“[Huey Long] would tell how patent medicine men used to concoct a mixture to sell to Negroes as a hair-straightener. The makers called it ‘high popalorum’ or ‘low popahirum,’ depending on how they manufactured it. They made the first by tearing the bark of a tree down, and the second by tearing the bark up. When Huey dismissed two political rivals by comparing them to the two compounds, his amused rural listeners knew exactly what he was talking about.� (T. Harry Williams, Huey Long, Vintage 1981)
Yesterday Mark and I had our monthly brunch with David and Gail Noble. As usual there were strong hugs, immense laughter, and the engagement of four quick wits. I'm no historian, but we were sitting before one of the greatest. At the end of our brunch, I asked David to explain how Democrats became Republicans and what was the socioeconomic and political basis of the shift. Luckily the table cloth was made of paper, because by the time David was done, by the time he made his last eloquent elaboration, I had a table full of notes, which I proceeded to rip off and run away with. From what I understand, and David confirmed this, race was at the root of every economic strategy, every political shift, every social refusal or "offering." Maybe at some point I'll share his arguments and all that he discussed in response to my query, but for now I want to offer a video of a man whose name David repeated every time he began to discuss the 1930s. David called Huey Long the most radical politician of the '30s.
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Each time I hear Barack Obama or Michelle Obama speak I cry--and I admittedly cry with a combination of joy and fear. My husband says that the moment Obama passes his first neoliberal policy those tears will dry up. But for now, I just want to enjoy the imagining of something different--and I do believe there will be some that's different though how much could change in just four years? Anyway, I want to keep my head on straight as I go through this election. I need to keep those tears in check. As we meander through the financial thievery of the elite and Wall St. and the elite and businessmen of the federal government, as we approach an election that I thought neither I nor my grandchildren would ever see, I want to remind myself of this comparison Huey Long once made--one based on race--between Democrats and Republicans and the thin line between them. Long reminds me that part of my work after the election will need to be finding ways to ensure that the line gets thicker or even better, to ensure that the line, the binaries become unnecessary.
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