Septuagenarian Segregationist - We'll, not exactly...

[el Guapo]

(CNN) -- An attorney for the family of former U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina on Monday confirmed that at the age of 22, Thurmond fathered a child with a teenaged African-American housekeeper in 1925.

Thurmond, the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, died in June at age 100. His illegitimate daughter's story was published Sunday by the Washington Post.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, now 78 and a retired school teacher in Los Angeles, publicly revealed her relationship to the former segregationist after a lifetime of silence...

Read the story...http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/15/thurmond..paternity/index.html

I don't get people like this. Why the hate?

 

[H]

I don't get people like this. Why the hate?

I was trying to figure this out yesterday.... and could not.

My best guess is that the opinions made during the lifetime by TS were the product of his environment growing up (during the influential years) and ones that he thought he "needed" to make in order to be accepted, elected and respected by 'his' people at the time. Even though the 'need' may of changed later in his life, it is hard for old dogs to learn new tricks.

Mabye he did not hate, and was very sad about it. People often do bad things they feel that they "have to do". It is sad, but true


****I AM NOT DEFENDING OR MAKING EXCUSES FOR HIS ACTIONS, RATHER TAKING A GUESS AT "WHY"****

 

[Seabishop]

He would probably explain that the woman sinfully seduced him. ^o)

 

[el Guapo]

Planderella I mean Strom- How can he make love to a girl, as a young man, and yet grow up to cause that girl and all people like her in the US pain and suffering through his personal hatred and bias. He made a lifelong career of being a bigot. How can a person make that disconnect between a lover and politics? I am, of course, assuming it was some form of consentual relationship. If not, then we don't even want to go there.

 

[Planderella]

He would probably explain that the woman sinfully seduced him. ^o)

There could be some truth to this. During the days of slavery and afterwards, young black women who worked in the households as domestics were usually characterized as seductresses, thus one of the reasons for miscengenation.

 

[Planderella]

Planderella I mean Strom- How can he make love to a girl, as a young man, and yet grow up to cause that girl and all people like her in the US pain and suffering through his personal hatred and bias. He made a lifelong career of being a bigot. How can a person make that disconnect between a lover and politics? I am, of course, assuming it was some form of consentual relationship. If not, then we don't even want to go there.

I had a moment of clarity, then deleted my original question. I figured where you were coming from. However, I seriously doubt what he did to Essie Mae's mother was called "making love."

 

[Seabishop]

I am, of course, assuming it was some form of consentual relationship. If not, then we don't even want to go there.

I think it was just because the mother introduced him to the daughter and he never denied being the father (to her anyway).

The relationship makes it all a bigger insult, like she's good enough for that but not for equal rights. How did this guy stay in the Senate for so long. :-\

 

[el Guapo]

However, I seriously doubt what he did to Essie Mae's mother was called "making love."

You are likely correct. But. one never really knows. Nobody is born with hate. We learn that.

 

[giff57]

He apparently loved, respected, and supported the child. Makes it even more weird.

 

[biscuit]

I'm really suprised that this is big national news. It's been common knowlegde in South Carolina for years that Strom had a black daughter by his family's housekeeper. It was well known, although never offially said, that he helped support Essie-Mae and even paid for her to attend college at SC State, or so the rumor went.

From what I understand it was common in patrician families of the day for the young men to have sexual tryst with the help, who most often were women of colour. I don't know why this was considered acceptable but my guess is that, much like the evil practice of institutionalized segregation, it was a hold over from the days of slavery. Which, if you think about it, had only been abolished less than twenty years before Strom was born.