The story of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour‘s experience with the integration of Ole Miss offered a glimpse into how completely divorced from the reality of black people’s lived experience white people could be, even if they weren’t personally hostile to integration. Barbour fondly recalled his “friendship” with a black student, Verna Bailey who let him cheat off her test. Not only does she not remember him, but while Barbour recalled the integration of Ole Miss as “a very pleasant experience,” Bailey remembered it as hell.
So it’s not really surprising that Barbour told Andrew Ferguson that “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.” Of course he didn’t. He didn’t care enough to find out just how bad it was. What’s damning isn’t just Barbour’s obliviousness, but rather his insistence at presenting his ignorant nostalgia as reflective of the struggle as a whole. It’s one thing to have been distant. It’s another to use that distance to erase the history of what the people Barbour couldn’t care less about were going through.
Then there’s Fergueson’s weak defense:
What role Yazoo City’s segregationist past might play in Barbour’s presidential campaign is hard to say. It could become an issue, particularly for Washington political reporters who enjoy moralizing about race and public education while sending their own children to progressive schools like Sidwell Friends and St. Albans, where applicants of color are discreetly screened and their numbers carefully regulated.
Sure. The “hypocrisy” of rich liberals sending their rich kids to private school is just like Barbour ignoring Mississippi’s fierce commitment to Jim Crow and how it affected the people around him.
I don’t think Barbour’s recollections are that much of a big deal, politically. They’re useful for showing how distant the lived experience of race can be for people in close proximity to each other. Barbour’s simple indifference is far more reflective of how race works today than the legalized racism he grew up around. I personally wouldn’t want a president callous enough to remember the integration of Ole Miss as fondly as he did, but his political and policy views are far more important.
