Presidential elections, fortunately, occur only once every four years. For 2008 it seems the sawdust trail of stump speeches and all that goes with it has been longer than ever. With the conventions now behind us, we’re finally in the last leg of the journey.This week the real head-to-head action was scheduled to begin. The plan was for a first debate to take place Friday night at Ole Miss in Oxford Town. Yes, the same Ole Miss made famous by its historical refusal to allow blacks as students less than fifty years ago.
The same Oxford Town where Medgar Evers led the fight for voters rights, for civil rights for blacks, and for one James Meredith to be enrolled at Ole Miss.
The same Oxford Town where Medgar Evers, a World War II veteran who put his life on the line for the freedoms we enjoy, put his life on the line for fellow black Americans to become recipients of the rights our laws had promised but failed to deliver in the deep South.
The same Medgar Evers whose life was taken for taking such a stand.
And so it is, all eyes were to be turned toward Oxford Town this coming Friday. Incredible as it seems, a black candidate for the president of the United States was poised to debate another candidate in the very town where a black man could not even enroll as a student. What an awesome twist.Unfortunately, and it’s hard to say what the fallout will be from this, but John McCain announced today that the debate was off because of our national financial crisis.
Upon further investigation, it appears that both McCain and Obama had agreed that maybe the debate should be put off, but McCain announced it first as if it were his idea.
Again, hard to say what is really going on at this point. The New York Times produced an editorial stating that McCain was the better man on foreign policy, the topic of this week’s debate at Ole Miss. In fact, the editorial so puffed up McCain’s dominance in this arena that some felt they were raising expectations for malicious purposes. (i.e., if Obama fared well, then McCain bobbled an opportunity.) You would think, however, that McCain would use this opportunity to show his stuff. Who knows?
As of this moment, I can’t comment on the candidates’ maneuvers, but I can shine a light on Oxford Town. First, Bob Dylan’s tribute to Medgar Evers, Only a Pawn In Their Game. Both the lyrics and the manner in which it was sung, on his Times They Are A-Changin’ album, is on my top ten list of Dylan works.
How anyone can seriously listen to this song without at some point getting tears in his or her eyes over the tragedy of American race relations I will never know. Here are the lyrics.
Only A Pawn In Their Game
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game.
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin" they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoof beats pound in his brain
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.
The day Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He'll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game.
Another evocative tune along the same lines is Dylan’s Oxford Town. At this point there will apparently not be a debate Friday night in Oxford Town. But, here are Mr. Dylan’s lyrics from that time. And in the meantime, this soap opera of a campaign will give us more to talk about tomorrow, I am sure.
Oxford Town
Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their heads bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town
He went down to Oxford Town
Guns and clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown
Better get away from Oxford Town
Oxford Town around the bend
He come in to the door, he couldn't get in
All because of the color of his skin
What do you think about that, my frien'?
Me and my gal, my gal's son
We got met with a tear gas bomb
I don't even know why we come
Goin' back where we come from
Oxford Town in the afternoon
Ev'rybody singin' a sorrowful tune
Two men died 'neath the Mississippi moon
Somebody better investigate soon
Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their heads bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town
Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music
I remember seeing a faded "White Only" sign in Mississippi in 1967 (though they'd been outlawed 2-3 years previous to that).
ReplyDeleteIn 1989, I decided that on my way back from picking up my kids from visiting their mother in Dallas, I wanted to drive through Mississippi just to see how things looked.
I remember noting blacks and whites working together at a McDonald's, and getting along fine.
Richard was along on that trip, and I remember he was really scared when I pulled the 21-year-old Dodge into a country gas station, and there were only black people there. I went in to pay for the gas, and asked to use the restrooms. I was told, "There ain't no 'restrooms'. We only got one. It's back 'dere."
Well, I only needed to use one, and the guy pointed it out to me, so I used it, thanked the people, and got back into the Dodge. The kids hadn't got out of the car. I guess Richard had 'em all scared.
Then I drove out of our way to Oxford, because I was hoping to see William Faulkner's home, which I'd read is kind of a museum. It was marked on the map, but I couldn't find any signs pointing towards it, and drove around and around.
Then I thought that somebody at the University should know, so I drove there. I asked several people (all white), but all I got was, "Dunno," so finally, I gave up, and headed north.
I reported my experience to my UMD professor who taught Faulkner, and he just shook his head. "Faulkner wasn't too popular in Oxford," he told me. "But you'd think someone at the University would have known."
Venita was from Tupelo, not too far away from Oxford. She was born in 1972. I asked her one time what it was like being black in Mississippi during the '70's and '80's. She told me, "If you black, and you in Mississippi, what you want to do, is you wanna pack up yo' bags, and get directly OUT of Mississippi."
One time we discussed driving down there to visit her father. I said we should paint over the "Country Boy Can Survive" bug-screen on the old white Chevy, change it to "White Trash", drive through Mississippi, and wave and grin at everybody we met.
We never did make that trip, though.
Next best, I guess, was going with her cousin Al to his "'hood" in "T-town" (Toledo, Ohio) for a week. He carried a gun in his sock, and slept with it under his pillow the first night we got there, after jamming the door to the motel shut with the dresser in the room. (The lock to the door was worthless, because the door had been kicked in previously, and the whole door frame was splintered wood.)
Al told me that there was a killing a week in that neighborhood, and the police didn't care, because, "It's blacks killin' blacks." He told me that several years before, someone had killed his brother, thinking it was him, and that's why he was carrying the gun.
One night we went to visit his other brother, and Al drove into the yard, with me in the passenger's seat. His brother came out of the house, and saw me first. "You at the WRONG house," he told me.
"No, no," I told him, with a grin. "I'm at the RIGHT house. My name is Al." I pointed at Al in the driver's seat. Al's brother started laughing. "Oh, you's Lloyd! Come in, come in!" And everyone was so friendly after they knew I came with Al, but they were so scared to see a white man in that neighborhood.
Even now, there's a pretty large percentage of Hillary Clinton supporters who won't vote for Obama, because he's black. It's pretty sad.
The Indians are treated just as bad, even in "liberal" Duluth, even today. If you get a chance, go to the News Tribune website to their "talk" section, and read the comments about Fon-Duluth Casino.
(P.S. I was so sorry to hear the news from Susie the other night. I've been through the same, and things do get better, in time. But it sure hurts.)
Yes, racism in this country has a long history. Very unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for your sympathies on the other matter. Yes, it's been a painful week.