Huck pre-postmortem

Larry:

Most people could figure out after reading all of messages and contextual facts which I have presented that I have a very clear understanding of the history of Mississippi. I'll put it up against anyone on this list including Susan whom I believe has a degree in history.

What you fail to realize is how far we have come. You also seem not to want to believe that we have made tremendous strides as if you take pleasure in believing that everything is Bull Conner and Jim Crow here. Why is that? Does it make you feel good that you have someone to hate? Do you channel your frustrations and angst against those whom you think to be not as enlightened as you?

You see Larry, this conversation started about a flag and Mike Huckabee's response to a question concerning his opinion of it. He never said what his personal feelings about the flag were. He said it was an issue for the state to decide. I agree. You seem to think that unless a white person falls over and cries and begs for forgiveness for the "ugliness", they are a bigot and a racist. Larry, most blacks in Mississippi have moved on. I gave you rock solid proof which you conveniently refuse to accept. The blacks in Mississippi had a chance to vote on a new flag. They didn't even bother to vote. More whites voted to change it than blacks. Only 30% of all voters even bothered to vote. If only 1/4 of the blacks had turned out it would have passed. They didn't care and neither should you.

I also told you that I offered my own version of a new state flag based on the South African model of reconciliation. What does that tell you about how I feel about the Confederate Battle Flag flying over public buildings? But Larry, I will never beg mercy from anyone for the CFB and what it truly stands for. Most people under the age of 60 in Mississippi have moved on and so should you and the rest of the country. Even Al Sharpton.

I never said white non-plantion owners had it worse off than African American slaves. Read my words carefully. Follow me here.....I said that the working conditions of the Irish immigrants digging the canals in the swamps were much worse than the slaves working on the docks or in the city or in the homes...fact. Second I said that the slave owners thought that their property, said slaves, were too valuable to be hired out (slave owners receiving such wages) to dig the canals.

Therefore the contractors in charge of digging the canals had to resort to imported labor. In the mid 1800's the most convenient and cheapest happened to be the British citizens of Ireland who were being starved to death because of a potato blight. The blight resulted in a famine and millions were dying of starvation while their English and Scottish overlords took what little crops they could grow as rents. Said Irish immigrants fortunate enough to escape starvation and leave for America, my ancestors, had a choice of going to work in the sweat factories of the North or the swamps of the South. Mine chose to work in the South. What is so hard to understand? Key words - working conditions. The canal diggers not only had to do more work, they risked death doing it and many died. Not perhaps, Larry, fact.

Larry I fully understand that the prospects of the Irish immigrants, if they survived yellow fever, malaria, TB, chlorea, dysentery, etc, to lead a full life was much better than the slaves. The Irish had it tough though, but they stuck together and lifted each other out of poverty. One of my ancestors did not have the money to attend school, but a check came in the mail every month with his tuition. Not from the government, Larry, but from his community. I gave you some insight into the black stratification in New Orleans. Some of the blacks looked down on the poor whites, and still do. Look up the Morial family.

Larry, do a little research. Did you know that in Mississippi during slavery it was a crime for a slave owner to whip his slaves with a crop? Did you know there were lynchings in the North? Did you know that the KKK had a bigger footprint in the North in the 1920's. Did you know that one of the main reasons for blacks and whites being poor and living in Depression from the 1860's to WWII was because of punitive economic santions of the Northern industrialists? Do you know what people living without hope or food brings....someone looking for a scapegoat. Ya know, I am not even going to bother trying to enlighten you because anyone who thinks me a bigot and racist because I discussed race relations on MLK day is "living a fantasy". I guess you think that of the Clintons, don't you. Have you been following their playing the race card even on MLK day. Buddy, that is sacrilege.

Think about his carefully Larry, Mike Huckabee garnered 40% of the African American vote. How did he do that, him being a racist and bigot for not begging mercy for the CFB and demanding that the citizens of South Carolina erase it from history. "Give me a break".

I live in the real world Larry, but I have been wrong. Let me give you an example. During school integration im Mississippi many communities opened private schools exclusively for white students. I started school in 1966 but attended Catholic schools which had been integrated a decade earlier. (Today those communities which did not open academies are much more vibrant than those that did.) The two seperate school systems belong to different athletic associations and do not play each other.

In 2007 the associations decided to allow the teams to play. All of the academies today allow blacks to attend, but most cannot afford it. (My children do not attend academies and are all excellent athletes). Before the season I thought that these games would be a bloodletting. I thought the kids of the schools whose teams are majority black would whip the kids of the academies. I thought those black kids would get so emotional they would be sky-high and exact their revenge now that after 200 years of injustice they had a legal means to put some white kids in the hospital.

Guess what Larry, I was wrong. The black kids didn't care. In fact, the smaller white schools won almost all of the games convincingly. It was no big deal to the black kids. They were just playing another game. I had to eat a little crow, but I was so glad to see how far the children have come. Larry, it is time you got over it also.

Larry:

My first claim was that white plantation owners in the South believed in their hearts that their slaves were better off than those Irish immigrants who were being subject to cruel and inhuman....working conditions..... which were worse than doing what mankind had done for the past 10,000 years, working God's soil to produce a crop.

Second claim was that the working conditions in the swamps of New Orleans was more backbreaking and life threatening than what the slaves had to endure in New Orleans.

Third was that the slave owners thought their slaves were worth more as a human being than the Irish, probably from the fact that their views of the Irish came from the English who thought them to be worse than chattle, having no human value. Slaves being chattle.

Fourth was the fact that in the eyes of the slave owners, their slaves had defacto Social Security benefits until death whereas the Irish immigrants where turned out into the cold as soon as their backs, or their teenage children's backs, could no longer endure the suffering work in the mills of the North.

Since the topic of who was better off overall was never on the table, I did not address it. When I did, you still fail to accept that fact that many blacks in New Orleans were worse "racists" as you define it, than poor whites. And some still are today, look up the Morials. The blacks in New Orleans had the opportunity to make a better life for themselves by helping each other and lifting themselves out of poverty. They never had the opportunities that the Irish immigrants did, but still had the opportunity for a better life all the same. You also must consider that up until WWII many whites in the South still had no indoor plumbing. And I can take you to some houses today that still don't. The difference was that the Irish helped lift each other out of povery, while the blacks segregated themselves. And this is still a problem today. And the Great Society of LBJ has made these poor blacks being left behind worse off than before.

Bringing up past injustices such as the Orangeburg massacre does more harm than good. It is time to address the problems of today. Jackson, MS had 51 homicides last year and averages about 40 per year. Noone can even speculate how many shootings there are. A young black man from Jackson has a better statistical chance of survival in Fallujah than in Jackson. Unless you accept that most blacks and white still harbor some sort of bigotry in their heart, and quit bringing up the past and judging people for the sins of their fathers, nothing will be done to bring everyone to the table to address the problems the poor face today.

I still see a problem that you have because you use the word "grudginly". You also use the word "think". I gave you concrete proof and many, many examples of how far we have come, but you still use the word "think". I have only spent 5 days of my life in SC, so I never compared Miss to SC. I find no need and will not predicate all of my comments on racial reconciliation in my region of the country with an apology for past injustices. People here are moving on, and you should too. And true reconciliation will not take place until we are comfortable with each others views and find no need to use words such as "grudginly" and "think". This leads to "sloppiness" in your acceptance of points of reference and facts.

I could do a Bill Clinton wagging of my finger in your face if I told you everything I had done in my life to achieve reconciliation on my home turf. At the same time, I will not forsake my heritage and I do not think that Southern whites should ever stoop to that. You are of the type that expects that, and if it is not forthcoming, you dismiss any facts and reference points that these "racist bigots" make. You therefore have a "failure to communicate" mindset built in. You fall for the Al Sharpton view of reconciliation, which only makes things worse. What upsets me is the huge double-standard people like you impose on us.

And I accept your apology, thank you.