Phil Robertson's America (by: TA-NEHISI COATES)

[kpete]

The Milwaukee Journal, January 27, 1935
Phil Robertson's America
TA-NEHISI COATESDEC 20 2013, 10:08 AM ET

I've yet to take in an episode of Duck Dynasty. I hear it's a fine show, anchored by a humorous and good-natured family of proud Americans. I try to be good natured, and I have been told that I can appreciate a good joke. I am also a proud American. With so much in common, it seems natural that I take some interest in the views of my brethren on the history of the only country any of us can ever truly call home:

I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field .... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word! ... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.

That is Robertson responding to a reporter's question about life in Louisiana, before the civil-rights movement. I am sure Robertson did see plenty of black people who were singing and happy. And I am also sure that very few black people approached Robertson to complain about "doggone white people."

....

The belief that black people were at their best when they were being hunted down like dogs for the sin of insisting on citizenship is a persistent strain of thought in this country. What it ultimately reflects is inability to cope with America that is at least rhetorically committed to equality. One can quickly see the line from this kind of thinking, to a rejection of the civil rights movement of our age[.]

MORE:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/phil-robertsons-america/282555/

[malthaussen]

1. You'd never see an article like that in a newspaper today.

By golly, they even fact-checked the Kingfish's statement and called him a liar!

-- Mal

[Kurovski]

2. K&R. (nt)

[politichew]

3. I never knew this about Huey Long.

I often hear about his populist views, but never this kind of bullshit.

Fuck that guy.