I’m cursing whoever brought up that damned phrase from election 2008 (I think it was Kay), but I think it is important to remember what was so god damned offensive about the phrase- the Clinton statements were made right before the primaries through a swath of Appalachia that included places like this:
A small Pike County church has voted not to accept interracial couples as members or let them take part in some worship activities.
The decision has caused sharp reaction and disapproval in the Eastern Kentucky county.
“It’s not the spirit of the community in any way, shape or form,” Randy Johnson, president of the Pike County Ministerial Association, said of the vote.
The issue came up at the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church, said Dean Harville, a longtime member who serves as church secretary and clerk.
Clinton made those statements because she wanted to scare primary voters who weren’t racist to vote for her because racist scumbags would keep a Democrat out of the WH in 2008. That’s what was so damned offensive about the remarks.
Another point- I’m betting almost everyone here, when they read about this church, thought to themselves “You have to be fucking kidding me. It’s 2012.” That’s good- you should be horrified by this. But you know what? Change “interracial” to “gay” and this goes on every single day somewhere in America, and not just backwater shit holes in Kentucky.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
INCOMING……..
cathyx
It’s acceptable to bash gays, oh, and fat people too.
The Moar You Know
I bust my ass making life hard for minorities. That is hard fucking work. Day in, day out, but the worst part is that no one even says “thank you”.
El Cid
Well, this should make for a nice thread.
sb
The vote passed 9-6, there are only 40 members in the church and according to the article “hundreds” of in the community disagree with the decision.
Seems to me the “backwater shithole” agrees with you more than you think, John. But I’m sure calling the place a backwater shithole helps. Or is it shit hole?
Litlebritdifrnt
My dear old Mum says to me at least once a week on the phone “it is a scary country Daughter, me and your sister worry about you living there” This on the week that my cousin Lucy is marrying her long time girlfriend. A proper wedding too, with invitations, a proper service, reception, gifts and guests. I am only sorry that I will miss it.
arguingwithsignposts
They do know their Jesus wasn’t really white, right?
Jenny
Obama having supper with hard working folk.
Amazingly, it’s the first time a president has ever visited Scranton.
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6725/obamascranton.jpg
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0gXg0Rk3OsbJd?__site=daylife&q=obama
JPL
@arguingwithsignposts: You jest…hahaha…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@arguingwithsignposts: a few years ago, Newsweek IIRC had a cover with the headline “Is This The Face of Jesus?” A twenty-something Palestinian kid with a scruffy beard. I think if they tried that today, Tina Brown would have to flee the country
Jenny
Even hard working Jews got fired up and ready to go
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/1053/obamascranton2.jpg
Darnell From LA
Regarding Hillary, in spite of the myriad racist dog whistles employed by her campaign during the primaries, in spite of the loathsome toad Mark Penn being the head of her campaign, in spite of her voting for the Iraq War, in spite of her husband’s administration gutting welfare, signing DOMA and DADT into law, and declaring that “the era of big government is over”, and employing Dick Morris, David Gergen, and Lawrence Summers as their most senior advisors, in spite of all of this, I refuse to believe that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have been “liberal Jesus” if she had been elected.
So say we all.
* This Snark has been brought to you by “Snarktopus!” coming this Spring to NBC! Be there!
JGabriel
I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the word “Freewill” in that church. Definitely falls into the category of “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”
You wouldn’t think a “Freewill” church meant the right to stomp all over other people’s free will.
[Tilts head to side, thoughtful pause.]
Maybe they’re libertarians.
.
Mnemosyne
For the life of me, I can’t remember who said it (and I can’t Google ’cause I’m at work) but someone pointed out that the last bastion of segregation is in churches. It’s vanishingly rare to have integrated churches even today.
Unabogie
Every kid I know has friends of every color. The Teabaggers hold on the psyche of this country is slipping and one day we’ll look back on the first black president like we do on Jackie Robinson. We’ll say “damn, that was racist!”
Zandar
And living in said backwater shithole state of Kentucky, and being a mixed-race individual, there are counties in Eastern KY that I would not set foot in.
Pike County? Real damn high on that list.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mnemosyne:
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
Again with things I remember reading but can’t remember where, I think the Freewill Baptist sect are sometimes derisively known as “Footwashing Baptists” since one of their big things is re-enacting Jesus’ foot-washing at Easter.
I remember them doing it a few times at my Catholic church, but apparently it’s a big thing with Freewill Baptists (or used to be, anyway).
Odie Hugh Manatee
@arguingwithsignposts:
Nope. Their Jeebus was a shiny white dude with bright blue eyes and non-hippy style long light brown hair.
Truly.
arguingwithsignposts
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Yes, the Robert Powell Soteriology.
JGabriel
@arguingwithsignposts:
No. They’re usually surprised to find out he was Jewish.
This episode of SATSQ brought to you by: Freewill.
.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mnemosyne: Freewill (and Independent) Baptists are people who think the Southern Baptists are liberals.
Darnell From LA
@JGabriel: I hate to bring up the treasure trove of horror that is “The Good Book”, but….
I’m sure if you really cornered the church folk on their actions they would justify them with a whole host of biblical verses like these. And frankly, solid biblical grounds. Moral grounds? Nope. Biblical grounds? Yep.
Linda Featheringill
This is a Freewill Baptist Church. That means it is not affiliated with a national organization like Southern Baptists or something. These little dinky churches can be strange because the members are too eccentric to fit in with the larger sects.
And their theology is often very “individual” too.
If the mixed race couple in question wish to go to church, they probably should try a place more mainstream, like Methodist or Church of Christ or even a Southern Baptist.
ETA: There are many other denominations, of course. I mentioned these three because they are usually represented all across the south, even in tiny little towns and villages.
gnomedad
Kind of an ironic name, really. Are there Determinist Baptist Churches?
arguingwithsignposts
@Linda Featheringill:
Not necessarily. this most likely goes back to predestination.
jeff
John, you’re good people. Or, John, you’re a mensch.
The Spy Who Loved Me
I guess Cole has forgotten that he lives in a state as full of backwater shitholes as Kentucky. Why even post about this? Does anyone really care what some podunk tiny church anywhere does? It’s like carping on the crazy Phelps family about the membership makeup of their “church”. Seriously, given its size, this church isn’t even a pimple on the ass of a gnat.
Marc
Most of this post is truth, but:
I have to say, if you’re “not racist,” but you’re thinking and talking and voting the same way those other, racist folk are… what’s the fucking difference?
“I’m not racist, but I’m doing this because I’m afraid of OTHER people’s racism.” Hey, at least the open racist has the honesty of his convictions.
Is it far enough past the 2008 primaries that I can say I always thought the biggest source of John Edwards’ appeal was with voters who were too afraid of “other people’s” racism and sexism to vote for the black guy or the woman? Yeah, probably. Thank god that turned out the way it did.
Karen
@cathyx:
And “Jewesses”
Darnell From LA
@Jenny: I’m sure Chris Matthews will say he just can’t connect with those hard working white people.
Speaking of pundits with abnormaly large heads of an avian variety, remember when Tweety Matthews was apparently so impressed by President Obama’s 2010 State of The Union speech that he said he “forgot he (Obama) was black for an hour” on national TV?
Ahhhh, good times. But how will he connect with the hard working whites? I dunno, Chris. I dunno…
Karen
@Unabogie:
I don’t know how old you are but I’m 46 and I doubt it will be in my lifetime.
Karen
@Jenny:
Did you know that the head of the RNC is offering $100 to anyone who can provide a picture of Bob Casey with President Obama?
Darnell From LA
@Karen: The media is trying to sell the “Obama is doooooomed in Pennsyvania” meme to anyone who will buy it. Why? When the best the GOP’s “most electable” candidate (Romney) can do at present is TIE the Prez in the state? And with Obama beating Gingrich in PA by 6%?
Anything to keep the “close race” narrative alive.
Cacti
Well that’s one way to look at it.
Another way would be that it was a dog whistle to voters who are racist.
“Hard-working whites” as opposed to ________ non-whites.
Who wants to fill in the blank?
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: What?! You’re Jewish? Love your nails.
Omnes Omnibus
@Karen: No bashing, just using the term in all innocence because she is a muslimah and has no idea that it might be fraught with years of innuendo. I haven’t seen the term used since I read Ivanhoe where even as an eleven year old I knew Ivanhoe picked the wrong girl.
PhoenixRising
@Zandar: No worries, my man! My 5 year old already integrated the nearest Sprawl Mart to this particular Pike County shit hole, 7 years ago this week.
Right after that I explained to my sister that god love the NHS, she was sure as hell getting out of southeast KY as soon as her loan repayment came through. Yes, even these people need doctors, but there is a number of times you tell an expectant dad to take his buck knife back to the truck because we don’t allow any weapons in the clinic that makes me nervous.
I have never seen little children that filthy getting out of pickups that clean, dragged along by mothers that doped up. And my people come from Appalachia. It takes a lot to shock me in the irresponsible ig’nant white trash department, but south of Prestonburg, all bets are off.
ruemara
I think that was when I made my choice to not support Hillary for Prez. I have good hearing. Dog whistles are audible.
ChrisNYC
@Mnemosyne: Strangely enough I googled and it was an Episcopal minister named James PIKE. (Pike County. Ha ha God/the universe/whatever has a huge sense of humor.)
kay
John is cursing at me and I’m telling Ruth Marcus.
cokane
APPALACHIA
MikeJ
@ChrisNYC:
Sadly he was in a motorized wheelchair and had to communicate through a series of beeps. /startrek geek
Ben
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’re a gleaming model XQJ-37 nuclear powered Pan-Sexual Roto-Plooker?
pseudonymous in nc
I wasn’t far from Pike County not long ago, visiting the Cumberland Gap. One of the poorest parts of the US, and it fucking well shows. Utterly abandoned. Main agricultural product? Illegally grown weed.
And that’s probably counting the vote of Whiskers T. Williams, the cat who shows up sometimes on Sundays, who is listed as a member to ensure the church maintains its tax-exempt status. There are a lot of odd microchurches in Appalachia: I saw one on Hwy 25 just on the Tennessee side with a huge-fuckoff “REPENT” sign, but the church itself was a shack. Snake-handling country.
It was then that I had a spat with Digby, who, after she’d made several posts earlier in the year correctly noting that many of those ‘legacy Democrats’ in Appalachia were basically Republicans, wasn’t prepared to admit that Hillary was making a politically fucked-up dogwhistle appeal for their votes.
TenguPhule
I thought that was the entire state, you mean to say there are worse places there?!
Caz
Shouldn’t the church be allowed to prohibit people who don’t hold their values? If interracial marriage violates their religious values, then they should deny them membership. If you don’t like it, then don’t go to that church, simple as that.
Why don’t you write about the history that provided the impetus for the 80’s rap group NWA. Just as outrageous, but equally lawful.
You can’t force people to have your set of values. Everyone has their own set of values and none are better such that they should be imposed upon all of us.
Live and let live. Worry about your own values and let these people worry about theirs.
pseudonymous in nc
@Caz:
Uh huh. Except that as a tax-exempt non-profit — churches are presumed 501(c)(3) until proven otherwise — the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church is getting a free ride on our backs, and with that special privilege comes a few conditions.
There are distinctions between a tax-exempt non-profit with membership rules that go beyond what the law otherwise permits, and a tax-exempt non-profit that violates fundamental public policy. (The Warren Jeffs polygamist forced-marriage church was also presumed tax-exempt; Jeffs’ charges included tax fraud.)
That’s why Bob Jones U got kicked in the nuts by SCOTUS when the IRS pulled its tax-exempt status on account of its ban on interracial dating.
AxelFoley
@El Cid:
Only if ABL had posted it.
AA+ Bonds
That’s the thing about free will, isn’t it? You can choose to go to Hell. We just don’t have to help you pay for it with tax breaks.
AA+ Bonds
WHITE AMERICAN PROTESTANTS. – _ –
Pococurante
I was born in Pike County – I remember my grandfather bragging to my six year old self then that in Pikeville they always “ran the n*rs before sunset” and beat the crap out of anyone they found.
So yeah I’m not surprised – just because the ran a highway through that morass of backwardness doesn’t mean the uphill folks changed.
Linda Featheringill
@Pococurante:
I can sympathize. I was raised to be a racist pig. That’s just one more burden for me to carry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The PUMA bat signal must be broken.
NCSteve
John? Come on, you’re from West by-God Virginia. You know full well what it means when the words “freewill,”Baptist” and “Pike County, Kentucky” mean when they’re in close proximity. It means “We’re Bugshit Crazy!”
Paul in KY
@arguingwithsignposts: You also have ‘Old Regular Baptists’ that are even further to the right of the ‘Freewill’ versions.
Paul in KY
@Pococurante: My father was born in Pike County. He’s sorta glad about WW II, because it helped him get the Hell out of there.