<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><span style="font-style: italic;">Cain Calls Perry Hunting Camp Name 'Racially Insensitive'</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Fox News.com</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Businessman Herman Cain on Sunday called it "insulting" that the family of Rick Perry owned a hunting camp with a racially charged name well into the 1980s and possibly even later.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">According to a Washington Post article that appeared Sunday, the hunting camp owned by the Texas governor was branded with the name "N-----head." The word -- reportedly on a rock at the entrance of the 1,070-acre parcel -- has been painted over and the camp
renamed.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><br><br><div> </div><div>Ron Force<br>Moscow Idaho USA<br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Rosemary Huskey <donaldrose@cpcinternet.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> vision2020@moscow.com<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sunday, October 2, 2011 1:45 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [Vision2020] Rick Perry's Newest Problem<br></font><br>
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--></style><div><div class="yiv1580680465WordSection1"><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;">This must read article is a reminder not just of Rick Perry and his ilk, or our local defender of Southern Slavery As It Was, but also our “I am not a racist” knuckleheaded neighbors who still find the term sq**w an appropriate name for a mountain or a creek right here in our very own private Idaho.</div><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;">Rose Huskey</div><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;"> </div><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;">Posted by <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/author/chaunceydevega/" title="Posts by Chauncey DeVega">Chauncey DeVega</a> at 11:49 am<br>October 2, 2011</div><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/10/02/rick-perrys-newest-problem-his-fond-memories-of-niggerhead-and-growing-up-in-a-sundown-town/">http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/10/02/rick-perrys-newest-problem-his-fond-memories-of-niggerhead-and-growing-up-in-a-sundown-town/</a></div><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;"> </div><h1 style="background:white;">Rick Perry’s Newest Problem: His Fond Memories of “Niggerhead” and Growing Up in a Sundown Town</h1><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;"><span style="display:none;">Posted by <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/author/chaunceydevega/" title="Posts by Chauncey DeVega">Chauncey DeVega</a> on @ 11:49 am</span></div><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;"><span style="display:none;">Article printed from speakeasy: <span
class="yiv1580680465url">http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy</span></span></div><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;"><span style="display:none;">URL to article: <span class="yiv1580680465url">http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/10/02/rick-perrys-newest-problem-his-fond-memories-of-niggerhead-and-growing-up-in-a-sundown-town/</span></span></div><div style="background:white;">It was a mostly white world. In 1950, the census counted about 900 black residents out of a population of about 13,000 in Haskell County, numbers that have declined steadily. Most blacks worked as maids or field hands and lived in an across-the-tracks neighborhood in the city of Haskell, the county seat, about 20 minutes from Paint Creek.</div><div style="background:white;">Throckmorton County, where the hunting camp is located, was for years considered a virtual no-go zone for blacks because of old stories about the lynching of a black man there, locals
said. The 1950 Census listed one black resident in Throckmorton County out of a population of about 3,600. In 1960, there were four; in 1970, two; in 1980, none. The 2010 Census shows 11 black residents.</div><div style="background:white;">Mae Lou Yeldell, who is black and has lived in Haskell County for 70 years, recalled a gas station refusing to sell her father fuel when he drove the family through Throckmorton in the 1950s. She said it was not uncommon in the 1950s and ’60s for whites to greet blacks with, “Morning, nigger!”</div><div style="background:white;">“I heard that so much it’s like a broken record,” said Yeldell, who had never heard of the hunting spot by the river.</div><div style="background:white;">And you wonder why black folks had to use <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/01/15/news/a1-yugreenbook.txt"><i><span style="color:blue;">The Green Book</span></i></a> as a guide for
safety while touring this country?</div><div style="background:white;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rick-perry-familys-hunting-camp-still-known-to-many-by-old-racially-charged-name/2011/10/01/gIQAOhY5DL_story.html">Rick Perry’s family retreat was/is named “Niggerhead.”</a> <i>The Washington Post’s</i> cover story is a distraction of course from more important issues such as a failing economy, Perry’s questionable record on jobs and the environment in Texas, and a far-Right leaning Republican presidential field that would combine Ayn Rand with the Christian Taliban. But a distraction can still be instructive and productive.</div><div style="background:white;">For the Left and other critics, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/the-power-and-pain-of-the-n-word/2011/10/02/gIQAjOeVFL_blog.html">Rick Perry’s Niggerhead hunting camp</a> is more
proof that he is a racist and a bigot. For the Right, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/perrys-perpetually-playing-defense/2011/03/29/gIQAik0bFL_blog.html">this story will be greeted as “gotcha politics”</a> and more bias from the “mainstream media.” Lockstep, the Right-wing media will revert to form and argue that “all of this race stuff” is playing the “race card” against white people. Who cares anyway since Perry’s dad was a Democrat and he originally owned Niggerhead anyway? Predictably, there will be more spin from Conservatives and a recurring blindness to political history, i.e. Southern Democrats aka “Dixiecrats” are now the base of the Tea Party GOP.</div><div style="background:white;">And of course, black Republicans such as Herman Cain will be trotted out to dance on the stage while they answer questions about Rick Perry and racism.</div><div
style="background:white;">All in all, theatrics that are par for the course of what counts as reasonable discourse in the 24 hour opinion driven news cycle.</div><div style="background:white;">I would suggest that Rick Perry’s Niggerhead family retreat is important in so far as formative childhood and adult experiences impact political attitudes and beliefs. Rick Perry is from the Jim and Jane Crow South and has advocated for secession. He also panders to the Tea Party with all of their “take my America” pleadings and is part of a cultural movement that possesses an almost deranged hatred for the country’s first black President. Racism and Conservatism overlap in America; the Conservative political imagination yearns for a return to the “good old days” and is blinded by a myopic White nostalgia for the past.</div><div style="background:white;">In all, why should anyone be surprised that there is a Niggerhead skeleton in Rick Perry’s
closet? Moreover, I would bet that there are many Niggerhead skeletons in many white folks’ closets in this country.</div><div style="background:white;">We must also be cautious and not paint with too broad a brush, or suggest that Rick Perry is somehow unique in this regard. He is not alone in a willful denial of white supremacy and the Slaveocracy/Jim and Jane Crow/Confederacy’s hold on American popular imagination even into the 21st century.</div><div style="background:white;">The <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Making-Whiteness-Culture-Segregation-1890-1940/dp/0679776206">white racist Southern Redemptionist fantasy</a> and lie that is <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
href="http://books.google.com/books?id=sh4gWmGfBm0C&pg=PA271&lpg=PA271&dq=southern+redemption+racism&source=bl&ots=WgY1yhHMGP&sig=FeqYbDSCby4vlEye_Lf-K1099qw&hl=en&ei=LaaITq-sDsmFsgL98aiMDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false"><i><span style="color:blue;">Gone with the Wind</span></i></a> is still beloved by millions of people (all those <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/41.4/briley.html">happy black folks</a>; white people in big houses and fancy clothes; what good fun!). Lady Antebellum is an acclaimed musical group (where are the Auschwitz singers? Or the Trail of Tears emo band?). A <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/12/civil-war-still-divides-americans/">significant percentage</a> of Americans do not believe that the <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
href="http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/150569/what_shocking_new_polls_on_republican_attitudes_toward_slavery,_interracial_marriage_say_about_the_modern_gop/">Civil War was fought over slavery</a> and the rights of White people to hold Black people in perpetual bondage. The Whiteness of history is glaring. Rick Perry, as demonstrated by his love for Niggerhead, is just one of many Americans who are transfixed by it.</div><div style="background:white;">Nevertheless, Rick Perry’s Niggerhead moment is teachable history. For that reason it is important.</div><div style="background:white;">Rick Perry grew up in a sundown town. As <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/sundowntowns.php">James Loewen exhaustively and masterfully documents</a>, there were thousands of these communities across the country where blacks (and in some cases Jews, Mexicans and other non-whites) were not allowed to live, journey through, or be
present in after dark. These towns were often created by racial violence and the wholesale ethnic cleansing of non-whites through murder, forced exile, rape, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.banishedthefilm.com/">banishment</a>, theft, and violence.</div><div style="background:white;">When we wonder why some neighborhoods look the way that they do, why there are no black folks or other people of color living there, or stand vexed by the intergenerational wealth gap in the United States, part of the answer lies in American Apartheid. Sundown towns were a key part of the Racial State’s apparatus and how it structured the day to day lives of all people.</div><div style="background:white;">Racial terrorism was a tool of economic exploitation. Because many in White America are loathe to acknowledge the power of structures and institutions as they cling to the lie that is the myth of meritocracy, Niggerhead is a reminder of lived history
in the present. Yesterday wasn’t even yesterday; it created the present terms of political, cultural, economic, and social engagement.</div><div style="background:white;">While some Americans have a limited knowledge of the relationship between housing segregation and the maintenance of the colorline, fewer know about sundown towns and America’s history of ethnic cleansing. This history hides in plain sight. It lives on in debates over the racialized names of rivers, towns, mountains, and other public places. It is present when real estate agents refuse to show people of color homes in certain communities. It is the ether and lifeblood of <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_279181&v=WFWS5fk6MD8&src_vid=voFMec-M8VY&feature=iv">whitopia</a>.</div><div style="background:white;">Ignorance of race and racism’s historic role in structuring life chances, and basic geographies such as
where one lived, married, worked, and traveled, is especially common among the post-Civil Rights generation. This dynamic is especially true for Millennials who would be aghast at the reality of white supremacy as the norm for American history where their imagined multicultural moment is indeed an aberration–a very recent development–and one that works through conservative colorblindness as opposed to a deep and radical engagement with human difference, identity, justice.</div><div style="background:white;">Rick Perry’s Niggerhead moment will be a short-lived blip on the news radar. Niggerhead will confirm what his detractors already believe about Rick Perry. Niggerhead will encourage his supporters to circle the wagons and double down their support because their “culture” is under assault. Unfortunately, Niggerhead will be a missed opportunity. This could be a teachable moment where White Americans could choose to look in the mirror and see
the collective ugliness looking back at them. Whiteness, for most people in America, and indeed the world, was the face of terror. It was ugly and not beautiful.</div><div style="background:white;">Folks of all colors should know their shared history; instead it is easier to look away, make up fun fictions, and tell yourself easy lies and platitudes about “post-racial” America.</div><div style="background:white;">Remember folks, there is a little Niggerhead in all of us…for some like Rick Perry, a good deal more than others.</div><div class="yiv1580680465MsoNormal" style="background:white;">Editor and founder of the blog We Are Respectable Negroes which has been featured by the NY Times, the Utne Reader, and The Atlantic Monthly. Writing under a pseudonym, Chauncey DeVega's essays on race, popular culture, and politics have appeared in various books, as well as on such sites as the Washington Post's The Root and Popmatters.</div><div
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