HAD REPORTERS TAKIN' PICTURES OF HER WALKIN' OUT OF CENTRAL HIGH

On September 4, 1957, Elizabeth Eckford and eight other Black students showed up for the first day of classes at Little Rock’s Central High School.  That’s her in the forefront of the photo that accompanies this post. 

Central High had previously been all-white, and quite a few of the white locals wanted to keep it that way.  Some of them turned out to protest “race mixing,” as they called it.  Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus was on their side, and called out the national guard to keep Black students from entering the building.  President Eisenhower wasn’t thrilled about what he had to do, but he knew what his responsibility was.  He federalized the Arkansas National Guard, and sent the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to make sure that the school was integrated as peacefully as possible.

In the meantime, though, that photo (taken by Wil Counts) had become famous, and much of the attention was focused on the young white woman behind Eckford, the one with the open mouth.  Her name was Hazel Bryan.  She was yelling the N-word and “Go back to Africa.”  Her parents were freaked out by the sudden notoriety and pulled Hazel out of school.  She soon got married and began a family.  As time passed, and the Civil Rights movement picked up momentum, she began to pay attention to the words of Martin Luther King Jr.  She came to regret what she’d done.  What’s more, she apologized to Eckford, and eventually became something of a peace activist and social worker. 

I wonder whether the Branch Covidians who have been protesting pandemic closure orders will have a similar “come to Jesus” moment at some point.  Most of them probably believe that they’ve already come to Jesus – one woman at the protest in Austin claimed she didn’t need a mask or other protective equipment because she was “covered in the blood of Jesus.” 

The rage of the Arkansas segregationists was genuine, albeit misguided.  I’m not so sure about the MAGA “liberators.”  These demonstrations did not spring up spontaneously.  The bat signal went out from someone connected to the DeVos family, and Fox News helped spread the news.  In Michigan, the demonstrators were egged on by Republican state legislators – none of whom attended the demonstration in person.  I’m sure they sent plenty of thoughts and prayers, though. 

I don’t doubt these protestors are pissed off about a lot of things, but it’s also obvious that they enjoy being pissed off.  I’ll bet a lot of them are preppers who’ve been hoarding food and weapons in their underground bunkers.  You might think that they’d relish the chance to put all that planning to use.  Nah.  Turns out they were just owning the Libs.    

They fought valiantly in the Bowling Green Massacre and drove back Obama’s hordes in Operation Jade Helm.  But against what their Dear Leader is now calling the Invisible Enemy, they developed an acute need to mingle.  Maybe it’s just me, but screaming and cursing because they can’t get their hair colored, or buy a rose bush seems a wee bit over the top.  There’s a strong performative element not far beneath the surface, like a toddler throwing a tantrum and checking periodically to see if his parents are paying attention.  I’d advise them to be a bit more circumspect when photographers are around.  There’s something about a face contorted with rage that doesn’t look good in the history books.

Speaking of history, let’s set the Wayback Machine to the 1980 presidential campaign, when Ronald Reagan posed the question that arguably won him the presidency:  Are you better off now than you were four years ago?  In one form or another, that question is at the heart of the 2020 election. 

You might think that Donald Trump’s fans would have a tough time answering in the affirmative, but the MAGA cult is a helluva drug.  Unless and until there’s a mass die-off in Red States, the Deplorables will hang in there.

What’s weird to me is that every poll I’ve seen indicates overwhelming support for sheltering in place, and disapproval of the MAGA protestors.  Trump is doubling down on the Big Lie principle – lie big and  lie often.  Keep repeating the lie, and sooner or later, some folks will buy it.  Maybe even enough of them to swing the presidential election.   

Here is a tale of two democracies, South Korea and the United States.  South Korea is smaller, of course, both in terms of population and area.  By the numbers, they have 52 million people, compared to 331 million for the U.S.  The U.S. has almost seven times the population of South Korea, in other words.  So all things being equal, you’d expect the COVID-19 data to be roughly proportional. 

Spoiler alert:  it’s not.  Apparently, all things are not equal.

What might account for the difference?  Could it be experienced leadership?  I’m writing this on April 20.  Three months ago, on January 20, Donald Trump had been president exactly three years.  The new South Korean Premier Chung Sye-kyun had been in office less than a week.  That would seem to give the United States an advantage in experience.  (OK, stop laughing.)

A month later, on February 20, neither the United States nor South Korea had suffered any deaths from COVID-19.  But the two democracies had already embarked upon divergent paths, although it took a while for the results to come in.  On March 20, South Korea reported a total of 100 fatalities from COVID-19 while the U.S. reported 150.  We looked pretty good in comparison, given the population discrepancy between the two countries. 

But the virus moves through the population silently at first, and the March 20 numbers were the tip of the iceberg. 

South Korea had launched an aggressive campaign of testing, treatment, and social isolation.  Meanwhile, back in the land of the free and the home of the brave, Donald Trump tried happy talk.  He denied there was a problem and did essentially nothing to stop the virus during those fateful weeks. 

As of April 20, South Korea had 236 fatalities.  American fatalities now exceed 40,000 and still climbing fast.  Maybe happy talk wasn’t a great idea.  

Republicans wish that they could point to some X factor that would explain why there have been so few South Korean fatalities.  It can’t be population density, since South Korea’s population density is much higher than ours.  That ought to drive the contagion up, not down.  It didn’t.  OK, what about some sort of racial immunity?  That’s an interesting question, because race does seem to be a factor in the lethality of the virus.  Sadly for those floating this theory, though, according to U.S. data, Asian Americans have a higher COVID-19 fatality rate than white Americans. 

It looks to me like South Korea’s secret was that they didn’t waste time blaming China, or political opponents, or local authorities.  They followed the advice of their public health experts. 

Meanwhile, back in the states, Donald Trump did an end run around Ivanka’s Imperial Council to Make America Open Again with a series of tweets encouraging his followers to “LIBERATE” their states.  As he put it in his Sunday press conference, "It was hard to get it aroused and it is hard to get it aroused but we got it aroused."

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp was certainly aroused.  Kemp fired the opening shots in the war against the Invisible Enemy, announcing an aggressive reopening campaign.  Florida and the rest of Dixie won’t be far behind.

I fear that these actions are premature, but for my part, I’m willing to let the “heritage not hate” people be the guinea pigs.  I want to see what the death toll looks like on May 20.