Barbour’s Blindness

Of course Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour doesn’t remember race relations “being that bad” in the 1960s; he’s a white guy!
 
I grew up in the 60s in North Carolina, and I don’t remember race relations being bad at all for us whites. We could go anywhere we wanted and do anything we wanted.
 
We didn’t have to go to segregated schools, drink from “colored” water fountains or sit upstairs in the “colored” section at movies.
 
And if we lived in Mississippi, we didn’t get shot, beaten and killed if we tried to vote or demonstrate for integration.
 
But shouldn’t a man who’s been involved in politics for all these years, as Barbour has, now realize: “Hmmm, maybe things were pretty bad if you were black”?
 
What is it in the Republican/conservative mindset that persists – 40 years later – in denying that what went on in the South then was wrong? Are they morally blind – or just politically cynical? Either way, it’s a sorry way to be.
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Gary Pearce

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Barbour’s Blindness

Of course Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour doesn’t remember race relations “being that bad” in the 1960s; he’s a white guy!
 
I grew up in the 60s in North Carolina, and I don’t remember race relations being bad at all for us whites. We could go anywhere we wanted and do anything we wanted.
 
We didn’t have to go to segregated schools, drink from “colored” water fountains or sit upstairs in the “colored” section at movies.
 
And if we lived in Mississippi, we didn’t get shot, beaten and killed if we tried to vote or demonstrate for integration.
 
But shouldn’t a man who’s been involved in politics for all these years, as Barbour has, now realize: “Hmmm, maybe things were pretty bad if you were black”?
 
What is it in the Republican/conservative mindset that persists – 40 years later – in denying that what went on in the South then was wrong? Are they morally blind – or just politically cynical? Either way, it’s a sorry way to be.
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Gary Pearce

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