HEAVEN knows I have no wish to excuse West Virginia's bigots who showed themselves so thoroughly during the primary election, but it does wear a body out to watch the rest of the country try to claim the moral high ground on race.
HEAVEN knows I have no wish to excuse West Virginia's bigots who showed themselves so thoroughly during the primary election, but it does wear a body out to watch the rest of the country try to claim the moral high ground on race.
The data is damning. Twenty-two percent of Democratic voters in West Virginia said race was important in their choice, according to CNN's exit poll. Of those, 82 percent voted for Clinton.
There's no running away from it. We have bigots.
Guess what. So does everyplace else.
I don't really want to get into a contest over which state has the most racism. Even if you come in last, you're still, well, racist.
That's where we should start. A wise professor used to warn his students, who were mostly white, not to try to kid themselves or anyone else that they were free of the taint of racism, no matter how educated, enlightened, broadminded and sensitive they truly became.
"The best anyone can ever really be is a recovering racist," he used to tell us. You work on it. You study and question what you've been taught. You gain experience and you really do let go of old prejudices that you might not have even realized you had learned. You do better. But don't ever think you have it conquered.
"We take it in with our mother's milk," he used to say.
He would have known. He was from Texas, where this year 19 percent of Democrats said race was important. Of those, 52 percent voted for Clinton, and 47 percent voted for Obama. Texas is also home to nine neo-Nazi groups, four racist skinhead groups, 18 Ku Klux Klan groups and five black separatist groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks and documents hate activity in the United States.
My professor's advice has served me well. I wish more people could have heard his lectures, particularly the less enlightened commentators around the country, who assume they're not standing in the same muck they rail against.
A reader, as frustrated as I, sent me a commentary from Pittsburgh last week that eviscerates West Virginia for its overwhelming and racist support for Hillary Clinton. The columnist's essential point, that Clinton's last-ditch big wins in mostly white states are harmful to the country, is good. But he trots out some pretty pernicious stereotypes while making it: "The sound we're most likely to hear when the polls close in Appalachia tonight is the Confederate rebel yell boiling up from the swamps of time."
Did you catch that ironic reference to Appalachia as someplace else, as if it doesn't include Pittsburgh?
Interesting. In Pennsylvania, 19 percent of Democratic voters also said race was important. Fifty-nine percent of them voted for Clinton, and 41 percent voted for Obama. Eighty percent of Pennsylvania Democrats said race was not important in their choice, compared with 77 percent in West Virginia. I actually feel sorry for the Hillary supporters in both states who voted based not on race, but on a genuine belief that she is better prepared for the job.
Despite the white showing for Hillary in other states, West Virginia gets treated to the ridicule and Confederate-battle-flag references.
HEAVEN knows I have no wish to excuse West Virginia's bigots who showed themselves so thoroughly during the primary election, but it does wear a body out to watch the rest of the country try to claim the moral high ground on race.
The data is damning. Twenty-two percent of Democratic voters in West Virginia said race was important in their choice, according to CNN's exit poll. Of those, 82 percent voted for Clinton.
There's no running away from it. We have bigots.
Guess what. So does everyplace else.
I don't really want to get into a contest over which state has the most racism. Even if you come in last, you're still, well, racist.
That's where we should start. A wise professor used to warn his students, who were mostly white, not to try to kid themselves or anyone else that they were free of the taint of racism, no matter how educated, enlightened, broadminded and sensitive they truly became.
"The best anyone can ever really be is a recovering racist," he used to tell us. You work on it. You study and question what you've been taught. You gain experience and you really do let go of old prejudices that you might not have even realized you had learned. You do better. But don't ever think you have it conquered.
"We take it in with our mother's milk," he used to say.
He would have known. He was from Texas, where this year 19 percent of Democrats said race was important. Of those, 52 percent voted for Clinton, and 47 percent voted for Obama. Texas is also home to nine neo-Nazi groups, four racist skinhead groups, 18 Ku Klux Klan groups and five black separatist groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks and documents hate activity in the United States.
My professor's advice has served me well. I wish more people could have heard his lectures, particularly the less enlightened commentators around the country, who assume they're not standing in the same muck they rail against.
A reader, as frustrated as I, sent me a commentary from Pittsburgh last week that eviscerates West Virginia for its overwhelming and racist support for Hillary Clinton. The columnist's essential point, that Clinton's last-ditch big wins in mostly white states are harmful to the country, is good. But he trots out some pretty pernicious stereotypes while making it: "The sound we're most likely to hear when the polls close in Appalachia tonight is the Confederate rebel yell boiling up from the swamps of time."
Did you catch that ironic reference to Appalachia as someplace else, as if it doesn't include Pittsburgh?
Interesting. In Pennsylvania, 19 percent of Democratic voters also said race was important. Fifty-nine percent of them voted for Clinton, and 41 percent voted for Obama. Eighty percent of Pennsylvania Democrats said race was not important in their choice, compared with 77 percent in West Virginia. I actually feel sorry for the Hillary supporters in both states who voted based not on race, but on a genuine belief that she is better prepared for the job.
Despite the white showing for Hillary in other states, West Virginia gets treated to the ridicule and Confederate-battle-flag references.
The last time I saw a Confederate battle flag on public display was in a diner in central Pennsylvania.
I was visiting my sister, then enrolled in a nice little college there. We left the campus to run some errands and stopped at a cute roadside spot for a bite to eat.
I was unnerved the moment we walked in. It took a few moments for my thoughts to fall into place.
Above the table where we were seated was a picture of a tractor-trailer. But the most prominent element, the image that filled three-fourths of the frame, was a Confederate battle flag covering its grille.
This was not a new image to me. Growing up at the northern tip of the Shenandoah Valley, between two towns that changed hands during the Civil War 60-some times each, I'd seen this flag a lot. But it was out of place, out of time and offensive, in a number of ways.
"Don't they know that their great-great-granddaddies are buried not far from here, and they would turn over in their graves if they knew?" I whispered.
My sister shook her head and gave me a knowing look. "It means a whole different thing up here," she said. "And it's all about race."
Pennsylvania has five documented Ku Klux Klan chapters, five neo-Nazi groups, nine racist skinhead groups and three black separatist groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. West Virginia has one KKK group in Logan and three neo-Nazi groups in Fisher, Hillsboro and Romney.
By comparison, poor little Kentucky, where 21 percent of Democratic voters also said race was important and where 81 percent of them chose Clinton this week, has two Klan groups and two neo-Nazi groups. Dozens more groups in every category are documented in New York, Illinois, California and throughout the country.
These comparisons are very limited. They don't account for population differences, and not all groups listed are equally active. Perhaps if we had per-capita data, it would show that West Virginia truly has more racism than the rest of the country, or perhaps it would show that our bigots are refreshingly honest.
The point is, the best that can be said for this country - all of it - is that it is still recovering from its racist past and present.
There's no denying that West Virginia has too many bigots. And the rest of the country has no room to talk.
Miller, the Gazette's editorial page editor, can be reached at 348-5117 or at d...@wvgazette.com.
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No, West Va. is not the only part of the nation that was racist. But why were you targeted? Because for some reason, your state was curiously unable to restrain themselves in interviews from admitting that you didn't vote for a certain candidate because he was black. I'll give you points for honesty at least.
No other state in the primary admitted to racism. You guys did.
Your professor is typical of the Stalinist left that has taken over academia over the last half-century. They have, for decades, influenced (brainwashed) the future opinion-makers in the media, who pass this nonsense on to the general public. It certainly has worked on you. But it's not working on me, and a growing number of other people who are sick and tired of being told who we should be and what we should think.