JONATHAN CHAIT DECEMBER 20, 2010
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Andrew Ferguson's profile of Haley Barbour is attracting a lot of attention because Barbour's praise of the White Citizen's Councils of his native Yazoo, Mississippi, accepted by Ferguson at face value, turns out to be historically inaccurate. Aside from the significant flaw of glossing over Barbour's praise for a white supremacist organization, Ferguson's profile is not that bad. It does, however, reveal some persistent tics in conservative thinking about race, segregation and the South. One tic is the belief that after about 1965, any particularly racist character of the South essentially disappeared:
Republicans then, he says, were the party of youth and progress—“made up of Jaycees and Boy Scouts”—in contrast to the Democrats, sclerotic from a century of single-party dominance and burdened with the legacy of segregation. “I was Republican county chairman when I was 25,” he told me, “and I was the oldest Republican county chairman in the state.”
That is the conservative view -- after the civil rights movement, association with segregation became a burden, even in Mississippi. The reality is that segregationist politicians continued to thrive for years and years. Indeed, if segregation was a "burden" for the Democratic Party, then you'd expect it would have sagged immediately after the civil rights movement before slowly coming back as time went by. In fact, segregationist Democrats continued to do well in the aftermath of the civil rights movement. The party's fortunes declined as its association with segregation wore off -- just the opposite of the dynamic Ferguson describes.
A second, related tic is a kind of petulant anti-anti-racism:
What role Yazoo City’s segregationist past might play in Barbour’s presidential campaign is hard to say. It could become an issue, particularly for Washington political reporters who enjoy moralizing about race and public education while sending their own children to progressive schools like Sidwell Friends and St. Albans, where applicants of color are discreetly screened and their numbers carefully regulated.
Two things stand out about this passage. First, notice the way it deflects any substantive question about Barbour and race by quickly raising the issue only to immediately divert the reader's attention to loathed target, the elite Washington media. Should we care about Barbour's roots in a white supremacist political culture? Hey, look -- there's Tom Friedman! You hate Tom Friedman!
Next, this implied ad hominem attack on the Washington press corps doesn't even make sense. Of course, not all Barbour's race critics are political reporters, and not all political reporters have children in elite private schools. But even if we assume that all Barbour critics are political reporters with children at Sidwell Friends, exactly what is Ferguson alleging? His phrasing -- "where applicants of color are discreetly screened and their numbers carefully regulated" -- implies that those schools limit minorities. My understanding is that they aggressively try to boost minority enrollment.
Is Ferguson saying those schools actually discriminate against minorities, and thus reporters are hypocrites? Or is he saying they're biased because they attend schools that practice affirmative action? Or is he just expressing a resentment of liberalism that does not rise to the level of argument at all?
I don't know the answer. But I do think the fact that this kind of rhetoric is coming from Ferguson, one of the more erudite and independent-minded conservatives, hints as to why Barbour might (despite my bafflement) be a force in the GOP primary. His past is not racist enough to disqualify him, but it is murky enough to spur the liberal media to raise questions. And thus Barbour will be in the position of being the white conservative attacked by liberals for his alleged racism. Even the hypothetical possibility of racial question being raised is enough to make Ferguson defensively sneer at the elite liberal media. The actual reality of it will surely make Republicans rally to Barbour.
11 comments
That the Republican Party in the South is the party of "youth and progress" is laughable to anybody who knows anything about the Rise of Republicanism in the South. But what's the point of reminding those who don't wish to hear it and those who believe the South consists of nothing but racists and old people. Besides, some of our northern cities seem to suffer from racism that exceeds that of our southern cities. Approaching Barbour as some kind of southern racist is a losing strategy. A losing strategy.
- rayward
December 20, 2010 at 5:45pm
- jmorton
December 20, 2010 at 6:09pm
Ferguson is also pretty disingenuous to act as though Barbour is to credit for Mississippi's balanced budgets. Like most states, Mississippi is required by law to balance expenditures and receipts. It's not something that Haley introduced.
- bgbryant
December 20, 2010 at 9:28pm
I like how some people will give a highly questionable hermeneutic spin to a statement by a political opponent. Consider jm here: he (she?) attempts to morph Andrew Ferguson into an outright racist, rather than as one who wishes to raise the issue of liberal hypocrisy, albeit in a flawed manner. So: is jm just craven or is he dumb?
- liberal reformer
December 20, 2010 at 11:37pm
Ferguson writes: "It could become an issue, particularly for Washington political reporters who enjoy moralizing about race and public education while sending their own children to progressive schools like Sidwell Friends and St. Albans, where applicants of color are discreetly screened and their numbers carefully regulated." This seems to be saying, if I read it correctly, that Washington liberals are secret and hypocritical racists, condemning innocent southerners like Barbour for supporting, at least by implication, segregated public education, while themselves engaging in a kind of segregation-light educational choice for their own children in the private sector.
- ironyroad
December 21, 2010 at 1:50am
I agree with Liberal Reformer, tend to disagree with Ironyroad and outright disagree with jmorton. Ferguson is not saying that, as Irony would have it, Washington liberals are secret and hypocritical racists. He's saying that these liberals are hypocrites (not racists) of a sort. They pontificate about integrated schools and the virtue of public education and are politically correct to an outraged fault on the South's unforgivable racist past, but don't send their own kids to integrated public schools or to public schools at all, rather to progressive private schools which, it turns out, try to keep black kids out, save for some token attendance. So their hypocrisy consists of doing not what they say and proclaim about public education as evidenced by the schools their kids attend. Rather than it being hypocritical as well that these schools keep black attendance to a minimum, it's kind of ironic, considering their trumpeting of race and education. Other points: Ferguson's remarks are clumsy and ill thought through and smack of reflexive anti liberalism, but doesn't he make a point of there being caviar liberalism in people highly vaunting and advocating the virtues of public education and then sending their own kids to private schools? I can see, while I disagree, the argument for Irony's reading of Ferguson, but not at all Jmorton's. Of course, the hullabaloo over Barbour's scant remarks, and the remarks themselves, are altogether different issues.
- basman
December 21, 2010 at 2:52am
Ironyroad, if you haven't yet, get to bed!
- basman
December 21, 2010 at 2:53am
This is a devilishly clever move on the part of The good governor. He knows that the liberal chattering class harbors a deep form of racism while espousing beliefs to the contrary. I live in a state (Vermont) that is almost entirely white and among the most liberal. It is emblematic of the problem. Racism and reverse racism might actual work to Barbour's advantage and more's the pity.
- paskunac
December 21, 2010 at 6:35am
Headline: "How Haley Barbour Can Win" Answer: An article by someone no one's heard of (outside the usual echo chambers) in a magazine no one reads (outside the usual echo chambers): "hints as to why Barbour might (despite my bafflement) be a force in the GOP primary." HINTING that someone MIGHT be a force in a PRIMARY, is not a win. In fact the only reason said interview got any play at all (outside the usual echo chambers) is that not quite ready for prime time after forty years in politics Haley Barbour bungled a simple interview in a friendly venue. Chait, stick to your bafflement instincts. Dan
- dbuck1
December 21, 2010 at 7:49am
Let's say I punch my wife in the face. Is that wrong? Well, that depends, doesn't it? If someone who's never been married criticizes me, he has no standing to say anything. He's just a moralizing bully trying to make me look bad. What if the gal who criticizes me is a reckless driver? Then she too better keep her preening trap shut, because her reckless driving could kill someone, when my wife's life is not in the least danger just from a little tap on the face. God how I hate such moral exhibitionism! Can my wife complain? Hardly - this newborn champion of women's rights has never once volunteered at a battered women's shelter, and I know for a fact that she's turned down solicitations for women's shelter funding. If she refuses to put her money where her mouth is, why can't I put my fist there? The Golden Rule, as always, is helpful here - two wrongs make a right.
- Geoff G
December 21, 2010 at 9:37am
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The elite liberal media is in his sights & Barbour can win? Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land. Run for your lives or at least avert your eyes. It's the Ferguson sneer.- michaelg
December 21, 2010 at 10:00am