The Sheldon Whitehouse Beach Club Controversy

[RDCanecutter 26447]

13 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

To be fair, are there any black people in Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations?

RI was one of those Take Rum to Africa, Bring Back People colonies, though they probably took most of them to sugar cane islands and such. But random googling tells me that back in olden days they had the highest percentage of Black people of all New England, something like 6%.

Which is what we call a White county around here.

[TwiceHorn 31489]

40 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

also, let's out all senators and representatives that are members of exclusive all-white clubs. should be educational.

I think actually talking about it could be really effective.  I'm going to assume that Whitehouse brought up diversity to the club board or the president.  And was met with "we'll look into it."  And it was blown off and never followed up.

Talk about it enough, and it won't get blown off:  the club itself will be embarrassed, as will its influential members.  Letting people quietly resign from their clubs (or quietly stay members) is probably the least effective way to deal with it.  The point not being to embarrass or impeach or indict the particular official, per se, but to embarrass the whole lot of them into changing.

And yeah, who cares about a bunch of crusty old white folks.  But they need to be reached on this just like Cletus in College Station needs to be reached on this.

Like MLK said, sorta, the enemy is not white people per se, it's complacency and comfort in the minds of white people on the issue of race.  I'm terribly guilty of it myself.

Edited June 25, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

RI was one of those Take Rum to Africa, Bring Back People colonies, though they probably took most of them to sugar cane islands and such. But random googling tells me that back in olden days they had the highest percentage of Black people of all New England, something like 6%.

Which is what we call a White county around here.

They even named their posh school Brown. 

[C-Man 27230]

4 hours ago, DonkeyCigars said:

Agreed. But it's the history and implicit racism vis-a-vis "exclusivity" that I don't think you are considering (and which is a similar theme to these beach clubs). Here is a referesher:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/sports/golf/lee-elder-masters-augusta-national.html

Rob Manfred and his Augusta membership has always been an odd comparison. Augusta has black members and also has women. Manfred wasn't a member when the club integrated in 1990 and very likely wasn't before it admitted its first female members. So WGAF?

[Beau Vine 54246]

7 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, there's a certain irony in the fact that many or even most black people of the "wealth and standing" to join such clubs would probably be very reluctant to do so.

They don't want to be tokens.  They don't want to be such an obvious minority.  They worry about culture fit even though they think they're well "assimilated."

They also don't swim.  

I'll see myself out:

Edited June 25, 2021 by Beau Vine