Alabama Third World? Hubbard the Bleacher/Gads Times Oct 6
The following letter was published in a shorter version in the Gadsden Times Monday October 6. The published version mentioned the Collinsville Public Library's relationship with www.auburn.edu/livingdemocracy
In some fashion the following wil be submitted to the Gadsden Times in response to Mr. Floyd's weekly Saturday column. His last week Sat Sept 20 column --see public policy of baptistlife.com/forums for ongoing chat on this matter--showed no evidence he had read the easily googled New Republic, New Racism cover story on Alabama Tea Party bleaching. He had a chip on his shoulder about some reference to Alabama as Third World. The following is my feeble effort to bring some probity to the matter.
The Editors, Gadsden Times
There have been several pieces in Alabama media over the last month chatting up the cover story of the New Republic a month ago The New Racism, the End of Civil Rights. It is sad most reports miss the point of the article or distract to some anecdotal aside. Some Bama reports focus on the relationship of former power brokers Hank Sanders and Lowell Barron, while one misbegotten piece whined about a two sentence remark in a seven page two column story; the aside that said raw sewage in Lowndes County in photos taken by the Baylor College of Medical Research looked like the Third World. The pictures were taken within a mile of City Hall in Ft. Deposit.
Any functionally literate person would understand the crux of the easily googled cover story was about the political strategy of Bleaching in Tea Party Mike Hubbard's state house. Bleaching, a new term for me, gerrymanders voting districts with the express purpose of weakening the representative power of minorities. As one law proff describes it in the article: “The situation today has the semblance of what representation looks like without very much ability to actually exercise it.” How this insidious move has escaped the outrage of for instance, The Alabama Baptist, or its state convention's Executive Director Rick Lance, Governor Bentley's former pastor, escapes me. It's as if Judge Frank Johnson, the grand Alabama Republican of the last half of the 20th Century never lived.
In October 2012 I called the Paul Finebaum show and talked to Bama's Rhodes Scholar nominee QB Greg McElroy. I brought up a 1984 New Republic article by Bama native Howell Raines that talked about the relationship between George Wallace and Bear Bryant and how the Bear mighta nudged Wallace a little faster and in the right direction. Finebaum said it was one of the best pieces he had ever read on football in Alabama.
Mike Hubbard, as the recent New Republic article mentions and has long been known in Alabama has made a small fortune having privatized the Sports Information Department at Auburn. I hope a panel of Condi Rice, Pultizer Prize winning Civil Rights authority Taylor Branch who last year had a provocative piece on the NCAA in The Atlantic Magazine, and some of the folks now scrutinizing the NFL can take a look at this matter in a most public way soon.
In the meantime here's hoping the good people or Etowah County and Northeast Alabama read this article for themselves and do so soon.
In some fashion the following wil be submitted to the Gadsden Times in response to Mr. Floyd's weekly Saturday column. His last week Sat Sept 20 column --see public policy of baptistlife.com/forums for ongoing chat on this matter--showed no evidence he had read the easily googled New Republic, New Racism cover story on Alabama Tea Party bleaching. He had a chip on his shoulder about some reference to Alabama as Third World. The following is my feeble effort to bring some probity to the matter.
The Editors, Gadsden Times
There have been several pieces in Alabama media over the last month chatting up the cover story of the New Republic a month ago The New Racism, the End of Civil Rights. It is sad most reports miss the point of the article or distract to some anecdotal aside. Some Bama reports focus on the relationship of former power brokers Hank Sanders and Lowell Barron, while one misbegotten piece whined about a two sentence remark in a seven page two column story; the aside that said raw sewage in Lowndes County in photos taken by the Baylor College of Medical Research looked like the Third World. The pictures were taken within a mile of City Hall in Ft. Deposit.
Any functionally literate person would understand the crux of the easily googled cover story was about the political strategy of Bleaching in Tea Party Mike Hubbard's state house. Bleaching, a new term for me, gerrymanders voting districts with the express purpose of weakening the representative power of minorities. As one law proff describes it in the article: “The situation today has the semblance of what representation looks like without very much ability to actually exercise it.” How this insidious move has escaped the outrage of for instance, The Alabama Baptist, or its state convention's Executive Director Rick Lance, Governor Bentley's former pastor, escapes me. It's as if Judge Frank Johnson, the grand Alabama Republican of the last half of the 20th Century never lived.
In October 2012 I called the Paul Finebaum show and talked to Bama's Rhodes Scholar nominee QB Greg McElroy. I brought up a 1984 New Republic article by Bama native Howell Raines that talked about the relationship between George Wallace and Bear Bryant and how the Bear mighta nudged Wallace a little faster and in the right direction. Finebaum said it was one of the best pieces he had ever read on football in Alabama.
Mike Hubbard, as the recent New Republic article mentions and has long been known in Alabama has made a small fortune having privatized the Sports Information Department at Auburn. I hope a panel of Condi Rice, Pultizer Prize winning Civil Rights authority Taylor Branch who last year had a provocative piece on the NCAA in The Atlantic Magazine, and some of the folks now scrutinizing the NFL can take a look at this matter in a most public way soon.
In the meantime here's hoping the good people or Etowah County and Northeast Alabama read this article for themselves and do so soon.
posted by foxofbama | 9:29 AM
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