Our Dirty Laundry

Mothers of Massive Resistance: Chapter 1

• Mandy Griffin

Share episode

Hi, this is Mandy Griffin. And I'm Katie Swalwell, and welcome to our Dirty Laundry, stories of white ladies making a mess of things and how we need to clean up our act.

Mandy:

Hi everybody. Hello. How are we

katy:

I am so proud of us. I'm, I'm doing okay.

Mandy:

a row.

katy:

I know. Plus, it's just been so great to see you. I've really, I, I love being able to talk to you every week. I've just been realizing like how I think some of this is like a post 2020 thing, but I, I just feel like I'm getting worse at friendship the older I get, and I don't like that. I feel like I need to

Mandy:

Mine is just due

katy:

figure that out.

Mandy:

where I'm just like, I don't need to know any new people.

katy:

No, I do. Honestly, it didn't even occur to me to think about new friends. I was even just thinking about old friends, like I, I, part of it's just like your kids and work and just, I feel like the last thing on my list that I ever get to is. Friend time. So I feel terrible that I don't, I'm just like not plugged into my friends the same way that I was. And I don't like that. I feel like I need to do a better job of that. so basically I'm gonna start a podcast with all of my other friends, different podcasts because it's a reason to hang out with each other. I don't have any idea what else I would talk about.

Mandy:

Oh gosh. Well we're doing it again.

katy:

I am proud of us.

Mandy:

like very timely and very interesting and so glad that we're talking about it again.

katy:

Me too.

Mandy:

my frustration what are we gonna do about all of this despair? So yeah,

katy:

Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, and we are in the midst of a book club where we're reading Elizabeth mray. I'm missing a name there for her. Gillespie. Thank you. Mothers of Massive Resistance. And we are looking today at chapter one, the Color Line in Virginia, the homegrown production of white supremacy, which sounds. So just spot on. And it made me think of all those tread wives baking bread, you know, like the, the organic version of this. But this was a super, I was laughing because I, we got on to record and I was immediately apologizing to you because I hadn't read the chapter, and then I opened the book and I have notes all throughout this first chapter.

Mandy:

I've reread it a couple of times in the past week, but I had completely forgotten that I had read it, but I had highlights in it as I was

katy:

This is

Mandy:

I

katy:

so concerning.

Mandy:

those highlights was the

katy:

Okay.

Mandy:

So, you know,

katy:

That makes me feel better. I'm gonna be refreshing my memory as we go to, I really should read it several times as well. Well, we were just talking about, we're updating each other on family stuff and just being worried about our own memories is maybe what we should be thinking about

Mandy:

we need to

katy:

anyway.

Mandy:

before we start, I had sent you just last night an Instagram post that I really

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

Well with this too. And I wanted, it's a poem, and I

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

It's a little bit long but

katy:

Great.

Mandy:

I follow called Our Moral Imperative on Instagram. If you look it up, if you're interested or if you wanna reread this later it's a good account. This poem is written by Lyle. Fast. FASS. I have no idea who that is. Didn't have time to look, but it is a good poem and I think it is very applicable to what we're discussing. So I'm gonna read this first.

katy:

Hmm.

Mandy:

Why America Is Like This. Okay?

katy:

Hmm.

Mandy:

You want to understand why America is like this, why Trump happened, why the rot keeps spreading, why cruelty isn't a bug, but a feature. It's not a mystery. It's the oldest story we've never told honestly, and until we face it, we will keep collapsing into darker versions of ourselves. country was not founded on freedom. It was founded on stolen land, cleared by slaughter, and built by stolen people, broken by force. is the foundational transaction. Everything else is decoration. We did not reckon with the genocide of native peoples. We mythologized it. made westerns about it. We named football teams after the dead, we paved over bones and called it destiny. We did not reckon with slavery. We declared it over and then immediately wrote new laws to replace chains with prison bars. never paid for the centuries of free labor. For the children sold for the torture, for the theft of time and breath and lineage. We made a new America, but left the engine intact. The Confederacy lost the war, but won the memory. We let them rewrite history in marble. monuments didn't go up in 1865. They went up in the 1950s, not as remembrance, but as warning. We'd never cleansed the institutions. The racists became sheriffs. Sheriffs became senators and the logic of white supremacy adapted, changing shape, changing code, but never losing its grip. That's why America elects racists, not in spite of our history, but because of it. When the mask slips and the candidate says the quiet part out loud, it doesn't alienate the country. It clarifies it. Trump didn't invent any of this. He just said it without shame. And for millions, that was the fantasy. A man who would take every buried cruelty and wear it like a crown. This is why they're banning books. Why they're rewriting curricula, why the very mention of racism or history now sets off alarms because they know what we'd find if we looked too closely a country terrified of its own reflection. Reparations aren't radical. They're overdue. Truth telling isn't divisive. It's the only way out. if we don't learn from Germany, if we don't enshrine what happened, criminalize its symbols and build laws that make it unrepeatable, then we are telling the future exactly what we're willing to tolerate. Again, America doesn't confront its breaking points. It buries them, calls it pride, wraps it in Anthem and flag. Things don't disappear. They grow back meaner, we are running out of time to break the cycle.

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

our podcast is about.

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

things. They're the

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

They have been enshrined into all of our systems, educational, law, legal, business, all of it. you're willing to take a hard look at that and admit it and do very difficult work of trying to undo that, it, this is what it's become.

katy:

Yeah,

Mandy:

new. It's always been here.

katy:

yeah. especially this time of year when it's the 4th of July and longtime listeners will know. I live in Iowa where Mandy and I met as little, little baby kids. Yes. But, the president was in Iowa right before the 4th of July to give this big speech announcing the plans for the. Nation's big birthday coming up and like all the things going on this year, it is still odd to me that he chose Des Moines for that speech. It's just, it's like, I mean, I'm sure it makes sense in terms of his base and the image he's trying to project. in some ways Iowa probably is the poster child for everything that poem is about. It's the state that has the least native land left, like basically 99% of the tall grass prairie and oak Savannah has been converted to big agricultural farms. So it's interesting that you drive through the state and it's, so much of it is quote countryside, but almost none of it is

Mandy:

countries thing.

katy:

in both sense of the word,

Mandy:

to

katy:

Right. So in some ways it's like, oh yeah, this, this maybe is kind of ground zero in a way for, for white supremacy, settlement, et cetera. But yeah, that, that poem, especially this week, is really important. And I, I agree. I think that is exactly what we're doing with this podcast. when I try to understand my own career as a social studies teacher and then a professor of social studies education, and now someone who's like, you know, still writing books and researching and. Helping schools and districts figure out what it is that we teach young people about who we are. That's the heart of that poem. Like what are the stories we tell about ourselves? Who is the we Even telling the story, like who's us, who's them, all of that. that is like the single motivating force for my entire career. I think that that's what I am most passionate about and so. Disturbed by how far back down the hill, it seems like we've rolled.

Mandy:

Interestingly,

katy:

to,

Mandy:

I feel like this. Helps me in some way have a little more compassion for people are

katy:

mm-hmm.

Mandy:

that, what I would call the opposite side of us, or like the MAGA side, because feel like institutions in this rewriting of history has been so effective.

katy:

Mm.

Mandy:

where people grew up and the culture that they grew up in,

katy:

Mm

Mandy:

stories they heard. How else are

katy:

mm.

Mandy:

they to know that that's not true? Although at

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

think like you have access to the internet in the big wide world and at some point you

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

wake up and recognize

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

But at least from that starting

katy:

Hmm.

Mandy:

this has been. Incredibly

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

indoctrinated into

katy:

Oh, totally. It's been so effective. I mean, it's that line about how the Confederacy lost the war, but won the memory.

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

I was just re-listening to our interview with Hassan Kwame Jefferies, the historian who really focuses us on teaching hard history and has a podcast about it. And he's a professor at the Ohio State University and we, it was such a great conversation. I love talking with him. And he, he was talking about working with college students and teaching them these histories and he said that the. The number one response he gets is that people are angry and they're not angry with him for teaching them this history. They're angry with the other adults in their lives who lied to them. They're angry with their former teachers, they're angry with their parents. And he talked about how moms in particular, he just talked about the fear that they're going to lose their children, and, and he said that what I want people to understand is what the stakes are is that. To participate in these lies and to bring your children up into that means that you are risking, increasingly losing your kids to really radical extremists and people very, very explicitly dedicated to white supremacy and explicitly dedicated to. Pretty awful cruel, authoritarian regimes like that. That's the, he's like, that's the game you're playing. You know, like, I'm not playing that with my kids because like, that's not, no one's coming for my kid. You know? In that way it's this idea that the. Like confronting the lie and making those reparations is honestly just so much easier. Like, do that, you know, like it's, it's just the classic, like it's gonna be painful in this moment, but the benefit is that we can move forward in a healthy healing sort of way.

Mandy:

Yep.

katy:

like constant upkeep of the lie is so. Dangerous and,

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

I mean it, and I honestly, to bring it back to this book that we're reading, this first chapter was that she's gonna focus, I think, on different women each time.

Mandy:

few different women. This chapter is, there are several women in it. not like the main ones that she talks about in the introduction that are kind of

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

But there's a few specific. Women in here whose stories she follows. And the whole, is just very explicit about actual work that went into it being carried out by women. There's this theme of like the men legislate

katy:

mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

on the individual local level.

katy:

It is that song. I love this song and I'm gonna butcher it because I'm not a good singer. And you have to be like an exceptional singer to make this song sound good. And I can't think of who sings it. You'll know. I think it's it. It's called Women's Work. Like, ha ha ha, this Women's Work. Do you know this song I'm talking about?

Mandy:

sure I do.

katy:

It is from the eighties. It's the same song that went viral a couple years ago because it was on Stranger Things like running up that hill. But do you know that song? Oh my God. Don't make me try to sing more because I'm just gonna embarrass myself.

Mandy:

looking up though.

katy:

Kate

Mandy:

Bush.

katy:

Bush. Thank you. it's the most gorgeous song. This women's work. it's so pretty.

Mandy:

we're done.

katy:

we think about women's work so often as being like unappreciated, undervalued because it's providing like. This really essential nurturing and social lubricant. That sounds so gross. But you know, it's like, that's how, when I hear the phrase women's work, that's what I think of is like the unappreciated. Like heartbeat of what's happening in such a positive, like a nurturing, loving sort of way. But this chapter was all about like the very, very dark side of women's work, like the way that these women were, this line that really hit me. This is page 25. The fact that women often had the most access to and knowledge of the places where this racial classification would occur. The bedroom, the birthing room, and the classroom enhanced their alleged genetic proclivity for detecting mixed race individuals. The midwife had to certify race on birth certificates. Jim Crow state policy instructed the white school teacher to report to the school superintendent's office children. She suspected of mixed race heritage. The social worker recorded the racial identities of the families with whom she worked, deciding race. Based on a host of behavioral and hereditary observations, often mixed with a dose of local gossip, the local registrar had to turn in marriage licenses to each state's Bureau of Vital Statistics. The RIA and accompanying Eugenic legislation nationwide created public policies that required enforcement by those with familiar female faces like that. That version of women's work is fucking creepy, you know?

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

And terrifying. The RIA, by the way, is the Racial Integrity Act, which is passed in the 1920s.

Mandy:

was just in Virginia, which if anyone who's listening still lives in Virginia or is from there, I'd be very interested in any of your comments

katy:

Oh, for sure.

Mandy:

about this Virginia background and how it still plays out there. But basically what the Racial Integrity Act said was that individuals seeking marriage or those born after 1912 had to certify their racial identity with local officials It changed the criteria for whiteness be not one drop non-white blood, except

katy:

Yep.

Mandy:

exception, which was anyone who was one 16th Native American could still be classified as white. And that has something to do with like descendants of like Pocahontas, because there's

katy:

That was wild to me. Yes. Like it's okay to be descended from Pocahontas. That honestly, we should just do a whole mini episode on that because, or major episode, because that is like a absolutely, like a whole thing and her life is fascinating and tragic and just, it is bananas. So yes, like if, if you're claiming that connection, like we will, we'll. Stamp that with a stamp of approval that it changed the definition of black from quote, one quarter black blood to quote one 16th black blood. That is, I think that is one of those to the poem that you read that it, that I, I knew kind of in broad strokes, but to see it that specifically in a law, that it made things more race like somehow you took this super racist system and you made it more. Racist and you change the definition

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

what counted as this or that. It's such a great example of how race is a social construct. Like these, the categories of race that we have are not just invented, but they were invented for a reason, which is to sort people so that you can have one group of people justified in their exploitation of another group of people.

Mandy:

Yeah.

katy:

that is the invention of these categories and that was just in, in like honestly, it was a couple years before my grandparents were born, which who? They're still alive. Like this is within a generation. This wasn't like 1687. This is 1924,

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

they crank'em up even higher.

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

Yep.

Mandy:

she uses a term later in the chapter that I thought was and very helpful for really pointing out what this is. And she calls it documentary genocide. She says institutional memory, generational instruction and local prejudices continued the practice of racial segregation and documentary genocide long after the law pronounced it dead. Because you take these backgrounds of people that were very diverse, like this

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

area in Virginia that she talks about in this chapter

katy:

Yes.

Mandy:

Of white colonial settlers, but that came in and they married

katy:

of mixing of families. Right,

Mandy:

people and slaves and all of that. And so they were throughout generations a very like mixed community, and they had

katy:

right.

Mandy:

those different designations and then this law made everyone be reclassified as black or white, and

katy:

And the fact that it came down, honestly to sometimes white women being like, I don't like you. Click, like, then I've, I've sorted you in this way. I've exactly like, you made me mad at church last week. Like the power that they had to. Alter the course of these family's histories based on how they classified people in these very like bureaucratic sort of ways is sickening it. I mean it, I honestly, I know I said I didn't even remember that I read this chapter, but now that we're getting into it, I remember that I was like,

Mandy:

back.

katy:

I was like nauseous, honestly, reading it, there were a couple of other phrases she used that I thought were really. Powerful one was, the ways that white college educated women, which of course this would've been like the first generation really, of white college educated women, would have to participate in the actual cartography of race, like the literal mapping of race. And then later she said white segregation. Women had assumed crucial roles in the domestic production of a white supremacist state gross.

Mandy:

Yeah, and they, the interesting thing is that they had these roles and in this time, they were very well known. People knew their names, they knew their involvement. They were involved in a couple of different groups that we'll talk about in a little bit. But you look back at the written history. mostly erased from it. Like she talks about the first, this woman, she starts it with Margaret Eileen Goodman, who is a registrar in Rockbridge County who had all of this communication back and forth with these people that were involved in this kind of institutionalization of the race categories. Her name not really mentioned though. Anywhere in actual historical writing

katy:

mm-hmm.

Mandy:

Her obituary doesn't even mention that she worked as the local registrar. And then there's these other, this work of these college educated women mostly from Sweet Briar College. there's scrapbooks. She talks about this brief correspondence that they're a part of, but other than that, it's just like letters and census records and small things. There's no written history of this, and she says in the end, this historical selection does valuable work. Rendering invisible the women and daily acts that secured white supremacy.

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

is the myth of a system that persisted with leaders at the center, but without local people in local communities. This writing out of white women's efforts to police the racial order promotes the white supremacist fiction. That segregation was natural and happened without workers.

katy:

Yes. I think it also promotes the fiction that if you just adjust things at the top, then that fixes the situation. Like if we just pass a new law, Or if we just have a better national leader,

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

then that cleans it up. But when you will raise the work that these women were doing, very intentionally, might I add like, let's just name Margaret Eileen Goodman as someone who is not like accidentally doing things or like inadvertently or like unwillingly doing things. She was very committed to making sure that this law. Sorted people into these very rigid categories and when we erase that, like, yes, it seemed, it then allows this myth like, oh, segregation is just the natural state of things that you don't need workers. But it also, for the people fighting white supremacy, I think it. It distracts us by thinking like, oh, if we just get a different law or a different person in power, we'll be better off. It's like, no, there are worker bees everywhere. Very happy to participate in this because they were getting something out of it. Like they had, like, think about the power. She must have felt, I mean, she had it, she had the power and what that must have felt like for her as. You know, a white woman in the 1920s to, to, to like that, that doesn't go away because you have a new president

Mandy:

Yeah.

katy:

you have a new law, you know?

Mandy:

Also what we've talked about, the seductiveness of this power to women who have traditionally been in roles where they didn't have that kind of power.'cause I always wonder like how even if you have that kind of power, you've gotta recognize how ugly it is. Like how do they not see that? But I guess it's just such a stark contrast to the complete lack of ability that women had. Felt politically for a long time, even if their work, you know, as we know, even colonialism back in the 16, 17

katy:

for sure.

Mandy:

they were

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

she does say Goodman's letters pointed to the patriarchal relationships replicated by the state whereby women on the ground implemented policies crafted by male officials earning professional accolades, community authority, and some income. It created zones of racial work. At the same time, it created economic opportunities for many white, middle class women.

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

So.

katy:

Well then, and then the wild thing, this, I was on page 31 where they were talking even about the men who were legislating or, you know, coming up with these rules and laws and then tasking the women with implementing them. just the sexism that is built into that too. It's just such an absolute mess. So this was when, they're talking about the Sweet Briar College students and the Eugenics record office in Cold Springs Harbor, New York. And we've talked about Charles Davenport before when we talked about the eugenics movement.

Mandy:

Yep.

katy:

But he argued that. Women's power of intuition and emotional sensitivity made them more adept at judging and assessing the feeble-minded and detecting bad germ plasm, a supposed biological product of interracial mixing. And I, I wrote in the comments, WTAF race star, like he's basically describing like, oh, those ladies have good race star, basically like.

Mandy:

they talk about that in all of the correspondence they found between these women and this Walter Blecher, who I think was he county recorder?

katy:

Mm. Something like that.

Mandy:

and he was one of the authors, I believe, of the RIA when it was passed. So, all these women would write to him and say. How should we classify such and such a situation? And ask him like, would a blood test help or would this help? And she says, Blecher affirmed that no scientific test could show race. And that race has to be decided upon what can be seen and learned. Puker continued. You and the sheriff and any other intelligent citizen are as capable of judging from the appearance of the child as the most learned scientists.

katy:

It's such garbage. I mean, it's just, wild to me that they can even say yeah, we're making this up. Because I was thinking of oh, what if there had been like genetic testing at this time? You know, where you could really like. Map out exactly who was related to who and whatever, whatever. Like the 23 and me of the 1920s, which I think I have problems with 23 and me, but you know, it's this, it's like it doesn't even matter because that's not the point. That's not the point. It's like we're creating these categories and we have the power to enforce them. the college students that they were bringing in called the. They were called the investigators, and it just made me so mad to think of these like 20-year-old, 19-year-old white girls showing up in these communities. And they would go in with their clip words and, and watch kids and send surveys to school teachers to basically sort kids based on behaviors that they observed. And there was this, I mean, this made me just so mad as a. Former education professor in particular, just thinking about the ways that. These traditions have evolved and not really gone away in terms of teacher education in some ways. But it talks about this one categorization of children. And among the 55 students listed in a chart on capabilities nine students were described as fairly capable, capable, and average. 22 as hopeless, stupid, feeble-minded, and dull. 20 escaped with no added description. And it's like, who the fuck are these women to go in? You know what I mean? Just like absolute just, it enraged me to read that, that these children are being, like, kids are being categorized in these horrible ways based on God knows what, like observations these people think they're making and then that's what's sorting them.

Mandy:

yeah.

katy:

I was

Mandy:

mean, I

katy:

really

Mandy:

'cause

katy:

angry.

Mandy:

somewhat about like the. of public school teachers and white women in particular in that and how deep that goes and still does.

katy:

So deep.

Mandy:

brought that up about like it was public school teachers

katy:

Yep.

Mandy:

to look at these, they talk about in 19,

katy:

Right.

Mandy:

as 1908,

katy:

I.

Mandy:

the Virginia's Board of Charities and Corrections send a survey to public school teachers about quote unquote defectives.

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

Just from the

katy:

Or the book.

Mandy:

to send a survey about call Human beings

katy:

yes. Right.

Mandy:

and they were to mark behaviors that indicated signs of inbreeding in addition to spasms and pilfering. The checklist included carelessness, inance and excessive exaggerations, and I'm like, so kids.

katy:

A child, right? Or like, especially like if you are someone open to completing this survey, you suck as a person. And my guess is this kid doesn't trust or like you

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

and so the, you might observe this kid being a. You know, like sassy to you or not wanting to talk to you. It's like, yeah,'cause you are a bitch. And that kid can tell and that kid doesn't wanna have anything to do with you. Like, that's what's happening. You know, I, the the book in 1926, there was an all this quote, research, let's use that term loosely with regards to this data. Arthur Estabrook and Ivan McDougall published a book called Mongrel Virginians. And that was where they have all of these different racial typologies and classifications and are. Like describing how you can tell like who's defective and who isn't, and just of course it's all racialized and Yeah, when I think then this is the, you know, 1920s, you think about the decision in 1954, the brown versus supportive education decision that says we need to desegregate schools. And the way that most places did it was to shut down all of the schools for children of color and force them to attend white schools. how terrifying that must have been for families when these are the women working in those schools to know that that's where you're sending your kids and there's actually. I'm thinking of a professor I had who is just an incredible scholar, Gloria Ladson Billings. We should read her work at some point for sure. she talks about brown versus board often being lifted up as like this golden standard for civil rights movement, when really it was the biggest mass firing of black teachers in history, and that you had these black children then being forced to attend schools with white teachers who hated them. And who, who thought these things about them. Like it's, it's awful. It's awful.

Mandy:

been reinforced, like

katy:

Yes.

Mandy:

sent these surveys. They were the ones like who were involved in all of this supposed research. They, okay, so she says this part, like the research also helped shape the lives of white females. talking about the Sweet Briar students, but who were, you know, a lot of them became teachers whose observations

katy:

Yes,

Mandy:

as social work

katy:

yes,

Mandy:

like

katy:

yes.

Mandy:

They

katy:

As like facts.

Mandy:

work, and then they

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

Because of their higher education, their training, their work with all of these experts of the day. These were people at universities doing this research. And know, at the, like the eugenics, cold Harbor Springs, I mean, these were all, the Cold Harbor Eugenics office was like a government office. So they carried

katy:

Right.

Mandy:

of this quote unquote legitimacy behind them.

katy:

Well and legitimacy that lingered for so long because she, Elizabeth Gil Gillespie Mare also talks about how even though the law, the Racial Integrity Act, ends up getting repealed in Virginia.

Mandy:

don't

katy:

but she talks about how even in the nineties, 1990s, even in the two thousands, that there were stories about, babies being born in hospitals and the hospital giving the birth mother a birth certificate that classified their baby. And that the, the mother is saying that's not like I reject that classification like this. This didn't go away. At the end of the twenties or the thirties or the forties or the fifties or this, like, it just kept going on and these, it's not that. You know, the specific women that we're talking about were no longer working in those positions, but they had trained the women who were working in those positions. And those logics still, still still stuck. You know, that legitimacy is still stuck. Can we talk about, another woman that gets named in this chapter? Louise Burley from Richmond. I had a lot. Here are my notes. Just from the margins for fuck's sake. Oof. Oh no. Exclamation mark. She's obsessed. Fuck her. Those are the margins that I have for this lady.

Mandy:

I have a lot highlighted in that section about her as well.

katy:

Mm.

Mandy:

was just as a Richmond Virginia resident.

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

I don't know anything else about why she got to the point that she was at. She was just at the center of these white supremacist politics. She was radcliffe educated.

katy:

Yeah,

Mandy:

then

katy:

I think like a wealthy white woman in Richmond with like money to burn and white supremacy to uphold.

Mandy:

and then she met John Powell, who is also a Richmond resident and the 1922 founder of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America. Anytime you're looking at joining a club, first of all, just be suspicious. But if it's named

katy:

I.

Mandy:

if there's a racial classification in the name, let's think twice, but he founded this. And then they put on this festival. Yes.

katy:

Well, they connected over the arts, that they were both really into music and theater and literature I think he was a classical pianist. there was a theater they were trying to bring in and put on plays, that would support the idea that. Anglo-Saxons were the heart of American civilization. they organized the White Top Mountain Folk Festival, which honestly, just that name. I was like, I'd go to that. That sounds good. Like a mountain folk music festival. Okay. But when it's connected to this, oh my God. not just to celebrate Anglo-Saxon. Folk music as quote, America's true music tradition, but actively rejecting black music and musicians as quote, inferior mimicry. It's insane.

Mandy:

Yeah, that's absolute

katy:

That's their music festival.

Mandy:

that's terrible. It's terrible. And then they also worked they collaborated with. These other individuals, so biology professor at University of Virginia and Eugenics, Ivy Lewis, which that name is

katy:

Yes. We've talked about. Yep.

Mandy:

our eugenics thing. Oh, and then this

katy:

Yep.

Mandy:

Ker, who was the state registrar, then I had comments in the margins about this. They also have the support, support of Amy Garvey. was the wife of Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey. And they, the Garvey's advocated racial separatism, which then they felt, gave them legitimacy because

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

had these black nationalists supporting separation. And I wrote in the margin what in the Candace Owens.

katy:

It is wild.

Mandy:

I know we've talked about this and that, you know, racial categories are very fluid and not set. And also the ideologies within those are varied.

katy:

Right,

Mandy:

way of looking at these

katy:

No.

Mandy:

does complicate stuff and it just gives these white supremacists like another thing to hold on to. Even though, so they claimed these black nationalist supporters and fancied themselves more rational and learned counterpart to the KKK. though she says officers, all men who held positions in the Richmond chapter had also all been KKK members.

katy:

Yes, the layers, this is like a shit lasagna because the layers of things are so deep. Like there's sexism, there's classism, like, oh, we're better white supremacists than poor white people. Poor white people. Like your starter group is the K, k, K. But then if, you know, if you really prove yourself, you can work up the ranks to these like. Quote, classier, fancier ways to be a white supremacist. It's all just so gross. And I, I am really curious about that connection with Amy Garvey and the, just thinking about the ways that separatism and segregation or like supremacy aren't all exactly synonymous. And yeah, just, just wanting to dig into that a little bit more because I don't think black nationalism is akin to white nationalism. I think they are different. Ideologies. I, there's like some overlap in some ways, and clearly if these folks, you know, felt like they had some sort of mutual interest, but yeah, that, I thought that was like, Ooh, there's a rabbit hole I wanna go down for sure. this lady was really busy though. Louise Burley was very dedicated to using the arts to support white supremacy. She, Created literature and disseminated it about the potential decline of white civilization. She was a ghost writer for the eugenics books of Realtor Turned World Traveler, Ernest Cox. There's a. Gem, if ever there was one realtor turned world traveler, author of Eugenics books. She was a lobbyist for the Racial Integrity Act. She was an advocate for follow-up legislation that would mandate segregation at all public performances. She wanted to get the Bureau of Vital Statistics expanded so that people could be further policed and anyone who was trying to quote pass could be. Fared it out. She was a member of Virginia's Board of Censors where she policed interracial sexual transgressions in film, which this is where you remember when we were talking to you about the banning like censorship of music and Tipper Gore and like all of that.

Mandy:

Mm-hmm.

katy:

like the women who were the most supposedly pearl clutching appalled, they're watching a lot of stuff and they're listening to, it's like, are you really appalled or is this cover for you to watch?

Mandy:

Yeah.

katy:

films with a whole lot of, you know, interracial sexual transgressions. I, it just is like, wow, you're really spending a whole lot of time on this. And then she, I'm, she's just like the original Karen. It sounds like apologies to all Karen's listening who are not this way, but she would write the leadership of the. The, at Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America when she felt the sensors were, were being too lenient and just like really spending all her time policing all of this so much. and I think just an example of all that labor that the. Men's legislative work relied on to make that legislation effective. She joined the Women's Racial Integrity Club of Richmond. This 43 fancy ladies who would review scientific evidence in quotes that supported eugenics, that they would lobby for governments. They were connected with local classroom teachers. They would. Give talks places, and these are just like fancy ladies again, using the resources that they have to police and enforce white supremacy.

Mandy:

Yeah, and I think, I mean, so Louise and Goodman were like the two major players that she talks about in here.

katy:

Mm-hmm.

Mandy:

right before we wrap this up, I also wanna say like, I think it's important these women's names are used,

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

we do recognize that they were individuals. for me, just as a warning to the white women today who are also playing

katy:

Mm.

Mandy:

bullshit, like your name will be in books. People will read about you later. You should not get away with this, but they talk about the three women from Amherst County, red Cross Worker, Louisa Hubbard. Former Bear Mountain missionary worker, Isabel Wagner and Nurse Ms. Theresa Ambler were women that helped track down the other women who were amenable to the work of doing this classification. they also helped to train the undergraduate women from Sweet Briar College who did this research. Are a few that they named of the seven. Sweet, brighter students that included Gwendolyn Watson, Martha Inger and Eleanor Harid, who earned the title of investigators for their detailed surveys of these families that lived in this area. They recorded things such as size and condition of homes, complexion of children, religious practices, literacy, cleanliness, sexual behaviors, income and work ethic. So are people that, and it takes people. To carry out this work just like it takes people to do it. Now, I think of like all of these ICE raids going on in the communities, challenging

katy:

Right.

Mandy:

workers and

katy:

Yeah.

Mandy:

like, cross over now. Quit your

katy:

Yes,

Mandy:

like

katy:

Don't do this.

Mandy:

you make this work. This will

katy:

We, the machine requires cogs.

Mandy:

Yeah,

katy:

Yes. Don't, don't be a cog, be a wrench. Like get, I cannot stress what you're saying enough. I cannot cosign that enough. Just, it requires the labor of all these people and, and the fact is that I don't doubt. here's my interpretation, is that they get a taste of power and it feels real good to Lord that power over someone, and that has to be part of what's happening right now is that there are people in these positions that are disappearing children and people who have.

Mandy:

citizens

katy:

Citizens. Yes. and it doesn't matter if you're citizen, you should not. this isn't humane. but yes. Even when it's

Mandy:

I'm

katy:

like illegal, according to whatever laws we have,

Mandy:

threat when they are.

katy:

it's appalling. There are other ways to have power and there are other ways to be empowered that actually benefit the collective and help us be a loving, just fair community. This is not the only way to feel like you have power, feel like you matter, and there are people showing up for. Neighbors and friends and family who are being targeted, but not enough. That's for sure. And just thinking about how you used this word before, how seductive it can be to think, well, this is my job and I have to fill out this form and I have to turn in this thing. But it's, that is the banality of evil. Like that is where it all happens. And it, it's, the examples we're reading about are maybe a hundred years ago, but that. Doesn't mean that they don't still happen all the time, every day in hospitals, in classrooms, in government offices that are, you know, the basement of whatever place. Like, and if you are working on those places, like another way to have power is to disobey, to not do it, to not send in the forum or to not do the thing. You don't like that. Use your power in ways that. Protect vulnerable people and, and not uphold white supremacy. I mean, it's just back to the poem

Mandy:

Yep.

katy:

you read at the beginning. Be a wrench, not a cog.

Mandy:

for

katy:

gonna be my, my mantra. Well, I can't wait to read chapter two and then reread it and read it a third time so that I remember that. I've already read it twice. But it looks like it is gonna dive into the world of school teachers, and so I am. Eager to, to do that. But thank you to everybody listening and thank you to everybody reading along and please let us know questions, thoughts, especially if you're living in Virginia, it would be great to hear what people have experienced themselves, what they remember. You know, I'm thinking these women likely have grandchildren who are our age, older, great-grandchildren. How do people negotiate these family legacies? You know, that's a big part of this too.

Mandy:

Yep, for sure. And don't be afraid to. Question things, I guess. Like if you're in some sort of position where you feel like you can or you have the opportunity, like yeah, for sure. That's gonna be our new mantra.

katy:

Fellow wrench.

Mandy:

We'll see you next

katy:

My, my wench.

Mandy:

Oh, I like that.

katy:

I'll see you soon.

Mandy:

Bye.

katy:

Bye.