Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

How to Frame the “Loving” Movie

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by

James A. Bacon
in , ,

The Lovings
The Lovings

Hollywood is producing a new film about Richard and Mildred Loving, who were arrested in 1958 for violating a Virginia  law prohibiting interracial marriage. Ruling on a lawsuit they filed in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws against mixed marriages.

In a press release, Governor Terry McAuliffe Thursday said, “Loving is a significant American story that should be told.” The film will be shot in the state, creating local jobs and highlighting “Virginia’s historical significance.”

I’m not sure that Jim Crow-era laws forbidding “miscegenation” is the kind of “historical significance” Virginia wants to bring attention to. But there is an opportunity, if McAuliffe will embrace it, to highlight how much Virginia has changed since the 1950s. According to the Pew Research Center, between 2008 and 2010 Virginia had the highest rate  of black-white intermarriage of any state in the country. Of the 156,000 marriages involving whites in Virginia, 3.3% were with blacks. The only states that came close were North Carolina (3.2%) and Kansas (3.0%).

Let’s not let “Loving” give people the mistaken impression that Virginia is stuck in the 1950s. We’ve come a long way — longer than most. Let’s make sure we let people know it.

— JAB

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15 responses to “How to Frame the “Loving” Movie”

  1. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    …. and lets also not pretend that some of the conditions that led to the problems in Fergueson and Baltimore with respect to poverty and lack of educational opportunity don’t also exist in Va.

    As was said in another post – it has not been that long that “colored” was still on public facilities nor places in Va where neighborhood schools are still predominately black and white folks still send their kids to “Christian” schools or move to counties that have predominately white schools.

    Virginia has gotten better -yes – but it’s still healing.

    the best places in Va are where there are Federal or Military jobs – Nova and Hampton.

    As the” The Best and Worst Places to Grow Up: How Your Area Compares” shows – a black kid has a much better chance at success in Fairfax than Richmond.

    1. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
      LifeOnTheFallLine

      a black kid has a much better chance at success in Fairfax than Richmond

      FTFY

      I would like to see some sort of evidence that Black kids have better overall outcomes within the same economic stratum in Fairfax compared to Richmond.

  2. Andrew Roesell Avatar
    Andrew Roesell

    So, everything will be fine for black people – murder, rape, lack of marriage, lack of school achievement, etc, once all the white people have been done away with through intermarriage? Is that what you are saying? Sounds like you advocate genocide, Mr. Bacon. Stick to land-use and public administration, please.

    1. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
      LifeOnTheFallLine

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

    2. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      “Sounds like you advocate genocide.”

      I am totally baffled by what you might mean.

  3. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
    LifeOnTheFallLine

    I watched a documentary on the Lovings not terribly long ago and it was interesting and not-at-all surprising how little the Lovings were interested in anything more than being married to one another.

    I’m going to be supremely disappointed if this film is hijacked by one of two groups:
    1) People trying to pretend all our racial problems are artifacts of the past.
    2) People who think interracial marriage equality is one-to-one with homosexual marriage equality.

  4. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
    LifeOnTheFallLine

    Also, Jim, as you know we’ve had our differences in the past, but I hope you at least appreciate that I’ve never accused you of courting genocide.

    RAHOWA!!!

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Thank you, LOTFL, I appreciate small favors when I can get them.

      1. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
        LifeOnTheFallLine

        Although now that I think about it, you DID write a piece a couple days ago touting the benefits of diversity in metro populations. And everyone knows diversity = white genocide.

        RAHOWA!!!

  5. Andrew Roesell Avatar
    Andrew Roesell

    The change you draw our attention is supposed to be good, right? Fewer white people is “progress.” Being against whites, and Christians, are the respectable bigotries of our age.

    1. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
      LifeOnTheFallLine

      You do realize that whites being more receptive to romantic partnerships with blacks isn’t the same thing as being against whites or Christians, right?

    2. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      I’m not against white people. I like white people (well, some of them). My family members are white people. Most of my friends are white people. But I also believe in the American ideal of creating a society of opportunity for all. And I believe in working toward a color-blind society.

      On the topic of racial inter-marriage, it’s true, I do see the rise of interracial marriage as proof that attitudes toward race have changed dramatically in a positive way over my lifetime. I don’t advocate racial interracial marriage, but I think people should be free to marry whomever they wish. And I’m OK with anyone who makes that choice.

      If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I frequently inveigh against the idea that the United States is a deeply racist society. I have no patience with racial grievance mongers. I’m sick and tired of people blaming white people for the ills of the United States. I think the liberal welfare state has been a calamitous failure. Furthermore, the practice of injecting race into every issue does precisely the opposite of creating a color-blind society. I believe progressives are magnifying racial grievances as part of a deliberate political strategy. If they can polarize racial politics, they can ride demographic trends — the coming majority of minorities — into permanent electoral dominance.

      Republicans and conservatives should not take the bait. We cannot define themselves as a “white” party or a “white” philosophy. The principles we stand for — self-reliance, strong communities, free markets, fiscal conservatism, limited government — are color-blind. We must stand for openness and inclusion and opportunity for all. If we fail, the principles we believe in will be relegated to the dustbin of history.

  6. Andrew Roesell Avatar
    Andrew Roesell

    I also do not want race brought into every issue. Historically, I view the so-called “Bourbons” as having had the right approach, not the white racist demagogues. “Jim Crow” as defined by separate everything was a calculated insult to blacks. However, the separate public schools, until about, roughly, 1900, were pretty much equally funded. After that, the extremists slashed spending for them. Had the 1954 Brown decision mandated that the separate schools be equally funded, then there would likely have been no “massive resistance”. We have gone from a prideful, i.e. sinful, feeling among whites over nonwhites, to a self-abasing competition as to who can “out-honkey” one another. And, our politics ARE race-obsessed, only the obsessed are the white Liberals and their radical Black allies. Their extremism needs to be opposed in a constructive fashion by whites. Immigration, Miscegenation and anti-discrimination laws are zero-sum-gains, in which whites lose, continually. The media, churches, education, and government, and even big business, have arrayed themselves for a “growth agenda”; they don’t care whose country Virginia or America’s is, so long as they have new customers, clients, and tax serfs to draw on. What we need is the removal of all racial laws that penalize whites and end to propaganda against whites. If not, we will have no peace or stability. But I will not “celebrate” our defeat, but will peacefully work against those who seek to harm us. If that is “racism,” then make the most of it. Here I stand, I can do no other.

  7. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    re: injecting race

    sorry – there is evidence in BR. we rail against “gangsta rap”..

    we talk about “genes” being behind student school performance issues…

    we talk about “thugs” rioting in the cities knowing full well that we’re
    not talking about “diversity” in the riots.

    I think anyone who thinks we don’t have these issues is just in denial.

    I also take issue with the idea that “all “liberal” anti-poverty programs have failed”.

    that’s just flat wrong. it’s an all or nothing way of looking at things.

    the problem we have is that poverty arises from a lack of education – and yet we blame parents with terrible educations themselves – as a result of Jim Crow era discrimination – like Massive Resistance – we blame the folks who were victimized by those policies for not educating their own offspring – which in turn – continues the cycle of poverty when those kids also grow up without good educations and have kids themselves.

    the big problem here is – do you walk away because what we do has not resolved the problem?

    the “we have failed” people – like Jim – walk right up to the line – but stop short of openly advocating that we walk away because we cannot fix it – or worse that we cut regulations and taxes or give unaccountable vouchers to non-public schools .. ..

    If SNAP or TItle 1 do not work – at all – 0% of the time – then fine dump them but don’t essentially misrepresent partial success as 100% failure like the critics seem to want to do . If something works 50% then build on it. If you want to trash it – then find something else that you are willing to have judged in the same way you used to trash something else – if 50% is a fail – then use that standard consistently across the board for ALL suggested “better” ways.

    Don’t engage in bogus and just plain wrong-headed speech and ideas… just propaganda, and really, downright disinformation from people who already are opposed to the fundamental CONCEPT of trying to help poverty in the first place. People who have zero interest in it working in the first place. People who would have us live in Baltimore-like 3rd world conditions in ALL of our cities with poverty issues.

    I’m not opposed to dropped what clearly does not work – but when we have folks saying we should drop Head Start and Title 1 – AT THE SAME TIME – they offer no other replacements – other than things not proven to work – and no support of instrumenting them so we can measure if they do work – then what are we accomplishing?

    if you seriously do not believe in the concept of trying to do something about poverty in the first place – please kindly make that disclosure at the front of your dialogue – don’t be deceptive and pretend you do support it but not anything done so far.. and offer no real alternative you’re not willing to be judged by the same standards you decided that current efforts have “failed”.

    grump!

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    some folks want us to try things that have not been tried anywhere on the planet … not as pilot programs instrumented to prove themselves but as massive changes to the existing system – on the premise that the existed – well instrumented system is a massive failure if it is not 100% effective .. and has flaws.

    the leap of faith is breathtaking in it’s logic.

    but it’s par for the course for the opponents these days.

    either the problems are fixed – or we have a massive failure – and we replace it with something of which there is no practical examples on the planet …

    this is how these folks would govern?

    no thanks.

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