district attorney offers an explanation of why he brought the serious charges he did in this case. The heart of his argument is compelling, when one considers what actually happened last December at the high school.

Last week, a reporter asked me whether, if I had it to do over, I would do anything differently. I didn’t think of it at the time, but the answer is yes. I would have done a better job of explaining that the offenses of Dec. 4, 2006, did not stem from a “schoolyard fight” as it has been commonly described in the news media and by critics.

Conjure the image of schoolboys fighting: they exchange words, clench fists, throw punches, wrestle in the dirt until classmates or teachers pull them apart. Of course that would not be aggravated second-degree battery, which is what the attackers are now charged with. (Five of the defendants were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.) But thatÂ’s not what happened at Jena High School.

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.

Imagine you were walking down a city street, and someone leapt from behind a tree and hit you so hard that you fell to the sidewalk unconscious. Would you later describe that as a fight?

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.

So what we have here is an attack on a kid completely uninvolved in the noose incident. It was unprovoked, with six young thugs kicking and stomping their unconscious victim. That isn’t a fight – it is an ambush designed to maim (and perhaps kill) a defenseless individual based, it would appear, solely upon race. Frankly, I’m disturbed that there is no hate-crime enhancement to these charges, just as I would expect there to be if a group of white kids did the same to a black kid. As a result, I think those aggravated battery charges are appropriate – and one could argue (as does prosecutor Reed Walters) that the adult charges against Bell were not unreasonable in light of his previous criminal record.

Where I disagree with Walters is his assessment of the criminality of the original noose incident. Surely there was some aspect of civil rights law, either state or federal, that might apply to what happened that day. The “prank” was clearly designed to discourage students from fully and freely exercising their civil rights at the high school, and as an incident taking place on public property ought to be treated in precisely the same manner as a cross-burning would have. But even if my position is wrong on this point, there is no possible way of justifying the assault on Justin Barker – which might best be described as an attempted lynching of an innocent man in the “best” race-hating tradition of the KKK.

Now do I fault people who have been outraged over the situation in Jena? No, I don’t – given the amount of misinformation out there it is hard to drill down to the facts. I wish the media had done a better job of reporting on this, and that the blogosphere had exercised a little more restraint before buying in to all the claims being made about the case by one side. This isn’t Selma, and it isn’t Scottsboro – let’s quit pretending it is.

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Posted by: Greg at 10:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Can be summed up in one line in a commentary in today's Houston Chronicle.

White people's refusal to acknowledge their own racism is a major stumbling block to addressing issues of race in this country.

But the reality is that this is NOT the major stumbling block, or even a major stumbling block, in the discussion. Instead, it is the demand that the writer makes that biased, bigoted, racist assumption that underlies that statement that is the major obstacles to addressing issues of race in this country. What is sought, therefore, is not discussion or engagement on controversial issues, but surrender and capitulation in an echo chamber of political correctness.

Posted by: Greg at 09:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If this had been said a little bit differently?

The city's embattled police chief, acknowledging that police alone cannot quell a run of deadly violence, has called on 10,000 black men to patrol the streets to reduce crime.
Sylvester Johnson, who is black, says black men have a duty to protect more vulnerable residents. He wants each volunteer to pledge to work three hours a day for at least 90 days.
"It's time for African-American men to stand up," Johnson told the Philadelphia Daily News, which first reported the story Wednesday. "We have an obligation to protect our women, our children and our elderly. We're going to put men on the street. We're going to train them in conflict resolution."

Now think about the reaction if a white police chief had called for 10,000 white men to patrol the city protecting the vulnerable and reducing crime. We would be hearing about fears of a new racist organization, and invocations of the KKK – and justifiably so.

What Philly needs is NOT 10,000 black men. It needs 10,000 men (and women, for that matter) of every race and color to protect the vulnerable and reduce crime. It truly needs a rainbow coalition that spans the diversity of the city to act on behalf of the city – not monochromatic men. The only requirement as far as race is concerned should be the ability to check the box marked “human.”

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Posted by: Greg at 01:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I realize that it is an inconvenient truth for Democrats, but the true party of civil rights in this country was, is, and always will be the Republican Party. From the GOPÂ’s demand for the containment and elimination of slavery to the passage of multiple pieces of civil rights legislation designed to overcome Democrat efforts to keep African-Americans in bondage as second-class citizens, at every turn it was the Republican Party that sought expanded rights for American blacks.

Unfortunately, Democrats continually tried to frustrate those plans.

Eisenhower complained in 1967 that if his critics felt “there was anything good done” in his presidency, “they mostly want to prove that it was somebody else that did it and that I went along as a passenger.” That has been especially true of his championship of civil rights.

The “somebody else” in this instance was Lyndon B. Johnson, who in 1957 was the Senate’s Democratic majority leader. Historians have consistently credited Johnson for the bill’s passage. Yes, Johnson played a role, but hardly the one his advocates might imagine: Eisenhower and his attorney general, Herbert Brownell Jr., first proposed strong legislation, and it was Johnson and his Southern cronies who weakened it beyond recognition.

Johnson wanted a cosmetic bill that would enhance his presidential ambitions without alienating his white Southern base. It was a balancing act, as even a weak bill depended on EisenhowerÂ’s new legislative coalition, which formed after he persuaded the Republicans to abandon their longtime opposition to civil rights legislation. (Republicans provided 37 of the 60 yes votes when the final bill passed the Senate.)

The Eisenhower proposal had four main parts. The first two — the creation of a civil rights commission to investigate voting irregularities and a civil rights division in the Justice Department — survive to this day. The other two pillars, unfortunately, became victims of politics. Part 3 proposed to grant the attorney general unprecedented authority to file suits to protect broad constitutional rights, including school desegregation. Part 4 provided for federal civil suits to prosecute voting rights violations.

Now many Republicans had opposed more civil rights legislation because of repeated efforts by the Democrats to use their congressional majority to prevent its passage or to water it down to the point of uselessness. Even the older statutes had been rendered useless by the refusal of Southern judges and juries to convict defendants under them. Eisenhower wanted to change that by allowing for strong civil enforcement of civil rights laws. Lyndon Johnson and Southern Democrats blocked that change, substantially weakening the legislation and delaying the promise of civil rights for more than a decade.

Republicans today still stand for civil rights for all individuals, with a call for equality under the law for all Americans. We still stand for non-discrimination – as we have for our entire existence as a party.

Posted by: Greg at 12:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I canÂ’t help but be struck by where this story places the emphasis.

A woman who authorities said was sexually abused, beaten, stabbed and humiliated while held captive in a home for at least a week was repeatedly called a racial slur during the attacks, the victim's mother said.

So that’s the bit of information you want to emphasize – not that this woman was brutalized, but that someone dared to utter a racial slur while doing it. Frankly, I view that as the least disturbing part of the attack, with the incredible acts of violence and violation being significantly more important, and much more worthy of outrage.

Six people, all white, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, have been arrested in connection with the alleged abduction of the 23-year-old black woman, sheriff's officials said Monday. Authorities were looking for two people they believe drove the woman to the home, Logan County Chief Deputy V.K. Dingess said Monday evening.

The FBI, which was asked by the sheriff's department to aid in the investigation, will look into whether a hate crime occurred.

And I say to you – who cares if this is a so-called “hate crime”? As vile and violent as these acts were, I cannot imagine that there is much need for any enhancement of the penalties or additional charges. And to be honest, I don’t care why this woman was brutalized – the mere fact that she was so cruelly abused should be sufficient to send the perps away for the duration of their natural lives.

Indeed, this story illustrates the utter inanity of “hate crime” laws. What needs to be punished here is not the words directed at the victim, or even the motive for the crime. Instead, we need to be punishing the very real and offensive criminal acts which were perpetrated upon the victim, without regard for side-show issues like race.

Posted by: Greg at 02:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Posted by: Bcjfdhkv at Wed Oct 7 09:39:32 2009 (uFEEn)

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And let me be the first to condemn this glaring example of race-based politics used to attack a candidate for office.

When Steve Cohen, a black man, was elected last year to represent mostly white Memphis in Congress, it was seen as a sign that racial divisions were fading in this Southern city.

But less than a year later, Cohen is facing a movement led by white pastors and political activists to defeat him in 2008 and send a white representative to Washington instead.

"He's not white, and he can't represent me. That's the bottom line," the Rev. Robert Poindexter told a local newspaper after a meeting last week of the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association at which Cohen was jeered and booed.

The hostile reception caught Cohen off guard and foreshadowed the challenge he is almost certain to face next year in his first bid for re-election.

* * *

But the preachers have also questioned whether a black man should even represent the 9th District, which is 60 percent white and 34 percent black.

"I don't care how people dress it up," Poindexter told The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis. "It always comes down to race, and he can't know what it's like to be white."

Such blatantly racist and discriminatory behavior on the part of the evil Konservative Khristian Koalition RethigliKlans must be denounced and rejected by every decent American as a violation of the fundamental concept of racial equality which so many fought and died for. those who hold to such views must be expelled from the GOP. Sheet-head KKKlergymen like Rev. Robert Poindexter need to be driven from the pulpit by Christians who accept the teaching of Scripture that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, and the message of racial equality that underlies it.

Oh.

I see the story has been updated.

When Steve Cohen, a white man, was elected last year to represent mostly black Memphis in Congress, it was seen as a sign that racial divisions were fading in this Southern city.

But less than a year later, Cohen is facing a movement led by black pastors and political activists to defeat him in 2008 and send a black representative to Washington instead.

"He's not black, and he can't represent me. That's the bottom line," the Rev. Robert Poindexter told a local newspaper after a meeting last week of the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association at which Cohen was jeered and booed.

The hostile reception caught Cohen off guard and foreshadowed the challenge he is almost certain to face next year in his first bid for re-election.

* * *

But the preachers have also questioned whether a white man should even represent the 9th District, which is 60 percent black and 34 percent white.

"I don't care how people dress it up," Poindexter told The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis. "It always comes down to race, and he can't know what it's like to be black."

Of course, we know the party and the politics of those involved in this dispute. Liberal Democrats out playing race-ho and sowing the same sorts of divisions that the civil rights movement was about destroying. These so-called Christian leaders have turned the message of Dr. King on its head, and call for judging a man on the color of his skin, not the content of his character. It is a shameful move, and hearkens back to the racial policies of the Democrats in that part of the country only a few decades back.

Will the state or national party denounce such racial hate-mongering and expel the perpetrators from its midst, clearly stating that there is no place for racism in the party -- even if it means losing elections because of that principled stand? Will they forthrightly label the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association as a hate-group?

Will the people of these churches remove Rev. Robert Poindexter and his ilk from the pulpit and replace them with American patriots and believers in the equal rights and dignity of every person? Or will the false Gospel of race-hatred and discrimination remain accepted in the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association, while the Gospel of Jesus Christ is repudiated by race-baiting heretics?

Now there may be many good reasons to vote for or against Steve Cohen. As a conservative Republican, I likely would reject him in favor of a candidate closer to my views on the issues. But I will not stand by and see the poison of race-hatred circulate in the body politic of my country.

And I ask Rev. Robert Poindexter and his fellow bigots in the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association is they will renounce the hatred and re-embrace the message of Martin Luther King and and Jesus Christ that tells us that racism is a vile, sinful contagion of the soul? Or will they have the courage of their convictions and call for Senator Barack Obama to withdraw from the race for the Democratic nomination for President -- and to resign from the US Senate because of his inability to properly represent the people of Illinois, who are over 75% white.

H/T Jay Nordlinger

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Posted by: Greg at 11:00 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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