Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

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Gadianton
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Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by Gadianton »

Most of us recall the Derek Chauvin thread at Sic et Non, where the apologists in the comment section, the good Latter-Day Saints that they are, worked themselves into a tailspin deriding blacks for "bringing it onto themselves". No doubt that the doctrines of the Church they all have testimonies of make it very easy to believe such things. The desperation ran high: DCP himself upvoted this ignorant comment: "But do you realize that Floyd would not have even encountered Chauvin if he hadn't bought cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill?"

A Highschool course in logic might have helped him and others avoid faulty reasoning of this kind. I mean, had Floyd stayed up all night partying, and slept in one hour longer than he had, he would not have encountered Chauvin either. Well, you know how it is, they'll stop at nothing to support their Church's doctrine that by default, the royal house of Ephraim holds the moral high ground.

But one comment stood out from all the rest as so over-the-top, that not even the other chief apologists dared to upvote it:
Lou Midgley wrote:Many years ago the Midgleys were in Sacramento, California, for the night. We had a reservation at a nice place to sleep, but before we checked in, we though that we would pick up some Dr. Pepper and two sandwiches to eat after we got settled in. So went into something like a convenience store. And we immediately discovered some very rough looking Blacks in it--with guns yet. We were terrified. But immediately in came some Black cops who ordered us to leave, as they began arresting those armed Blacks, who the police called thugs.

Only one other time have I been suddenly terrified by what was taking place. This was in New York City, when we got caught in a street with white police on horses yet chasing and arresting some fleeing young fellows.

When I once directed what was called the BYU Washington Seminar, my wife and I tried to visit Howard University, which is a very fine Black university, with its own stop on the Metro, if I remember correctly. But the place then had a wire fence and guard posts, and one needed papers to enter. We were told that those who worked or studied at Howard University needed to be protected in what was a rough neighborhood around it. It is a very expensive major research university.

We witnessed what was then being called regentrification of neighborhoods. This seemed to us to shift the social problems elsewhere. Our experience with our students was that highly educated Blacks working for the government actually felt more threatened than we did by young rough Black duds. Black stores in Washington D C seemed to be like armed forts then and on half a dozen subsequent visits.
Pretty bizarre that a political science professor would think he can generalize based on a handful of personal experiences like this. Maybe it's a Utah thing? No logic courses taught in Provo High Schools?

Anyway, the part that stuck with me was the claim about Howard University, surrounded by wire fences and guard posts, and special papers required for entry. Now don't get me wrong: I'm not saying there isn't crime in poor neighborhoods or that a school couldn't be threatened by the local neighborhood, but, there is a huge incentive to take rumors such as this at face value. I recall on my mission, you'd encounter the odd story now and again about Mormon elders digging tunnels underground and stealing away pretty girls for polygamist wives. If it supports a prejudice, people will believe the strangest stuff. To protect an entire university by a fence and with guard stations and everything, that's a major outlay. Well, I still didn't think that much of it the first time around.

But then sometime later, there was another comment:
Lou Midgley wrote:My wife and I went camping once somewhere in southern Utah. We met and befriended an MD who worked in an emergency room in one of the large cities in Florida. Why had he come with his wife to Utah for a couple of weeks? Because of how utterly disgusting his work was in Florida. It was the same terrible story of Blacks cutting up or shooting other Blacks. He had to get away from it. It was for him simply terrible night after night trying to patch up Blacks. The Midgleys became friends with this couple and tramped around some places none of which any of us had seen before. We told stories about out lives. Unfortunately I did not then keep a diary. We lost contact with this wonderful couple.

This couple had spent two days in Salt Lake before venturing south. They were treated very well in Salt Lake, and loved their visit to Temple Square. They were a Black couple who had decided to marry and stay married, and also get excellent educations. The fellow told me about Howard University in Washington DC. It is an excellent Black university, which much latter we discovered that a fence and guards were necessary to protect the faculty and students from street Blacks anxious to do more than harmless mischief to this Black couple when approaching or leaving that school.
More of the same thing, and once again the claim about the fences. But there's a real oddity here. I don't generally doubt his story about the couple he claims to have met. But isn't it odd that this couple spent days telling life stories and freely criticized their culture in a way that was satisfying to white folks in Utah, but then, they failed to mention the fences barricading Howard University with the armed guards and passports? I mean, they were throwing it all under the bus, why not shock the Midgley's more by telling them that also? And it's unbelievable that Midgley, having apparently learned about the fences years later, affirms that this couple was in fact in danger by the "street blacks" of the area, and must have been subject to that protection? The fact that he retrofit this new fact onto the story by the couple years prior, suggests that in his mind, this fence was a permanent feature of the school for many years. Talk about a lesson in how tall tales are spun!

Upon reading that the couple weren't the source of the information about the fences when they should have been, I had to call BS.

I've looked into it, and so far I haven't been able to find any evidence that Howard University at one time fortified itself with a fence. However, there is some very interesting fence history with Howard. A neighboring area called LeDroit Park, an upper class white community, fenced itself off in the 1800s from "Howard town" and Howard University. This left a lasting imprint on the community, and is even today is a powerful metaphor for segregation. Here's an interesting note from Howard U. website.

http://www.howard.edu/library/ledroitpark/
LeDroit Park was intended to be an exclusively white neighborhood with a rural atmosphere that would accommodate genteel neighbors who desired easy access to the city. Originally marketed to merchants, professionals, and government workers, the neighborhood was closed in by a wood and iron fence that separated it from the University and a settlement of black citizens name “Howard Town.”

Over time, professors, military brass, congressmen, businessmen and bureaucrats inhabited the development. However, as the 19 th Century drew to a close, the push to integrate the community heightened and the first black resident moved to LeDroit Park in 1893, followed, thereafter, by other professional blacks, including Howard University professors. Eventually, the fences and walls came down, and the LeDroit Park area expanded north to include the area north of “V” Street, NW and the University’s campus.
And this:

http://hunewsservice.com/news/anc-meeti ... d-history/
The meeting continued with a debate about the historical importance of a LeDroit Park homeowners’ fence.

During the meeting, a woman named Andrea Feniak stood up and argued with the homeowner about how the fence disrupted the aesthetic integrity of the historic neighborhood.

On the 400 block of U St NW, a homeowner proposed the construction of a six-foot-tall fence on her property according to Feniak.

“They (the houses) have low metal fences; you don’t get privacy. These folks just bought that corner house for more money than I will ever know in my entire life and I think they didn’t do their research and they want to put a privacy fence 6 foot high basically shutting out the community, changing the face of the enclave,” Feniak said.

In her opinion, a 6-foot tall fence is reminiscent of a time where members of that community would construct tall fences to keep the surrounding area, which included Howard University students, out.


here is a picture of a nothing-of-a-fence getting dealt with at Howard in 1968.

I've found occasional articles in newspapers, nytimes etc., mentioning the fences of old, but I have yet to find anything indicating the modern fortress Midgley speaks of, in print or in pictures. Given the hostility the community has to fences, which spans at least a hundred years, it's hard to believe that the irony of a major fence system with armed guards to protect Howard U. wouldn't have got called at. I mean, at the end of the day, ironic or not, if it's so bad you need a fence then it is what it is -- there clearly have been brushes with violence, but I think, like ole Rusty's plane going down, this would be an item worthy of a news article or a picture. An "associate" of mine who is better at these sort of things than I am, has put in an inquiry with Howard, and maybe they'll respond one of these days. Otherwise if anybody here wants to have a go at it with google, or has one of those old newspaper access passes, I'd be curious what others can dig up about fences and Howard University.
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by kairos »

The closest reason for Howard U fencing would be in the civil rights era and Vietnam protesting time about 1968 and onward when DC found itself going up in smoke and fires set by very angry mostly blacks(civil rights and death of RfK and MLK. Wash post covered all of that in detail.
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by Kishkumen »

I really detest racism. It’s so stupid and harmful. Great work on the history of Howard University, Dean Robbers. It shows all of your usual scholarly acumen and high standards, qualities we would prefer Dr. Midgley would emulate, instead of generating and perpetuating racist folklore.

One of the many ugly truths about slavery is that it is a system of fear in which oppressor and oppressed both learn to fear each other. There can be no real trust in a servile system. Even after the system ends, the fear outlives it for generations, particularly if remnants or new versions of the mechanisms of oppression perpetuate or re-emerge.

In Ancient Rome, where, unfortunately, slavery was a normative institution, masters lived in fear of their slaves, exacting draconian and cruel punishments against them, and concocting fairytales about happy and loyal slaves to calm their own fears. It was an evil system, but I daresay American slavery was much worse. Rome had a system of regular emancipation, freed slaves became full citizens, and slavery was *not* associated with skin color.

I say this not to praise Rome, which deserved no praise on this account, but rather to provide a different perspective on why the American situation is still so bad and deeply entrenched. American society and culture perpetuate structures and attitudes of racism that have their roots in slavery. White people are taught in various subtle ways to fear Black people. Midgley’s folklore is an excellent example of the results. Mormon racial doctrines, vestiges of which live on, are an even more obvious example.
Last edited by Kishkumen on Thu May 06, 2021 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

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street Blacks

Lou, always refusing to hide his light under a bushel.
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by Lem »

Doctor Steuss wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 9:21 pm
street Blacks

Lou, always refusing to hide his light under a bushel.
They were a Black couple who had decided to marry and stay married, and also get excellent educations.
His eye-poppingly judgmental light.
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by Lem »

Maybe I'll have to start a new thread, but since the OP is also posting Midgley's banana-nut stuff, I'll start here:
Once upon a time, my wife and I spent a month visiting four islands in Hawai'i. I liked getting up early and touring the neighborhoods and picking or picking up various wonderful fruits. And also driving the get-away car while forcing my wife to pick up fruit that we saw just going to waste.

In Point Chevalier, which is where we lived when we were in Auckland, New Zealand in 1999-2000, I liked touring around picking up Feijoas that had fallen on grass. I saw this as just making yards a bit more tidy.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 5372853292
Am I reading this right? Is Midgley talking about making his wife trespass and steal fruit from people's yards, because HE decided the owners weren't using it right? Obviously if they needed a getaway car, it wasn't really... uh, appropriate social behavior. In TWO different countries, no less?

You might expect 10 year olds to do this, but adults in their 60s-70s? Really?
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by IHAQ »

Lem wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 9:35 pm
Maybe I'll have to start a new thread, but since the OP is also posting Midgley's banana-nut stuff, I'll start here:
Once upon a time, my wife and I spent a month visiting four islands in Hawai'i. I liked getting up early and touring the neighborhoods and picking or picking up various wonderful fruits. And also driving the get-away car while forcing my wife to pick up fruit that we saw just going to waste.

In Point Chevalier, which is where we lived when we were in Auckland, New Zealand in 1999-2000, I liked touring around picking up Feijoas that had fallen on grass. I saw this as just making yards a bit more tidy.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 5372853292
Am I reading this right? Is Midgley talking about making his wife trespass and steal fruit from people's yards, because HE decided the owners weren't using it right? Obviously if they needed a getaway car, it wasn't really... uh, appropriate social behavior. In TWO different countries, no less?

You might expect 10 year olds to do this, but adults in their 60s-70s? Really?
Yes, he's admitting to stealing fruit. Including when he was serving a mission. And he justified it by judgementally deciding the peoples yards weren't tidy enough.
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by Meadowchik »

Gadianton wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 4:46 am
Most of us recall the Derek Chauvin thread at Sic et Non, where the apologists in the comment section, the good Latter-Day Saints that they are, worked themselves into a tailspin deriding blacks for "bringing it onto themselves". No doubt that the doctrines of the Church they all have testimonies of make it very easy to believe such things. The desperation ran high: DCP himself upvoted this ignorant comment: "But do you realize that Floyd would not have even encountered Chauvin if he hadn't bought cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill?"
That sure is a ghastly game to play. Off the top of my head, I can think of five instances of "if only the person had not done X (insert church-related activity here) then Y (insert permanent injury/death/murder here) would not have happened." (Not to be confused with X caused Y, which is something else.)

What kind of person would want to play such a cruel, ugly game?
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by Doctor Scratch »

A very important post here, Dr. Robbers. I think it's telling that DCP lamented Chavin's life "getting ruined." He--DCP--is supposedly "Mr. Libertarian," and yet here he is, all bummed out that this white "Agent of the State" got convicted for killing a citizen. But it's really not surprising. Midgley has always had a rather appalling, paternalistic attitude towards the Maori, and of course, DCP got into trouble some time ago for telling interracial couples that they should think twice about getting married.

I can't help but wonder if this racism will wind up hurting the Witnesses film's prospects. Perhaps not, since it seems that they've struggled to find theaters outside of the Zion Corridor that are willing to screen it. And to my knowledge, there still hasn't been a single review of the film. Is it really a "big deal" that the film is featured on Apple's page? Maybe. But if it is, it's surely just as big of a deal that the movie still doesn't have any reviews on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB.
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Re: Howard University: a "fenced war zone?"

Post by Kishkumen »

Chauvin ruined his own life. What happened to free agency and responsibility? Did anyone force Chauvin to plant his knee on Floyd for 9 minutes? Did anyone force him to ignore all of the warnings that Floyd was in danger? I don’t get it. Here LDSism is so big on free agency and personal responsibility, yet LDS people are moaning as though Chauvin is some kind of victim of life’s circumstances. Chauvin had plenty of chances and opportunities. He screwed it up all by himself.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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