Transformation: A North Carolina Story
by Wesley Fink on November 6, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- What's New with Wes
While AnandTech Editors can be found in many cities and countries around the world, most of you are already aware that Anand himself and AnandTech are headquartered in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. I also grew up in North Carolina and went to college in North Carolina. Today I live in New York, but much of my family - "home" if you will - is still in North Carolina.
That is certainly why I was profoundly moved by the announcement, just a few hours ago, that MSNBC and the Associated Press have finally moved North Carolina to the Barack Obama column in the Presidential election. The networks concluded that the number of provisional ballots remaining to be counted were less than the current narrow lead held by Obama, and that no other outcome was really possible.
There are advantages to working for a CEO who began this website when he was 13 years old, and who is now an old man in his mid-20’s. Everyone assumes you are in the same age group as your boss, and despite the fact that I am the longest running current staff member at AT (other than Anand), most just assume I am in school or a fairly recent grad. I am flattered by that assumption, because I am actually a grandfather with three grown children. They grew up on my knee at the computer. They are all now graduated, successful in their fields, and all work either directly or indirectly in the computer industry.
For the work I do at AnandTech my age is irrelevant, but my age is totally relevant to my immense sense of satisfaction in the fact that North Carolina voted for Barrack Obama – even by the slimmest of margins. Younger commentators will talk about North Carolina as a dependable Conservative Red state until now, and the explosive growth and changing demographics of a state that has become Wall Street South and a Technology hub. For me the victory in North Carolina of a man with an African Father and a White Mother is much more personal, and nothing short of revolutionary. It is something I was not sure I would see in my home state of North Carolina in my lifetime.
When I grew up in North Carolina all the schools were integrated and “separate but equal” was the “progressive” law of the state. I still recall the gasps in a gathered crowd when my wife, a nurse, and I stopped at an accident and tried to help a gravely injured man who happened to be black. I was performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation at her direction and she was trying to control bleeding as best she could while we were waiting for a “colored” ambulance service that seemed to take forever to arrive.
As a College student I marched for Civil Rights and participated in sit-ins at lunch counters in Greensboro, NC and other NC cities. Fortunately these events were mostly peaceful in my home state, and while we saw lots of anger and name-calling, we didn’t see the murder and bombings that were happening in places like Alabama and Mississippi. That certainly does not justify the grievous discrimination that was a part of the fabric of my home state, but I will be forever grateful that for the most part the transition that was taking place was loud but mostly peaceful.
I also remember as a child that North Carolina was a reliably Democratic state in the days before Red and Blue became boundaries for hate and intolerance. North Carolina, as a southern state, was particularly hard-hit by the Great Depression. As a result the South saw Franklin Roosevelt as something of a God. It was simply that he and the US government paid attention to an area of the country that had been widely ignored except by those who exploited the region’s resources and cheap labor. The public works and infrastructure jobs created in the South by FDR had a profound effect on the area surviving the Depression and coming out of it with hopes that the South could be vital again. Because of the Fed investments in the South during the Depression North Carolina and the South were solidly Democratic.
In the 1950s a progressive Democratic Governor named Luther Hodges pioneered the concept of Research Triangle Park, which today is recognized throughout the world. When JFK was elected in 1960 his cabinet included a North Carolina Governor, Terry Sanford, who later went on to serve as President of Duke University.
All of that changed with the Civil Rights movement. People like Jessie Helms and Strom Thurmond, who favored segregation, changed parties as did others in the South who wanted things to stay as they were. They became the open champions of racism in the beginning and preached a more subtle brand of racism as it became less popular to openly look down on someone for the color of their skin. Regardless of the subtlety those who grew up in the South knew the emergence of the Republican Party in the South was initially based on Racism, a fact that was particularly puzzling since Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President.
The last BIG play of the racism card in NC was the now-famous “hands” ad crafted by Karl Rove for the then losing Jessie Helms Senate campaign against Harvey Gantt, the popular black ex-Mayor of Charlotte. Gantt was ahead in the polls. a fact that had to be maddening to the NC Senator that created a career out of the politics of racial and intellectual hate. In the last few days the Helms campaign flooded the TV stations with that ad with the white speaker crumpling a letter telling him he had not gotten a job. The ad went on to reflect “. . . you needed that job but you lost it to a person hired because of Affirmative Action”. The hands ad turned the tide and pulled out the closest Senate race of Helms' career.
It is because one of the Republican Party’s legacies in the South is racism that the victories by Barrack Obama in North Carolina and Virginia are clearly revolutionary. Republicans represent many other things in other areas of the US, but in the South that legacy of racism has remained. The fact that an African-American has won my home state and Virginia is a repudiation of that legacy. This turn may be temporary and a reflection of the dire Economic conditions and international wars that now plague the US. I don’t think it is, but even if Republicans win North Carolina again in 4 years or 8 years, the party will never be able to effectively play the racism card again. There are areas of the South, it turns out, where running a campaign based on racism and hate and fear just won’t play reliably any more.
The Obama win in North Carolina and Virginia is also good news for the Republican Party. The victory by a man with an African Father and White Mother who describes himself as a "mutt" has forever destroyed that racial barrier. No matter your political persuasion we are all better off in toppling those barriers. We can never again assume in any future Red victory in the South that it was at least partly the result of lingering racism.
This victory also presents the opportunity for the Republich Party to decide what it really stands for today. Perhaps in reinventing itself from this humiliating landslide victory by the Democrats, the Republican Party can find a way to be inclusive again – embracing African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Gays, Atheists, Muslims, and ALL Americans, instead of preaching the politics of exclusion, barrier fences, and fear.
In America, it turns out, you really can grow up to be President – no matter the color of your skin or the heritage of your parents or the label others might apply to your beliefs. What has happened in my home state today and in the US in the last few days is truly a Transformation.
The majority of our readers are under 30, and I really think you get it more than us old fogies. In many ways that’s good news, and I'm glad so many of you get what's going on. However, getting to where we are today was painful and emotional for many of us. Telling the story is one way of letting go of those emotions.
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JimmiG - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Politics should be kept away from computer tech sites unless it actually relates to computers or technology in some major way. It brings so many strong feelings to the surface and it's easy to step on each others toes or get carried away in long, heated discussions.Nearly 50% of Anandtech's American readers did vote for the Reps and you also have a not insignificant number of readers from other parts of the world who may not be interested in US politics at all... and if we are, there are many other, more appropriate forums where those issues can be discussed.
Before you call me ignorant, I did stay up until the morning (in my time zone) to see the results come in. But I won't share any of my opinions here because this is just "my source for hardware analysis and news".
Einy0 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
I lived in North Carolina for almost 4 years. Overall I loved the area. The one thing I didn't like about the area was the racial tension. I was raised in Massachusetts so the racial issues of the south where not something I was used of. Not to say there is no racism in the north east, it's just much less of a problem. I too am glad that things are changing and I hope they continue to change and I agree politics in their own shameful way contribute to racism. I hope this a sign that things are going to change for good.DocSparky - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Without really meaning to do it, you just offended a large group of your readers. Your comment about the Republican party moving beyond racism is a particular slam. Believe me when I say racism crosses racial and political party affiliation.It's good that you feel good about your state and I agree that the glass ceiling has been broken. I hope that people of all races can move to the top of their company or party based on their merits without being called an Uncle Tom (terribly insulting phrase isn't it). I'm proud of our state electing a minority governor here in Louisiana. He's done an awesome job.
Just be careful with your generalizations.
goinginstyle - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
I have been called a lot of things in my life but never a racist. That is until today. I guess there must be 57M of us, since that is the number of Republican votes in this election.The fact that I live in South Carolina makes it just that much worse according to your opinion. If I am a racist for that fact, so be it, but then that makes you a bigot Mr. Fink.
Using your generalization we can conclude that any Demoncrat, sorry, Democrat from the South is a bigot. Is that true? Of course it is not, just like being a Republican in the south does not make me a racist.
Also, do you know the history of FDR when it came race relations? How about the fact that FDR appointed two of the worst segregationist in the country to the Supreme Court. Our own native son, Jimmy Byrnes, a leader of the Democratic party, an "assistant president" in the later years of FDR's presidency according to most sources, and his personal choice for VP in the 1944 election. Of course Truman was chosen by the party but we almost had a leading Democratic Segregationist as President, almost as scary as Cheney today when you think about it. Yes, us racist republicans have a sense of humor.
The second one being Hugo Black. A former Democratic Senator from Alabama who was a member of the KKK and became notorious for defending and usually winning racial murder cases involving KKK members. It was Black who joined the majority on the court and authored the opinion letter that supported FDR's illegal internment program during WWII of over 120k Japanese Americans. Hmmm, a democratic president sends over 120K people to concentration camps because of their race and we get all upset at a republican president when a couple of hundred terrorists are not getting Satellite TV during break time in Cuba.
How about another one of our native sons, Ernest Hollings. You know the "liberal" Democratic Senator and former Governor of South Carolina. He was one of four Democratic governors in the South who fought bitterly for continued segregation in their states during the 60s. In fact, he personally made sure that rebel flag flew at the state capitol all those years.
Let's not even get started about Robert Byrd who by all accounts made Jessie Helms look like an angel most times. Also, read up on Nixon vs Herndon in 1927 and then tell me that the Democratic party is clean in the South when it comes to racism. Even better, how about the 21 Democratic senators from the South that opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including both senators from North Carolina. Al Gore Jr. never mentions that his dad, Al Gore Sr. was one of the leaders of this group.
Over 40% of the Democrats in Congress voted against that act, while 80% of Republicans supported it. The NAACP presented Everett Dirksen who was the ranking republican a civil rights accomplishment award in 1965 for his tireless efforts in getting that act passed. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was even worse from a Democratic support level, once again, all opposition came from the South, states that were heavily represented by Democrats who opposed the measure.
It goes on and on including the KKK infested 1924 Democratic Convention in New York, read up on John William Davis who was nominated by the Democratic party for President that year, what a guy he was when it came to race relations, actually he did fine in some cases but overall he would be considered a racist by you.
My point is that racism can be found anywhere, anytime, and crosses all party lines. The fact that you generalized racists with all Republicans from the South makes you a bigot and the fact you are a Democrat from the old South also makes you a racist according to history. Of course that is just plain stupid but I hope you can see just how dumb it was to tie my party affiliation and location together to come up with me being a racist.
Rage187 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Really? 4-5% is a landslide? In California 4% is a slim margin for Prop 8, so slim they keep checking the numbers hoping they change.
And the quip about racism is a republican legacy? are you serious? You know Lincoln was a republican right?
Bonesdad - Friday, November 7, 2008 - link
you need to do some research about the republican party in Lincolns time. It has nothing to do with the republicans of today. hell, the republican party of today has nothing to do with the republican party I remember 25 years ago. It's really too bad.Wesley Fink - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
The final margin of 53-46 is 7 points, which is the largest winning percentage in recent history for a Democrat and the lrgest margin since Bush-Dukakis and Reagan-Mondale. Most analysts are now calling it a landslide.joe19 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
When you look at the number of electoral votes, 364 for the democrats against 163 for the republicans, it really looks like a landslide.wwwparker - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
I graduated from Chapel Hill. Go Heels!assemblage - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
I was thinking that maybe it was about the tranformation and growth of the Raleigh Durham area and maybe some information about technology there. But no, it's a political diatribe. That's pretty slick tossing in your inane political opinions in the midst of all these good tech articles and news story.