Tom Lehrer had guts. He released his Dixie before anybody had ever even heard of Rosa Parks, MLK, or Medgar Evers outside of their innermost circles. Almost 60 years later I doubt even he would argue it’s still relevant. He has said he’s a fan of The Daily Show but also says he doesn’t enjoy most political or topical humor anymore because (I’m paraphrasing not quoting) he finds the vast majority of it inane, focused on the trivial, and generally same-ol’-same-ol’, half banal and half plagiarized from wiseasses who don’t know what they’re talking about. I see his point.
Look after that penis; no matter how well you garden it’s hard to grow a new one.
There were no streets named after Martin Luther King, Jr. before 1968.
There are now hundreds of streets named after MLK. Very few of those are likely to be entirely new stretches of concrete or asphalt. All of the pre-existing ones were once named something else, and many of them were presumably once named for someone else.
According to Sampiro, this re-naming of streets was the equivalent of the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Hogwash. Sampiro’s point was that the names of streets (or schools, parks, plazas, etc) shouldn’t be changed to remove historical names that are offensive to many people in current society. Renaming a street to honor someone is a very different thing.
Now that you mention it, he DID make that analogy, but where did he say we shouldn’t do things because it would be acting like the taliban?
Anyway, my point was that renaming a street to honor someone is a different thing than removing someone’s name, and that the poster above was fallaciously equating the two acts.
My mind boggles! Your grandfather was in the civil war? Even if your grandfather was 40 when your dad was born (or your dad was older when you were born) you would have to be over 80, no? (not that I’m saying that is a bad thing mind you, just shocking to me somehow to see how few generations removed the civil war really is)
Dude, he implied it by using the analogy. Unless Sampiro is of the opinion that acting like the Taliban is hunkey dory there would be no other reason for him to use them as a rhetorical device.
Are you asserting that all of those bridges, elementary schools, and roads are named after Davis because he was a good Secretary of War and a big DC booster?
James Earl Ray was probably good to his momma. What should we name after him?
Re-naming Jefferson Davis High School to something else is making a moral and political judgement about the overall contributions to society of Jefferson Davis.
Re-naming Smith Street to Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard is making a moral and political judgement about the relative contributions to society of Martin Luther King, Jr., and whoever Smith was.
Given that we’re on such an astonishing slippery slope that case #1 is apparently indistinguishable from the Taliban deliberately destroying 1600-year-old statues, I’m having trouble seeing the great gulf between case #1 and case #2. It’s not like someone has a feather of Maat to objectively determine the difference in worth of MLK and poor old Smith, now do they?
No cite, but there’s some guy in the States whose grandpa was born in 1790 - when George Washington was President. Grandpa sired a son circa 1860, who followed the pattern by himself becoming a father in his mid to late 60s, grandson is still about the place in his eighties.
William Rufus Devane King- interesting figure. Known in his lifetime as “Aunt Nancy” and “Mrs. Buchanan” by his detractors for his longterm live-in relationship with James Buchanan (who was sometimes called “Queen James” [for being the wife of a King] and sometimes “Mrs. King”. The gentle slaveowner notion is possibly a ‘relative to other slaveowners’ factor perhaps- just perhaps- based on the little fact that King freed many of his slaves as an incentive and left them all land and money in his will, bequeathing his valet $3000 (almost $80,000 in 2009 dollars)- the most ever bequeathed to any slave by a master in all of United States history- when he died, and the fact that those who remained enslaved at his plantations were referred to by both whites and other slaves as “the free niggers at the King place” because of the liberties they had (dances, preaching, their own store, rewards and incentives, and other such things). Perhaps it’s a reference to the fact that like Jefferson Davis’s brother Joseph, who was a good friend of King- King was a follower and supporter of the British philosopher Robert Owen and was one of a few large planters who attempted to implement his plantations on Owen’s writings and from his own interviews with Owens, King going so far as to name the largest of his Alabama plantations New Harmony after Owens (failed of course) Utopian community in Indiana. I’m guessing- just guessing of course- that’s what the “gentle slaveowner” part was about, or more likely since all slaveowners were alike and identical in their evil it’s probably just silly notions.
All this great gossip yet today he’s best remembered, on the rare occasion when he is remembered, as being the only VP of the USA who never set foot in the country during his term it goes.
(G*ddamn the willful ignorance and simplifications to support their own world view on this board- the notion that “gentle slaveowner” could not possibly have any basis in anything other than romanticism of the past rather than the fact that KING WAS A LEADING “WITHIN THE SYSTEM” REFORMER OF SLAVERY AND WAS IN FACT CONDEMNED FOR IT BY OTHER SLAVEOWNERS! But no let’s not cloud issues with trying to find out anything about the man, let’s just villify him because it’s impossible to think that a slaveowner might be a morally complex character just like the abolitionists often were because ALL SOUTHERNERS ROMANTICIZE A PAST THEY’RE COMPLETELY IGNORANT OF.)
Probably the grandson of John Tyler mentioned elsewhere in the Gettysburg thread. Tyler had children in his 60s (and a daughter at 70) and one of those sons had children in his 70s.
No, I answered your question-
and I stand on my assertion that I’ll bet you’ve never read one damned thing about him other than his 4 years in the Confederacy have you? Why do you think he was chosen president of the Confederacy when he certainly wasn’t the richest (his brother was 10x as rich as he was, his pal Bishop Polk was richer than either of them, and Polk and the Davises combined were living in squalor compared to Wade Hampton who still wasn’t the richest southerner) or the most militarily high ranking (that would be Joseph Johnston a) or the most militarily distinguised (that would Lee) or aristocratic (take your choice there- Davis was nouveau riche and that from his brother and was born in a 4 room tavern his parents ran) or most experienced in running a country (that would be Sam Houston, who was anti-secession)- it was because of his career in D.C… Had he died in 1860 he would likely be one of those names like Schuyler Colfax or John C. Breckinridge or Thomas Hart Benton that most Americans vaguely remember from history class but can’t really identify; most books written about him would be from academic presses for sale to academic libraries, but he would be well known to students of the era.
And if you answer please answer this since I have answered your questions: have you ever read anything about Jefferson Davis’s career before 1861, yes or no?
Kirisuto sama. I understand why “If I only had a brain” must strike a responsive and perhaps melancholy cord to you, but the urge to repopulate the world by making more strawmen is a bit beyond your abilities, don’t you think?
MEBUCKNER IS AGAINST SLAVERY- Y’ALL GET THAT? HE’S AN ABOLITIONIST- OPEN ABOUT IT, DOESN’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT, ALL HAIL.
I can also only assume that he’s a world class racist, homophobe, and antisemite judging from his simplistic view of damned near everything and more-than-willingness to twist facts and judge groups of people by their worst members, but the nice thing about choosing dead folks is that they don’t fight back, so te salud on that judgment call.
My Taliban/Bamiyan comment- which I admit was and was intended to be hyperbolic, which is allowable in rhetoric- was to demonstrate the senselessness and idiocy of obliterating the past to suit the current fashions. Where does it end?
Without checking google, can you tell me who Juneau AK is named for? Or Nashville TN? Or who Lemuel Montgomery [for whom Montgomery County AL is named- the city in the same county is named for Gen. Richard Montgomery])? Do these people have a dark side (answer: yes) and if so should we change the names of the cities?
I have actually proposed the renaming of Jefferson Davis High School here in town to MLK High School, I think it’s long past time. As for Rosa Parks it wasn’t a judgment on the previous name at all that led to the naming of Rosa Parks Ave. here in town, it was done for two reasons: the street was previously named Courtland and 1) that was the street Rosa Parks lived on 2) that was the name of the Bus Route she was on. I’m going to take a wild guess that you think it disrespectful the theater she was arrested in front of was renamed The Davis Theater as well.
I have no problem with streets being renamed. I just don’t think it should be a prerequisite to a section of the nation not being seen as imbeciles- WHICH WAS SAID BY YOU AND YOU WITH THE FACE!"
[You With the Face]“Gee, yall, you shouldn’t ought to name stuff after those guys and then act surprised and upset when other people consider you backwards-thinking racists.”
[/QUOTE]
I am going to guess that not one person who you do not know on a first name basis has ever complimented your intelligence, wit, knowledge, assessment skills, or insight have they?
My grandfather was born in 1877. That is before AC motors, electric trolleys, the internal combustion automobile, roll film, the phonograph record, radio, and the zipper. He helped lay the first telegraph cable under the Great Lakes and lived to see man land on the moon. It blows my mind sometimes.
You know, the more I think about it, the more that’s a fairly bizarre insult. I suppose it’s intended to suggest that my Mommy tells me how smart I am but no one else agrees.
But of course any teacher or professor, or any boss or employer or co-worker, would also likely know me on a first name basis. So, “Other than your mommy, and your teachers, and your professors, and your boss, and your co-workers, who has ever complimented your intelligence, wit, knowledge, assessment skills, or insight?” You mean, do people just walk up to me in the mall and tell I’m real smart? Well, no. And I’m not a world famous author and have never claimed to be.
(Bear in mind I grew up in late 20th Century/early 21st Century America; so I’ve mostly not been in very stuffy workplace or school settings where everyone addresses each other as “Dr. Jones” and “Miss Smith”. Although I’m sure there was probably at least one old-school professor who gave me a good grade back there.)
At any rate, you’ve now slipped from special pleading, to incoherency, to outright personal insults. This really doesn’t speak too well of whatever position it is that you’re trying to defend.
I’m 43. Four of my great-grandparents (who died before I was born) could remember the Civil War and my father grew up in the house with an uncle who’d fought off Yankees trying to steal his father’s peach brandy. Two former slaveowners attended my parents’ wedding. It’s that recent.
At the same time it’s a reference to a completely different time as alien to us as Rome. THIS COUNTRY FOUGHT A CIVIL WAR! That’s almost unfathomable- Richmond Virginia was demolished and Atlanta railroad stations were destroyed by devices engineered specifically to destroy the Atlanta railroad stations and later patented and marketed for use in demolition everywhere. Four thousand and two hundred men died in one day in a tiny crossroads town in North Georgia- boggles the mind. The word deadline still used everyday comes from a line at prison camps you’d be shot dead if you walked past. And there was a time so recent when human beings could be bought and sold that we have photographs of them as slaves and we have voice and video recordings of the same people when they were old. How the hell did we come this far this fast?
The W.R.D.King comment above is in one post what irks me most about historic revisionism by anti-southerners as the historical revisionism of the Sons of Confederate veterans. I’ve researched King in depth and written papers on him- I’ll freely admit he’s not a household name and I would no more expect most people to know who he is than I should be expected to know anything about Jorge Videla’s relations with Chile, but the information is out there. (My personal favorite thing about King is that as a D.C. fashion arbiter he first popularized Guayabera shirts which I love to wear in summer- they’re comfortable and drape nicely over paunches.) But the fact that somebody reads his name (and I’m not picking on Jackmanni, it’s just exemplary of the “all southern culture is evil and stoked in blood and uniform and to not change the names of things named 80 years ago for a romanticized and simplified time is to justify being the butt of jokes until the end of time” is a tribute to simplification/romanticism/revisionism/regionalism/etc. that the hoopskirted neo belles at a pilloried deb dance in South Carolina could devote their lives to and never top. THESE WERE INDIVIDUALS- some were evil, some were good, there was no easy way out of slavery and being victimized- whether you’re Nat Turner or Jesse James- does not romanticize or ennoble your life or your cause but to try and take somebody out of their time and place is equally insane.
The Eastern Shore of Virginia is divided into two counties: Accomack and Northhampton. At one point the entire peninsula was known as Accomack. Wanna know why it isn’t anymore? Because Oliver Cromwell ordered that all places with Indian names be changed to erase that this had ever been (by Puritan standards) a pagan godless place. (The northern half of Accomack and all of its placenames were changed also but later the county changed back.)
So that was 350 years ago- so what? Well, when the city of Montgomery was constructed it was on the site of the Muskogee town of Econchate except for the wharves which were on the site of Nunnachugga. Both names were changed because it was thought ridiculous that a Christian town should be named for godless savages. (Had the state capitol stayed in Tuscaloosa it was planned to change Tuscaloosa’s name to New Philadelphia, which was incidentally the name that Nunnachugga had already been changed to.)
I like the fact I grew up in a place called Weokahatchee and went to school in a town called Wetumpka because it’s a daily reminder of so many things: the Indians who founded and named them, the notion that all is fleeting, the connection to history. Obviously I don’t see the renaming of a high school from Joseph Johnston to Medgar Evers to be on par with the Taliban blasting Buddhas, but I also don’t see LEAVING the name Joseph Johnston on par with saying “the South was right! CONFEDERACY! YEEEEE-HAWHAWHAW!” It’s a progression one way, it honors the past the other, either is alright, but either way it says exactly jack about the mindset of the people there.
Why is the south so much more harshly judged for the actions of its distant past? Is NYC taken to task for the draft riots that killed more black men than Lee ever killed [other than in battle] or for the boycott of Broadway when Bert Williams performed with white dancers? Or Chicago for its organized crime, its segregation laws that were as strict as the south’s but just not called Jim Crow or the houseburnings that happened in Cicero when blacks moved in after Rosa Parks? Or Hyannisport because of the Kennedys connection to crime or the fact that the same laws that integrated schools in Arkansas had to be enforced there as well? It’s the past- we own it- we can’t change it- I’m not proud of the actions of my ancestors and I don’t apologize for them either- get over it.
Why is it okay to mock the South but not other regions of the country? Martin Luther King said that he preferred the racism in the south to the north and other regions because say what you will about it they weren’t hypocrites- they were right out in the open; now they’re not, you’ll be fired here more quickly for a dumbass comment than you will almost anywhere else, the south really and truly has changed. What more do you want? Must we completely denounce our ancestors and our history before we can vote? What exactly is wanted?
Because the South didn’t really move on until much much later. Following the Civil War many southerners engaged in a campaign of terror to prevent freed blacks from voting which became known as the Mississippi Plan. A series of laws called Black Codes (later called Jim Crow) were designed to strip blacks of their civil rights and keep them subservient to whites. Southern Senators and House members successfully stopped the Federal government from passing anti-lynching laws. The vast majority of blacks who were lynched by white mobs occurred in the southern part of the country. The lynching of Emmit Till occurred in 1955 which is hardly the “distant” past. (Ok, I’m a historian in training so I don’t think of that as too distant so maybe it’s just a matter of perspective.) The South fought tooth and nail to keep their barbarous society going and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to civility. That’s why the South is still harshly judged for their actions in the past.
I say that as someone who lives in the south and loves it here.
Hardly surprising you had to wonder what something means you at least used more dissection than you’ve used towards anything else in this thread.
You didn’t insult me in this thread? Of course not… I’m sure you don’t think you did. I’m a southerner shug, we already established we’re treacherous, stupid and vile.
In closing because this argument is going nowhere and nobody is even remotely convinced that history is anything other than what they think it is, I’ll include a self serving inclusion to demonstrate the odd notion of Dixiephrenia. I have written/am constantly rewriting a book about my childhood and it is major irony that one of the chapters deals with the transition of Robert E. Lee’s Birthday to Martin Luther King’s birthday. In this section, a [ahem] reconstruction of an actual conversation my father had with a former student (in the middle of a grocery store) he discusses the significance of that move; in the first sentence he’s responding to a question about why he’s off that day. (The chapter is called “Me and Bobby E. Lee” though the section of the book is called The Book of Janus [picture- rough- Lee looks too much like Papa Smurf- the fire and ice are relevant]).
My father- who if anything this is lessening the grandiloquence and pretentiousness of his speech when pontifficating in grocery stores- preached for a year about the necessity, the justness, the empty gesture but well placed one and the inevitability of the holiday changing. He saw all things revered going the way of Esaugate Emissee. The next year he died in an ice storm and was buried on January 15, 1982, while cars drove with their lights on, some because in respect to the hearse and some because it was the first observance of Martin Luther King Day in Alabama.
Relevance? Absolutely none, but I’ve been relevant in this thread and I’ve been self serving. To paraphrase Elwood Dowd, I recommend self serving; changes just as many views and helps you edit at the same time.
If you need me I’ll be in other threads. Y’all come.
