Weekend in Retrospect and Random Thoughts; Jesse Helms - White Racist

Overall, I had a very nice 4th of July weekend even though the weather was not all that great except for the 4th itself. Nonetheless, I spent some quality time with friends, including a birthday party for a friend's partner, had a great lunch yesterday with my youngest daughter - who even though she's straight asked me to get her some gay rights stickers for her car as we were leaving the restaurant - got in some dancing on Saturday night at the Wave, and got a little more opportunity to get to know my new roommate - he's on the quiet side, but is a computer whiz and my home computer is ever so much better now that he's made some upgrades to it. Besides that, he's cute and a nice guy.

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I am happy to see that my blogger friend Michael at Gaytwogether is back and doing well. I highly recommend his blog, especially some of the relationship oriented articles. He is a sweet, wonderful guy and I am so very happy that I came to know him via the cyberspace circle of friends I have acquired. He's been through a lot, but has come to realize what a wonderful guy he is. He's been good about providing me with objective opinions when I have needed them, even when I did not want them. Oh, and yes, he is a cutie too! :)

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From reading a couple articles this morning about Jesse Helms - who truly was a despicable person in terms of his racism and homophobia - including David Broder's column in the Washington Post, sitting at the courthouse people watching this morning while waiting for opposing counsel so that we could have a settled case dismissed, and from reading articles on the Anglican Communion infighting that I have posted about, I truly am at a loss as to why/how some people seem to have so little compassion for other human beings. How can they actively treat them as something less than human. At the courthouse I had a number of people come up and ask me questions since from my attire I looked to be an attorney. Each asked his/her question, generally for directions to a courtroom, was polite and respectful and then went on with their business. I consciously thought of Helms when some blacks asked for information. What in his screwed up psyche made him think he was so much better than blacks? It is not as if any one black asked to be born that way. Likewise, how could the man be so hateful towards gays? I for one surely did not ask to be born gay. Here are some highlights from Broder's column:

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What is unique about Helms -- and from my viewpoint, unforgivable -- is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans. . . . To the best of my knowledge, Helms has never done what the late George Wallace did well before his death -- recant and apologize for his use of racial issues. And that use was blatant.

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On election eve [1984], he accused Hunt of being supported by 'homosexuals, the labor union bosses and the crooks' and said he feared a large 'bloc vote.' What did he mean? 'The black vote,' Helms said." He won, 52 percent to 48 percent. . . . That is not a history to be sanitized.

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Of course what is the most distressing about Helms and those like him who seek to demoniz and dehumanize others is that all too typically, they claim to be good Christians, all the while they preach a message and politics of hate. I just do not understand the mindset. But then, perhaps I should be glad that I don't.

Former Senator Jesse Helms is Dead at 86

I know it is not nice to speak ill of the dead, but Jesse Helms, former U. S. Senator from North Carolina, was in many ways NOT a nice man. Among other things he was a racist and a homophobe who did all he could to subvert gay rights and reduce funding for HIV/AIDS. He clearly was of a Christianist mindset and cared nothing for the religious freedom rights of those who held counter religious views. As is all too typical, many of the stories now running on Helms ignore the ugly underbelly of what Helms was all really about - and what conservatism in its current form is all about as well. America Blog has a good post that reminds us of what the true Jesse Helms was all about. It is not a nice picture. Here are highlights:

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Can't even begin to think of anything nice to say about this guy -- but a lot of other people will start praising Helms as if none of the hateful stuff matters. The hateful stuff matters. Let's reminisce on the life of one of America's biggest bigots who ruined the lives of so many.

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Jesse Helms on "negroes": As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped create attack ads against Smith's opponent, including one which read: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man. (The News and Observer, 8/26/01; The New Republic, 6/19/95; The Observer, 5/5/96; Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson, Norton, 1986)

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The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01)

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Of civil rights protests Helms wrote, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)

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Helms on "degenerate, weak, sick homosexuals": Over the years Helms has declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." (Newsweek, 12/5/94) In a tirade highlighting his routine opposition to AIDS research funding, Helms lashed out at the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988: "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (States News Service, 5/17/88)

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Helms being a racist: And the man ABC News now describes as a "conservative icon" (8/22/01) in 1993 sang "Dixie" in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries." (Chicago Sun-Times, 8/5/93)

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On cutting AIDS funding: Sen. Jesse Helms says the government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct," The New York Times reported Wednesday...."We've got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts," Helms told the Times.