A snapshot of a time and place.
Ann Coulter thinks these folks should still be in jail, despite all evidence to the contrary, and the opinion of the District Attorney. “The odds of an innocent man being found guilty by a unanimous jury are basically nil,” says Coulter. —No footnotes are provided for this assertion
This man—who said this was a good idea—is still the leader of the Party of Lincoln in the Senate. —Moreover, he faces no tough questions over his remarks. (Or where he does his hair, for that matter.)
A large number of people feel government-sponsored racism is not necessary; that diversity in education is not a compelling state interest, and is, furthermore, insulting to minorities; and anyway, in a couple of generations this whole dominant racial majority crap will be a thing of the past, so why bother? (Myself, I agree with Barry that Ignatz hit it on the nose:
(...if you’ve got a test or series of tests that tends to suggest that white folks are disproportionately “deserving of” or “suited to” a college education, then the test clearly isn’t measuring what it ought to be measuring, because I take it as a basic truth that white folks in fact do not disproportionately deserve the good stuff that society has to offer; and correcting for that flaw in the testing system is commendable rather than invidious.)
Meanwhile, six frat members are not to be criticized by their frat for putting on blackface to look like the Jackson 5 or Louis Armstrong for an air guitar contest. —And altogether elsewhere, Sinter Klass is still beating Zwarte Pieten.
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Update! Be sure to check out the MetaFilter comments on this topic for a defense of Lott. (He wasn’t talking about segregation, you see. He’s upset about the partition of Israel, which occurred during the Truman administration. Had we voted Thurmond into office, none of this mess in the Middle East would ever have happened.)
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Well, I did wonder about that, myself. I mean, for those of us who do not have an intuitive understanding of late-40s Mississippi politics, the year 1948 combined with the phrase "wouldn't be having all these problems," does rather suggest a very current and topical set of problems that might, if you squinted at them sideways through a filter of, oh, anti-semitism, be thought to have gotten started round about that year.
But then, of course, I realized that this theory was completely wrong. Silly me! Mr. Lott could never have meant to suggest that the state of Israel ought not have been created.
Although... you know, if that was what was going through his mind -- bear with me, just a little contra-factual hypothesis here -- it would go far to explain why he hasn't been very forthcoming about what he did mean. It would be rather a case of opening his mouth to change feet, now wouldn't it?
Amusing an image though that may be, one must keep in mind that, like all millennialist evangelical-types, Lott is a firm supporter of the state of Israel. (Come the Apocalypse, they wants those folks on the front lines, after all. Keep this in mind the next time you're trying to parse the go-go war mentality on the part of some deeply conservative Yanks...)
Sometimes it's hard to keep track of who is which kind of bigot. So confusing. There ought to be a master checklist we could refer to somewhere -- kind of a team roster.
Hey, do you think Poindexter would compile us one?