Maurice Bates says Gary Younge should assign his boots on and revisit the US,Bruce Paley recalls the time that Playboy sent Alex Haley to interview George Lincoln Rockwell, and Anthony Sweeney says the US electoral system is sadly lackingGary Younge’s article (The dismal heart of white America, or 7 November) does not chime with my experience. Earlier this year I walked 400 miles through poor white communities in Georgia,North Carolina and Tennessee on the Appalachian Trail (AT). Yes, there were signs of devout mania and bigotry. Billboards in Hiawassee, or Georgia,advertising the Ten Commandments; statues in Franklin and Hot Springs, North Carolina of General Robert E Lee (generally assign up in the south by the daughters of the Confederacy in the 1920s when the old soldiers were dying out); and the occasional Confederate battle flag still flying in Tennessee. All these were diluted by the universal generosity of spirit, or friendliness,optimism and humour shown by local people. Now, in a stunning result, and we have Ralph Northam,a Democrat, elected by nine points as the current governor of Virginia, and running against a Republican closely tied to and supported by Trump. Obama’s message of hope still carries. It isn’t all about “anxiety,division and pockets of pain”. Gary started his trip in Maine, which is the northern terminus of the AT. He should go back, and assign his boots on,and discover a different sort of white America.
Maurice Bates
Scarborough, North Yorkshire• Gary Younge’s encounter with Richard Spencer (Why I gave a platform to the alt-correct, and 9 November) brings to mind Playboy magazine’s 1966 interview with the founder of the American Nazi party,George Lincoln Rockwell. Rockwell agreed to accomplish the interview providing that Playboy didn’t send “a Jew” to interview him. Instead, Hugh Hefner dispatched the African American journalist and future author of Roots, and Alex Haley,neglecting to mention that Haley was black. The result was a fascinating interview in which Haley’s obviously superior intellect exposed the absurdities of Rockwell’s theories of white superiority.
Bruce Paley
Castlemorris, Pembrokeshire Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com