Why Winning Alabama Matters

Chris Koski makes an important point regarding one talking point aimed at dismissing Biden's Super Tuesday performance: that it's meaningless because he was only winning "red states" that will play no role in the general election anyway.

To begin, it's not really true: of all the states which have had primary elections so far, the state most likely to be "pivotal" in November is North Carolina, and Biden won there by almost 20 points. And in terms of Sanders' victories, it's not like Utah or (in the other direction) Vermont are going to play decisive roles in the general either.

But also, Koski notes, between voter suppression and high rates of racial polarization in voting, the presidential primary is one of the few opportunities for African-American voters in deep south states like Alabama to influence national and Democratic politics at all. Given that they are a core Democratic constituency, it is a good thing that they get the opportunity to make their mark in the primary process precisely because in the general the Democratic candidate won't really have the opportunity to invest any time there.

This is changing a little bit as some shallow south states become more competitive (see North Carolina again). But if the raw bloodless political calculus is that a Democratic presidential candidate really should ignore African-American voters in Alabama during the general election campaign, that makes it more important that they have the opportunity to exert meaningful influence in the primary.

Mitch Landrieu on Confederation Commemoration

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu recently decided to take down several city monuments honoring various Confederate leaders. Unsurprisingly, he faced significant pushback for this decision. This is a link to the speech he gave explaining why he did what he did.

It is one of the most powerful and unflinching speeches by a White southerner on the matter of race, the "lost cause", and southern identity that I've ever read. It's not long, and I'm not going to excerpt. Just read it in full.

When a Boy Isn't Just a Boy

We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 551 (1896).

The 11th Circuit has once again reversed a verdict finding racial discrimination a Tyson Foods factory, holding (among other things) that the evidence whereby a White supervisor had called the Black plaintiff "boy" was insufficient to provide evidence of discriminatory bias.

This case had already been up to the Supreme Court once, where they reversed a prior 11th Circuit decision holding that "boy" could never be evidence of racial prejudice unless accompanied by a modifier like "Black" or "White". The Supreme Court chastised the lower court:

Although it is true the disputed word will not always be evidence of racial animus, it does not follow that the term, standing alone, is always benign. The speaker's meaning may depend on various factors including context, inflection, tone of voice, local custom, and historical usage.

Not taking the hint, the 11th Circuit continues insist that there was simply not conceivable way a jury could have interpreted the usage of "boy" as evidencing a discriminatory attitude.

Obviously, it's true that whether "boy" is malevolent or benign depends on the factors the court laid out. And you know who is, if not really good at examining those factual elements, then at least is legally tasked with sorting them out? Juries! They're the ones who know the most about local custom, and inflection, and tone of voice, and how comparable "boy" is to the n-word. Not, say, three judges on the 11th Circuit reviewing trial transcripts after the fact.

Of Traitors and Terrorists

Gotta love Roland Martin for this. To be sure, Confederate soldiers weren't terrorists in any general sense -- that label, I think, is reserved for folks who as a matter of policy violate international humanitarian norms in order to achieve political ends, and I haven't read anything that suggests that Confederate war tactics were, as a matter of course, outside the normal bounds of the laws of war at that time. But Martin isn't really using the terrorist label for that purpose -- rather, he's making a comparison between the specious justifications given for "honoring" Confederate soldiers ("they were fighting for what they believed in!" "There were aggressive acts by the North") and similar rhetoric used by terrorist apologists the world over.

The fact is that Confederate soldiers weren't terrorists, so much as they were traitors. But either way, there is nothing honorable about it.

Meanwhile, Matt Yglesias has a great post about "the white southern political tradition’s very partial and selective embrace of majoritarian democracy."

As long as national institutions are substantially controlled by white southerners, the white south is a hotbed of patriotism. But as soon as an non-southern political coalition manages to win an election—as we saw in 1860 and in 2008—then suddenly the symbols of national authority become symbols of tyranny and the constitution is construed as granting conservative areas all kinds of alleged abilities to opt out of national political decisions.

And then the rest of the country is supposed to honor this as authentic Americana. Count me out.

Stomp the Floor

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a devastating piece up comparing ex-Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN), now considering a run for Senate in New York, to those figures in Southern politics who knew segregation was wrong, but said what they had to say to get elected. George Wallace (and I did not know this) had a reputation as a particularly unbiased and fair-minded judge for Blacks in the south, and indeed at one point ran for office with the NAACP's backing. It failed miserably. And so, Wallace said:

You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor.

Ford's political ambitions have caused him to take a variety of socially conservative positions that he is now racing to disavow. The most morally pernicious of these was his effort to position himself as the most anti-gay of the anti-gay politicians that infect the American political system. It's probable that Ford really didn't have a problem with gay marriage. But, as Coates writes:

In the 1950s and 1960s, Alabama had in its midst men who knew segregation was a reeking abomination, but embraced it because it allowed them to fix a road in their hometown, build a clinic in the underserved backwoods, or just hook a friend up for a job. Or maybe it was just power--who can tell?

From my perspective, motive is irrelevant. (There's usually a good reason to do evil. That's the nature of evil.) It takes a particular kind of cowardice to throw people's lives aside and bow to the mutually destructive curse of discrimination. I can believe Harold Ford was never actually against gay marriage, and was more concerned with good schools and good roads. But then when he said "constitutional amendment," they stomped the floor.

Amen.

It's Good To Be Free

Letter from Jourdan Anderson, an ex-slave, to his former master after the Civil War. Fabulous reading.

Via

Make it Official

Maryland officials petition to switch the state from the "south" to the "east" regional group of the Council of State Governments.

Maryland has long been associated with the Southern region of the council. Among other things, that has meant Maryland lawmakers have hobnobbed at regional conferences with their counterparts from states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

But now Maryland leaders have, in essence, decided they have more in common with legislators from places like New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont.

In a joint letter to leaders of the Council of State Governments, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller (D-Calvert) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) ask permission for Maryland to re-align with the Eastern region. The issue is expected to be decided this fall.

Politically, it would certainly be a better fit. Maryland is among the most reliably Democratic states in the nation. Of the four council regions, the Southern is the one most heavily populated with Republican elected officials.

In their letter, Miller and Busch cite several more substantive issues. The Eastern region includes more states with a stake in the health of the Chesapeake Bay, for example. And the Base Realignment and Closure Process "will have extensive impacts on Maryland and primarily its neighbors to the north and east."

Miller and Busch also mention that the District is a member of the Eastern region, and make the case that there are many issues affecting Maryland and the District that require "mutual cooperation." (The letter makes only a passing reference to the fact that Virginia is part of the Southern region.)

I've described Maryland (in inversion of the famous quip about DC) as the land of "southern charm and northern efficiency." Even still, we're really not south, and haven't been for awhile.

What's in a Flag?

I don't really have anything to add, but I did want to note this: Ta-Nehisi Coates has a good post up on the Confederate Flag and its connection to racism, and reposted a comment which adds a lot more texture to the discussion that I, an upper-class Yank, wouldn't have known about.

Going South of the Border

A short while back, Feddie complained that there were no southerners in Barack Obama's cabinet. Now the final tally is out, and there will be one, lone representative of Dixie: former Houston Dallas mayor Ron Kirk as the US Trade Representative. Southerners don't seem mollified. Consider the reaction of Georgia Congressman Jack Kingston (R):

"Southerners need not apply," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. "It's hard to believe that there wasn't anybody qualified for something from the South."

There are a bunch of ways one might play this. The first is to note that Kingston basically is calling for southern-based affirmative action -- right down to the rhetoric, which comes almost straight out of the LCCR's playbook.

Or, one might take John Cole's tact, which would be to note how difficult it is to find qualified southern politicians for elevation when they keep electing people like, well, Jack Kingston:



Hey -- the problem isn't that there are no qualified southern politicians. It's just that none of them are White. White folk want in on the meritocracy, they gotta start raising their game.

Or finally, you might go with my original instinct: wouldn't, under previously forwarded lines of analysis, any southerner who accepted a cabinet position with Barack Obama automatically be an "insult" to the region? I forget if it is better or worse that Kirk is a Democrat, but presumably the fact that he's Black makes it a moot point anyway.