Perhaps the silliest narrative to spring up during Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign was the fantasy that his presidency would bring forth the end of racial America. Pundits, mostly on the left, nearly wet themselves with glee entertaining this delusional idea. Obviously post-racial America has yet to emerge. The fiction of race retains a strong grasp on humanity as a whole and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future — and America is no exception. Tea Party Republicans bristled at the notion that race was a prime motivator for the disdain many in the movement express towards the president. Scores of Tea Party leaders cried foul when the NAACP issued a report that labeled the movement as racially motivated. But if conservatives and opponents of the President’s agenda think the racist critique was deafening in 2010, it will be increase by a magnitude of a thousand if Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour gains the Republican nomination.
Barbour has not publicly announced whether he’s running for president, but his name is one of the many being floated as a Republican hopeful. The Weekly Standard has a spotlight piece on the good ol’ boy for Yazoo City. The profile gives unfamiliar readers a look into Barbour’s conservative credentials and introduces a bit of his back story. Tucked away in the third page of the article is a dozy of a quote that will haunt, and potential destroy, any presidential campaign Barbour may or may not be planning. When asked about growing up in Jim Crow Mississippi, the Governor offers up this gem, “I just don’t remember it being that bad.” Yikes. I cannot think of anything worse for conservatives trying to dispel the aura of racism than to nominate a man that recalled Jim Crow Mississippi as not being that bad. (I will not get into the Governor’s tepid praise of the Citizens Council, an organization formed to protect segregation.)
A Barbour nomination will cause the toxicity level of politics to skyrocket. America does not handle race conversations well, especially in the political realm. When Rand Paul floated the notion that he might not have supported one provision in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 due to how it violates private property rights, the talking heads threw themselves into fits. Can you imagine how those same heads might react to Barbour’s comments if he gains the nomination? Does anyone realistically think the conversation will retain any semblance of civil discourse?
Ads from politically active non-profit groups will almost certainly make matters worse. The famous images and footage of the Jim Crow era will be plastered across millions of television screens. An ominous voice over will provide the message’s punch: “Does Haley Barbour really think Jim Crow wasn’t all that bad?”
Vestiges of the Confederacy hang on the walls of Barbour’s office. A portrait of the University Greys is accompanied by a Confederate flag signed by Jefferson Davis. In reality these details matter little, but it is not hard to imagine how these idiosyncratic details do not help lessen the sting of Barbour’s “not bad” comments.
Barbour has since clarified the comments he made in The Weekly Standard, but it is unlikely that his clarification will be enough to overcome the accusation of racism — especially since Barbour would be running in a highly partisan environment and against the first African-American President.
In many ways, it doesn’t matter if Barbour harbors racist views. If his political opponents can craft the perception that he does, it will be enough to ensure that the campaign of 2012 will be worse, in terms of racial overtones, than 2010. Though I don’t think America, or the world for that matter, will ever look past race as a identifying aspect of society, it would be nice if our political campaigns refrained from using race issues to cudgel opponents. Regardless of the content of his character and the wisdom of his policies, it appears, to me, that a Barbour nomination would engender a bitter and vitriolic race-related political discourse. Hopefully I am wrong.
amsron 
Sean Scallon 
RAH 
Meissner 
Peter Gast 
Jacobite 
Steve Hansen 
I first heard of Andrew Ferguson’s [The] Weekly Standard article “The Boy from Yazoo City: Haley Barbour, Mississippi’s favorite son” ” through a blog post, the headline for which quoted Barbour as saying he doesn’t recall the civil rights era “being that bad.” The inner disturbance the headline caused required I read Ferguson’s actual article for context. In so doing, I was only mildly relieved. I was left with several questions about the point and purpose of some aspects of the article. Why highlight the fact that some of your family members were comfortable being racists, that your family supported a segregationist candidate and family members voted for another? Answer: better to voluntarily reveal potentially damaging family history. But, why showcase one’s implied ambivalence toward the impact of the widespread savagery and terrorization caused by racist whites before and through out the American Civil Rights era by stating you don’t remember it being that bad? Even if claiming isolated existence, prudence would suggest that a legitimate measure of “bad” was/is not about him.
The assertion that any aspect and or locale of the civil rights era wasn’t that bad leaves me with the opinion that Barbour and those he is apparently attempting to bolster support from either don’t know or don’t care about the gravity of the barbarianism that was, has always been and is still the Confederate/separatist agenda. Lest anyone say the confederacy is dead, let us all remember the shame that the Confederate battle flag is embedded within the design of the Mississippi state flag under which Barbour presides as governor. That blacks are conditioned to feel ashamed of slavery and “just move on” while the families and ancestors of plantation owners, well documented racists, and those who fly and defend the battle flag of the slavers should proclaim heritage and stand proud of a blood legacy is beyond comprehension, morals, and decency. I have no doubt that Barbour is a favorite son of many in Mississippi, but he wins no points with me. The pattern of Republicans stealthily appealing to the inner racist of their base voters is disgusting and cuts at the fabric of the measures our country has taken to redeem itself from a race law and policy perspective. Perhaps the essentials that would have transformed Barbour’s interview into something even slightly more honorable than another tactic by a Republican candidate were sacrificed in editing.
As long as whites can shamelessly internalize, propagate, and celebrate the institutions and practices informed by so-called scientific racism, money over morals, and ethnocentric Darwinian perspectives of their fellow Americans our country will have a long way to go to legitimize its claim of being a nation of, by, and for ALL THE PEOPLE—we are yet enslaved, one and all.