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:
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?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.
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:
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!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.
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/
And this: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.
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.