Salon: American Gothic (Thurmond – race, sex, power, & media silence)

The revelation that Strom Thurmond fathered a child with his 16-year-old black maid raises a host of thorny questions about race, sex, power -- and media silence.

By Rebecca Traister

In 1948, while running for president of the United States on the Dixiecrat ticket, Strom Thurmond proclaimed, "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, into our schools, our churches and our places of recreation and amusement."

But in 1925 it apparently had taken neither legislation nor bayonet to force a 16-year-old black maid named Carrie Butler into the bed of Thurmond himself, then a 22-year-old graduate of Clemson University living with his parents in Edgefield, S.C.

(snip)

Thurmond's eldest legitimate son, Strom Thurmond Jr., 31, was quick to issue a statement in which he acknowledged that there was no reason not to believe that he had a black sister 40 years his senior. He also said he would like to meet his half-sister. But why is the truth of Thurmond's bloodlines only being reported widely now that Thurmond is dead? Why has the same press corps that was eager enough to expose the power-skewed sexual assignations of President Clinton held its tongue about a lawmaker whose interracial liaison might have changed the way his politics were received? And why has the story only come to light after Thurmond and Butler -- the only two people who could have answered the thorny legal and emotional questions about consent, race and power -- are both dead?

The most likely explanation for the mainstream news media's failure to report the story (assuming they knew about it and found it credible) is the ethics rule -- whether unspoken or explicit -- against exposing people's personal secrets or private lives, unless they are in a position of power and their personal life has a direct bearing on their official actions. That rule continues to govern decisions made by editors to this day. And in decades past, the news media also kept public figures' private lives -- especially their sexual peccadilloes -- under a shield of decorum. The fact that Thurmond was a U.S. senator and battled civil rights legislation might have made him fair game for exposure if those battles had happened today -- but they took place a long time ago.

But these explanations don't satisfy everyone.

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http://salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/12/18/thurmond/index.html

"The most likely explanation for the mainstream news media's failure to report the story (assuming they knew about it and found it credible) is the ethics rule -- whether unspoken or explicit -- against exposing people's personal secrets or private lives, unless they are in a position of power and their personal life has a direct bearing on their official actions. That rule continues to govern decisions made by editors to this day."

What a load of bull.

...talk about a double standard. How pathetic.

"Here was this rabid segregationist spewing hatred toward black people, a man who in every public way was saying 'You are inferior' and that on some level he despises you, in the same way that Jefferson kept his children slaves. This is beyond hypocrisy; there is something sick about this stuff."

I'm disgusted by the people who would actually vote for that piece of shit over and over. Southern values? Whatever.

"Washington-Williams grew up during segregation -- seated on the back of the bus, drinking from separate water fountains, disenfranchised in every way. And she would have been 32 years old in 1957 when her father staged a 24-hour and 18-minute filibuster on the Senate floor in a futile attempt to prevent the passage of a civil rights bill."

OMFG.

:wow:

Well, I guess a man with a sex slave wouldn't want her to go free.

Armstrong Williams, a former aide to Thurmond who is unrelated to Essie Mae Washington-Williams, said the senator spoke to him often about his daughter.

Once, during a National Urban League awards ceremony in which Thurmond was honored, Williams said, the senator leaned toward him and said, " 'You know, I have ties in the black community.' And I said, really? And he winked at me.

"He said she won't talk about it in my lifetime, and I won't talk about it. And he winked at me again," Williams said.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9662-2003Dec17.html