"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way,"Of course Bardwell isn't a racist. There aren't any racists in America.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Yeah, I think this is a class issue more than a race issue.
Win.
Love it.
This type of non-racist argument is very prevalent among my non-racist kinfolks in Missouri. "Think of the children!" Ugh.
Oh, No! God help us if a child of mixed race should be let loose on the world. There's no telling what could happen to him!
There are racists, and then there are sterotypically dumb-as-a-hammer racist redneck assholes. Mr. Bardwell is obviously the latter.
He might even become president! Heaven forbid!
If that means what I think it does, nice knowing you, have fun back at Red State where you belong.
If it doesn't mean what I think it does, then sorry my bad:-)
Ok, I apologize, I re-read your quote and realize you were likely replying to the first paragraph. I was reading your quote as a response to his 2nd paragraph, ie the Glen Beck view.
But this:
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
I want to know how many of those "piles of black friends" the he has are coming to that bamma's house after reading this. He even lets them use his bathroom! Obviously he's so much more accepting than his neighbors, who make the darkies use the hole they dug in the backyard.
Grrr....
Clearly if he's throwing his black friends in piles, he has bigger racial problems than denying this marriage
FTW. I'm done here...
"...they use my bathroom."
OMIGOD I have never laughed this hard in my life. This man is a walking SNL sketch.
Felt the same way when I read it.
You know, I hadn't even read the article before I made my sarcastic comment above. Now that I have, I hope this couple sues the asses off of everyone they can and gets some justice and a little nest egg for their future together.
He's worried that the children will suffer. The interracial children.
I believe I know of an interracial child who suffered his way all the way to the White House.
You know, as soon as I saw the "I'm not a racist," I knew TNC would be weighing in.
It's good to know that he's not a racist--of course he's not!--and that he's good enough to let black people use his bathroom. As long as they're making babies with other black people, I guess.
I'm not a murderer. I just thought that I should kill that guy.
If the couple was otherwise legally eligible to marry, there is no justification for his refusal to grant a marriage license.
I know plenty of same race marriages that have ended in divorce, and plenty of same race marriages in which the children are totally messed up. Actually, now that I think about it, almost all the totally messed up children I know have same race parents. Funny how no one "thought of the children" when those two same race pieces of work decided to to legal permission to make them.
This puzzles me: I thought granters of marriage licenses specifically did not have this option. I'm sure clerks of the court and such see all sorts of people they think are clearly a bad match but they don't get to say "I'm sorry, 4 divorces means you're out."
Two things, added late to the convo. First, there is no logic to his assertion that interracial marriages don't last. Otherwise, the man would refuse to marry, say, couples where both are 19, or where neither is employed or neither has any training or education, because these unions really are more likely to fail. I wonder about interreligious unions too? He must certainly have concerns for those children who must go to temple *and* to mass.
Second, and the thing that really nags: Last night, my husband and I talked about this for a long time. We were in shock. As southerners, we know we have racists in our attics, those great aunts or grandparents TNC mentions elsewhere in this thread (and in the south it's more acceptable for them to creep out of the attic from time to time). But this guy was not sitting in an attic, was not spouting his views to, say, an annoyed and disagreeing granddaughter; he has a respected public office in this community. In his 34 years, he must have denied many interracial weddings and what bothers me most is that *this* is the first time it's come to light, at least nationally. Perhaps people knew and didn't bother going to him for their license, and maybe they were too exhausted by having to defend their marriage that they couldn't tolerate a court battle too. But avoidance like that essentially accommodates this view. I'm so glad they're suing. Finally.
Yeah, I just saw this story. A friend shot me a link. Full disclosure, I'm one half of a married interracial couple. I feel for these people. They may soon face a choice between staying where they are and fighting that battle (with their children potentially on the front lines of it) or moving somewhere they feel would be more hospitable.
The troubling thing about this is that, whatever their backgrounds are, they'll have friends and family on both sides who will feel that they are wrong for choosing to marry the person they love. Of course, they will also find great sources of support among some others who are closest to them, and they will need that support. I wish them all the best.
One other thing, Keith Bardwell has a real talent for irony. In addition to the one TNC already parsed out, there is this gem, from the same story:
I mean, that has to be an all-timer.
I won't get into breaking down the holes in this guy's argument because I'm hoping others will do it instead, and that would make me happy.
Yes, I literally chuckled when I read that. He likes treating all mixed race couples equally shitty. Gotcha.
Actually, it was more a giggle.
glad you cleared that up. we can't have any mixing of giggles and chuckles here.
glad you cleared that up. we can't have any mixing of giggles and chuckles here.
Right? Well, he tries to treat all interracial couples equally--equally badly.
Clearly he doesn't treat them equally with same-race couples.
The lack of self-awareness is simply STAGGERING.
That's the one that got me too. It would do Monty Python proud.
Of course he didn't. Why would he? They identify as black and white. And that's just not cool in our post-racial America.
You let people of different races marry, and we're on the slippery slope to gays wanting to get married. Not that our country is homophobic or anything; we just should not be mixing gay people up like that.
I don't give a shyt what your beliefs are....there's a man and a woman standing there before you saying they want a marriage license..do your damn job..give the license.
Damn right. Government really really needs to learn its God-damned place already. I'm not hopeful on that front.
Isn't there a bigger issue here? That is, someone has decided that two people should not be married and in their official government capacity prevented them from doing so. Abuse of power comes to mind first, but it seems much more than that. What makes him think he has the right and responsibility to impose his views upon others? The racist aspects of the situation are secondary to him controlling the lives of others.
I hate to even bring it on, but: In every state that has legalized marriage for same-sex couples, from MA to IA, this has been a serious and lengthy public debate.
In Massachusetts and I think Iowa, public officials have resigned from their jobs in order not to give out marriage certificates or licenses to two dudes.
Which, of course, is the right way to handle a conflict between your deeply held beliefs and the duties of your work. If the Lord, or Jehovah or Allah or your grandpappy's teachings won't let you give out the Pill to a single woman--get a new job as Not a Pharmacist.
AMEN!
I completely agree with this, that nobody is forcing you to take any job under which the job duties are intolerable, and if your beliefs conflict with your job, you should quit your job. My own beliefs would prevent me from filling certain prescriptions, were I a pharmacist, but if you apply at Walgreens and you know your job description would require you to do something you think is wrong, you should apply somewhere else. No harm in letting the folks there know why you can't take the job, but that's as far as it goes. There is virtue in suffering for your beliefs, but not in complaining loudly about how other people are making you suffer for your beliefs (at least when you're not being forced; you could just get another job...)
Reminds me of the situation we had here up in Minneapolis re: cab drivers and transporting alcohol home from the airport... some cab drivers wanted the right to continue being licensed to transport passengers from the airport, but to be allowed to refuse to carry alcohol or service dogs. They lost, iirc, and rightly in my opinion, even though I respect the religious beliefs that led to their wish.
There was also at least one or two Town Clerks in Vermont who resigned when Civil Unions went through because they didn't want to give out licenses. Somehow, the Republic continued to stand.
Isn't "controlling the lives of others" pretty much what racism is about. I mean, how do you separate the two, any more than you separate control issues from patriarchalism?
Bingo. I guess one could be a private racist. But I don't think anyone really is inveighing against that. The power issue is obvious.
It's like saying the real problem with the Holocaust wasn't antisemitism, it was the wanton disregard for life. Yeah, I guess, and?
Point taken.
So, yeah, shades of judgment like that are a big deal, I'd say, given that the twentieth century produced many more engineered megadeaths that don't officially count as genocide than those that do.
Exactly.
This is a perfect example of a dyed-in-the-wool racist that doesn't even know he's racist, it's so innate, so "normal" for him that he wouldn't understand why people would view this as racist. But he has "piles and piles" of black friends...and he even lets them use his bathroom, as opposed to sending them to the colored bathroom or the outhouse.
The more we keep mainstreaming racism, the more blurred the lines become.
This story has been all over Twitter this afternoon (well, once the Balloon Kid story died down). This was my fave comment: "That guy's wife is probably always on his case: 'How many times do I have to ask you not to leave your negro pile on the couch?'"
What I have been thinking since I read this story, but afraid to say:
At least he doesn't keep his black friends in a woodpile. (You know you were thinking it too.)
Also: The Loving decision (1967) overruled a decision from the Supreme Ct of Virginia which used a slightly more eloquent expression of his 'logic'--but not much.
Finally: The only thing worse that could happen than being born to an interracial marriage is being raised without a father in the house..because you could end up writing for The Atlantic, or being the President, or something sad like that.
I'm out. Can't say another word.
reminds me of a bad joke I once heard...
"I love black people... I think everybody should own one"
Ah, the wonders of Google News:
"I'm not a racist. I'm against interracial marriages. I think the Negro race ought to stay pure and the white race stay pure. God intended for white people to stay white, Chinese to stay yellow and Negroes to stay black. All mankind is the handiwork of God." -- Gov. Wallace, 1964
I spent about a year, on and off, in the very parish where this idiot is failing to do his job (he's a Justice of the Peace; presumably he has access to law books - he should look up Loving v. Virginia maybe?) It was about 10 years ago, and was this So Cal boy's first exposure to the South, and I was at first pleasantly surprised. But I was on an isolated part of a university campus, surrounded by consultants and university employees who, frankly, were a helluva lot smarter than this doofus. It wasn't until I ventured across campus and saw all the 'David Duke for Senate' (I think it was Senate) bumper stickers in the student parking lot that it sunk in that maybe I wasn't seeing a representative sample of the population in my daily activities. Which was fine with me. But I do think there are enough good folks in that part of Louisiana that this guy's days as a government official are numbered.
Hmmm... if he really wanted to know how children of mixed race couples handle their fate, he just had a great opportunity to find out. There was just such a person giving a speech today not far from him on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain, if I'm not mistaken. It was only 50 or 60 miles away, and the Governor was there, too. But I bet the poor "Justice" missed it because of all the excitement. Pity. Heard it was a good event, even though the Governor got booed.
Pile, n 1: a single hemorrhoid 2 pl HEMORRHOIDS; also: the condition of one affected with hemorrhoids
(courtesy Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary, 1986)
Kinda puts a whole different spin on things.
This story just killed me because I lived in Hammond for about ten years, got my BA there, got married and divorced there, became a new person there, got started on the path that led me to where I am now in Hammond. And because of that, I can't hate it, even though I know without a shadow of doubt that Bardwell is not unusual--he is terrifyingly typical of the people of Hammond. It hurts, you know? to want to love a place because of all it did for you and yet be so angered by the people who live there?
It's like having family. You still love them, but goddamn sometimes you wish they were better people.
Bardwell must've seen the Saints in their retro unis and thought it was 1967 again.
sorry folks. I'm having some technical difficulties.
What's the song: happy birthday.. Mr President.
What's the song: happy birthday.. Mr President.
Justice of The Peace-Keith Bardwell. The irony in this guy being a justice of the peace is almost funny, but mostly tragic.
Didn't the Supreme Court establish that this kind of thing was illegal?
One feels for the JP... I mean look at how badly children from interracial marriages have fared... Like President Obama, lol!! One for the ages, this one!
When people like him pull that "I'm not racist" line after saying or doing something incredibly bigoted, I always wonder just what they think racism actually means. What on earth is their internal definition of racism? Has anyone here ever managed to get some kind of coherent definition of racism out of someone who says one of those groaners beginning with "Now I'm not a racist, but..." ?
I had a spirited debate with my wife about the same thing. She said that while she certainly doesn't approve of the guy's logic, she believes that HE believe he's being helpful. Apparently her mom stated something similar many years back in an attempt to prevent my wife from being a target of bigotry in her home town.
Her point boiled down to... is this guy absolutely retarded? Yep. Is this guy absolutely wrong? Yep. Is he completely evil? Probably not.
Regardless, he should suffer consequences for his actions, beginning with immediate removal from office, and ending (maybe?) with permanent house arrest in a bi-racial household.
That's the problem, right there. Do you believe that to be a sexist necessarily equals evil? Put Buchanan is an anti-semite, do you believe he's evil? Why does the racist have to rise to the bar of utter evil? Do we really believe everyone who stood in the crowd when they lynched black folks were evil?
It's ridiculous. It's like if you're not the dudes that killed James Byrd you aren't racist. Most depressing, it's amazingly self-serving.
I lied, I have one more word to add:
Intent.
(Intent to harm is not required for an action to be racist. He substituted his judgment about the most intimate decision this couple will ever make, for their own judgment, based on their skin color. Regardless of his reasoning or beliefs, an abuse of state power based on race is always racist and wrong.)
TNC, I agree whole-heartedly. And Phoenix, my wife specified that intent is important to her when using the term racist, but I believe that it should be used a little more often than it is. People might be tired of it, but for crying out loud... that doesn't mean racism has gone away.
Not necessarily in the sense that a person is racist, and therefore evil and un-redeemable... it should be applied to a sentiment, thought, person, or policy that IS racist, but also shows a recognition that this problem is FIXABLE.
Possibly off on a tangent here, but I think that the biggest problem race relations face today is the incredible effort by those who are (occasionally?) racist to TAKE BACK the word racist, and make it dirty. Just like the word "liberal" was dirtied in the 1960s and again in the 1990s. By similar crowds. Coincidence? Probably not.
You don't have to "be" evil to participate in/promote evil. (I'm thinking out loud here, but I think that's what you are saying and if so, I agree with you.)
"Do you believe that to be a sexist necessarily equals evil?" Yup.
"Put Buchanan is an anti-semite, do you believe he's evil?" Yup.
"Do we really believe everyone who stood in the crowd when they lynched black folks were evil?" Yup.
Have I been a little evil myself in my lesser moments? Malicious, selfish, cruel, callous, willfully ignorant? Yup.
Alas, evil's not so hard to come by. The trick is quelling it.
I don't think all racists are evil, not at all. But I do believe everyone of 'em are breathtakingly stupid.
This (I think pretty recent) adaption of the word "racist" to apply only to the Klu Klux Klan and lynchers, or - my favorite - people of color practicing "racism" against white people - is positively Orwellian.
These are very difficult questions. Hannah Arendt wrote about Eichmann:
Still, she speaks of the banality of "evil". The Milgram Experiment demonstrates that this sort of evil is not uncommon. Maybe that's why we prefer to call it stupidity or ignorance.
I find this really interesting and agree that HE believes he's being helpful, as dreiner said. It makes me wonder if "racist" isn't used as a synonym for "evil" far too often, when maybe it ought to be used as a synonym merely for "ignorant." Ignorant isn't the same as mean or evil. You should pity the person who said it, not revile them.
I bring this up because I remember distinctly my own mother, a Good Liberal if ever there was one (she was far more politically liberal than I, for instance, by conventional labeling), telling me that she thought blacks and whites shouldn't marry because people would make fun of their children. This wasn't the deep south either, it was suburban Ohio. I doubt she would have favored a law against it; she seemed to think it was a matter of personal responsibility.
But I guess she had lived a life in which she had witnessed people making fun of interracial kids, or worse, and that seemed pretty bad to her. It's a fascinatingly weird argument -- making racist assertions on the grounds that other people might act racist. I can't help but wonder how attitudes will change as the number of people who have experienced real racism, from either side, declines through attrition as I expect it will.
Oh, should add for context: Mom graduated high school in 1966, I did in 1992.
this is pretty much what I was thinking. it's clearly racist, but the person is more ignorant than evil. tho as TNC notes the bar isn't set at evil. thankfully this blog is pretty damn good at looking at the nuances of gray instead of just black and white.
I think it's derailing to get into a discussion of who's evil or not. Racism hurts people. What the dude did was hurt people because refusing to marry mixed raced couples is a racist act.
Look, imagine you're a doctor, and to heal people, you bleed them to balance the humors. Modern doctors know this is BS, but you might disagree. Your intent to heal, while noble, will still hurt people. Your intent is irrelevant. What counts is the harm done, and that you really should have known better because you had every opportunity to know why.
"HE believes he's being helpful." Probably. We have people in the mental ward over there who believe that they are boiled eggs. In neither case are these persons correct.
The law is not called upon, thank God, nor is it qualified, to determine whether or not someone is "evil." (Or a "racist" (whatever that means) for that matter.) All the law can do is throw this guy out of office for being unwilling to perform the duties of his job.
Having discussed race with many Americans, including some very backwards ones, I don't find it hard to understand what people like this are thinking. They define racism as one race thinking itself superior to another, and they reason that wishing for the races to remain separate and "pure" doesn't imply one is better than the other, simply that each is worthy in its own way. It's a startlingly naive and ignorant perspective, but not necessarily willfully dishonest.
Nice grasp of nuance. I wish I had been able to explain that to my wife, lol.
Dreiner, I hope I didn't come off as harsh toward your wife, either. Forgive me, if I did. I just wanted to make the point that good people are capable of awful things. I have homophobes in my family, who I love very much. They are very good people. But they're also homophobes. No way around it.
I suspect that some whites may have people in their family of the same ilk. A racist grandmother or great-aunt who is, at heart, a really good person. It's a bit of mind-fuck. But it encapsulates the problem, I think. We're talking about people we know.
No offense taken, TNC. My wife and I were both saying that, though coming at it from different angles. Nobody wants to admit that something or someone close to them is racist. But the label is there, and it's accurate more often than we'd like.
It doesn't mean you have to cast the person out of your life, though.
No it doesn't. Often it's not even possible.
Like Obama's statements about his grandmother-- the 'oh, he threw her under the bus' ridiculousness from the right seemed extra-ridiculous for that reason, because we all have people like this we love and care about, and sometimes they think awful thoughts and do awful things, and...a modicum of self-awareness would be nice sometimes.
It's easy to love someone when their racist rants are confined mostly to the Thanksgiving table, but what if they're given a public forum for expressing or even acting on their views? Then it becomes a bit harder to say they're wonderful people in spite of their bigotry. Granted, there's a spectrum of these things, and refusing to grant a marriage license is not in the same category as sending someone to a death camp. But the point is that a lot of the regular, ordinary people we meet have the potential to become reprehensible or even evil if given the opportunity, as painful as that judgment may be to people we love.
The county clerks in Iowa or Maine who want a conscience clause to protect them from having to issue licenses to gay couples... or all those pharmacists who want to keep their jobs even when refusing to dispense medication... are they going to speak up in defense of this guy?
He's right about the children of course. I mean, if you bring a racially-mixed child into the world, what will happen then? I mean, besides growing up to be President of the United States.
Every now and then a thread here reminds me of the allegation that the eskimos have many words for snow. We only have one word for racism. That's not enough.
As has been often discussed, there's a continuum: there's a difference between believing blacks should be lynched for minor transgressions, and believing that blacks shouldn't eat in my restaurant, and believing that blacks shouldn't marry whites. But we often have only one word to describe all three.
Perhaps this concept can be illustrated via comparison to much opposition to gay marriage. I know good, god-fearing Christians, I bet you do too, who find gay marriage to be an abomination. Why? Well, they inevitably give you some mumbo jumbo from the Old Testament, but the real reason is because it is custom and habit and the insanity of inertia...but beyond those unpleasantries, they really and truly don't hold any hard feelings toward gays. Really. You know these people.
I suspect that much opposition to miscegenation comes from the same residual, habitual ignorant place as opposition to gay marriage, especially in the Dixie South. Racism...sure...but not the same racism as other types of racism.
Ah, well, you know what they say:
When it's 10:00pm in New York, it's 7:00pm in San Francisco. And it's 1956 in Louisiana.
Doing some sleuthing for my own blog post about this, I found some interesting stats:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/22/22105.html
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2006.html (Specifically Table FG4... White Hispanics and Non-Hispanic Whites are the same thing in the Census)
http://www400.sos.louisiana.gov/cgibin?rqstyp=comh1&rqsdta=26510100
This guy (it seems?) has held office since 1996.
Twenty-three first and second cousins. That's how many loved ones Judge Bardwell wishes out of my extended family.
And after round after round of discussions where I cared about nuances of intent and context and people's other virtues, I discover that I really, truly, just think the guy has got cold evil in his heart and I don't care what else is there with it.
People just play them on T.V.
The area I call home is in a very conservative district. It is like 95% white. A good friend of mine who I met a few years ago is white and married to a black woman. They have five kids, all of whom are doing just fine. As a matter of fact I sometimes envy their open and honest relationships. I'm a pretty good dad I think, but these guys are the poster child of a cohesive family unit.
This judge is both racist and stupid. Nuff said.
What year are we?
At the bottom of the AP story cited here, there is a google adv. for...interacial singles. LOL!
"I have piles of black friends..."
Who has piles of black friends? Could someone explain this to me?
What a day for absurd stories--bubble boy and this.
The Deep South is a different country.
People say that, and yeah It's probably true, although I don't think I'm southern enough to know for sure (My mom's family is from Chatham, a rural part of Virginia south of Roanoke, near the border with Carolina -- I don't think that qualifies as the deep South, although it's definitely the sticks). But I'm not a fan of comments like this because it gives intolerance and bigots in other parts of the country a pass. I lived in northern Ohio for over a decade and the amount of intolerance there is astounding. It's like there are two Ohios -- the one I lived in, which was diverse and full of open-minded people -- and the other one, which had no use for anyone who didn't fit a painstakingly crafted profile of who was a worthwhile person and who wasn't. This profile extended WAAAY beyond race, what car you drove, where your kids went to school, many things were important. But race was a big part of it. And if you didn't fit the mold, you just got shut out.
And that's northeast Ohio for you, the land of the invisible walls. So I don't like to cling to this notion of the South as the last bastion of intolerance. One need not stray below the Mason-Dixon line to feel that sting, and I think that we should quit giving other areas a pass by making comments that suggest otherwise.
No Dave, it is not. The Deep South is a part of this great land of the free and home of the brave. We (Southerners) are not an anomaly, some abstract phenomenon. This is not a Southern problem. This is an American problem, a human problem. You don't have to look too far to find a racist or other reprehensible person in every state of this great land. This JP is just another member of a vile group of people (racists) that are spread throughout this country. Please do not attribute the actions of this individual to all people of an entire region. If we play that game, we have to wonder about what qualifies as "good parenting" in Colorado, no?
"Good parenting in Colorado" - haha!
Exactly. They are all Not Racists. (As any of you who've visited Encyclopedia Dramatica already know, the link is not particularly work-safe!)
Is it really, Dave? Are you asserting that you won't find a lot of people with this man's attitude in Iowa, California, or Massachusetts? As many have pointed out here, the real divide is between rural/urban regions and the frequently extreme differences along that divide in education and exposure to "the other."
I honestly don't think you'd find a lot of people with this specific, old-school segregation attitude in California, at least as this guy expressed it. Not because there aren't a lot of racists, but because inter-racial and multi-ethnic families are so commonplace that the notion of a biracial child somehow being in a social no-man's-land just wouldn't compute. Not that his real concern is genuinely "for the children," but it's telling what rationalization has purchase in his mind, not to mention that this guy is in a position of authority and has been doing this openly for years. I highly doubt you would see that in California.
His argument is that he specifically shouldn't have to perform interracial marriages, but other judges can if they want to. Because you know, he's probably got gay friends who we won't marry either.
That said he should be disbarred. When you accept a job, you do the job or you get fired. That's why we can't have "conscience clauses" for people who work in pharmacies but don't want to dispense birth control because they equate the pill with abortion. Get a different job. If you don't want to marry interracial couples, leave the bench and go into private practice where you can be way more selective about which clients you serve.
Sorry. Racism and racists are evil. Don't excuse it. Don't "understand their upbringing". Ignorant and stupid? Yes, evil often is. Don't PRETEND that the poisonous concept doesn't harm both the object of racism AND the RACIST. The non reasoned doing of harm is a fairly good definition of evil. Their acts harm explicitly. Their thoughts harm implicitly. A lynching is simply the far end of the continuum of thought that has refusal to hire (or marry) closer to the other end. Every racist act which harms materially, comes about as a result of racist thought, which is maintained and supported by being expressed as as part of a racist consensus. It's like saying you while you'd like your cancer to be gone, you realize it's been in your lungs for a while and you understand it doesn't mean to kill you...
Understanding, or accepting that non cross burning level of racism is what allows managers to devalue the contributions of the minority employee, and justifies giving the raise or promotion to the white guy. It is what allows the police to respond indifferently to crime in the minority community. It is what allows school boards to resource schools in black communities at lower levels. Those acts, and the many thousands at that level, repeated to infinity, is what creates the pathology that racists like to point to as the justiification for racism. It is theft. And more insidiously, it is theft at a virtual institutional level, where the harm done is distributed across a society.
Just as the Holocaust was the end of the antisemitism continuum, no one seeks to excuse it by saying the Nazis were just ignorant, or you have to understand, or the Berlin is another country. Racism in our society is that same machine, just dialed back from the reign of terror standard it used to employ. Evil? Evil is as evil does....
I'm having the same reaction--which isn't my usual reaction.
I fear it's because on this issue, the racism gets deep inside MY family. My husband's aunt just celebrated 50 years with a guy from India she met in Edinborough, and my mother's brother adopted four of those kids the judge says no one would want--and I sat down last night and counted up 23 people who wouldn't be at our respective reunions if the judge got his way.
What's worrying me is that when it gets inside MY house, I just call it evil. I just want to get a steamroller and smash it to bits. All the talk I do about understanding just stopped dead when I saw that statement.
Which surely says something deep about the shallowness of the rest of my engagement.
Understanding isn't the same thing as accepting.
"I don't do interracial marriages because I don't want to put children in a situation they didn't bring on themselves," Bardwell said. "In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer."
That sounds so familiar. Where have I heard that before?
Oh yeah,
For example, legitimizing same sex marriage would make it more difficult for those states that currently prohibit same-sex couples from adopting children to do so, even though studies show these children suffer much higher abuse rates and other problems than children in more traditional situations.
- Defendmarriage.org.
I'm quite familiar with that line of reasoning too. Those bigots don't like getting called bigots either, because they're crusading to protect children. Not hurt queer people. And just like how this judge doesn't mind black people marrying other black people, same sex couples are told they can marry, they just have to marry someone of the opposite sex.
Yes, this is exactly the same thing.
It is EXACTLY THE SAME THING...And it is JUST AS SILLY!!!!
What I find even more disheartening than this particular guy is the fact that no one has stopped him yet, particularly his employers. WTF are they thinking, that this is OK? It's expressly illegal, because it is 100% racist. It sounds like he has been casually doing this great service to the unborn mixed race children of America for awhile now, and it never made the news, until now. No one spoke up. I guess that means that previous interracial couples just went elsewhere. I don't blame them - it would be easier, and more conducive with getting on with your life, to just go elsewhere than fight it. So just to be clear, my beef is with the people he works with and for.
This person should not be allowed to keep his position as a Justice. Not because he is racist...That's his own ignorant problem..but because he is NOT DOING HIS JOB BECAUSE HE IS RACIST!!!! People are entitled to feel the way they want to... no matter how ignorant or silly it may be..but when those feelings affects others...ESPECIALLY as a public servant, that's when their "FEELINGS" should be addressed. In this particular situation... his emplyment address needs to change. He can feel however he wants...just not @ that job.
I am a Black man who is in a interracial relationship and we are expecting a baby girl. I am NOT outraged with his personal feelings. I was born and raised in The United States. I know all too well what a racist is...and he is definitely one. However, that is also irrelevant here....He could be the Grand Wizard of The Local CHapter of the Klu Klux Klan for all I care as long as he did his JOB.
Very sensible Flnse, and exactly on point. No one is trying to control this guy's personal opinions. I certainly don't want to wade into this particular gutter to figure out whether this character is a "racist" or not.
He had a job. He refused to do his job. Fire him out of there, like any other employee who refuses to do his job, and move on. He's already had too much attention.
I may be alone in my anoyance, but--I'm tired, tired tired of the dumbest members of caucasion America getting their 15 minutes on the Retarded Guiding Light of our already dumb and dumber-cluttered airwaves: Jon and Kate, Balloon parents, Palin, Limbaugh and Beck, Birthers, Michelle Obama's 'Get Whitey' dissertation-rumor-mongers,,et al. Give me a break. No excuses for Judge Dumb-as-a-Turkey-in-the-Rain's defense of not issuing a marriage license to an interracial couple. There was a Civil Rights Law signed in 1965; surely this codger was slugging down brewskis with the card-carrying klan/sherriff deputies back then. He knows the law and his job is to correctly interpret and uphold it, not give his jiveass opinions on his myopic POV about how HE thinks mixed-race children live. Maybe Judgie-Wudgie (reference Curly) should take a drive to New Orleans and gain some perspective--or is he too firmly entrenched in the mire of his bias?
You are not alone.
Actually if you look at what the guy says, he actually uses anti-racism as a justification for not granting a license. Its strange, but his argument is that kids from mixed family have people both black and white against them (racism in other words) and he doesn't want to put kids through that.
I don't see how you can argue its racism. Its illegal, its strange, and its un-american, but racist? I'd say no.
I'd like to add to my statements that, we need to be very careful about using the word racism. When we over use it, it loses its power. If we call every person who is against Obama a racist or cast aspersions on their motives for example, then we weaken the word. Racism is a very nasty thing, and I don't want to see the horror of it become weakened by either overuse or by people using it where its not racism but something else that is also bad.
I'll stop using the word racist when I stop seeing things to call out as racist. Racism is currently overused. Not the word, the attitude. When it stops being used so much, the rate of use of the word will go down.
It's hard for me to imagine what racism is, if refusing to marry an interracial couple isn't it.
I see this sentiment in comments frequently: "racism is a very nasty thing". It's part of that belief that you're only a racist if you belong to the Ku Klux Klan, or have lynched a black person, or expressed the desire to do so. These actions are so extreme that, according to this sentiment, very few people would qualify as "racist" or having "racist" views.
Why do we need to worry about preserving the "power" of the word "racism"? It's a description of certain behavior or beliefs. If the shoe fits, wear it. Some people used to be proud to be called racists. Lately, not so much. There's more social opprobrium attached to expressing racist views these days, but that hasn't stopped that throw-back Rush Limbaugh from race-baiting.
"Racism" is simply the belief that there are such things as separate human 'races', instead of one human race. The fact that this JP used a supposedly "anti-racist" excuse for his action does not make him an 'anti-racist'. It was mighty white of him to let black folks use his bathroom, don't you think? If you treat someone a certain way, good or bad, simply because of that person's 'race', regardless of his or her individual character or actions, then you are a racist. You've heard the phrase: 'judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin'?
There probably are more precise technical terms to describe certain behavior or beliefs such as bigotry, prejudice, stereotyping, etc. But for the most part, "racism" is a perfectly appropriate description for behavior such as refusing to issue a marriage license to a couple because you don't believe in 'mixing the races.' It doesn't matter whether you think one 'race' is superior or inferior to another 'race'. The mere fact that you believe that there are such things as separate 'races' qualifies you as a 'racist'. Also, the fact that 'race' is a social construct, a social fiction, does not mean that racism is not real.
Ri-i-i-ight...anti-racism...now that's a novel reason to deny one their Consitutional rights...Sounds like the old pro-Jim Crow advocates arguing that blacks didn't want to de-segregate-it was those outside agitators, those commie-pinko-Jews and Catholics...
Yes the excuse he used was anti-racism, but that isn't the problem any more than racism was. It was just the excuse he used. Paternalism and the attitude of "I know better than you, what is good for you, so I will make you do what I want" that is the problem. It doesn't really matter what the excuse that is used. It boils down to respecting people enough to let them make their own decision. This man obviously didn't respect their opinion and allow them to take their own path.
Flnse makes an outstanding point above, at 2:16 PM. Outstanding. Too often, especially among whites, the issue of prejudice against blacks is seen through the prism of white guilt, sort of like "we...the powerful white overlords...should have been nicer to the black people".
To the extent that we whites think about our guilt re: mistreatment of blacks, you often note an attitude sort of like slavery was bad, but at least we had Lincoln, who transitioned to a world of better treatment of blacks. Then again, America is the land of the free, meaning the land of the enfranchised, and in that respect the Jim Crow South sure wasn't a hell of a lot better than the pre-Civil War South.
So Flnse is right - the law says blacks and whites can marry. The great American culture of individual rights says blacks and whites can marry. If this judge disagrees, he must be fired, stat. Period. Then he can go to Russia or some other freedom-hating, totalitarian state to see if his "views imposed from above" more closely match theirs.
Beyond that, in America it doesn't matter that much why you hold your stupid views. Until your stupid views start interfering with others' freedoms, at which point it still doesn't matter why you hold said views, but it matters completely that you allow them to interfere with others' freedoms.
I'm a 46 year old white guy who lives in Louisiana. The handful of times in my life that I have either been told something like that by another white person, or heard a white person make a statement like that, they ALWAYS preface it with the statement, "I'm not a racist, but..." One old dude when I was waiting tables told me that he wasn't a racist, but he was a segregationist.
It's as if they're JUST aware enough of how unacceptable their views are that they realize the necessity of the disclaimer, but still clueless enough to share their dumbass opinions with the rest of us.
It also seems as if they think that putting the disclaimer in magically makes it true. "Oh, so you think we should bring back lynching, but you're NOT a racist? Well, gosh, if you're not a racist, I guess that's okay, then."
As the father of two wonderful bi-racial children, this shit makes my blood boil. It also reminds me of the school principal a few years back who told a school assembly that bi-racial children were a mistake. According to both of these assholes, and anyone who thinks like them, my children should never have been born.
Oh, and by the way, I logged onto a site this morning that had a poll in a sidebar asking if Bardwell should be fired from his job for refusing to marry an inter-racial couple, and an unbelievable 36% of the voters said no, he shouldn't. It's not scientific, obviously, but it's still depressing as hell.