Count me among those not shocked that 64 percent of white women in Alabama voted for Republican Roy Moore during the Alabama Senate race this past Tuesday.
Why am I not shocked? Well, as a native of the South, one raised by two parents who were natives of the South who came of age during Jim Crow, and as one who was taught by educators who also came of age during Jim Crow during my eight years at the predominantly black FAMU High School (K-12), I knew and still know that many Southern white women are as racist as their white daddies, uncles, husbands, brothers and sons–if not more so.
I knew and still know that during Slavery, white women despised those enslaved black women who their white husbands lusted over and defiled through rape, thus compelling many to be downright giddy when the mixed offspring from these rapes were sold off, causing immeasurable pain to their enslaved mothers.
I knew and still know that when a lynch mob was convened in the South, more often than not, some black man was brutally murdered because some white woman had falsely accused him of rape or impudence. Or, if it was a black woman dangling from the noose, it was because some white woman deemed her “uppity” or “sassy,” which is ironic when considering that Roy Moore rode to his polling station this past Tuesday astride a chocolate Brown horse named “Sassy.”
I knew and still know that when Southern white lynch mobs shot, castrated, dismembered and hanged lifeless dead black bodies, that more often than not, Southern white women were standing by their white men, delighting fully in the macabre spectacle.
I knew and still know that when blacks began demanding civil rights in the 1940s through 60s, that Southern white women served on the White Citizens Councils and joined Ku Klux Klan auxiliaries for the express purpose of standing by their white men as they stymied black constitutional rights in the courts of law and public opinion.
I knew and still know that when you see pictures of black men and women seeking to integrate public colleges and schools per court decree, that Southern white women stood by their men as they spat upon, berated and rioted in hopes of keeping the races separate and unequal. When all else failed, these Southern white women stood by their men as “Christian” schools and private academies were founded in the 1960s to keep their little white kids away from little black kids.
I knew and still know that as desegregation took root in the 1970s, that Southern white teachers often despised their black students, treated them poorly as ever, and resented their black teaching colleagues–all the while questioning the academic credentials or intellectual acuity of said colleagues in private if not, at times, openly. Or, as my then in her late 20s British literature teaching mother told one colleague at the then recently integrated Phenix City, Alabama Central High School, where she taught while my dad was stationed at Fort Benning, that if she disrespected her again, she would mop the floors with her blonde stringy hair for the whole school to see. (Yeah, I get my take no shit mentality from both parents).
So, I am not surprised that 64 percent of white women voted for Roy Moore because in my own career, I have had a Southern white woman tell my office manager, her good friend, that she could not hire me to represent her deceased daughter in a civil case where she was killed by an 18 wheeler that ran a red light because her daddy would “roll in his grave if he knew that a nigger was representing his grand baby.”
Now, 64 percent ain’t 100 percent, and I am also proud of the many Southern white women that I count as dear friends and sisters, even, who despised Roy Moore and the facts–not allegations–that at age 32, he was banned from Gadsden Mall in Alabama because despite being a District Attorney, he was known to stalk teenage girls. Or, that he raped at least one girl who was 14, rape because a child of that age, even if willing, is not capable of rendering consent, thus “statutory” rape. My southern white female friends, many lawyers or political and/or social media activists, rode hard against Moore and worked to defeat him. To them and the 36 percent of Alabama white women who rejected Moore, I say, thank you!
But let’s be clear, Doug Jones won this historic election because 97 percent of black women and 93 percent of black men voted for him. Black folks voted for Jones in droves because they, like I, knew that Roy Moore was a racist pedophile and that his wife stood by his racist, child molesting ass because from time immemorial, that is what the majority of Southern white women, derisively referred to as “Missies,” tend to do. It does not matter whether their husbands are Satan incarnate or Jude the Obscure, if their hubby’s career supports the continued maintenance of a social order where white, so-called “Christian” dominance trumps even basic human decency, they will stand next to Satan/Jude and suffer on Earth while damning themselves to eternity in Hell right next to their Slavery and Jim Crow loving ancestors.
