Cringeworthy Comicbook Moments: Pro-Segregation Propaganda!

[espanolbot]

I was originally going to have an entry based entirely around the more unpleasant out of context Archie moments, but since people might get the wrong idea, I've decided to go this way instead.

Tell us why we should support you, guy who is anti-civil rights and from the Deep South? Well admitting that you're implictly involved in election fraud to stop segregation and violating federal law is certainly a way to start.
















































http://www.ep.tc/problems/nineteen/00.html

*chuckle* Oh, have the times have changed. It is kind of fascinating reading this, for much the same way that Boardwalk Empire is fascinating. That show is based in Atlantic City in the 1920s, yet one of the things that shows up is that the KKK is actually still a legitimate organisation at this point (not that this doesn't stop the main characters from kidnapping and murdering them numerous times when necessary).

Incidentally, the Daniel Day Lewis Lincoln biography film comes out this November, with the trailer first being put online today. I wonder what it's intended to coincide with...

Comments

[icon_uk]

Creepy. A) That this would be a viable campaign and B) That last family shot is more disturbing than anything Charles Addams ever managed.

Oh, and the last three pages are posted twice.

[gamerguy]

Oh, if there were not laws against it, it would be a viable campaign today. We didn't come out from under federal control of our school system until something like 1995 or 2000 (That means Alabamians didn't get to draw school districts, and several other things, without the plan being vetted by a specially-appointed Federal judge). The whole 'stand up to the Feds' is really just code for 'being able to be racist if we wanna be'; it's a total smokescreen so they don't have to look someone in the eyes and say 'Oh, yeah, we don't like black people'. 'States Rights' stopped being a thing after Reconstruction, except in technically trivial matters.

[seisachtheia]

Well that's all kind of horrible and historically interesting. (On a random note, I wonder what a the liquor agency was? )

More on topic, what I find striking is that twenty years after this, he did a complete about face and rejected segregation, saying that he'd been wrong and it had been wrong. I'm not sure what to make of that. Changing times and political expediency? He apparently found religion again in that period too, which is one of the reasons he gave for the reversal. And of course there was the near brush with death. But still. I'm more used to people - and especially politicians- doubling down on their opinions and becoming more entrenched as they grow older, especially when those opinions become more and more embattled and unpopular.

These human contradictions are one of the things that makes the study of history so interesting.

[sir_razorback]

I'm guessing a predecessor to this?

http://www.abcboard.state.al.us/(S(vrovfcyupkhhkng3mktmquyb))/default.aspx

Because why let the government control the flow and sale of alcohol in your state when it can be better handled by *private* parties... bleh

[gamerguy]

In eight states, the state controls all sales of 'hard' liquor outside of a bar setting, and we're (Alabama) one of them.

From their website: The State ranks among the nation's leaders in per capita revenue from the sale of alcohol, but does so while maintaining one of the nation's lowest levels of per capita consumption. High revenue with low consumption. This exactly fulfills the mandate of the people of Alabama.

[sir_razorback]

Nice. I wonder how my own state compares to that model (Washington). We just had a change where we can buy the hard stuff at normal stores rather than the State-run ones, but the price skyrocketted.

[silicondream]

I like how the comic itself is segregated to the point that black people don't appear to actually exist in Alabama. The segregationist policies could be aimed against hellgnomes, for all you can tell from the art and dialogue.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

Well allowing black people to exist in the comic would imply they are people, and implying they were people would lead godless liberals to consider giving them basic human rights

Honestly though, it is genuinely interesting to see these comics, as they help show the mindset of those who supported Wallace, who just wanted to sweep the small issue of "treating black people like subhuman monsters" under the carpet

[espanolbot]

Kind of reminds me of the film Mississippi Burning, which had people claiming that the local African American population liked things the way they were, and that civil rights activists were communists who were just out to stir up trouble for the sake of it.

[freezer]

That is some serious Kim Jong Il shit right there.

[gamerguy]

Living right in the heart of the Deep South as I do, I have a great deal of familiarity with Wallace (I went to school with his daughter). He did some pretty bad stuff, but in retrospect the reasons he did that stuff were in a way even worse than simple racism. That panel where he says 'If we want segregation, we'll have segregation' is completely true to form for him; he'd do whatever he thought would keep him in political power. If he thought it would benefit him politically, he would have been the first one to open the doors rather than stand in front of them. If he thought tossing them on a fire would get him elected, he'd have cut the wood himself.

He was a complete political chameleon. When he finally gauged the political winds were blowing the other way, he made several black appointments to state positions and publicly apologized for the stand in the schoolhouse doors. He remained staggeringly popular in the state. For many years he held a record as most-years-as-governor of a state, tied with a bare handful of others since the founding of the US.

[sir_razorback]

Did a little bit of snooping on his Wiki entry, and it looks like he was for equal rights before he was against it, before he was for it. It's no wonder the shot to the spine didn't kill him, it was evidently not a vital organ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace#Failed_run_for_governor

[icon_uk]

What a despicable creature. In the immortal words of Douglas Adams "I wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry him."

[auggie18]

I was thinking something along the lines of "excuse me, but I think I'm out of vomit. Can I borrow some of yours?"

Because this dude makes me sick.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

Lets just be thankful that politicians learned their lesson, and you will never ever find any politician in the western world supporting utterly despicable people and ideals just to get more votes, and happily throwing their weight behind drives to label millions of people as subhuman for inconsequential reasons of their ethnicity, gender, or sexuality.

Sarcasm aside, It is rather telling that the line of argument of "I'm only supporting what the PEOPLE want (so don't blame me)" persists to this day in the "moderate" wing of the republican party, and the more sketchy tories in the UK.

[icon_uk]

Also the British National Party use the "We're the mouthpiece of the real British people" excuse... though I personally think there's another orifice which they might be better compared to.

[cainofdreaming]

Why is it that these kinds of people always try to make it sound like they're the 'voice' of the common people? Our biggest example example even tried to re-register their party as just "Finns", cueing a facefault from pretty much everyone. Not that the current one is much better - 'True' Finns, indeed.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

Actually the BNP are probably the single best example of someone Failing a "George Wallace Gambit". In that they are simultaneously trying to big up their Neo Nazi credentials (so that those like the KKK or Combat 18 don't tease them) while trying to appeal to the decidedly anti Nazi British public by loudly ordering them to be neo-nazis, and hoping this will make them "be" neo-nazis.

Hence idiocy like their charming campaign to photobomb remembrance day events by making members pose with BNP banners at such events for a few seconds, before running for the hills after taking the picture.

Therefore its less altering their policies to reflect constituent bigotry, rather its more an utter, utter failure to beg the public to accept their bigotry and painfully obvious neo-nazism

Now the Daily Mail/Fail/Heil is another story...

[icon_uk]

trying to appeal to the decidedly anti Nazi British public by loudly ordering them to be neo-nazis, and hoping this will make them "be" neo-nazis

Ah yes, what I believe The Simpsons referred to as SUPERliminal advertising.

[riddler13]

This reminds me of a Suicide Squad plot... the William Hell story. I'll post it here... someday!

[eyz]

Ugh...