The Selective Memories Around The Concerned Citizens Councils

The recent discussions about the Concerned Citizens Councils as prompted by the fond memories elicited by Mississippi governor Hailey Barbour provided yet another chance for our nation to discuss its painful past with regard to race relations.

It is easy to see that Gov Barbour suffers from a psychological condition that most people do.  They don't want to make an indictment against their own people when they are/were in the wrong.  In doing so they compromise their own credibility in the eyes of those who are able to take a more dispassionate view of their actions.

It goes without question to see that the purpose of the CCC in Mississippi and elsewhere was to retain the present stratification of power at that particular time.

They did not do this by agreeing to develop a transparent system in which people, regardless of their race are allowed to compete on an open track.   The "supremacy" of White people being expressed by their incremental performance advantage after the referee fires the starter pistol and makes sure that all runners maintain their own lane as striped upon the ground.

In my book THIS would be evidence of the supremacy in the performance of that particular set of people who show their advantage.

Instead - in the eyes of the CCC and their array of partners - they maintained a scheme which retained their advantage by suppressing any ORGANIC growth of those who did not fit their definition of the "in crowd".

That poor, uneducated and dependent Black neighbor in the distance - who stayed on his side of the tracks -could not match the "superior status" of the CCC member.   Not because of the intrinsic inferiority of him as a human being but because in his "ignorant" form he was never tapped for his full human potential.

When the scope is cast upon the entire state the damage from this failure to develop a portion of their vital human resources renders the entire state behind other states who's systems within are more effective.

As I typed this last portion I was also made to think of my previous comments regarding the scheme of "nationalizing" certain standards as a point of obfuscation.  In the spirit of remaining consistent I should add that is it important to have scaled up goals that are executed as locally as possible.  Thus Mississippi's productive state in aggregate takes place as each local module of that state does its part in the increase.  The desire for the larger container district to improve does not remove the obligation for the local forces to do their part.

The CCC ultimately had no care for the interests of the state or the development of human resources within.  Their desire for a hierarchy and their place at the top was only relative to the little world within which they lived.  The fact that the vast array of Whites at the top where little better than the individuals in other states who are in the middle was of no consequence to their entrenched bigoted views.

When the great Booker T Washington talked of how no man can rise too far above the pit within which he chooses to oppress some other man within - he clearly was talking about the CCC of Mississippi and those who thought like them.