Saturday Open Thread [8.17.13]
Lee Daniels’ new movie is called The Butlers and tells a story of a man who served as a White House Butler for 8 Presidents. It opened yesterday most places and is getting decent reviews. I haven’t seen it, but probably will. If you are interested in the history of Black Americans at the White House, Jamila King at Colorlines interviews historian Clarence Lusane who has written a book (“The Black History of the White House”) on this subject:
Were there any prevailing themes that came up when you were looking through these stories?
One was that up until the mid-1950s, every black person who worked at the White House was either there as an enslaved person or as a servant; there were no advisers. There were no black people on the executive staff up until 1955. I thought it was significant to note that the black presence in the White House was not a political or policy one, but one of servitude. But it’s also interesting in terms of D.C. itself. Particularly after the Civil War, the black people who worked in the White House represented, in part, the rising black middle class in Washington, D.C. [Working there] was seen as a very prestigious, even though people were there as maids and butlers. It even took the form of a kind of color prejudice where invariably most people who worked there were light-skinned. There was a resistance to hiring dark-skinned black people, not only by the presidents and the chiefs of staffs, but by the other the other blacks who worked there as well.
Are you following the amazing story of the Newark National and how they made the Little League World Series? They won their first game yesterday against an Urbandale,Iowa team — 6-3. They’ve advanced to play a Chula Vista, CA team. Their hometown turned out at Timothy’s last night to cheer them on and to help raise money for the families of the kids going to the World Series. Go Newark!
At a town hall meeting in El Dorado Hills, California on Tuesday, a constituent asked McClintock for his “stance on Wall Street criminal practices.” The congressman responded, “Well first of all, for a criminal practice there has to be a gun. It’s pretty simple.”
There you have it! So if I find this guy and smack him upside his head with a baseball bat, it’s all AOK because I didn’t have a gun! Sweet…..
What interest you this beautiful day?
@Citizen Steve Newton! I’m interrupting this most patriotic Open Thread to provide an urgent update on your Dear Reviewer’s progress with The Orphan Master’s Son! Your Dear Reviewer has been compelled by this harrowingly imagined tale of the dystopia that is North Korea to abandon her binge watching of Breaking Bad to follow this story to its Mot Glorious ending.
Seriously, I am about a third of the way through and I’m not going to forget this any time soon.
While I wish Newark well, I have Panama to go all the way in my LLWS fantasy pool.
Not sure if you knew, but Georgetown-Millsboro girls won the Senior League Softball World Series 2 weeks ago in Roxanna, DE.
I didn’t know that! That’s very cool and congratulations to all of them!