I'm going to create a different kind of diary tonight. Top comment nominations at the beginning, an essay in the middle, then, at the end, Top Mojo by the numbers. I'm doing it this way because some folks may not want to read what I have to say about racism and electoral politics in Appalachia.
It's not a pretty tale - indeed, as some have already noted here, primaries held in Appalachian counties of several states have shown that Barack Obama's chances for victory there are slim to none. In the primary last month at my own precinct of VA-09, HRC rec'd 164 votes to Obama's 32 and I had to listen to numerous overt and ugly expressions of racism. E.g., 'they don't call it the WHITE House for nothing.' I heard that one several times, in fact, which suggests to me that it was a well-circulated joke on local strip mines.
So first up, nominations for Top Comments.
From kestrel9000:
For the money shot at the end: Short, simple words! by Jsn.
~~~~
From Dump Terry McAuliffe:
In kos's front-page thread, More Insults from Camp Clinton, decembersue explains why Minnesota is, in words of a Hillary Clinton campaign aide, a "boutique state": Well here in Minnesota, our state is covered in.
VERY Late one from bronte17:
By bumblebums, How much did they spend to defend this seat?
~~~~
My own picks:
Of International Women's Day, I Raise My E-Glass by jpgod
Congratulating DallasDoc, excellent well thought out diary and by soccergrandmom
On spotting her brother now on DKos, Something important has happened here by begone
Great advice for New users and new diarists: by jeff in nyc
All-encompassing reply to all commenteers on his own diary, For those who might see this comment by teacherken
A much-needed corrective to those who love to stereotype, generalizations- made to be broken by neworleanslady68
About the loss of women's rights and opportunity in Iraq, From a year ago, by hazey
Because s/he wrote it and we need to read it - Oh, and I hate top comments. by panicbean
On nyceve's diary re: insurance industry corruption, Reading this I could not help but think by DWG
Put your glass or bottle of brew down before you read this - Penis envy... by Fabian
Sandwich making fun - Democracy is NO WAY by xxdr zombiexx
About Aspergers' Syndrome, I know this sounds strange by MagentaMN
Sharing good personal news, don't miss It's been a historic week by Ed in Montana
You always learn something in comments - Napoleon Bonaparte by Wisper
On racism and culture shock, Addison, Alabama by Cc inWinston
A good comment that goes to the heart of my diary-theme tonight, Race is a difficult subject to tackle because by lordcopper
Two questions to kick-start a discourse about race matters, Chin up; let's get a discussion going here. by MrSandman
Using the term 'bitch-slapped' properly, the first mention late last night about McAuliffe's melt-down, Watching Maher right now... by Melody Townsel
Like it or not, Webb's position seems moderate to me by Spock36
In case you missed JeffLieber's late night diary, use this link to get there - Just when things are getting way too serious... by StrangeAnimals
Good one from last night's TC diary by BeninSC - McCain has a genetic problem by palantir
~~~~
A Primer on Appalachian Racism
Note: To illustrate this diary, I'm borrowing 1930s photographs of mixed-ancestry Appalachian folk, captured by the late, great Doris Ullmann who traveled the region in the company of John Jacob Niles as he collected ballads and mountain music styles.
In the fall of 1993, I began taking graduate courses in history with specialties in labor, environmental, women, and Appalachia.
A handful of events – involving a book, a speaker, and an old friend –stand out of the blur of my first graduate courses. The first was reading David Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness in a labor history seminar. An outstanding book that launched a new study-field into 'whiteness.' I was intrigued - Appalachian archival holdings and literature, I already knew, were drenched with whiteness. One newspaper columnist in the 1930s, John Day, had remarked that people in eastern KY asserted their Anglo-Saxon heritage with near rabid fervor. The history of the United Mine Workers also illuminated a critical nexus of race and class; its decline paralleled 1950s mechanization that drove most African-Americans from the region.
The second event involved a guest-lecture by Nell Irvin Painter in which she challenged her audience to recognize our facile capitulation to race-coded language loaded with multiple meanings. Her first example was the term ‘middle-class blacks’ often used in direct opposition to what, she asked? According to the media, it would be easy to assume, she said, that there is no black upper-class, just entertainers and athletes. Our barely-conscious presumption is that there are only two real demographic categories on the ground: middle-class blacks versus, simply, regular blacks. The descriptor ‘low-class’ or under-class need not be spoken aloud.
I remember the moment vividly. Despite growing glare from the emergent light-bulb over my head, I can still visualize Painter’s profile. Well, actually, I best recall the elegant drape of her scarf and her jewelry. But it was her next example that made me sit up and squirm. "Appalachian Whites," she said, reminding us that they bore little resemblance to regular garden-variety whites in America. Separated by more than mere geography, the phrase ‘Appalachian whites’ evokes mainstream presumptions of pathological (possibly genetic) differences – a genuine ‘other’ status.
I wanted to shout, Whoa, Nell(y)! - my mind was spinning already, but I quickly started thinking about how similar intimations of race, caste, and class had been encoded colorfully in Appalachia’s documents and in the vernacular history.
The third event involved someone I’d known since high school in the mid 1960s. Brent Kennedy. I also knew his mother, his father, and a lot of his extended family – I’d lived in their midst since I was three years old, gone to school with their children, attended the same church, collected trick-and-treat offerings at their doors, and had hundreds of other contacts over the decades. According to the local paper, in the early 1990s, Brent had had some kind of epiphany while convalescing from a serious illness and had written a book about his family being Melungeons.
Hmmm. First I’d heard of it. I’d known that m-word, of course, but had usually heard it used to describe a bunch of real hillbilly-types who lived somewhere else... maybe in the next county? Definitely in Kentucky. They were ‘different’ – lots of incest, dark skin, drunkenness, debauchery – but this didn’t describe any of the people that I knew best in Brent’s family. So I read the book, talked with Brent about it, politely suggested some works he needed to read, and I may have shared some syllabi I’d been recently handed. I also made copies of some hand-written references to Melungeons I’d found in the private papers of Kentucky author John Fox Jr. (1861-1919), including a notation in a pocket notebook he carried c. 1892: "malungian = mountain nigger".
I then wished Brent luck with his reading and went on back to grad school where I was occasionally challenged to summarize his book. I preferred to call it a "memoir." Of course, no one would consider it a ‘history.’ I placed it, within my growing hierarchy of primary viz-a-viz secondary sources, at the same level of output that emerges locally from the antiquarians who run the county historical society. Some truth(s), some errors, but never the whole story. Still I gleefully recognized a color-ed challenge to the conventional wisdom, custom and tradition surrounding Appalachian ethnicity. If Brent’s family had been ‘colored,’ then, a whole lot of their peers had been fooled by their bleached-out social performance as middle-class Appalachian whites.
Meanwhile, back at home, his presentation had set off such a firestorm that I began to think he’d written a ‘manifesto’. Certainly his wee text sparked something of an eco-social revolution. Race-drenched conversation now buzzed loudly from breakfast-tables to barbershops and the benches in front of Wal-Mart. Brent’s horrified great-aunt (my childhood Sunday School teacher) withdrew behind locked doors and closed her curtains to avoid inquiring kin and the gaze of newspaper reporters. My mother couldn’t say the word Melungeon without spitting but quietly hid a bunch of family pictures, such as those of her Aunt Mary who’d definitely been something other than lily-white (we just never talked about it out loud). More than a few Appalachian holidays got disrupted by someone newly wired to the Internet who decided, over turkey and gravy, to enlighten their kinfolk by sharing a recent discovery:
Listen up, your great-great grandma Collins was once listed on the census as ‘M’ for mulatto and her mama’s folks were listed as "Free Persons of Color."
What do you mean, boy, that her people ain’t white, never been white?
Well, now, it appears they just weren’t white enough to pass. Yet.
A single drop of color is still too much in most of the hollers of Appalachian Virginia. Desserts were abandoned; fistfights moved out onto the porch.
But Brent’s race card couldn’t be just re-shuffled or discarded. Too many historically valid documents with references to labels-of-color – Melungeon, Mulatto, Miscegenation, Mixed-blood - had emerged to challenge Appalachia’s collective ethnic memories. Antebellum church minutes and court records from the time of Removal offered rich resources. In addition to the Fox archives, I have my favorites:
Stony Creek Primitive Baptist church minutes 1801-1811;
Littell’s Living Age, 1849 pp. 618-20:
'And you're a darned Melungen.'
'Well, if I am, I ain't nigger-Melungen, anyhow--I'm Indian-Melungen, and that's more 'an you is.'
Numerous references to mixed bands of East Kentucky guerrillas and southwest Virginia ‘Malungians’ in Bluegrass Confederate: The Headquarters Diary of Edward O. Guerrant by William C. Davis (Editor), Meredith L. Swentor (Editor), Edward O. Guerrant (Louisiana State University Press; November 1999);
The 1890s writings of Will Allen Dromgoole of Tennessee, links to various newspaper columns here: 1, 2, 3, and 4.
But it was the 20th-century realm of white supremacy and eugenics that produced the mother-lode of Melungeon texts. The well-documented crusade of Walter Plecker, Virginia’s preeminent eugenicist, to rid that state of the threat of undetected miscegenation gave me yet another m-word. In 1943, he wroteto Virginia's "Local Registrars, Physicians, Health Officers, Nurses, School Superintendents and Clerks of the Courts" to beware of color-ed Virginians, especially Melungeons, attempting to pass as ‘white.’ "Some of these mongrels ...", he wrote, had been allowed by careless officials to register for the military as Indians; he threatened such officials with prison if the practice weren’t halted. To make their task easier, he enclosed a list of surnames that he’d determined to be less-than-white. Plecker's list of 'tainted' surnames reads like the phone books of a dozen counties along the borders of VA, KY, TN and WV.
I also began to suspect that other documents might have been selectively purged to eliminate evidence proving any ethnic diversity other than the chosen interpretation of Scotch-Irish (plus an occasional Indian granny about whom little was known). In 1927, Plecker – also acting in his official capacity as director of the state’s first Bureau of Vital Statistics – had produced a certificate of racial impurity (a vital component of his Racial Integrity Act) that he’d demanded be attached to the marriage, birth, and death records of those suspected of having more than a drop of color in their veins. Western Virginia county officials had apparently been lax in obeying this mandate or had done so then turned their heads as people stole the offensive documents from the courthouse. The entries on the index exist but the local documents filed are nowhere to be found. Huge swatchs of documentary history lost. (Plecker's comprehensive files documenting the alleged "miscegenation" were destroyed in the 1970s following the Loving v. Virginia decision.)
Plecker's influence was wide and the proximity to a state line often meant the difference in voting rights and the right to go to school. A good friend of mine, approx. age 60 now, recalls that her grandmother hid her and her sister from the census taker in 1950 AND 1960 while the school system graciously changed their last name on the enrollment books from her father's Melungeon surname to her mother's 'whiter' maiden name. This was not restricted to Virginia. In fact, throughout the Appalachian states can be found similar, very localized examples of the same phenomenon - the Guineas in WV; the Lumbees, Turks, Brass Ankles and 'red niggers' in the Carolinas; Jukes, 'Rawhide Ramps' and other no-class descriptors in eastern KY.
Out of all this, I began to write my own lesson plan for Appalachian history:
Lesson 1: Appalachia is that place where people ain’t ever going to get white enough but they have an ugly history of trying.
Lesson 2: Like the rest of America, Appalachia by the 20th century had become a two-class, two caste society. Two classes: men and not-men. Two castes: people-of-color and the un-colored. Un-colored men rule but only sometimes easily.
Lesson 3: Appalachia - it’s terrain, its people, their history – is neither mysterious nor isolated – indeed, it’s people and their landscapes have consistently bled out along modernity’s razor-sharp edge.
Lesson 4: A true-r history of Appalachia might be located in the ongoing conflict between white-winged patriarchy (Euro-American) and metis matriarchy (Indigenous). Not THE history, I know, but certainly a potential way of looking through the 19th-century’s strangling triangle of race, class, and gender and, hopefully, well beyond old, tired analyses of progress versus tradition.
Undergraduates like it. Together we search for the ‘spotted hillbilly’ where Appalachian communities survived, a matri-lineal, matri-local, matri-focal matrix of kinship and eco-social convergence. We also mark the Appalachian nests of uncolored men – some sport Confederate flags and make it easy. A lot of them mine or haul coal. A few work in academia and are just more subtle than their sweaty peers.
Those who want to reduce US racial history to black / white binary constructions engage in a dangerous form of 'essentialism' that is, in its own peculiar way, just as stultifying as any 19th-century variant of the biological determinism that fueled the Eugenics movement and Walter Plecker’s zeal. In the case of the Cherokees per example, a convoluted history of ongoing conflict and contradiction existed between a) the cultural self-definition of simply being 'Cherokee' or other ethnic minority and experiencing a true ‘communitas' sense of inclusion and belonging; versus b) the dehumanization and alienation that resulted from 19th century policies that dictated blood-quantum mandates which, not accidentally, privileged the dominant white-winged patriarchy. The quest for ‘Melungeon’ identity or acquiescence to less-than-white ethnic markers is similarly conflicted and contradictory. That’s what makes it such great fun for historians and other humanists who recognize that even the best documentary sources (such as courthouse records) bear the prejudices, perceptions, and preconceptions of their authors.
I don't mean to suggest that everyone in Appalachia is comfortable with displaying or publicizing this history. My parents' generation tried to escape the 'label' of Melungeon as soon as they could do so. Indeed the war goes on. One of the more fruitful outcomes of Kennedy's research on Melungeons is that literally thousands of Appalachian "offspring" have been forced to confront the racism that lurks in their own heart-of-hearts. Some reacted poorly, sending Kennedy hate-mail and death-threats but thankfully many others followed Brent in opening their own family's skeletal secrets.
The media and many here at DKos refer to the Appalachian people as an ignorant 'under-class' or 'trailer trash' and I recognize my 'kinfolk' but I don't often trouble myself to object on their behalf. Despite their own Melungeon ancestry, I grew up listening to my own family, some neighbors and too, too many co-workers degrade and debase others as low-class, or no-class, ramps, rogues and Melungeons. Some of them are also vicious racists, despising all darker-others. If you don't believe me, you should hear the talk on the 'radios' of truckers hereabouts and those of workers at the strip mines near my home. Racist, women-bashing, hate-filled and class-drenched-- they congratulate each other for heightened prejudices and for helping to inflame each others' biases. They hate Blacks, Mexicans, all Pacific Rim natives, Jews, poverty pimps, Fem-i-Nazis, and, most especially, the bleeding-heart liberals who desegregated the schools. They advocate violence against all those categories as well as the 'tree-huggers' and 'frog-kissers.' They resent the upsurge of interest in mixed-ancestry Melungeons and ridicule those involved in rescuing our lost common-heritage.
An elderly man from my county told me that Melungeon had been a 'fighting word' when he was young and he couldn't understand that anyone would want now to be one. I think he was expressing the sentiments of many for whom Melungeon still means 'dirty' and 'low-class.' Let me put it like this: you can't have an Appalachian (or American) 'white middle-class' unless a mostly-white, or trying-to-be-white, under-class is available for the middle-class to point to and say, 'See the no-class, see the Melungeon, see the filth - well, that's not me or my people!' There is no middle-class unless something lies below.
Scholars have only recently begun to investigate how such a 'caste-system' operated, even in African-American communties, to create America's own version of white-winged apartheid. Hate begets hate in a downward spiral; self-loathing is the penalty that some have to wear for the system to work. Melungeons and mixed-ethnic American people were hated, so they, in turn, hated and feared the taint or accusation of dark-ness. Rather than oppose it, most of us have perpetuated that two-class, two-caste system. Yet, thinking of 'us-versus-them' in these terms sure can change the balance-of-power, can it not?
This cycle of self-loathing and 'other'-bashing must end with us. So, I hereby suggest that we embrace the old language of hatred and rob it of its power-to-wound. E.g., this woman-of-color will proudly dance at a 'ramp frolic' and my most colorful 'cousins' are always welcome at MY table! We can't make up for the past, we can't erase all the pain, but we CAN throw a mighty monkey-wrench into the cycle-of-violence and hate that is still endured by people-of-color in our own back-yards and around the globe.
~~~~
TOP MOJO - courtesy of our gentle and gracious friend, BeninSC!
Top Mojo - excluding search-identifiable tip jars and first diary comments (top 30 of each plus ties):
1 Beautifully written, your sorrow by Lisa Lockwood - 165
2 thanks! by Momentum - 165
3 By the way... by Bob Johnson - 136
4 Pathetic bastard by MarkInSanFran - 124
5 Thanks to Maher, the fact that Terry is . . . . by LivinginReality - 121
6 Does anybody notice by not a cent - 115
7 Who was it that said when your opponent is by FudgeFighter - 111
8 Actually, Laura's experience trumps HRC's by Dump Terry McAuliffe - 109
9 No, I believe that the by Granny Doc - 104
10 Give what a break? by Bob Johnson - 99
11 Its there at the top already. by Momentum - 96
12 From Michigan, I will not vote for Hillary by Great Uncle Bulgaria - 87
13 Clinton's response by BarbinMD - 84
14 a lifetime of doing the wrong things by alizard - 80
15 Tell it, sister! by Barcelona - 80
16 "... But you know what? I've been doing this a by rhfactor - 79
17 The fact that McAuliffe is on Hillary's campaign by DeanDemocrat - 78
18 sigh. by Christin - 75
19 Wow. by Inland - 74
20 Dude by johnny rotten - 73
21 Sheryl used to be Lance Armstrong's girlfriend by MJB - 71
22 That's Pretty Much What He Is Doing by Mr X - 71
23 done by AntonBursch - 71
24 And Lanny Davis is LYING by Empower Ink - 71
25 Since the national security debacle called the by Superskepticalman - 70
26 As Gary Hart said, by crystal eyes - 69
27 mjd, this is one grandmom who does NOT by dolphin777 - 68
28 I was at his speech in Westerville and by followyourbliss - 66
29 Please rec this diary. by neonineten - 66
30 I'm finished with the MSM! by Hope08 - 65
31 I have come to the same conclusion, just last by Do Tell - 65
Top Mojo - everything included:
1 Ultimately we have to live with ourselves by teacherken - 478
2 This diary is intended by Granny Doc - 456
3 Tips/Recs by Hope08 - 404
4 Tip Jar by uniongal - 402
5 As I noted in kos' front-pager... by Bob Johnson - 375
6 Are you experienced? by chumley - 318
7 This is too perfect by highprincipleswork - 302
8 One more thing by Dallasdoc - 288
9 Hope! by PocketNines - 282
10 Tip jar by Brandon Friedman - 217
11 Tip Jar by dmsilev - 196
12 Mandate, no mandate . . . by nyceve - 183
13 tip jar by poblano - 165
14 Beautifully written, your sorrow by Lisa Lockwood - 165
15 thanks! by Momentum - 165
16 Tip Jar by mcolley - 155
17 By the way... by Bob Johnson - 136
18 Pathetic bastard by MarkInSanFran - 124
19 Thanks to Maher, the fact that Terry is . . . . by LivinginReality - 121
20 Does anybody notice by not a cent - 115
21 Who was it that said when your opponent is by FudgeFighter - 111
22 Actually, Laura's experience trumps HRC's by Dump Terry McAuliffe - 109
23 No, I believe that the by Granny Doc - 104
24 Give what a break? by Bob Johnson - 99
25 On to stardom - tip jar by tsackton - 99
26 No, to VP... by icebergslim - 97
27 Its there at the top already. by Momentum - 96
28 From Michigan, I will not vote for Hillary by Great Uncle Bulgaria - 87
29 Clinton's response by BarbinMD - 84
30 a lifetime of doing the wrong things by alizard - 80
31 Tell it, sister! by Barcelona - 80
32 Tips for a good night's sleep by Cali Scribe - 80
~~~~
Whew! Bet you're glad that's over! My apologies to those who are wondering why the hell I used the Top Comment series to post this essay. Truth is, there's a bigger, guaranteed audience here than most non-candidate diaries can get nowadays. Heh.
Always the mountains,
va dare
~~~~
2 AM - UPDATE: Wow! Many thanks for all the kind words, recs, and labor-intensive responses. This has been a truly gratifying evening for me, one of the best of my DKos 'career.' I have every intention of replying to everyone who's posted below but I need a couple hours of sleep to do justice to the very thoughtful comments. I'll be back - promise!
~~~~
New time update - 3:44 AM: I'm serious this time. I've got to sleep!