Saturday, January 31, 2009
Immigration / Law and Order / Politics / Woods Sheriff Hall Speaks to White-Hooded Crowd, Earns Notice from 'Hatewatch'
Posted by Jeff Woods on Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 8:09 AM
Descended from the pro-segregationist White Citizens' Councils (also known as the uptown Klan), the CCC has described blacks as a "retrograde species of humanity" and "genetically inferior," compared pop singer Michael Jackson to an ape, and condemned"race-mixing." Hall's appearance at the Middle Tennessee CCC meeting was reported in the latest issue of the Citizens Informer, the CCC's in-house publication. "The meeting drew the largest attendance in 12 years, with many youth in attendance," the newsletter noted.
Called on it by the Tennessean, the sheriff struggles hard to appear clueless. "To be honest, I had no idea," he says. "The person doing the scheduling for me had no reason to believe that this was such a group. I regret that we didn't know. I surely don't want that reputation."
But Hall, one of Nashville's most popular politicians who'd probably like to run for mayor or Congress someday, has been flirting with an unsavory crowd for some time with his 287(g) program. He claims he's merely enforcing immigration law ("just doing my job here") and not harassing poor brown people to score cheap political points by cynically exploiting fear, intolerance and worse in the city. Here's a cliche that fits: When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Comments (11)
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In the Tennessean article, Hall states, "Remember, I'm an elected Democrat." How can he consider himself to be a Democrat when he takes such an extreme anti-immigration stance?
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Overheard:
"These boys is not white! These boys is not white! Hell, they ain't even old timey!"
Jeff: your post makes it sound like the Tennessean broke the story and SPLC's blog just kind of followed suit. In both Friday and Saturday editions the Tennessean made it clear that SPLC's blog broke the story first.
I repeat: a blog broke this story before a newspaper did. I know it can be hard to accept at times, but acknowledging it is half the battle.
It is?! I guess I was a little too distracted by the chance that a pro journalist might not embrace the concept of "fact." Or maybe it's suddenly okay under your blogging mantle to sequence events without reference to fact. Online Journalism 101, grasshoppers.
Actually, if you wanted to get technical, wouldn't you have to say that the Council of Conservative Citizens "broke the story" themselves by writing about the speech in their newspaper, The Citizen Informer?
Re: Citizen Informer
It is more factual. But is it better that the newspapers got scooped by a self-promotional newsletter (do journalists really want newspapers confused with newsletters?) from the descendants of White Citizens Councils? At least the SPLC blog gives the papers an out to rely on a source other than a CoCC source, which they obviously did not read first. And judging by the unskilled writing I'm reading at the CofCC blog, sourcing it to the SPLC may be preferable.
All I'm saying is that the Tennessean sourced itself to a blog for the story. Why can't Jeff do likewise?
I hear you, S-Town, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. If you look at our stuff, you'll find we regularly link to other blogs, so I don't think there's any native prejudice there. Citing someone else's work is merely a way of conveying to readers where they might find a good background source if they want to read more. We don't much worry about who got their first, just like we don't complain when we break something and other people get credit for doing follow-ups that some might find more interesting. It's all part of the fast-paced news game, S-Town. Why worry?
