THE MODERN AMERICAN NOVEL: The Post tears the lid off Franklin County!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2020

Let's start with that "town pool:"
Hannah Natanson prepped at Georgetown Day, then moved on to Harvard.

She graduated from Harvard last year. This year, the Washington Post dispatched her to the wilds of Franklin County, Virginia, a place where the Klan still runs wild—or so it might seem from Natanson's novelized report.

In last weekend's Franklin County Confidential, Natanson managed to cite the Klan three separate times. At one point, her editors even stooped to the point where they published this paragraph, using Natanson's name:
NATANSON (8/1/20): Sun sparkled off an inflatable bouncy house, and children milled sticky-fingered in the heat, faces half-hidden behind columns of cotton candy. Three officers from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office stood guard, summoned because of rumored plans to disrupt the protest, including a vow that the old boys of Franklin County would ride again that night.
According to the editors, there had been "rumors" of "a vow." According to that rumored vow, "the old boys of Franklin County" were going to "ride again."

Given two other explicit referees to the Klan, even the dumbest reader would be able to guess who those "old boys" were supposed to be. Every Post reader knew what it meant when the editors suggested that they'd planned to "ride again."

We're sorry, but no! We don't believe that a Georgetown Day/Harvard alumna really wrote something like that.

In that passage, "Natanson" is reporting a rumor—a rumor about a vow. Sh doesn't say where the rumor was spreading, or who repeated the rumor to her. Her text doesn't quite explain who had supposedly taken the rumored vow.

Especially given the subject matter, we don't believe that a Harvard grad would ever write something like that. We'll assume that paragraph actually came from Natanson's editors who, perhaps a bit like the Klan of old, work under cover of darkness.

Before we're done with this week's reports, we'll look at all three references to the Klan in the Post's embarrassing piece. For today, we'll only say that the references apread quite a smell across Franklin County. Also, that all three references seem inappropriate by normal journakistic standards.

That said, Natanson's piece was less a piece of journalism than a modern American novel. In these thrilling tribal tales, members of the finer class visit some place where Those People live. They return from this heart of darkness eager to share what they've learned, if only about unsourced rumors.

The scribe then falls on his or her fainting couch aa accolades to roll in. Other members of the tribe will rush to praise his or her work.

We'll get to the Klan tomorrow or Friday. For today, let's review the editors' treatment of the "town pool" in Rocky Mount, Franklin County's rather small county seat. (Population of Rocky Mount, roughly 4800.)

First, a quick bit of background. The Post's report features three youngish women who decided to stage a series of Black Lives Matter protests in "extremely white" Franklin County, where all three egrew up and currently live.

Stating the obvious, there's no reason why they shouldn't have done that. It's entirely possible that something good will emerge from their efforts, although there are no huarantees.

That said, we're focusing here on the Washington Post, not on those three youngish women. In part, we're wondering why the Washington Post would publish a statement like this:
NATANSON: No one expected the protests following [George] Floyd’s killing to reach Franklin County. Not its White people, not its young people and certainly not its older Black residents, who fought to integrate the schools in the 1960s before watching—with horror that gave way, over decades, to dull despair—as things settled back to how they’d been, with Black people living as second-class citizens in fact, if no longer in law.
We don't know if Natanson composed that passage, but someone at the Post did.

That paragraph contains some truly remarkable statements. Most strikingly, it says that black citizens of Franklin County are currently "living as second-class citizens." More specificlly, they're "living as second-class citizens in fact, if no longer in law."

According to the Post, a past generation of reformers fought for change in Franklin County, then watched in horror and despair as "things settled back to how they’d been."

Those are truly remarkable claims. The Post makes exactly zero attempt to justify those remarkable claims, or even to specify what they're supposed to mean.

In what way are black people in Franklin County "living as second-class citizens?" What exactly does the Post mean when it says that "things" in Franklin County "settled back to how they'd been?"

Are we talking about the public schools, which are specifically referenced in that passage? Are the public schools segregated again, as schools once were, as a matter of law, all through the state of Virginia?

Are we talking about some other aspect of life in Franklin County? Are we talking about the conduct of local police? Are we talking abut the operation of local courts?

At no point does the Post attempt to say—unless, perhaps, we're talking about the Rocky Mount "town pool." For today, let's examine the clownish way that part of this novel unfolds.

In the passage shown below, the Post refers to Bridgette Craighead, age 29, one of the three women who decided to stage the protests. As the passage starts, we hear about a well-maintained pool to which she can't take her son:
NATANSON: It was a lazy Saturday, sunny and protest-free, and Craighead waded farther into the lake. She called to her 4-year-old son, Bronsyn, who was standing with fists clenched on the shore.

“C’mon, baby boy,” she said. “Don’t be scared. It’s just water.”

She reached down and let brown water dribble from her cupped hands, meant to entice him. She wished for the thousandth time that she could take her son to the well-maintained pool located in the middle of Rocky Mount, just behind the Sheetz, where she had begged to go as a child. Instead, she’d learned to swim here, in Smith Mountain Lake, a roughly 45-minute drive from home.
Good lord! There's a well-maintained pool in the center of town to which Craighead still can't take her son? He's learning to swim up at Smith Mountain Lake, the same place where she had to learn how to swim?

By this part of the Post's report, we've already heard about The Hub restaurant, where black people still aren't (or in fact, it seems, now actually are) permitted to eat inside! We've already been treated to our first reference to the Klan.

Now it sounds like there's a pool right in the center of town where Craighead can't take her son! As we continue, the Post pours it on, and employs a peculiar construction:
NATANSON (continuing directly): The town pool was for members only, and Craighead had never met a Black Rocky Mount resident who was a member. Growing up, when Craighead asked her parents about it, they said a membership was needed to swim there. They skirted any discussion of race.

A week earlier, Craighead had decided she was done skirting.

“Let’s talk,” she wrote on Facebook, “about the Rocky Mount swim club that black people can’t go to.”

The post drew dozens of comments.
“My momma always told me ‘Black people aren’t allowed there,’ ” one Black woman wrote. “My mama and aunt [used to] tell me the exact same thing,” wrote another.

“We were all told that as kids here,” offered a third. “They never even tried to hide it.”
Good God! As it turns out, the well-maintained pool which "black people can't go to" is, in fact, the Rocky Mount "town pool!" Who would think that, even today, a town pool like that could exist?

Our righteous anger began to boil over—but then, a question arose. It stemmed from a rather strange turn of phrase. Our question went like this:

What kind of "town pool" is "for members only?" Needless to say, the answer turned out to be this:

It's the kind of "town pool" which isn't a town pool at all! The kind of town pool which is, in fact, a fee-based private club:
NATANSON (continuing directly): A couple of days later, a woman phoned Craighead and introduced herself as a board member of Brookside Swim Club. She explained the club’s membership fees and promised to raise the lack of diversity at the next board meeting. A few days later, the club made a public Facebook post: “The pool has two shares of stock for sale—$700.00 per share.”

Jessica Slough, another board member, said in an interview that the club has some Black members, but that she does not know how many. “I don’t know how things worked in the past,” she said, “but it’s been equal opportunity for at least 12 years."

Craighead considered the call an early hint of progress. Her friends agreed: No real change would come until Franklin County hired more Black teachers, reformed the laws that put too many Black bodies behind bars, and passed a stimulus package creating Black jobs and boosting Black-owned businesses. On the advice of Penny Edwards Blue, who is mentoring the trio, they planned to split their chapter of Black Lives Matter into three committees: education, law and the economy.

But conversations were a start. And more kept happening.
Interesting! As it turns out, the "town pool" to which the Post referred isn't a town pool at all! It's a private club known as the Brookside Swim Club. It sounds like there's an initiation fee of $700 per person, plus an annual fee of $285 per year.

We base that on some amazingly clumsy writing by the Post, mixed with information from the club's Facebook page.

People, can we talk? Private swim/golf/country clubs exist wherever you look. Quite literally, there's a private swim and tennis club less than one block from where we sit as we type on this very day.

In large part, we don't swim in that club's pool because its membership fees are too high. People of every conceivable "race" don't belong to private swim clubs for this very reason—and no, they aren't "town pools."

In response to her irate Facebook post, Craighead received what sounds like a perfectly civil communication from an official of this particular club. Concerning the Post, please note these journalistic groaners:

Does this club have black members? The Post report doesn't say.

How many black members does the club have? The Post shows no real sign of having tried to find out.

Concerning swimming in Rocky Mount, the town does have a YMCA. According to its official web site, anyone can use its pool, though there is a daily fee.

Presumably, Craighead had to pay a daily fee to swim at Smith Mountain Lake, where Franklin County maintains a public swimming area. Also, the YMCA web site provides a link which says this:
Financial assistance form:

The Y is here for everyone in the community regardless of their ability to pay.
Could Craighead be using the local Y to teach her son to swim? There is no sign that the Washington Post made any attempt to find out.

Instead, they treated us to shrieks of complaint about the well-maintained town pool "that black people can’t go to.” Except the town pool isn't a town pool, and it sounds like black people do swim there.

It's hard to find sufficient words to explain how pathetic that journalism is. That said, this is very much the way our own failing tribe now plays.

We don't believe, not for a minute, that a Harvard graduate actually wrote that embarrassing passage about the town pool. We don't believe that Natanson wrote that. But someone at the Post did!

We'll close with this restatement:

One half-block away, as we sit here and type, there exists a swim/tennis club. We don't swim in its big, wet pool because its membership fees are too high.

People of every conceivable race don't belong to pools of this type for that very reason. Also, no one but the Washington Post refers to them as "town pools."

This is the way our failing tribe plays. Can anything good come from this?

Tomorrow: In what way are black people "second-class citizens" in Franklin County? Tomorrow, we plan to start with this:
"[Craighead's] friends agreed: No real change would come until Franklin County hired more Black teachers, reformed the laws that put too many Black bodies behind bars, and passed a stimulus package creating Black jobs and boosting Black-owned businesses."
Is that what's wrong with Franklin County? Tomorrow, we plan to start there.

55 comments:

  1. "In that passage, "Natanson" is reporting a rumor—a rumor about a vow. Sh doesn't say where the rumor was spreading, or who repeated the rumor to her. Her text doesn't quite explain who had supposedly taken the rumored vow."

    The vow was about the old boys riding again that night. Somerby calls it a rumor and a call out to the Klan, dismissing it as a possibility.

    In my little semi-rural town of 40,000 in the Inland Empire of CA, the old boys grabbed their rifles and staked out the downtown area in advance of a warning about antifa descending on businesses to break windows and loot stores. They sat there at the uptown brewpub with their rifles handy watching protesters march.

    We haven't called our militias "Klan" but they exist nonetheless. Conservatives have seized on this historical moment to show off their weapons, swagger and spit.

    Natanson is perhaps not wrong in her description about what Somerby calls a rumor, but we have been witnessing repeatedly in small towns all over the country. It is a show of white force aimed at intimidation of minorities, paralleling the efforts of the president who sent his goons in unmarked vans to Portland and Seattle.

    But Somerby says his latest female reporter is just making shit up. What a guy our Somerby is!

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  2. Somerby has an unusual number of typos today. Wonder what's going on with him?

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  3. "That said, we're focusing here on the Washington Post, not on those three youngish women."

    You cannot do one without also doing the other, given that Somerby is critiquing the work of a specific writer who is describing those three youngish women.

    First, Somerby is claiming that Natanson didn't write the words under her byline. He is claiming that her editors meddled with her text. In particular he says she didn't write this passage:

    "as things settled back to how they’d been, with Black people living as second-class citizens in fact, if no longer in law."

    Why wouldn't a young reporter write such a passage? She interviewed those youngish female BLM members who were trying to produce change where they grew up. As a reporter, she is most likely representing their views on their status in their home county. But Somerby thinks Natanson's editors wrote that phrase. He gives no proof or evidence to support his claim that this reporter didn't do her own work -- a strong claim against any journalist, closely akin to accusations of plagiarism -- in this case suggesting her own work is so bad that her supervisors had to clean it up.
    Then Somerby says: "The Post makes exactly zero attempt to justify those remarkable claims, or even to specify what they're supposed to mean."

    Apparently, Natanson is supposed to recount the whole civil rights struggle of the last century. Somerby is asking Natanson to justify, in her column inches, her claim that there is still bigotry in Franklin County. We don't know that the black residents watched "in horror and despair" or simply with resignation.
    Then Somerby presents the saga of the "town pool" which is actually a private swim club with a steep buy-in and annual fees that price many families out of participation. This pool is managed by someone who doesn't know how many black families participate. And Somerby doesn't have a clue that this is how segregation works. Private clubs that mysteriously have no shares available for black families, and rates that are prohibitively high for those who are not wanted as members. Somerby thinks that’s OK because he himself wouldn’t join such a club, despite being eligible.

    Then Somerby blames this reporter for telling readers that this constitutes discrimination. Natanson is no doubt reflecting the views of the women she interviewed, and these three women lived their lives in Franklin County and this is their view of their situation. But Somerby is predisposed to believe the pool club manager who tells him that everything is OK and there are no barriers because she was able to magically produce two high-priced shares under threat of bad publicity.

    And Somerby seems reassured by this: "People, can we talk? Private swim/golf/country clubs exist wherever you look.”

    And he assumes that the lake costs money too, except why would someone swim there for a fee if there were a nearby YMCA with clean water available for a similar fee? Somerby never considers barriers other than money, whether this woman's children would be treated in a friendly way or shunned if she took them to the YMCA, why there might be places that black people feel they cannot go despite pricing. Somerby doesn't understand how discrimination works.

    Thomas Parham, when he worked at UCI, rhetorically asked why well-qualified black students would choose to go to the state college at Dominguez Hills instead of the more prestigious UC campus in Irvine. It is a matter of feeling welcome, being among friends instead of feeling socially excluded. This is what it means to say that legal barriers may be gone but social barriers still exist.

    Somerby makes no effort to understand what Natanson is saying. His extreme defensiveness mirrors the reactions of those who really need to be listening to BLM. His reaction exemplifies the problem with race that our country is struggling with, and his obliviousness is a prime symptom of that problem.

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    1. The woman didn't feel her children would be treated in an unfriendly way or shunned if she took them to the private club, the Brookside Swim Club. She wished 1,000 times to go there. Why would she so often desire to take her kids to that fancy private pool yet feel she cannot go to the YMCA because of discrimination?

      Further, if she did feel there was discrimination at the Y, why didn't the reporter report it? Did the reporter even ask her?

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    2. @12:20
      The story never mentions the YMCA. That is Somerby’s own addition to the story.

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    3. Why would she not take her kids to the Y because of discrimination when she has pined for years to take them to the fancy pool?

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    4. Why would she yearn to go to the fancy pool? Maybe because she yearns to have nice things, to be first class instead of second class, to be able to do what the other kids in her class at school do, to feel like a fancy person instead of a trashy one? Private clubs communicate that there are in-groups and out-groups. They exist to exclude people and the excluded are considered less-than while those inside the club get to feel superior. She not only wants to go to the private club, she wants to feel like she belongs there, like she is good enough to be there (in other people's eyes). Her yearning is one of the consequences of discrimination, and it is tempting to dismiss this as her problem -- she shouldn't feel that way. But the point of such clubs is to make people feel that way, and that is unkind to children who won't understand why they cannot swim where the other kids swim.

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    5. The writer above thought she wouldn't take her kids to the Y as Somerby suggested because of discrimination. Why would that be if she pined to go to the fancy pool?

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    6. So everyone at the Y is trashy? On what do you base that claim?

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    7. If people were mean to your kid at the Y, you wouldn't take him there again. Mothers protect their kids. Why would people be mean to a black kid? Why would they build a fancy club and then keep some people out by setting fees too high for them to afford? Why did they tell black people they couldn't vote, by imposing poll taxes and administering quizzes with ridiculously obscure questions and other administrative barriers to exercising franchise?

      Somerby is being deliberately obtuse again. He can go to his swim club if he pays the fees, so he assumes the same would be true for the three black women in Franklin County.

      Who would be most likely to know the most about discrimination in Franklin County? Somerby, or three women who grew up there and are black and therefore on the receiving end of whatever discrimination may exist there?

      Somerby suggests that because they are black and trying to do something about racial discrimination, that they are therefore exaggerating their cause and creating a problem where none exists (because the civil war was a long time ago and the Klan is also safely in the past).

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    8. "to feel like a fancy person instead of a trashy one?"

      No one is objectively fancy because they belong to an expensive club (look at Trump for example). No one is objectively trashy either, but by definition, the good people belong to one's club and the undesirable or not-good people are not allowed to join. That's how these social clubs work.

      To the extent that the Y accepts everyone, no one is trashy for going there -- they just want to swim, or exercise, or take their kids to camp or lessons. If the Y discriminates, then the people accepted are being labeled good and the ones not allowed are being labeled trashy. If you belong to the fancy swim club, the Y is trashy because it accepts your rejects. Not objectively, but relatively, because the goal of such clubs is to create desirability by excluding people. Then you can charge more money. Look at how Trump raised rates at Mar a Lago when he got elected. At such clubs, you don't just pay a fee and get in. You have to be voted in by a committee, vouched for by an existing member, vetted. Or you just set a fee that is so high that only the "right sort" can join.

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    9. By that definition Yale graduates who are not in Skull and Bones are trashy. lol.

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    10. You can bet that the guys who make Skull and Bones feel that way about the ones who are left out.

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    11. From Business Insider:

      "New members reportedly divulge intimate personal details, including their full sexual histories, before they're inducted. They also agree to give part of their estates to the club. But, in return, they receive the promise of lifelong financial stability — so they won't feel tempted to sell the club's secrets, Robbins writes [in Secrets of the Tomb, a book about Skull & Bones]."

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    12. I am stunned by the defenses of this article. To see the word "rumored" in a news article is shocking. What kind of serious newspaper reports rumors?

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    13. All of them when the discussion was about Saddam's non-existent WMDs.

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  4. "Is that what's wrong with Franklin County? Tomorrow, we plan to start there."

    Expect a barrage of statistics to show that there cannot be more black teachers and small business owners because there aren't enough blacks in Franklin County (or some such).

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  5. To be clear about this, the Post story never mentions the YMCA. That is Somerby’s helpful addition as a result of his acting as a reporter/sleuth.

    Perhaps he could contact Ms Craighead with his helpful, well-meaning suggestion. She is on Facebook.

    Now, why would the Post reporter make this suggestion to Craighead? Craighead wants to take her son to the Brookside Swim Club. She didn’t say she wanted to take him to the YMCA.

    This is like saying: “Sure, there’s a whites-only lunch counter in town. But did you consider the black-friendly one instead? It’s not like you have a right to eat at a specific lunch counter...”

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    1. It would be helpful if the reporter asked about the Y just to get Craighead's take on it. It's your baseless interpretation that the Y is 'black friendly' as opposed to the one she wanted to go to for so many years being 'white's only; (???) It would be good to get Craighead's take on it to see if that is the case wouldn't it?

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    2. I made no claims about the swim club or the YMCA. I am telling you what Craighead said.

      Why should the reporter have asked about the YMCA at all?

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    3. The bit about the Y is Somerby's fiction.

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    4. For the reason I described: just to get Craighead's take on it and how much discrimination is there and how much is at the fancy pool, if any.

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    5. If you are a reporter, you can ask Craighead whatever questions you want. This particular reporter was not focusing specifically on the pool, as Somerby has done today, but was writing a larger story (with limited space), so she didn't ask about everything Somerby may have thought about (or you either). She didn't ask about a whole variety of things you might consider interesting. That doesn't change the facts that she did include, and one of them was that Craighead yearned to swim at the private club (not the Y). It is her life and her memory, not Somerby's and not yours, and the reporter described what she said to her. That's how reporting works.

      When I was in elementary school, my friends were taking dancing lessons at a Cotillion. I wasn't invited and didn't know what it was or how to go there. My parents had no money for dancing lessons anyway, and I didn't see the need to learn. But it is a tradition among wealthier people to send their kids to such lessons. I did know that I was excluded from their conversations which occurred after every lesson, just like I was excluded from discussion of TV shows when other kids got TVs in their homes and we didn't. Kids may not understand what is going on in such situations, but they know they are left out from experiences that other kids are having. Craighead perhaps yearned to swim at the private club because other girls at school were doing it (and not swimming at the Y, which is where men used to swim in the nude).

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    6. Sure, I get that. You feel like she compulsively yearned to go to that pool without being aware there was discrimination there, even as she grew older and had children. That's possible. Or she compulsively yearned to go there even though she knew there was discrimination for a number of reasons that have to do with belonging and convenience.

      Her High School hosted a college fair in February hosted by the Harrison Museum of African American Culture in Roanoke.

      I don't know about her elementary school or her High School when she went there but you can see that her high school now has a lot of African-Americans and is very friendly and accommodating to them. That's good news!

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    7. You can see that the Harrison Museum of African American Culture in Roanoke was friendly and accommodating to black high school students at its college fair. That says nothing about the rest of the high school experience for black students.

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  6. "We'll assume that paragraph actually came from Natanson's editors who, perhaps a bit like the Klan of old, work under cover of darkness."

    Meh. Of course Natanson wrote it, if that was her assignment and the Liberal Ministry of Truth.

    This is is exactly what they're trained to do, at Harvard and such.

    As for the rest of it, sorry dear Bob: tldr.

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    1. I guess Somerby is just sticking up for his alma mater. He is assuming that a Harvard grad wouldn't do such awful reporting.

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    2. David, have you actually read this blog? If you had, you wouldn’t say such a thing.

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    3. " ...such awful reporting."

      This, from a knob that considers Breitbart to be a continuing literary masterwork.

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  7. Somerby always reports that these reporters went to a prep school and then Harvard, as if that were their fault and they cannot report on social issues because they benefited from an elite education. Reporting means that you summarize and describe what happened by interviewing other people. The info comes from those sources. Somerby likes to imply that his chastised reporters made stuff up, but that isn't their job -- at some point you have to deal with what the sources are saying and what their words imply and what their perspective is on current events. Somerby is careless today about what is coming from the reporter, from her editors (maybe nothing at all), and from the three women she interviewed for the article (and perhaps many others who were not directly quoted). Separating out the reporter for censure is his way of failing to deal with what those sources are saying, the topic at hand. If he undermines the veracity of the report, he can believe whatever he wants about the world, and so can other readers of news, just like the right wing does.

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    1. The reporter did report that Craighead was almost always the only Black child in class but you can see from the link to her high school on her Facebook page that it is full of blacks and appears to be quite friendly to blacks.

      So that is a sign of progress. Or maybe the writer was gilding the lily in subservience to story and dogma when making that claim.

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    2. Or maybe the writer was talking about her being the only black child in elementary school, but there were more black kids in her high school. The current census says there are 7.92% black people in Franklin county. Maybe you are seeing the meeting of the Black Students Club or BLM High School Chapter on the Facebook page.

      I am going to use Somerby's approach and make up whatever details I want about the news I am reading. I am going to assume that every black child in Franklin County has a pear tree in his or her back yard and can swim wherever they want, and has mothers with so much spare time that they can pursue unnecessary social causes just to feel black in this post-racial world, because there is no need for social change and even the police swim at the Y.

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    3. OK. Sounds good.

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    4. 2:23
      If her high school was the one on her Facebook page, William Fleming High School, that is in Roanoke, not Rocky Mount. Roanoke has a much higher percentage of black residents, 25% or so, compared to Craighead’s home town, where it is roughly 7.5%.

      The story is about her home town.

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    5. Yes, I saw. It's mostly black.

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    6. Her home town isn’t mostly black.

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    7. The school district in her hometown had a black superintendent for 4 years. (Dr. Shelton Jefferies) He resigned in December 2019.

      You can see from a Google image search the high school has many blacks. Which is interesting.

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    8. Yes, I know it isn't. America and the world isn’t mostly black.

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    9. The chief of staff for her home town school district was also black. (Brian Miller)

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    10. Jaysus - the principal of her hometown school district high school is black:

      http://southernnashnews.com/nashrocky-mount-schools-honoring-prinicpals-this-month-p1762-222.htm

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    11. 3:15, 3:21
      Jaysis...you’ve got the wrong Rocky Mount. Craighead is from Rocky Mount, VIRGINIA. You have googled stuff about Rocky Mount, NORTH CAROLINA.

      Oops.

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    12. I see. I thought something was wrong with all those blacks. My bad.

      Still you can see on the Facebook page for Rocky Mount, VA that there are many blacks in the high school and on the school staff and school board and in city government. 1 out of the 7 town council members is black. But it is very white there compared to NC. I HATE WHITES!!!!

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    13. On Facebook, you can see there is a Franklin County African American Gun Owners group with the slogan "Black Guns Matter".

      Maybe they could help fend off the rumored return of the old boys of Franklin County.

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    14. 4:07
      After your ridiculous mixup, why should anyone trust your assertions? Craighead didn’t go to high school in Rocky Mount, apparently.

      How can there be “many blacks” in the high school there given their low percentage in Franklin Co? Maybe you’re still confused.

      Oh, and why do you HATE WHITES???

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    15. Never trust my assertions or anyone else's. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions. It looked like there was a proportional amount of blacks to whites as the demographic data suggests. You can see it on Facebook. So there will never be a situation where a girl or boy would be the only black child in class as the article said Craighead was.

      Why do I hate whites? Isn't it obvious?

      Delete
    16. You mean, do the kind of research you did that was comically wrong? No thanks. If you’re going to post url’s, maybe they should be, I dunno, relevant to your point.

      Did you bother to check whether your impression is correct? For your own edification, I mean? Or are you content to insinuate that Craighead is a liar?

      And, by the way, Craighead graduated high school in Roanoke in 2008. We are talking about her pre-high school years spent in Rocky Mount, Va. Are you looking at a Facebook page from 2008 and previously? Try to keep up.

      Delete
    17. No, I mean do your own research. I did check, yes. No, I didn't see any Facebook page for Rocky Mount when she was attending. I don't mean to insinuate she is a liar. I'm just saying that now, there is some inclusion that she didn't experience if indeed it is true she was the only black person in her class. There's a black gun club in the area. There's blacks on the school board, there was even a black man who was vice-mayor of the city for many years. So, slowly inclusion is happening. And that's good. That's what I am trying to say.

      Delete
  8. Yesterday, we had this exchange

    David : I guess Somerby is just sticking up for his alma mater. He is assuming that a Harvard grad wouldn't do such awful reporting.

    Delete

    mh: David, have you actually read this blog? If you had, you wouldn’t say such a thing.


    I understand mh's point: Bob does criticize recent grads, even from Harvard. However, today he confirmed my point, writing: We don't believe, not for a minute, that a Harvard graduate actually wrote that embarrassing passage

    ReplyDelete
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