During Reconstruction, northerners who came south to prey on the locals were called carpetbaggers, while native southerners viewed as collaborators with occupiers from the north were called scalawags.
So what do we call someone from California who brought his racism to Virginia?
One of the sad things about George Allen's latest problem--N-word Gate--is that a lot of folks around the rest of the country will see Allen as just another Southern racist.
But he's not. Allen went to high school in California, where he evidently began his infatuation with the confederate battle flag and somehow formed his racist attitude toward African-Americans. While at Palos Verde High School in California, Allen was suspended in a bizarre incident in which he and other players wrote anti-white graffiti on school walls to incite the football team against blacks on a rival team. He told one of his UVa football teammates that he decided to play football at UVa because blacks "knew their place" in the Commonwealth.
How embarassing for us. Certainly Virginia and the rest of the South have had their share of racists, past and present. But many--perhaps most--white southerners were raised better.
When I was a young child growing up in South Carolina, I once angrily called my brother the N-word, echoing words I'd heard from some older redneck kid in school. My mother, a native Virginian whose family has been in Rockbridge County for many generations, immediately washed my mouth out with soap. I got a long lecture, with a few follow-ups, on why the N-word was horribly offensive, as well as on race relations in general. I'm glad for it.
Over the years I've fought against racism and for equality, but at the same time I've often resented northerners (fyi--in South Carolina, someone from California would be a "northerner") who, ignoring their own more subtle racist institutions, were quick to tsk, tsk the South.
Frankly, it's an embarassment to have Virginia now represented by a fellow with Allen's past who isn't even a native. He may have thought that's how Virginians were when he moved here in the 70's, and certainly he would have found some fellow travelers. But that's not how the majority were. I don't know what the right word is for it (i.e., an outsider bringing his racism to Virginia), but it should be something particularly odious.
It's time for Allen to go.
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3 comments:
Very nice post.
Hey, I'm a Californian. Allen may be from there but he isn't one of us. His dad just happened to be coahcing there. His love of the stars and bars apparently isn't just a love for civil war history, but rather the way of life that war ended.
On the topic of his racism, I was bemused that you side-stepped the real issue with the "are you Jewish" question. As you implied, asking whether he's Jewish for the sake of asking if he's Jewish is out of line, but the more subtle question behind the question was "Are you such a racist jackass that you would deny your own family identity?" And the answer, apparently, is yes.
Compare his hot-headed answer to former Secretary of State Albright's answer to the same question. She merely said something akin to, "yup, looks like I'm half Jewish. Wasn't raised Jewish, but that's my heritage."
The diffrence says wonders.
Someone from California is from the North for South Carolinians? That's very strange.
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