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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Wesley Fink - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
It's a Blog, and a Blog is an opinion piece. You could stop reading whenever you wish.I'm sorry that after reading this you see the article as a political diatribe. That was certainly not my intention. It is to me an overview of many years of change in a place I love.
assemblage - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
I found it hard to believe there wasn't anything technology oriented in your overview, so I ended up reading it hoping maybe I'd get some information about the place since Forbes says it's a great place to live for housing and jobs.You're saying that before this election you could "be sure in any future election that a Red victory in the South was at least partly the result of lingering racism." That must be especially true in South Carolina where the Confederate battle flag has a memorial on the state capital lawn. Republican South Carolina Senators Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham surely didn't win their seats by their own merit, but won their seats because of "lingering racism" or they benefited from the Strom Thurmond's and the southern Republicans' "legacy of racism" or maybe they won by "preaching the politics of exclusion, barrier fences, and fear". You leave me to think that South Carolina's Republican Gov. Mark Sanford is one of the biggest racist... he didn't take the battle flag down, he grew up on a plantation and now lives in an exclusive part of Charleston... and we all know about the history of plantations and Charleston. Give me a break you're not sorry at all.
Gtroop - Friday, November 7, 2008 - link
assemblage,you can spew all you want about what you are calling a diatribe, but the fact remains: Wesley lived through some of the most awful moments of our country. I don't know how old you are, but this man's experience lets him appreciate this election and the history of his state in a way some of us younger people just cannot grasp. I was crying with the presidential announcement, and all I had was my father's stories of not being able to eat at certain places for consideration. I don't think Wesley was attacking the republican party. He was simply sharing an experience/view he thought (and I definitely agree) is important with a mostly younger population. He lived through the racist politics and his statement that racism is still very much present, especially in the south is very true. You would be a fool to think that racism does not influence politics. The amount of racism and ignorance that came out and was caught on video from the republican supporters is (only a small part) proof to that. I am happy that the evil that once controlled the laws in your state, Wesley, has taken somewhat of a back seat to allow and major shift.
I thank you, Wesley, for posting and sharing your story. I also thank you for sitting in and helping that motorist. This alone demands respect for your article. Would most of you readers have the guts to puts yourself at risk? Who cares if this is a tech website. We will never experience something like this in our lifetimes. Let a comment come from a senior website admin. Because now, when my child is born and I ask him what he wants to do when he grows up, and he asks me if he can be president, I will tell him, "Yes you can." And I will believe it. Thanks Wesley for your state's support in making this possible. Racism has been, and is a part of politics. Period. We have dealt a big blow to this evil.
Peace.
assemblage - Friday, November 7, 2008 - link
This isn't spew anymore than Mr. Fink's. I didn't write the blog, I'm just pointing out how unfair, untrue and race baiting it is. Just look at the quotes...."one of the Republican Party’s legacies in the South is racism","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", "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. Whether that happens or not we can never again be sure in any future election that a Red victory in the South was at least partly the result of lingering racism." This is indeed saying the southern Republican party is racist. Since there isn't a southern republican party, he's saying the southerners who are republican are racist. From his exclusion list he's just indirectly saying, the racists are republicans who are southern, Christian, heterosexual and white. It's those people who preach politics of exclusion, erect barriers and intimidate those who aren't like them. It's those people who run campaigns based on racism, hate and fear. It's those people who you'll never be sure have this lingering racism that compels them to vote based on race. That's incredibly unfair and untrue generalization. Intentional or not, it's race baiting. Mr. Fink says in a post, "I would NEVER imply in any way that those who voted against Barack Obama are racist." Well Mr. Fink is implying that if they are southern republicans nobody is sure if their vote is racially motivated or not, but it's a good possiblity it was.I actually live in what's, according to Mr. Fink, the bastion of southern racism, Strom Thurmond's old voting precinct. I didn't poll, but I did have a few conversations about the election. None of my white friends and coworkers said they're dislike was racially motivate. All my black friends and coworkers voted for Obama and one of they're reasons was racially motivated. They said he's black and his victory would show their son's and daughters they could do and be anything.
zinfamous - Saturday, November 8, 2008 - link
Great read, Wesley, thanks for that.I was born and raised in Raleigh, attended school at NC State, and I have to agree with your comments.
I think those who detract you here simply have no concept of what you refer to as "the Republican party of the South," which is exactly as you have portrayed it. It is easy to ignore those comments because they clearly do not have the exposure to those politics, and certainly not the history living within it to back up their accusations.
No one who lived through Helms or Thurmond would ever defend them as "non-racists." These are the guys who took over the Republican party, in fact, when they felt the Democrats of the 40s and 50s and had abandoned their historical small government, low taxes platforms. Strom created the "Dixie-Crat" party as a break-away faction, which after a few cycles, eventually drew majority support from Republican voters, and became the powerful base that we see in the Republican party today.
Undeniably, the core of the Dixi-Crat platform was segregation and racists politics; this being the primary platform of Thurmond's presidential campaign so many years ago (imagine how far back we would be today had this hateful, disgusting person become president?)
I know that this isn't the general core of the Republican party today, but it remains the ideology that changed the Republican party in those days, and the ideology that rested the Southern states from historically democratic control. This is also why you see majority African Americans voting democratic, despite their traditional socially conservative values.
Living in the south, you'd have to be a fool to deny the racist origins of modern Republican power. Unfortunately, I see this beginning anew, with the Rovian tactics of populism, the hijacking of the Republicans by the vocal fundamentalists. They are no longer the party of "small government and low taxes," unless they choose to shed the neo-con base that has had this grip on their ideology for 2 decades now.