Former VP Joe Biden is taking hits from fellow Democrat Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and others for insensitivity in remarks about working with racist Sens. Herman Talmadge (Ga.) and James Eastland (Ms.), both Democrats. Biden said Eastland never called him “boy,” he called him “son.”
That is interpreted by some as Eastland insulted black males but not Biden. “Son” in that context is an insult also. Perhaps Biden was attempting to express that.
In the South referring to a grown man as “son” means “you don’t have my experience and wisdom and should shut up and learn from me.” Think Looney Tunes’ bombastic overweight rooster Foghorn Leghorn who strutted around the barnyard lecturing others in a Southern drawl, calling them “son.” It’s based on a comic Southern politician act from Fred Allen’s 1940s radio show.
Biden should have said something like “I opposed everything Talmadge and Eastland stood for but in Congress you have to work with disgusting people for the good of the country. Eastland never called me ‘boy’, a putdown of black men but he referred to me as ‘son’ which is also an insult.”
He also could have named less reprehensible people he disagreed with but worked alongside. Biden probably chose that duo to make his point because they are extreme.
Biden is right about Talmadge being the meanest guy in the Senate. He and his equally repugnant father, Eugene, are a dark spot in Georgia history for civil rights. Eugene was elected governor four times but died before he could take office for the fourth. Eugene was a Dixiecrat who advocated segregation and white supremacy. Herman was elected governor in a special election in 1948 and to a full term in 1950. He was governor until 1955 and in 1956 was elected to the U.S. Senate. Like his father, Eugene, he also opposed civil rights
As a columnist in Atlanta I was assigned the task of informing readers of the Talmadge legacy with an eye toward defeating him, ending the Talmadge dynasty that went back almost 50 years. Six candidates were in Democratic primary. Talmadge and Lt. Gov. Zell Miller, a got into a runoff with labor, the black community and progressives supporting Miller. Talmadge won the runoff with 58 percent of the vote. After he was weakened in the Democratic primary, we knew he was vulnerable in the general. He lost to Matt Mattingly, a largely unknown IBM salesman from the Georgia coast.
In 1976, Betty Talmadge learned from a TV news report Herman had filed for divorce to end their marriage that started in 1941. In 1978, she ran as a Democrat for Congress in Georgia’s 6thDistrict. She lost. A Republican, Newt Gingrich, won the general. In 1979 she testified against Herman before the Senate Select Committee on Ethics which was investigating improper use of campaign and office money. She said her former husband kept an overcoat in their Washington condo with cash stuffed in the pockets. They dipped into it when they needed cash, she said. She also testified she helped herself from the bulky coat to supplement the $50 weekly allowance her rich husband gave her.
After a series of columns about Herman, we became friends. Mrs. Talmadge called out of the blue and invited me to her place, Lovejoy Plantation built in 1836. “I just put in a pool, Bob.” She had a successful country ham business on the side, wrote cookbooks, and later ran a restaurant out of her home. The pets included Rabbit E. Lee and Assley Wilkes, a donkey. The mansion, which had peacocks strutting about, is thought to be a model for “Twelve Oaks” the fancy plantation house owned by Ashley Wilkes, in “Gone With The Wind.” Tara, that place down the road apiece where Scarlet lived, was a backwoods farm house in Margaret Mitchell’s book.
The New York Times interviewed Mrs. Talmadge after her first cook book was published and asked how this charming Southern woman was able to slaughter pigs. She displayed the humor she was loved for: “Real easy, honey. I just thought ‘you little male chauvinist, you’ and I went to it.”
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