Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"Jesse Helms was a kind, decent, and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called "the Miracle of America." So it is fitting that this great patriot left us on the Fourth of July. He was once asked if he had any ambitions beyond the United States Senate. He replied: 'The only thing I am running for is the Kingdom of Heaven.' Today, Jesse Helms has finished the race, and we pray he finds comfort in the arms of the loving God he strove to serve throughout his life."
— President Bush.
Helms may have been trying to "serve" his god as atonement for his service in the Senate.
Espousing hate and prejudice is never called for, regardless of the vote.
Helms may have believed in god, but not the Christian god.
I grew up in the 60s and have lived all of my life in northwest Louisiana. Believe it or not major progress has occurred in the South over the last 48 years that I was old enough to have witnessed and remember. Unfortunately there are still too many white citizens my age and older who still live by the old ways.
I am encouraged by the young adults I know who grew up in the 80s and beyond who have African-American friends. There are even a few white folks my age and older I know who have African-American friends. Some of the formerly all-white local churches are beginning to have a significant number of black members. Here in Shreveport we elected our first African-American mayor in 2006.
Improvement will continue as the older generation dies off. Jesse Helms won his elections by close margins. It's sad how a few thousand narrow-minded voters can impede progress.
And to all you white folks that live outside the south: get off your high-horse! There have been ample racial incidents and atrocities committed by whitey against African-Americans and other ethnicities in every other region of the country over the course of our nation's history. How many times was the Oriental population on the west coast abused? I could go on!
Have a Happy 4th of July everyone!
Up here in Canuckistan, Sen. Helm's deeds did not go unnoticed. Our own fake news show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, gave an apt description of him in a report on his advocacy of sanctions against us for trading with Cuba: "evil, geriatric hillbilly." The world is a slightly better place without him.
To celebrate a person's death, except perhaps the most evil among us, and who are they? ...is wrong somehow. But bye, Jessie Helms, you son of a bitch.
I should have spelled it correctly. J-e-s-s-e. So bye, Jesse, you son of a bitch.
This is a really difficult but possibly very worthwhile discussion Helms has kicked off (absolutely no pun intended). And your point here is, of course, very well taken. It is a fine line to say the least, especially for one like me, a southerner raised to be different from most of my cousins (I was an only child), brought up by a father who, though very secretive during much of his life, ultimately stood head and shoulders above most of those around him and a mother who taught me that I must never use the word "hate" nor to feel it as an emotion. Then I was turned loose among my less-educated, dirt-poor cousins in southern Maryland and flatland Viriginia, to practice the art of loving -- not just simple tolerance. I agree, tolerance does not mean sainthood, and there is a time and a place for everything. Jesse Helms, for instance, was alive for a long time -- seemingly centuries -- and during his life there were plenty of opportunities to not tolerate him nor his veiws nor his hate-driven work. I might well have cursed him to his face, but I was raised not to lower myself to the level of that which I found intolerable in others. It's not easy being this way, especially when most of the clan is a self-hating, mixed-race hillbilly mess who no doubt will be talking fondly of ol' Jesse when I arrive at the family reunion tomorrow. At least they'll start doing it when they see me coming.
Mother, blood and soil; it's a tough one.
When I go down there tomorrow, into the dragon's jaws once again, I will be among people who have very mixed feelings about me, and it is largely mutual. Still, if I need them I know they'll show up for me, and I will for them, at least so long as it isn't because of some unspeakable deed which, so far, has exceeded their reach. Then again, some of them are pretty ok. Especially the visibly black ones. The ones who are more Potowamac Indian and Irish are the most insecure (and, interestingly, the most ignorant, often willfully so). It is that last cluster which grew up in a three room shack, 12 of them, without indoor plumbing, seven boys in one bed, one separate (because he'd had polio and was more fragile); the two girls slept on daybeds (I guess that's what they were) in the "big room" where the wood stove was. When I stayed over, I made eight in a bed. Yes, there was the mandatory car up on blocks.
The mostly Irish contingent are almost as bad, except for a couple who were closest to me in age coming up. I've won them over. They even laugh at the fact that we're "racially confused." And one of the Dozen now has an actually black grandson, upon whom he dotes. The others mutter, but they show up anyway. One we refer to as "The Grand Dragon." Each year he gets a little more upset by that. Evolution takes time.
An aside here: while dragged along on a fishing trip in 1949 I accidentally found a lynching victim. I was four years old. I didn't quite understand what it was I briefly saw, but I never forgot it, nor the smell, nor the pervasive feeling of something more terrible than my tiny mind could take in.
But back to Helms. Yes, the people who lynched Negroes shared his views, and he pandered to those views in order to get where he wanted to be: at the top of that truncated pyramid.
There does, indeed, sometimes come what we call "killing time."
Each year the reunion is a little less tense. Tomorrow I will be there as my youngest daughter introduces her Indian (eastern type) fiance to them. Some are excited. Some have no idea what's coming. It will be interesting, possibly entertaining, and it could even wind up being one of those times when I have to spit in someone's face.
But I won't leave til I'm ready.
Nobody said it was easy.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
