“All your daddies fought in vain, just to wear the Mark of Cain”
There are many reason not to vote for Haley Barbour for President, the whole silly brouhaha about his comments in a Weekley Standard article about his life growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi is not one of them.
I’m curious as to why writer Andrew Ferguson felt he must ask these questions, because its not as though Haley Barbour had anything to do with what was going on in Mississippi during the 1960s as a young lad or could have changed anything. It’s not relevant in the course of his being President. My guess is Barbour was accurately describing what life was like for him in Yazoo City growing up and now he’s made to look like a racist because he wears the old Southern Mark of Cain (as line from song I know goes). If were going to start using that standard then Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton or John Edwards should have been disqualified from being President because members of their respective families more than likely fought for the Confederacy and Carter himself grew up on a big farm in southwest Georgia whose family, like Barbour’s, was part of the landed gentry who hired black tenant sharecroppers and probably didn’t pay them a whole hell of a lot. It’s as ridiculous as asking eight-year old Barak Obama to retroactively condemn Weatherman Bill Ayers for being a terrorist, so why should Barbour be forced to do the same thing? Condemn things he never did or said as a person because of his background growing up? Should we all be as suspicious of Barbour as those who are suspicious of Obama’s origins because of his foreign background and strange name?
If what one did during the 1960s is going to be the new litmus test for presidential candidates, it’s going to be a long time for another Southern white gets elected to the White House. Talk about bigotry.
Brock Townsend on 23 Dec 2010 at 4:48 am #
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/haley-barbour-responds_524733.html
Weaver on 23 Dec 2010 at 5:24 am #
Excellent piece.
Kyle K on 23 Dec 2010 at 5:49 am #
Wah wah wah! Somebody call the wahmulance! I’m so sorry for you Patroon that you and your ancestors repressed and enslaved African-Americans! That now its coming back to bite your sexist, racist, anti-freedom ass!
Nate on 23 Dec 2010 at 7:55 am #
Talk about bigotry? Lets talk about Ron Paul then, he is the biggest bigot alive.
Sean Scallon on 23 Dec 2010 at 2:08 pm #
I wonder how my Irish-German ancestors could have enslaved anybody, they fought for the North.
RedPhillips on 23 Dec 2010 at 3:48 pm #
Sean don’t be silly. It is not necessary that your ancestors actually owned slaves. All that is necessary is that you be white. Then that makes you implicitly guilty by virtue of the color of your skin.
Sean Scallon on 23 Dec 2010 at 3:56 pm #
Sad but true Red. Most Confederate soldiers didn’t own slaves. Many were poor. Doesn’t matter. The mark still follows.
Matt Weber on 23 Dec 2010 at 4:19 pm #
If it’s brought up, the usual explanation is that you, by being white, have benefitted from the culture of white privilege created by decades of slavery and discrimination. They might also say that because whites who didn’t own slaves didn’t revolt (or something) against the slaveowners, they are therefore complicit in the continuance of the institution.
Usually it isn’t brought up, cause most whites are conditioned to think themselves guilty anyway. My ancestors actually arrived after the Civil War was over.
Weaver on 23 Dec 2010 at 4:33 pm #
I’m proud of my ancestors. Regardless it’s in the past, and the mark of Cain shouldn’t remain…
Woden on 23 Dec 2010 at 8:40 pm #
Another bunch of nothing hyped up by morons in the press.
KLR on 23 Dec 2010 at 8:56 pm #
You little boys should be carefull of stones you throw.
Weaver on 30 Jan 2011 at 12:37 am #
NumbersUSA update: Haley Barbour receives a D- !!
Of the 2012 candidates, only Obama is worse.