The Reality of Segregation

The Washington Post's Richard Cohen wrote a column last week that closed with this unsettling anecdote:

"Years ago, a Howard University professor told me that as a boy in the South he was forced to buy shoes without first trying them on for fit. Only whites could do that. Think of that and then think of what [Trent] Lott said. The majority leader of the Senate may not be a racist, but he is remarkably incapable of appreciating what it was like to walk in those shoes."

And for those interested in history, here's an audio snippet from a Strom Thurmond stump speech in 1948, featuring the grand old man fulminating against integration on the grounds that it would lead inexorably to "admitting" blacks' [not Thurmond's choice of words] into white theaters, swimming pools, homes and churches.

Lott will appear tonight at 8 p.m. ET on BET, for an interview that should be pretty damn interesting, to say the least.

Comments

[osamabindrinkin']

"interesting" the way a horrible train wreck might be interesting. . .

[Derek]

I'm finding it more "interesting" Lott's talking to blacks on BET. Seems the thrust of the pressure's coming from conservatives themselves... bad move, IMO.

[John Rosenberg]

If you'll pardon me for appearing to (well, actually) plugging my own blog, I've just posted two items specifically on the lessons of segregation and Lott. The most recent is:

http://www.discriminations.us/archives/000375.html,

and the other is right below it.

[robert Speirs]

Denial of the right to try on shoes to see if they fit? Horrors! There must be a clause in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifically outlawing such vicious cruelty!

[Madog]

It's sounds silly, but there were probably a lot of racists who were horrified by the thought that a black man might have tried on the same pair of shoes as them.

[Kate]

There's plenty of horror stories of segregation but this shoe story isn't it. Ever bought shoes from a mail order catalogue, ala Loretta Lynn?

A hospital turning away a dying Bessie Smith is a good anecdote--not being able to try on shoes in the white man's store isn't.

[fyodor]

To Kate: Uh, isn't there a big difference between CHOOSING to buy shoes without trying them on and not being ALLOWED to try them on??

That said, if this was the decision of a private company rather than a public law, it wouldn't literally violate anyone's rights. Still, it reflects a rather noxious attitude, I think it would be quite easy to say, even if no one was killed by it. Anyone really going to dispute that??