Two men who used racism to exploit power died yesterday: Harry Lee and Harry Dent

[zulchzulu]

I remember when I lived in New Orleans a few years back how despicable Harry Lee was and how he overtly used racism as a source to power as sheriff in Jefferson Parish. This Harry has passed on.

Sheriff Harry Lee, a wide-girthed lawman in the suburbs of New Orleans who became an outspoken voice for hostility to this city and a magnet for the anger of its black citizens, died Monday in Jefferson Parish. He was 75.
(snip)
Sheriff Lee always vigorously denied he was a racist. But with his aggressive — and loudly announced — policing of blacks who dared to cross the parish line from New Orleans into Jefferson, he seemed to give voice to a heavily white jurisdiction that sent the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke to the State Legislature in 1989. This constituency had voted with its feet decades earlier by abandoning the black-dominated city.

In 1986, he drew national attention to his normally unremarked-on kingdom of shopping strips and subdivisions when he announced, after a spate of robberies, “If there are some young blacks driving a car late at night in a predominantly white area, they will be stopped.”

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/us/02lee.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin

Wait! There's more on this fellow. He proved in what might be considered his swan song of being a racist tyrant, he blocked access for Katrina victims to leave New Orleans and go into his kingdom of Jefferson Parish.

Harry Lee said it best (in his view) when he said:

"The sheriff of is the closest thing there is to being a king in the U.S. I have no unions, I don't have civil service, I hire and fire at will. I don't have to go to council and propose a budget. I approve the budget. I'm the head of the law-enforcement district, and the law-enforcement district only has one vote, which is me," Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee told NPR in a November 28 (2006) story.

More:
http://jerseygoddess.blogspot.com/2006/12/louisiana-sheriff-comes-unglued-defends.html#strain

NPR interview (Nov. 28, 2006)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6549329

---

Not to be outdone in helping make racism part of American electorate diet, another person who helped create the so-called "Southern strategy" for Tricky Dicky (Nixon, not Cheney) passed on as well.

Harry S. Dent Jr., who helped devise the “Southern strategy” that was crucial to Richard M. Nixon’s winning the White House, died on Friday in Columbia, S.C. He was 77.

(snip)

In the 1950s, Mr. Dent joined the staff of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who was then a Democrat and had run for president as a segregationist Dixiecrat in 1948.

(snip)

Mr. Dent has been described as having helped articulate the Southern strategy. Its detractors call it racism cloaked in code words like “law and order.” Its advocates call it a legitimate appeal to people left on the sidelines while other groups benefit from affirmative action and government aid programs.

In any event, the strategy was credited with the Nixon victory, and Mr. Dent was rewarded with a post as special counsel and political strategist to the new president. Mr. Dent worked in the White House for four years, also finding time to work on the image of his old boss Mr. Thurmond.

(snip)

Reflecting on his new mission in life, Mr. Dent acknowledged in a 1981 interview with The Washington Post that he had regrets.

“When I look back, my biggest regret now is anything I did that stood in the way of the rights of black people,” he said. “Or any people.”

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/us/02dent.html?ref=obituaries

Doing the bidding for racists everywhere, these Horrible Harrys finally met their final judgment.

[Warpy]

1. More proof that only the good die young.

May they have adjoining seats in hell.

My sympathies to their families, though. The kids who called them "grandpa" probably had no idea.

[Kagemusha]

2. Hmm, do you mean 'wield' power? (re: headline)

And it's a-ok if you do, just pointing it out in a very friendly manner. Points well taken.

[zulchzulu]

3. Yep...

"Wield" was what I was looking for, but I decided to change it more accurately to "exploit".

What's sad is that the so-called "Southern Strategy" borne from Harry Dent's mind made it possible to spawn filth like Harry Lee to do the deed.

It all still goes on...

[Kagemusha]

4. Yes, it does indeed. Like GOP candidates snubbing black & hispanic forums

because it'd hurt their white support in the Midwest and the South...

[zulchzulu]

6. The recent GOP "debate" was a perfect example of playing the "Southern Strategy"

It's hate that keeps on giving...

[shain from kane]

5. "...to work on the image of his old boss Mr. Thurmond." I only have this image of a plantation owner

screwing the hired help, when I think about Strom Thurmond, which isn't often.