Of course there is. He wasn't denying that. He was just pointing out that "states' rights" is kind of a dirty word because of its buttociation with Jim Crow, which is probably why it's not used that much today. It's meant to have a double meaning: * to segregationists: the state has a right to make sure Darkie doesn't commit any funny business! And if the people beat the State to it, good! No tax payer money wasted! * for everyone else: Who doesn't want their home state to have sovereignty? It's perfectly innocuous! Now, run along! It conjures up similar images to when Trent Lott amusingly, yet disturbingly, slipped and actually publicly used a nugget of Southern coded language: "And if the rest of the country had followed our lead and elected Strom Thurmond to the Presidency, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years." You know how it works. NYC's New Subway EtiquetteBEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 NYTr NYC's New Subway Etiquette New York Press How to be safe on the subway! All those years of internalizing the subtle rules of NYC... * "we wouldn't have...all these problems" to pro-Jim Crow bigots: "We wouldm't have all these negro folk running around here having love with our white women!" * to everyone else: "You know, just our everyday problems. Think nothing of it." Arguably, there was way more discrimination here than in the south. It just happens that most of it is de facto, not de jure, and rarely to never boiled over to the point where somebody would get lynched.
|
