Tennessee Republican Party and the KKK

Here is the you tube video posted by Tennessee Republican party about Michelle Obama. What is funny is that the republicans in tennessee don't get it: you put a bunch of uneducated white people saying they're pround to be an American, attacking a very educated, sophicated black woman. Racist. One guy says he's pround to be American because we saved Europe in both world wars - I think France had alot to do with winning WWI and Russia certainly was the country that kicked Hitler's "Heiny" from Stalingrad all the way to Berlin. After the racist campaign run against Harold Ford Jr. when he was running for office, you'd think tennessee's republicans would hide in a closet somewhere. In many ways, Tennessee is more like Ohio than any of its southern neighbors, in fact, recent Governor's of tennessee were born in Ohio but moved to Tennessee during adulthood. Memphis is the actually the capitol city of Mississippi (think about it, its true), the rest of the state is very non southern. But there is a latent racism in the state, scratch a little and it comes out.

It is often remarked that Tennessee was the birth place of the KKK, and Nathan Bedford Forrest was the ring leader along with Georgia's George B. Gordon (remember Gordon at Sharpsburg, Stonewall Jackson tells him to hold his position until relieved and Gordon tells him he'll hold the position until hell freezes over, and he was then shot FIVE TIMES in the face but did not withdraw until Jackson sent him word - you gotta admire a man like that even if he was KKK). But the post war KKK was more political than racial, it was the 20th KKK that gave it a bad name (what am I saying?!) Post war KKK was very aristocratic, disenfranchised souther leaders, 20 th century KKK was "rise of the rednecks" (I read that in a history book) and was about jobs - "lower class" whites wanting to restrict the upward mobility of blacks. But back to the point: The Tennessee republicans ran stories about Harold Ford Jr's "dating" and suggested that he was some young black stud runnin' around with our white women.

I really like Nashville, and Vanderbilt University - but the rest of that state is hopeless, esp Memphis. My last weekend in Memphis I went to Beale street saturday night with a date, and it smelled of urine and stale spilled beer - lots of loud, publically drunk people, and young black boys dancing in the street for tip money. The next day I heard that someone was choked to death by a bouncer at BB King's club. Nice place.