Thanks Kieran for the support.
Erlkonig,
Actually, I'm part white, part Cherokee, and part coon-ass. I spent the early years of my child-hood living on the "wrong-side of the tracks" in a small south-east Arkansas town. My family lived in a three room apartment that had been patched onto the back of a small grocery-store. There were so many Black patrons of our store that I thought there was something wrong with our family.
My father never joined a political party...but he is an ardent supporter of the Democrats. So is my mother. Their support stems from growing up during the Great Depression. Their association with Blacks is deep rooted and sympathetic.
Having grown up during the 1960s I remember well the struggle for civil rights, although I didn't fully understand it. There was definitely racism in my home town, but never once did I see a Klan march, or a lynching, but I did hear the word cupcake bandied about quite freely. The attitudes of the white community toward Blacks could be summed up in how that epithet was used. The most virulent racists would use it thusly, "Them damn cupcakeS!" Whites who were human beings would use it in this manner; "Them cupcakes is sho havin' a tough time."
People of that era opposed segregation for many reasons. There were many different levels of racism. There were many decent people who opposed it out of the simplistic, heartfelt belief that it was wrong to mix the races. They felt that whites and blacks were never meant to mix in the schools, or churches, or public places.
If you were raised in more modern times than I was, then you cannot possibly understand this idea. Flawed it certainly was. But you are wrong when you state that all those who opposed segregation were vicious, race-baiting Klansmen.
I don't know if Lott is a hard-core racist, or one of those who honestly believed it was wrong. I do know that he was very young at the time Strom Thurmond ran for president. People can change.
Can you forgive and forget? Can you give him the benefit of the doubt? Can you assume that he was just paying an old Republican fart an off-the-cuff compliment?
Or are you just trying to make political hay out of a faux-pas?
Regards, Shuckins
