is a column well worth reading, in part because Blow, a black man, grew up about 50 miles from where Robertson is based. He knows the Louisiana white culture, the history of the state with respect to segregation and discrimination (remember, Plessy v Ferguson is a case from Louisiana).
The column is titled "Duck Dynasty" and Quackery, and I highly recommend it.
Blow notes that Robertson's GQ interview read in a matter-of-fact fashion, one could consider it to be absent of malice, a kind of Southern folksiness.
To me, that is part of the problem. You don’t have to operate with a malicious spirit to do tremendous harm. Insensitivity and ignorance are sufficient. In fact, intolerance that is disarming is the most dangerous kind. It can masquerade as morality.
I want to stop on that idea of masquerading as morality. We have already seen that in the response of the likes of Bobby Jindal, who also demonstrated either an abysmal lack of understanding that the First Amendment protects only against government actions, not those of private parties or organizations, or things subject to contractual provisions, or else is of the crassest kind of pandering.
Too often when those who are bigots are called on their bigotry they hide behind a presumed moral stance, sometimes even referring to sacred writings taken out of context - and in saying sacred writings, I mean far more than Scripture - it also includes words of our Founders and as found in our founding documents.
Blow also challenges Robertson on his claim that he did not see any mistreatment of blacks, noting that the Duck Dynasty patriarch is 67 years old, born into the Jim Crow South. I am the same age, and was born in the North, and I saw mistreatment of blacks regularly - television news during the 1960s was full of examples, and even as a ten year old visiting Miami Beach the signs of segregration were readily apparent.
But let Blow comment on this:
Only a man blind and naïve to the suffering of others could have existed there and not recognized that there was a rampant culture of violence against blacks, with incidents and signs large and small, at every turn, on full display. Whether he personally saw interpersonal mistreatment of them is irrelevant.
If I may be allowed to tempt Godwin, the mere fact that one did not see it first hand does not mean one was unaware of it, unless one chose to be willfully oblvious, willfully deaf and blind - such a statement is no more believable than were statements of those in Europe who claimed they were unaware of what was happening to the Jews who were disappearing. If they did not know, it was because they did not want to know.
I am going to push fair use and go through the final four paragraphs of Blow's article, one at a time.
Robertson’s comments conjure the insidious mythology of historical Southern fiction, that of contented slave and benevolent master, of the oppressed and the oppressors gleefully abiding the oppression, happily accepting their wildly variant social stations. This mythology posits that there were two waves of ruination for Southern culture, the Civil War and the civil rights movement, that made blacks get upset and things go downhill.
One might start by questioning the notion of Southern Culture the way Gandhi responded when asked what he thought about Western Civilization, that it would be a good idea. I realize that is too harsh, but it might be more honest to note that the pre-Civil War South was heavily stratified, that few of the landed gentry actually fought and most Southern troops were not themselves slave-owners, but that the Lost Cause was not primarily about States Rights, it was about the right of some whites to keep blacks as property, and the assertion of States Rights was only because the battle to block anti-slavery legislation in the Congress was disappearing.
The presumption that all the "darkies" were happy under "benevolent" masters is as inaccurate a portrayl as were either Uncle Tom's Cabin or Gone with the Wind. Yes, there were some who did not beat their slaves - after all, slaves represented an expensive investment. But the idea that being owned was not abusive to the slaves is something that can only be held as a thought by someone who was never at risk of such a situation.
I am of an age to have lived through the Civil Rights era - the Montgomery Bus Boycott started when I was not yet ten. The subsequent events were a major part of the news cycle from then through when I graduated from high school in 1963 at age 17, then a few months later came to Washington for the March for Jobs and Freedom. Yes the Civil Rights era changed things - one can argue that absent that the economic rejuvenation of the South would not have happened. And those who look back fondly on a period of segregation display either obtuseness, willful ignorance, insensitivity, or a real racial intolerance. At least when Trent Lott offered such comments while the Republican Leader in the US Senate, there was still enough moral outrage to force him to resign. Now we see major Republican figures jumping on the Duck Dynasty bandwagon.
Robertson’s comments also display a staggering ignorance about the place and meaning of song in African-American suffering. As for the singing of the blues in particular, the jazz musician Amina Claudine Myers points out in an essay that the blues was heard in the late 1800s and “came from the second generation of slaves, Black work songs, shouts and field hollers, which originated from African call-and-response singing.” Work songs, the blues and spirituals were not easily separated.
I am by background, training, and passion a musician. My tastes are broad and eclectic. I have at different points in my life performed "classical," Rock, Jazz, folk, and Blues. My graduation present from an aunt an uncle, parents to my cousin who graduated the same year I did, were several albums by Lightning Hopkins. Even as a teenager I knew that not all blues songs were 'sad" and that the emotion contained in music of all types is not easily pigeonholed as being one thing or the other: there are Requiem masses that are songs of affirmation, there are love ballads that are laments. It is hard to imagine that anyone with any sensitivity to thinking other than their own could miss this, especially given the influence Black music had on the white musicians who were such major figures of our own childhood and adolescence - after all Elvis may have sung "You ain't nothing but a hound dog" but it was written by Big Momma Thornton.
Furthermore, Robertson doesn’t seem to acknowledge the possibility that black workers he encountered possessed the most minimal social sophistication and survival skills necessary to not confess dissatisfaction to a white person on a cotton farm (no matter how “trashy” that white person might think himself).
For some reason, this reminded me of several of my great aunts, sisters to my mother's mother, born in this country but of an immigrant family that had fled Bialystok Poland in the first decade of the 20th Century. They did not understand why Blacks couldn't adjust the way Jews had. I tried to point out that they could change their names and lose the Yiddish inflections in their speech, but that Black person was still black, no matter how educated and cultured he appeared - and had we any doubt about that, even today well-educated professional blacks still encounter discrimination - trying for example to get a cab late at night.
And had we any doubt, has ANY President ever been subject to challenges of legitimacy the way our current President has? Think it has anything to do with the color of his skin? Think of the few times he has tried to address that and the hostility that has been thrown back at him, by some in the chattering class.
Let's face it, the question of his "legitimacy" is not because of his name, or his supposed secretly being a Muslim, or that perhaps he is not a citizen - all of those are proxies - it is illegitimate for him to be President because he is not a white man.
In my career in date processing before I became a teacher, I became good friends with a Black man from the South, who after a few drinks would be very candid, and very blunt, including about how he would never let the whites around him know what he really thought because they would accuse him of having a chip on his shoulder.
It is often very hard to see when one has a privilege with respect to others, because it is such a part of how we operate. Do I realize the privilege I have as a White Man? Yes, in part because I had a mother who despite being a brilliant lawyer did not have the same opportunities as male classmates at Columbia law who were well below her - she was 2nd in her class at age 21 when she graduated. Yes, because having the last name Bernstein I have experienced more than a little discrimination and prejudice, but when I look at what those whose skin is not white have experienced my own pales in comparison.
But then, I have tried to be aware of my privilige, as I have tried also to be aware of the prejudices that were a part of my growing up - in our case a real hostility towards Catholics and especially towards Russian Orthodox. So look at me - I have a masters from a Catholic Seminary and we were married in a church that is descended from the Russian Orthodox Church. Growing up with prejudice and fear does not have to be permanently constricting.
But some people choose not to recognize, and instead rationalize behavior and attitude that in this day and age should be considered disgusting and not acceptable.
It’s impossible to know if Robertson recognizes the historical resonance and logical improbability of his comments. But that’s not an excuse.
Just like there is no excuse for those who think they will gain political advantage by pandering to the kinds of folks who will support Robertson precisely BECAUSE he made his racist comments, to say nothing of his homophobic comments, or his previous violent behavior.
It was totally appropriate for A&E to remove Robertson from the air. Frankly, it is more than a little surprising that they chose to put him on the air in the first place, given that even a casual vetting would have identified a number of problems.
But then, given the level to which our political discourse has descended and the number of people will to pander to the worst instincts, or even worse, to foment racial fear and hatred for political and economic advantage. perhaps we should not be surprised.
Let's assume for a moment that Robertson is simply dense and ignorant. But that's not an excuse. One who is going to take advantage of one's visibility to speak on issues should feel a responsibility to know something about which he chooses to bloviate.
Should.
But then, we have a pundit class across the political spectrum that lacks that sense of responsibility, so I'm not sure we should be surprised at the statements of someone like Robertson.
I read ALL of BLow's column.
I suggest you do likewise.
Peace.