Virginia State Song Controversy: What is an emeritus state song anyway?

I heard about the controversy over George Allen the Republican candidate for Senate in Virginia speaking in favor of keeping the Virginia state song “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia.”  From the news coverage, I see insensitivity on his part in supporting the song as a member of legislature, but mitigated by the fact he repealed the song at the end of this time as governor.

What I really can’t believe was that it took until 1997 to repeal the song.  I also cannot believe that it was turned into a state song emeritus and has not yet been replaced.  Check out the lyrics featuring “massa and missis” and “the old darkey’s heart.”  I know I suffer from Yankee bias and the song must have historical resonance, but how could it have lasted so long?

Carry Me back to Old Virginny
Written by James Bland

Carry me back to old Virginny,
There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There’s where the old darke’ys heart am long’d to go,
There’s where I labored so hard for old massa,
Day after day in the field of yellow corn,
No place on earth do I love more sincerely
Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.

CHORUS

Carry me back to old Virginny,
There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There’s where this old darkey’s heart am long’d to go.

Carry me back to old Virginny,
There let me live ’till I wither and decay,
Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wandered,
There’s where this old darke’ys life will pass away.
Massa and missis have long gone before me,
Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore,
There we’ll be happy and free from all sorrow,
There’s where we’ll meet and we’ll never part no more.

Different Views of Voting for Jesus

According the website votingforjesus.com:

“It is time for Christians, true followers of Jesus Christ, to rise up and say NO to satan this November! As I prophetically shared last November, if God allowed the upcoming election for President to be between President Obama and Mitt Romney, it would truly be satan flipping a two-headed coin with his head on both sides!”

Given this dilemma the website states,

“I am encouraging true followers of Jesus Christ to say NO to satan and say YES to Jesus! This November, write in the name JESUS for President!”

On the other hand there is this song by Woody Guthrie:

“Christ for President”

Let’s have Christ our President
Let us have him for our king
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
That you call the Nazarene

The only way we can ever beat
These crooked politician men
Is to run the money changers out of the temple
Put the Carpenter in

O It’s Jesus Christ our President
God above our king
With a job and a pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring

Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars

But with the Carpenter on the seat
Way up in the Capital town
The USA would be on the way
Prosperity Bound!

 

How utterly American, two radically contrasting diverse views of the intersection between religion and politics.

 

 

Edgey Blood Quantum Video Makes a Point

Savage Media, a Native American organization based at Dartmouth released their most recent video addressing the issue of people asking other people who identify as Native American about their heritage, the extent of their Native American ancestry.

The video is edgy, ending with a woman cutting her hand and showing the blood to her questioner, but in doing so it makes its point clear.  I also like the fact that it is not a white person asking the impolite question, but another person of color.  This raises other issues like the question as to, defending on defintions of racism, whether people of color can be racist.

I think this video also connects tangentially to the issues around Native American identity playing bout between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren

 

Native American Perspective on Brown v. Warren

Suzanne Shown Harjo’s  ”Massachusetts Senatorial Race: Identity Standards, Not Identity Politics“ offers the best analysis I have read on the Elizabeth Warren versus Scott Brown contest.  The insightfullness may not result only from the author being Native American, but the author’s background does give her analysis depth, weight and credibility–certainly more than I ever had when I weighed in earlier on this blog.

Here is the opening paragraph:

The senatorial race in Massachusetts is too close to call—between incumbent Senator Scott Brown, Republican, and Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, Democrat—and could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. But you can set your watch by this: no matter who wins on November 6, Native Peoples will get blamed for the loss by the loser and vanquished as a distraction by the victor.

Chip Bok cartoon offers a lighter viewpoint

Mia Love a Candidate to Follow

I have just been reading about Mia Love a Congressional candidate from Utah.  I do not really agree with her on many issues, but I still hope she wins as a way of showing up the people who have sent her hate mail.  This Politico piece gives details what she received.  Besides, I like to support diverse individuals who are doing something that has not been done before and if she wins she would be the a first, the first black, republican, female member of Congress.

Mia Love (from her campaign website)

Rep. Keith Ellison on Whiteness

This interview with Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) is worth reading for his meditations on the evolution of race and identity as America moves toward being more than 50% people of color.

This answer particularly struck me for its comments on the meaninglessness or at least the challenges posed by terms like white and black.

The Root: As more Americans have nonwhite ancestry, will the definition of whiteness itself be affected, or will we need a new word for “minority”?

Keith Ellison: Both of those things will be true. At the end of the day, I’m not sure we’ll be using the word “minority” anymore. It may just sort of become an anachronism. There is a chance that white people might be able to reclaim their own heritage for the first time in many years.

What is it to be white? It does mean something to be Norwegian. It means something to be Polish or German or Spanish. But “white” is simply a catchall for “light-skinned person.” It doesn’t really mean anything. It’s basically an invention to suit the slaveocracy in America during [the] antebellum [period], and it still works today because of that legacy of Jim Crow … So yes, the idea of whiteness might decline in terms of its meaning as well.

And in my district, for example, it’s difficult even to just say “black” people. We have the highest percentage of Somalis in the whole country. We’re either first or second in the number of Liberians. The reality is, when you say “black” people, who are you talking about? The Somalis? The Liberians?

And now, in Minnesota, we’ve started talking in terms of “traditional African Americans,” and what we mean is, those people whose ancestors were brought from West Africa and made to work for free for a few centuries in the South, and then their families immigrated to the North — or didn’t.

When Someone Else Can Challenge Your Racial Identity

If a person says they are white, black, Native American, Asian, etc. no one should challenge them.  As many, many photos show, it is virtually impossible for someone to look at someone else and come up with a perfectly accurate racial assessment.  Given that race is a social construct wherein we as a society have agreed that certain features lead to a certain label, this ambiguity makes sense.  And it makes sense that the individual has the right to self-identify.  This impassioned post “Why My Racial Background is None of Your Business” by Kristin Booker lays out the basic idea.  I particularly like the part where she toys with people by saying she a descendant of Yoda.

There do, however, seem to be exceptions to this rule.  One exception is for politicians or other public figures.  Like it or not, if a politician claims a particular racial identity the media can research that claim and opponents can, if there seems to be political benefit, challenge it.  For example if Mitt Romney claimed to be Latino because his family has roots in a Mormon community in Mexico, there could be research and critique.  Likewise, Elizabeth Warren’s claims of Native American heritage are open to investigation and comment.  The Scott Brown supporters doing the tomahawk chop and issuing mock war whoops are not excused, but his asserting she misrepresented herself is not a step into forbidden racial territory.

A related exception involves claiming a benefit based one’s racial identity, something Elizabeth Warren states she never did.  This is a very limited exception in that the person on the street should not, based on assumptions, question why someone who looks  to be one race has received a benefit designed for someone of another race.  There is so much guesswork and stereotyping involved in such a question.  On the other hand, a body handing out benefits to those of a specific race could call for evidence of membership.  This call for evidence happens with Native Americans and proving tribal identity.  I have not heard of it happening with other racial groups, and it would be a touchy topic, but what is there to keep a program awarding government contracts to minority owned businesses from asking for proof of minority status, or an organization offering similar scholarships asking for similar proof . The problem is that I am not sure what the proof would be.

Generally though, a person should be free to identify themselves however they wish without question, unless they step forward in someway either into public life or in pursuit of a specific benefit.

Clip from video showing Scott Brown supporters doing the tomahawk chop

 

 

Randy Newman “I’m Dreaming of a White President”

I am amused by the Randy Newman song “I’m Dreaming of a White President.”  The satire is quite apt in its exaggerated mockery of those who might reduce their political choice to a simple matter of black vs. white.  I do wonder of the politics of the video since a predominance of the white presidents pictured seem to be Republican whereas Democrats (such as Clinton and Kennedy) are scarce.  Also, I do not really get the Africa section in the middle.

George Bush, a white president as pictured in the video

Lyrics in Response to Violence in Libya

My response to the terrible events in Libya and the subsequent politics.  Violence is wrong. Hate is wrong. Stop the politics.

lyrics from Let’s Face It by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Why were we put here?
What for? we’re unsure
We sure weren’t put here to hate
Be racist, be sexist
Be bigots, be sure
We won’t stand for your hate
Why so cut and dry
A simple concept missed
Give tolerance a try
This confusion still exists

Ignorance mongers
No area’s gray
Couldn’t be any wronger in this age and day

Perhaps She Should Talk to Clint Eastwood?

This chair might be available.

At a charter school in Cleveland, a teacher was teaching a lesson on consumerism.  Students were given a certain amount of classroom currency they could spend.  Some students wisely put that currency toward acquiring a desk and a chair; others spent less wisely, for example one seven year old who wound up without a chair.  She got a desk, a dry erase board, and colored pens. The teacher, supported by the principal, said that this lesson was designed to teach students to spend wisely, to conserve resources, and to resist the siren song of frivolous objects.  Besides, the child could sit on a the floor or a beanbag  chair and try to do more wisely with the next week’s shopping.

I wonder about this approach, and in that questioning, I stand with the child’s aggrieved grandmother.  Since I am not in the classroom and only know about the situation from one columnist’s piece, I do not have the exact details.  Still, I am curious to know about how the student learned for the week, where she did work, where she might have taken a test or a quiz or completed a worksheet.  Did she spend the week sitting nearer to the floor than her chair acquiring classmates who looked down upon her all day.  I could see running this exercise with items that are less central to the educational process but to let a child lose her seat takes it too far.

From a larger perspective, I wonder why this lesson occurred at an urban charter school.  I know it would not fly at most local independent schools, and I have a hard time believing it would gain much traction in suburbia.