Harry Golden of the Carolina Israelite, One of a Kind

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nycfan said:
Carry on with as much consideration and civility as you all can spare.
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mood GIF
 
superrific said:
All right, since y'all motherfuckers are doing it this way, I will say expressly what I had hoped would be implied.

What, exactly, do you think a "vertical negro" is? Perhaps if you already know the man's identity, you know. But otherwise, a "vertical negro" sounds like a black man hanging dead in a noose. I'm sure y'all have read or heard the type of language that the lynch mobs would use. "Vertical" would be a likely euphemism.

So here I am looking at the board, and a thread pops up with "Harry Golden And The Vertical Negro Plan." That sounds like a terror campaign involving public lynchings. And I don't think that image, of vertical negros, is something that our board should broadcast. So I kindly asked for a thread title change after realizing that wasn't what was discussed.

One would think that self-styled progressives would be care about the implications of their posts, and not do this MAGA "fuck your feelings" thing. But apparently not. So now live with the fact that you created a fucking thread that looks to all the world like a discussion of hanging black men dead from a tree. And I shouldn't have had to recount the gory details to get that done.

So GFY every single one of you geezers calling me out about this. Forget the acronym. GO. FUCK. YOURSELVES. AND. YOUR. RACIST. MOTHERFUCKING. LYNCHING. BULLSHIT.
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Interesting that you chose mcadoo’s post to illustrate your point rather than this post from super which was WAY more over the line.
 
PS — I do agree with Super that the thread title needed changing — I understand that those who read the thread and/or regularly engage with Padre would not have taken offense, but it is also true that many folks who are not engaged with DB’s posts or style could have just skimmed it and rationally assumed the worst.

So again, appreciate the title. It is always reasonable to consider how and why our words can trigger reactions by others. I’m not asking us to constantly self-sensor for the most sensitive in any group, but particularly in a forum like this where it is a co start battle to fend off trolls who want to undermine open discussion with intentionally insulting content, it really helps to limit provocative thread title that can be misconstrued by casual posters. The meat of the discussion in the threads themselves, with critical context, is the better spot to be provocative (within the guardrails of common decency and civility, which I do not mean to imply were violated by the OP in this thread).
 
nycfan said:
PS — I do agree with Super that the thread title needed changing — I understand that those who read the thread and/or regularly engage with Padre would not have taken offense, but it is also true that many folks who are not engaged with DB’s posts or style could have just skimmed it and rationally assumed the worst.
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I don't mean this to be unnecessarily argumentative, but why in the world should the thread title be changed when it was exactly the title of the piece immediately provided in the post and doesn't contain a direct racial slur?

I can understand how folks might see the title and not immediately understand what was to come (I wasn't aware of Golden and did not immediately understand the thread title), but if one gives 3 minutes to reading the OP, they'd understand what it was about shortly and that there's nothing offensive there. Why should things revolve around folks who won't bother taking 3 minutes to educate themselves before jumping to an incorrect conclusion?
 
SnoopRob said:
I don't mean this to be unnecessarily argumentative, but why in the world should the thread title be changed when it was exactly the title of the piece immediately provided in the post and doesn't contain a direct racial slur?

I can understand how folks might see the title and not immediately understand what was to come (I wasn't aware of Golden and did not immediately understand the thread title), but if one gives 3 minutes to reading the OP, they'd understand what it was about shortly and that there's nothing offensive there. Why should things revolve around folks who won't bother taking 3 minutes to educate themselves before jumping to an incorrect conclusion?
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Fair points. I’ve been busy and am trying to clean up this little hornets nest on the fly.

I will say that seeing that title made me pause but then saw it was DB posting so didn’t worry about it.
 
nycfan said:
Fair points. I’ve been busy and am trying to clean up this little hornets nest on the fly.

I will say that seeing that title made me pause but then saw it was DB posting so didn’t worry about it.
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Thanks for shepherding our community here and for jumping in to discuss the topic.

Hopefully we can figure this out and come out with a better understanding for everyone.
 
Does it make sense to have this thread carry on at this point (I've edited some of the most over the line posts), or should we lock this one up and start again with DB's original post, new topic name and the handful of comments on topic?

Whatever works for you guys.
 
It didn't occur to me that the term vertical negro was a term for a lynched black person. I'd never heard it before but it makes sense and obviously anyone using it in that sense clearly intends to give offensive. When I first read the thread title I thought there might be some blowback just from the word negro being used..
 
LawTig02 wrote on a different thread,
"The history of Jews in the small-town South is fascinating, and in a different time, would be worth a separate thread. Those of us with deep family roots in the Deep South have probably heard stories passed down over generations. I’ve always been troubled by them almost as much as the family stories relating to racial relations. But if you know those stories, comments like this are not at all surprising. Hundreds of small southern towns have stories of the Jews who took advantage of every opportunity to make money off the “good Christians” who were fighting the good fight of white supremacy."

My grandfather told me his story of interacting with the Weil Brothers when he was a young man. My grandfather was a very ambitious and hardworking man. While working for others he was always successful. But everytime he struck out on his own, he failed miserably. Once when he was a young married man with a wife and children, he failed miserably and was barely holding on because his wife had a job as a teacher and her salary was paying the rent and keeping a little food on the table. My grandfather owed a lot of money to an older man in my home town. The Weil brothers approached my grandfather and offered him a deal. If he would agree to exchange his debt to the old man for debt to them, then they would forgive $1.00 of debt to the old man for every $0.50 of debt my grandfather assumed to him.

The Weil Brothers were willing to take 50 cents on the dollar to switch the debt from an old man to a young man. The catch was my grandfather had to convince the old man to take the deal. My grandfather saw this as a golden chance and went to the old man and tried to sell it.

The old man exploded at my grandfather. He told my grandfather not to worry about who he owed money to but to worry about the debt my grandfather owed him. And the old man finished up by reminding my grandfather his next payment was due and if he didn't make he, his wife and his children, including my father, would be living on the street and begging for food.

My grandfather said he went home a beaten man and cried on his wife's shoulder. As they were getting ready for bed, they heard a knock on the front door. It was the old man. He told my grandfather the deal the Weil Brothers had offered him was good for both of them and that he should tell the Weil Brothers that he would agree.

My grandfather did, the papers were signed, and the debt transferred. And to guarantee repayment of the debt, the Weil Brothers stepped up and provided a reference for my grandfather in his pending job with W. R. Grace Agricultural Chemicals. My grandfather worked for W.R Grace for 30 years and the Weil Fertilizer and Agricultural Chemical Company was one of his best customers. He paid off his debt to the Weil Brothers early and they remained one of his best customers for the rest of his career.

My grandfather had a very positive view of Jewish business practices.
 
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hedge said:
It didn't occur to me that the term vertical negro was a term for a lynched black person. I'd never heard it before but it makes sense and obviously anyone using it in that sense clearly intends to give offensive. When I first read the thread title I thought there might be some blowback just from the word negro being used..
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I did a quick Google search on the term "vertical negro" when super raised his objection and essentially found 2 things...

- This story by Golden
- Household objects which are black and intended to used in a vertical manner

I don't think "vertical negro" inherently means a lynched black person anywhere outside of super's imagination.
 
donbosco said:
More about Harry Golden: "In this episode I talk to writer Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett about her book “Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights“; the first comprehensive biography of Jewish American writer and humorist Harry Golden."

Podcast, "How To Ruin Dinner,": Episode #4: Harry Golden the Carolina Israelite: A Conversation with Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett – How to Ruin Dinner
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Interesting. Learned a couple things about him I would not have guessed. Thx.
 
Just an aside for the record. I recently edited a book of readings and a number of them used the word "Negro" in their titles and/or text. They were all primary sources, historic in their timeliness and timelessness as well. The book included the following footnote (always modified slightly given the particular source). The following is for Arturo Schomberg's 1925 publication, "The Negro Digs Up His Past."

Arthur A. Schomburg (Arturo Schomburg), "The Negro Digs Up His Past" (1925)

"Schomburg uses the term “Negro” to refer to his own African American communities as was a prevalent practice within and outside of Black communities from the nineteenth to mid- twentieth centuries. The term “negro” should not be confused with the derogatory n- word. Likewise another term used during the same timeframe, “colored,” is outdated and should not be confused with the current usage of “person of color.” Words reflecting African American and Black communities’ preferences for self- identification continue to shift in meaning and connotation over time."

My co-editor and I composed that note.
 
donbosco said:
Just an aside for the record. I recently edited a book of readings and a number of them used the word "Negro" in their titles and/or text. They were all primary sources, historic in their timeliness and timelessness as well. The book included the following footnote (always modified slightly given the particular source). The following is for Arturo Schomberg's 1925 publication, "The Negro Digs Up His Past."

Arthur A. Schomburg (Arturo Schomburg), "The Negro Digs Up His Past" (1925)

"Schomburg uses the term “Negro” to refer to his own African American communities as was a prevalent practice within and outside of Black communities from the nineteenth to mid- twentieth centuries. The term “negro” should not be confused with the derogatory n- word. Likewise another term used during the same timeframe, “colored,” is outdated and should not be confused with the current usage of “person of color.” Words reflecting African American and Black communities’ preferences for self- identification continue to shift in meaning and connotation over time."

My co-editor and I composed that note.
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Did you and your co-editor run that by superific for final approval?
 
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