Duck Dynasty, African Americans were happier under Jim Crow laws

burdman30ott6
It is very clear that modern urban America hasn't got so much as a clue about what the living conditions were for rural America following the Great Depression. The average rural white/black/other family in most of the country was uneducated by requirement, not choice, because the family needed every able-bodied member to break their back on the fields. The average rural white/black/other family was poor, not because they wouldn't work to make money, but because they couldn't work away from their farms and still manage to keep the family fed. The average rural family, regardless of race, was so far below the standard of living of most modern welfare recipients today that it would be like comparing a third world country to the USA.

That's all fair but at the end of the day, who slept in the barn and who slept in the 'Big House', I couldn't see all those African American workers sitting at the dinner table with the White folk... (Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just making an educated guess)

My dad grew up in 50's and 60's rural Louisiana here. The great depression was still in effect in alot of the state back then. He told me he regularly plowed with mules even on his dads farm, the neighbors did too. They grew up with black folks working with them sometimes for them. There were farms all around them with white and black farmers alike. They all helped each other out.

Mr. Duck Dynasty has a point. The country black folks are generally good people that don't act all racist and talk about how they're so oppressed all the time. That's the younger black generation that harp on about racism. In fact I know many of the older black people that can't stand the younger black ones for this very reason. They are the type that have worked their butts off their whole lives and they say that the younger ones that just have kids so they can get a bigger check are just lazy and give black folks a bad name.

reply to post by calstorm


I don't see what the big fuss is about. Some redneck guy on a reality television show makes some personal opinion statements in an interview and the network makes a huge deal of separating themselves from him because one group complained. If you don't like the man's backward thinking then just don't watch the show- simple as that! If enough people boycott the show A&E will pull it, if not they will keep making money from advertisers that cater to people of similar mindsets. Personally I watched the show once and never again- not to my taste!

"Duck Dynasty, African Americans were happier under Jim Crow laws"

and WalMart is happy it seems...

As the future of their show lies in doubt, the Duck Dynasty clan are still making millions thanks to their megabucks Walmart merchandising deal, MailOnline can today reveal.

The Robertson family has a merchandise empire that is estimated by Forbes to be worth about $400million - and their deal with Walmart makes up around half of this.

And today, as Walmart refused to comment on the future of their relationship with the TV family, just one glimpse at the chainstore's website shows fans are flocking to buy Duck Dynasty merchandise amid the furor over patriach Phil Robertson's homophobic comments.

Meanwhile, MailOnline can reveal a publicist from A&E DID accompany Phil to his interview with GQ magazine -but was NOT there when he made his incendiary comments.

Walmart SELLS OUT of show merchandise

Hmmm...

Lets be honest, this is his opinion, his impression, I cannot fault him for his commentary he is being genuinely honest based on his observations.

Now since I am black I do not use the pc term, I can say that more than likely the subculture and family structure during the years he probably grew up and where he lived, people within their own subgroups, neighborhoods, social structure were not complaining, they were comfortable within their means, this was what they understood as their own reality, now with that does it mean they ran around all day focusing on the macro reasons why they could not be treated as equal or actually ran around with chips on their shoulders letting everyone know ?

I think not, especially if they had a job, think about this could blacks that were enslaved or during ante bellum find something to be happy and sing about even with all of the wrongs that they had been subjected to, you bet that they could find time to sing hymns, dance and everything else, to any observer it could appear these poor souls were happy and had no complaints about the situation and nothing wrong was being done to them.

There came a time when sucking it up and bowing down had to be replaced with the movement to fight for equality as human beings and citizens, no longer being happy to have the filtered down rights granted to them or only on paper, it came a time to fight the institutions still supporting supremacy and unfairness to blacks, to me there is nothing racial or racist about what he said, now could he have been a little more empathetic ? sure because I would bet plenty of money, he at some point had his ears around those individuals that probably had derogatory or some less than flattering commentary .

If he were really thinking as a compassionate human, I am sure he probably at some point had seen colored only facilities and been exposed to much of the coverage in newspapers and television regarding Klan violence that was prevalent during the years this man was growing up, it could have had an impact so that his statement would have even included something that possibly mentioned this fact and condemned it, but as he said he was poor white so in his mind he thought everything was all good and he was as bad off to an extent, now was this ignorant I think that could be more of the case than making a blatantly racist comment, at any length it is hard to take back words.

reply to post by Khaleesi


How old is he? He does not remember the separate water fountains, forced to sit in the back of restaurants and buses, no access to public libraries, separate schools, forced to live on the other side of the tracks, and on and on. It would have been real dangerous for a black man to complain to a white man, white trash or not, at that time.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Holy mackeral - Just when my faith in you guys starts to waiver and you come out with something like that. Bravo Sir. Bravo

reply to post by AshleyD


He's White, He's Christian and He's straight therefore He's Wrong.

Sit down shut up and mind your own business your time is over.

Did I get that about right?

BTW Ashley - long time no see

And yes there is sarcasm oozing out of the above statement which is in no way my actual viewpoint. Geez did I really have to point that out?

I got news for you people.
This guy WILL BE BACK ON TV

Remember Dog the Bounty hunter, who said the n word and got lambasted for a while and kicked of his reality show,

Well he is back
www.huffingtonpost.com...

This guy will be back on after a while after people forget

Bisman
i see no reason to believe hes racist or anything. nothing is implied by what he said.

but it is revealing, hes unknowingly sharing his ignorance of the greater world of politics and society around him as he grew up. dont know if thats something to be ashamed of or not. maybe it couldnt be helped if he grew up with hardships and distractions and had peer black people of the same situation.
maybe its a blessing thats all he saw lol

I agree. At first, I figured he was just misrepresented, then I thought he was bigot, but now, I'm starting to think that Phil is just out-of-touch at this point. I mean, just look at the rest of the interview.

Or, this could all be just an act. It wouldn't be the first time something in Reality TV was fake.

WWJFKD
reply to post by AshleyD

 

He's White, He's Christian and He's straight therefore He's Wrong.

Sit down shut up and mind your own business your time is over.

Did I get that about right?

BTW Ashley - long time no see

And yes there is sarcasm oozing out of the above statement which is in no way my actual viewpoint. Geez did I really have to point that out?

edit on 20-12-2013 by WWJFKD because: (no reason given)

Give the "Persecuted Christian White Males In America" garbage a rest already. It's an insult to groups who face actual persecution. It's also an insult to the intelligence of everyone on this site that you expect them to believe this drivel. Being misrepresented (and overreacted to) by the media isn't persecution, it's just yellow journalism. Your comment is just wrong on so many levels.

WWJFKD

And yes there is sarcasm oozing out of the above statement which is in no way my actual viewpoint. Geez did I really have to point that out?

Why do I even bother

WWJFKD

WWJFKD

And yes there is sarcasm oozing out of the above statement which is in no way my actual viewpoint. Geez did I really have to point that out?

Why do I even bother

It's a ridiculous viewpoint, but that doesn't mean that there aren't people who don't hold that viewpoint. Those people exist, some are even on this site. I didn't read the edit. I should probably start reading the edits.

iRoyalty

burdman30ott6
It is very clear that modern urban America hasn't got so much as a clue about what the living conditions were for rural America following the Great Depression. The average rural white/black/other family in most of the country was uneducated by requirement, not choice, because the family needed every able-bodied member to break their back on the fields. The average rural white/black/other family was poor, not because they wouldn't work to make money, but because they couldn't work away from their farms and still manage to keep the family fed. The average rural family, regardless of race, was so far below the standard of living of most modern welfare recipients today that it would be like comparing a third world country to the USA.

That's all fair but at the end of the day, who slept in the barn and who slept in the 'Big House', I couldn't see all those African American workers sitting at the dinner table with the White folk... (Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just making an educated guess)

I can't say how it was in Louisiana but in western Kentucky the blacks that worked with my father did indeed sit at the table with us. If the job they were working was near enough to our house, they came to our house for lunch. If they were nearer to one of the black men's home, they ate there. These were working men, they didn't sleep in barns, nor did they live in shacks. Perhaps because they all had skills in the construction business they were a bit better off than the average farm laborer.

calstorm
reply to post by Khaleesi

 

But as an educated man who is now a multimillionaire Surely he is aware now. Surely he knows what he witnesses was not representative of the entire country.
It would be interesting to read the entire unedited interview.

HE WAS REMINISCING, about the good old days. Honestly, your thread should be taken down or put in the hoax column, right along with that POS article!

Jim Crow? He NEVER EVEN MENTIONED JIM CROW! Are you even American? From the south? Your mama and daddy from the south? Are they old enough to remember that time? You got any kin that lived in the south at that time? What part of the south was they from? Yeah....That's what I thought.

To be clear, my parents were born and raised in the south. They moved in the mid 1950's when my dad got out of the service. They both grew up extremely poor and they both never had a bad word to say about anyone, from any race. They worked with blacks, had black friends, etc. Like Phil, they grew up along these folks and to them, they were just regular people. In fact, never heard of Jim Crow laws until I took a college American History class...CERTAIN parts of the south were notoriously racists, that's where they had the worst segregation, the worst treatment. The ENTIRE "south" was NOT like "that"...

Phil Robertson NEVER said SQUAT about JIM CROW. As far as your ignorant quote above goes; he was talking about the past. My guess the late 1950's to early 1960's. What year did those laws end???

What he KNEW THEN versus WHAT HE KNOWS NOW is irrelevant to this ridiculous thread and conversation. You just keep digging yourself deeper and deeper all the while showing nothing but ignorance and trying to spin PR's, the writer from GQ, and other people's words to fit your own agenda. BTW, 24/7 cable news, the Internet, smart phones, etc. didn't even exist back then. People got their news from friends, the paper, and if they were fortunate enough the TV or radio. This man grew up REALLY poor. Probably as poor as my dad did. My dad didn't have those things. In fact, at one point my father and his family lived in an abandoned box car. And GUESS WHAT? THEY WERE HAPPY TOO!

I doubt you've ever had to want for anything in your life, let alone need something (like food, shelter, clothes) and have no way to obtain it. If so, good for you. But don't you dare pick apart an already spun "GQ writer's" article and put in on blast by FALSELY stating "Duck Dynasty, African Americans were happier under Jim Crow laws." This man was remembering his past, when he was POOR, picking cotton in the fields. Don't you know where the term "cotton pickin'" comes from? Hint: People usually say it when something is irritating them. Example: "This cotton pickin' thread..."

To me, your thread title is very offensive and I feel you may be deliberately trying to turn this into a racial issue, which it is NOT and never has been. Your title makes no sense, mainly because DUCK DYNASTY DIDN'T EVEN EXIST BACK THEN, GENIUS!

I pray the mods take this entire thread and put it in the trash bin, where it belongs.

And, BTW, I don't even watch this show. Like some of the others who have replied, I don't have cable. I don't even have rabbit ears to get the local channels. Mainly because of "things" like this!

Aleister
He didn't say it, he just said he never saw mistreatment of blacks. He must have thought they didn't want to eat in the restaurants he ate in, or that they all wanted to sit in the balcony of the movie theaters, or that they might not have wanted to attend the schools he did. On this one, at least, he should apologize, because he could not have grown up in the Deep South of the U.S. and not known that segregation was a fact and a way of life.

Or maybe he didn't have the money to go to the theatre, or eat at the restaurants. What makes you think he went to school?

calstorm
Given the fact that he is talking about the era of Jim Crow laws, I think it is pretty clear.

Given the fact they are talking about ...

Robertson continued, "Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy?

... entitlement and welfare I think it's not only not clear, it's outright slimy to suggest it.

Sounds to me he was saying when they WORKED for what they had they were happier with less than they are now.

Whether he is right or not is irrelevant, his comment is not about Jim Crow laws, but work and earning what you have vs. entitlement and being given things.

Basically he's your typical old man.
Old people tend to look back on there pasts with rose tinted glasses.
They block out the racism, homophobia, the mysogyny.
He;'s a white straight man, it never effected him, so in his head it never effected anybody else.

The more and more of what he said comes out, the more is painfully obvious he was gonna get sacked!

Aleister

Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Aleister

 

Dirt poor or not, white people went to lunch counters and movies at least a few times a year, but they wouldn't have seen any blacks there.

Really? You wouldn't have anything contemporary for material or references to support that would you?

It seems a little extreme to suggest there weren't any truly poor people compared to black poor people. As if a special welfare existed for white people born into bad circumstance or grinding poverty?

You misunderstood. Economically they were in the same boat, but actual laws said they couldn't eat in white restaurants, and blacks had to sit in the balconies of the theater and not on the main floor. That's what I meant.

Yea but they were working the fields together. That's the real context here. And why bad mouth a white guy that's not to proud to work side by side in the fields with blacks? Jim Crow certainly didn't exempt folks from working the fields together.

They most certainly ate lunch together.

Bisman
i see no reason to believe hes racist or anything. nothing is implied by what he said.

but it is revealing, hes unknowingly sharing his ignorance of the greater world of politics and society around him as he grew up. dont know if thats something to be ashamed of or not. maybe it couldnt be helped if he grew up with hardships and distractions and had peer black people of the same situation.
maybe its a blessing thats all he saw lol

It may very well be that the point he was making went right over most heads. You are getting close to it.

WilsonWilson
Basically he's your typical old man.
Old people tend to look back on there pasts with rose tinted glasses.
They block out the racism, homophobia, the mysogyny.
He;'s a white straight man, it never effected him, so in his head it never effected anybody else.

The more and more of what he said comes out, the more is painfully obvious he was gonna get sacked!

Him being straight or not had nothing to do with what he was talking about here. This is simply a superimposition.

As far as effect, that's exactly what he was talking about. They were working in the fields together and at that point there was no race disharmony. He said that with the current race political/economic falderal in mind NOT with rose colored glasses.

Most of the twisted flap about the guy is coming from the subconscious operational mindset that he is an ignorant backwoods white guy. That nothing he says could be coming from clear observation or contain any profundity because of that.

In fact this guy is being "bigoted" by modern day bigots.