An article in today’s NY Times discusses the effect that the coming out (so to speak) of Strom Thrumond’s illegitimite child by the ‘hired help’ has had on his family.
Said one family member:
Also:
Hm. . . maybe if Strom hadn’t worked so hard promoting anti-black sentiment, the public might not mind the race thing so much. Maybe your family is part of the reason why the fact that the illigitimite daughter is black really matters at all.
Of course. I mean, rutting with the hired help is so… plebian. I can’t imagine that Master Strom would condescend to anything like that.
Yeah, I mean, doesn’t she know she is tarnishing the image of a mighty man and family?
And that way it all could have been brushed under the rug without causing a scene that might cause acquaintances at the society ball to give the family funny looks.
None of this surprises me really, but I just found this so blatantly disgusting. Come on people, it’s 2003. Even if your patriarch was still living in the days before blacks had the right to vote doesn’t mean you are absolved from moving beyond it. You are all pathetic, spoiled people who deserve every bit of ‘shame’ that this brings, as the only shame to the family is because of the hypocracy of Strom Thurmond, and whatever shame you and your friends seem to find in having a black member of your family.
In fairness to Strom’s family, how would you have preferred that they react? “We’re proud to welcome this latest addition to our family. We’re proud that our father took advantage of his social position to commit statutory (and probably physical) rape and impregnate a 16-year-old servant, and we don’t think there was anything wrong with it. We feel no shame.” ???
. . . But none of the quotes you highlighted indicated rascism. They may very well be rascist, but those little, pull-quotes don’t show it. The closest might be, “Ms. Freeman also said that had the secret daughter been white, it would be a whole other situation,’ because public criticism would not have been as harsh.”
Ummm, “because public criticism would not have been as harsh,” not “because we hates them darkies.”
There have also been quotes from, for instance, Strom Thurmond, Jr., saying he would like to meet his new relatives. But that doesn’t make as good a story, does it?
Now I have to go take a shower, after defending the Thurmond family . . .
Eve, I see your points, but if I had brought them up, it wouldn’t be an exciting rant, now would it?
But, still, the subtext I pick up from those quotes, and the whole article itself, is that there’s a well-to-do family whose social image has been tarnished (good god, how will the world continue?) by this act of adultery or whatever you want to call it, but even more so because the woman with which the adultery was committed was black. It’s a lot harder to pretend nothing wrong happened if the kid looks like the rest of the family.
That in and of itself is not racism, but I also get the impression that “help around the house” = “black servants” which also leaves a funny taste in my mouth.
All this combined with the fact that the aparent social stigma of having a black illegitimate daughter as opposed to one who looked more like the rest of the family is something that Strom helped to encourage (that blacks are less whatever than whites) lead me to post this.
>> the grace exhibited by Strom’s daughter during her public statement
I was very impressed by her. She has more class and dignity than all the rest of the people in the story put together. She is really admirable and dignified. Very unusual in this day and age. If more people were like her the world would be a better place.
The news stories I’ve read say that the maid gave birth at age 16. So she may well have been only 15 when the randy young hypocrite Had His Way with her.
As to the family members’ shame… Tough titties to them. They haven’t a shred of the grace and class that Essie Mae Washington-Williams has shown.
I hestitate to try to defend Thurmond or his clutch of vult… I mean, his family. Think of it as defending Truth In Citations, if you will.
Is there any evidence that anybody in Thurmond’s family supported his political viewpoints on segregation? Is there any evidence that his family still employs only black servants? Are there any actual unambiguous quotes by his family from which we do not have to extract a “racist subtext?”
OK, I am going to play (literally!) devil’s advocate here, for the sheer sake of being ornery. Did Essie Mae Washington-Williams speak with the Thurmond family before going public with her press conference? I can see how that woud be seen as thoughtless, grandstanding if she never told the family she was going to do that. Several family members have said (paraphrasing), “Well, it would have been nice if she’d at least mentioned it to us before showing up on CNN.”
If she did tip off the Thurmonds first, “never mind.”
One niece did have a legitimate point: "You have to turn on the TV and there are jokes about him, and you’re still grieving."of course, that is the fault of Strom Thurmond and Jay Leno, not Essie Mae Washington-Williams.
“Probably” physical rape? That’s a pretty harsh accusation. Any supporting evidence for that? Admittedly, a black housekeeper in 1920’s South Carolina probably isn’t in much of a position to say “no” when her employer’s kid is putting the moves on her. But it’s just possible she didn’t want to say “no,” either.
As for it being statutory rape, I’m not so sure. What’s the age of consent in South Carolina now? What was in it 1925?
Surely that would be sexual harassment, not rape, no? “Have sex with me or your fired” is not the same as “Have sex with me or I’ll cut you up.” Not that I’m defending either action, of course, it’s just that I don’t like to see the psychic impact of the word “rape” devalued.
