Cindy Hyde-Smith (1959- ), a Trump Republican, has been a US Senator for the state of Mississippi since March 2018, when she was appointed by the governor. On November 27th 2018 she faces Democrat Mike Espy in a run-off election, the last of the 2018 midterm season.
If Hyde-Smith wins she will be Mississippi’s first elected White woman senator ever.
If Espy wins he will be Mississippi’s first Black senator since 1881 when Blanche Bruce left office. Espy needs a heavy Black turnout and at least 20% of the White vote. In 2014 at the last midterm, 17% of Whites voted Democratic.
Mississippi is about two-thirds White and one-third Black. Trump carried the state by 18 percentage points in 2016, but FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s outfit, is unwilling to call the run-off election. There has not been enough non-partisan polling on it.
Hyde-Smith has backed Trump 100% in her Senate votes. She is for gun rights, against abortion, and for Trump’s Border Wall. From 2012 to 2018 she was Mississippi’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce, an elected position she won twice.
She says she is not racist but:
- Segregation academies: Both she and her daughter went to segregation academies. Her daughter went to Brookhaven Academy. The town of Brookhaven is 55% Black. Brookhaven Academy has one Black student out of 392.
- “Mississippi history at its best!”: In 2014 Hyde-Smith, while agricultural commissioner, visited Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library in Biloxi. She posed with a Confederate hat and gun (pictured above) and said:
“This is a must see. Currently on display are artifacts connected to the daily life of the Confederate Soldier including weapons. Mississippi history at its best!”
- Voter suppression: In 2018 she said of voter rights:
“And then they remind me that there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that’s a great idea.”
- Public hangings: Also in 2018, she said of a supporter, to (White) laughter and applause:
“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”
She said the last two comments were jokes. Ha ha. Walmart, Major League Baseball, AT&T, Pfizer, and others were not amused by the last one. They want their campaign donations back. Walmart said the remark did not reflect their values.
Historical context:
- Lynching: From 1877 to 1950, Mississippi led the nation in lynchings, ahem, “public hangings”. And that does not even count Emmett Till.
- Voting rights: In 1890, Mississippi led the nation by becoming the first state to put in place poll taxes and literacy tests, making it “a little more difficult” for Blacks (and poor Whites) to vote. It is a state where at least 63 people died fighting for the right to vote, Medgar Evers among them.
- State flag: In 2018 Mississippi is the only state to still have the Confederate battle flag as part of its flag:
Oh, and:
- The Southern Strategy: Since the 1960s Republicans have used racist dog whistles – plausibly deniable racist statements – to appeal to the White working class.
– Abagond, 2018.
Update (November 28th): Cindy Hyde-Smith won by 8 percentage points. A terrible showing for such a deeply red state, but not enough to cost her her seat.
See also:
- The 2018 midterms
- segregation academies
- The Southern strategy
- Donald Trump
- Trump’s Border Wall
- The Confederate battle flag
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- voter suppression
- lynching
- also Mississippi:
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Alabama’s state flag is obviously patterned on the Confederate flag, also.
Raymond Horton Composer, Arranger Minister of Music, Edwardsville (IN) United Methodist Church Retired Bass Trombonist, Louisville Orchestra, 1971-2016 Visit us at rayhortonmusic.com
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“ I’m a Republican. I support Cindy-Hyde-Smith,” said Charles Evers. “ She didn’t say anything about black folks, she didn’t say anything about white folks. She just said “If there’s a hanging I’ll be in the front row or something like that. She didn’t mean nothing like that. She was just saying something. I don’t give a damn what other people think.”
Evers is the 96 year old brother of the late Medgar Evers. I am so disgusted by this statement. Medgar Evers was murdered by a virulent racist and given the racist history of Mississippi and Hyde-Smith is an unrepentant racist who is supported by Donald Trump.
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Why would anyone put a microphone or a tape recorder for this demented old fool to give a statement given the history of the murder of his brother. I wonder what Medgar Evers widow would have to say about her brother in-law’s ignorant and bigoted statement?
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So this vile gargoyle won the run off in the Senate race against Mike Espy.
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I bet the abhorrent state of Mississippi probably wishes for the days of white Southern belles and the Confederacy and black people in cotton fields singing negro spirituals. Mississippi is a disgusting place.
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Update: Cindy Hyde-Smith won by 8 percentage points. A terrible showing for such a deeply red state, but not enough to cost her her seat
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@ Mary
I am not surprised by Charles Evers. He endorsed Reagan in 1980 and Trump in 2016.
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@Abagond: I discussed this with a coworker who is from that part of Mississippi. He says he remembers Charles Evers and says he’s always been a sellout.
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I’m a 68 year old white male, born in Alabama and raised in Texas. I remember colored only restrooms in bus stations and in my younger days I had a confederate flag hanging in my house. But no more. As I got older and I educated myself I found that I had been lied to not only about Texas history but the whole history of the United States. I’ve had to come to terms with facts of the enslavement of the black and brown people and the genocide of the native peoples. This blog has given me new insights in so many ways and I’m a better person for it. Thank you.
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@Al,
Maybe after being enlightened, you can advise what we can all do about these lies that are being perpetrated and repeated across the country and how the revisionist history affects the next generation. What can we do about it?
Even all this anti-immigrant sentiment and resulting family separation and violence. This is a repeat of what happened in the 1920s. We are also witnessing the renaissance of anti-Semitism.
To be honest, I have no idea what to do. I have a brother who has assumed racist nationalist attitudes DESPITE what we grew up with and the history of our family.
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Mike Malloy on her:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNzkYV6NupI)
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@jefe
Why worry? All these white dudes with “racist nationalist attitudes” are huuuge LOSERS. Most don’t even have children. More and more white women are having children with Men of Color and these pussy white dudes aren’t doing SHIT.
Sure, you get the one in ten million wacko like Dylan Roof, but those guys are quickly arrested and jailed for life. All the other white men are zoned out on weed, porn and video games. Many are even killing themselves with opioids (lol!).
White dudes can’t even muster up opposition to tons of brown folks flooding into their countries. All we have to do is wait a couple more decades and it’s OVER, trust me. Once they are a minority we can finish them off like in South Africa Baybee! Look at the Boers, they seemed big and tough at one time, but the POC in South Africa are taking their land without a shot fired. HUUUGE PUSSYS.
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More “kudos” to Mississippi:
It was the last state to ratify the 13th Amendment, the amendment abolishing slavery. It did so on February 7, 2013. Nope, you can’t make this stuff up.
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Racialized men hooking up with white women is a good thing eh?
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@ Pete
Your comment is full of White Supremacist assumptions and errors and fear.
Error # 1 In real life, White women have an overwhelming preference for White men.
Error # 2 Dylan Roof is not a lone “wacko” but part of a violent White Supremacist movement that uses leaderless resistance to organize alienated White youth. White Supremacist leaders use this strategy to avoid responsibility for inciting violence. Moreover, Roof can be pardoned or have his sentence commuted at any point in the future, so his prison time is not necessarily for life.
Error # 3 Only a minority of White men are “zoned out on weed, porn and video games…[or] are even killing themselves with opioids.” Roughly the same percentage of all ethnic groups are addicts of any kind.
Error # 4 “lol”? Nothing amusing about anyone’s wasted life.
Error # 5 The “tons of brown folks flooding into… [Global North] countries” are merely following their own resources. From minerals, to fish, timber to chocolate, the resources of “Brown folks” flood out of their countries in the Global South (Africa, Latin America and Southern Asia) to the Global North (Europe, North America and Northern Asia) for pennies on the dollar. Concerned about Brown folks migrating northward? Urge White governments and corporations to stop ripping Brown and Black people off and be prepared to pay more for that candy bar.
Error # 6 The land you allege “the POC in South Africa are taking … without a shot fired” was stolen from the Indigenous people of South Africa. They want their land and resources back. The Boers can take a fast boat back to Europe—-their homeland.
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One other thing Pete missed is that the brother Jefe is talking about is not white but mixed race. Pete has probably never heard of internalized racism.
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My opinion is that white segregation has its roots in the separate law systems for Romans(already a mixed bunch in Late Antiquity) and for Germanic peoples that entered Roman territory. From there it evolved into the medieval class system, the old nobility tracing its roots to Germanic peoples. Somewhere during the Late Medieval period and the Seventeenth century, the feudal class system morphed into our global capitalist system. The core capitalist countries are “white” countries, semi-peripheral and peripheral would be Latin America, Africa, Asia and to a certain extent Eastern and Southern Europe. These last two have the potential to go Communist or Fascist. Well this is what I think but please tell me what you all think. Obviously its just a quick summary of my own analysis on capitalism, but you get the general picture.
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@Jason M
You may enjoy The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter. It’s not specifically about segregation, but it is a thoroughly researched work that investigates the origins of “race” as a concept.
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