Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a son of sharecroppers who rose to become one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress and a key figure in the impeachment investigation of President Trump, died on Thursday in Baltimore, his spokeswoman said. He was 68.
His death resulted from “complications concerning longstanding health challenges,” the spokeswoman, Trudy Perkins, said in a statement, without elaborating on the cause.
As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Mr. Cummings, of Maryland, had sweeping power to investigate Mr. Trump and his administration — and he used it.
A critical ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Cummings spent his final months in Congress sparring with the president, calling Mr. Trump’s effort to block congressional lines of inquiry “far worse than Watergate.” He was sued by Mr. Trump as the president tried to keep his business records secret....
In July, after Mr. Cummings attacked President Trump for the conditions seen in immigrant detention centers on the southern border, Mr. Trump struck back, calling the congressman’s district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”
October 17, 2019
Elijah Cummings has died.
From the NYT obituary:
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Another great American success story if you ignore the fact he accumulated an estate worth millions while sucking at the public teat because of his “powerful position” in government. He will now be immortalized by having other expensive objects built with taxpayers’ money named after him, like battleships and post offices and roads. Long live the swamp.
Not giving everything the Democrats want is always worse than Watergate. Dying is a great way to drive that point home. Btw, what's wrong with "sharecroppers?" Would "renters" be as provocative? Is it because they paid the rent with cotton or wheat instead of cash? Would "son of renters" elevate a persons victimhood status?
I didn’t even know he was sick. I’m getting old enough to look at 68 and think, ooh, that’s kinda young.
My two thoughts are, (1) was his illness kept from his constituents? Or did I not know because I don’t live in his district and don’t pay close enough attention? And (2) the administration of the House will not suffer for his absence.
5 references to Trump in the Cummings obituary, I see.
Not good journalism.
RIP
Last night my family lost our matriarch. She was 97 and spent her last day laughing and telling stories with her two daughters. She will be missed...
May he rest in peace.
Horrifying con artist, grifter and race baiter. A colleague of Jesse Jackson and Al Shapton in racism huckstering and ripoffs.
Name a 60s "activist" of any sort who didn't collapse into a malicious thief. I bet you can't.
The Democrats nostalgia for the 60s, amplified endlessly with newly minted "victims of oppression" is the nightmare racket that must be destroyed.
The malign and vicious Marxist ideologies of feminism and gay worship emerged from this nostalgia, along with the completely fabricated history of the oppression of women and gays. One after another, the liars claimed they "were just like blacks under Jim Crow." Thieves and liars, every one of them.
This was a very, very evil man in his public life. Only God knows how to judge him on balance.
Is the NYTs trying to imply that the "complications" that did Cummings in were Trump's doing? All the talk about Trump in an obituary for someone else! Did Elijah do nothing in his 65 years or so before Trump showed up worthy of comment? I suppose there is more to the obit than what is quoted here, but what is quoted here is an insult to taste.
De mortuis nil nisi bucketheadum.
I wonder if his funeral will be like the McCain extravaganza or the Wellstone pep rally?
Well, we are about due for another atrocious Wellstone funeral.
and they say that there's never any Good News!
With apologies to Eric Clapton:
‘And I know they’ll be no more - graft in heaven...’
He might have been a nice guy. Everything you saw was played for the TV audience for evil purposes, though.
Not Tank's favorite person. One of those who did something a long, long time ago, and since then has been a negative force. He did a lot of harm.
He's a lot like John McCain in that way.
@rh
No, he was not a nice guy.
what's wrong with "sharecroppers?" Would "renters" be as provocative? Is it because they paid the rent with cotton or wheat instead of cash?
as Iowan2 can attest; many (most?) farmers in iowa today don't own their land
most pay cash; many, a percentage of the crop (a share?)
In fact, MOST farmers in iowa today rent at least Some of their land
Big Family Farmers==Corporate Farmers==Sharecroppers?
rehajm- I'm so sorry for your loss.
tim maguire said...
I didn’t even know he was sick. I’m getting old enough to look at 68 and think, ooh, that’s kinda young.
Agreed. I'm surprised to hear he was only 68, and I do also find that young to die.
RIP. Prayers for his family.
Sorry, not sorry. Divisive hatred is probably the cause of his death....
Folks who think that the law should provide protections to one group that aren't provided to another are going to have to either change their minds or die before our culture gets back to relative stability. May Cummings RIP.
Citing Democratic Party precedent and a recent House rule change, Pelosi has announced that Cummings will still be recorded as a vote for impeachment should it come to the House floor.
RIP?
I'll say what everyone is thinking: fuck him and good riddance.
Shouting Thomas has a point.
There were many idealistic young people among the activists of the 1960's, but it seems they were not the ones who survived.
Wonder where they went?
My first reaction to the obit was that it was about (a) his being a sharecropper's son, and (b) Trump. Truly, the NY Times is over the top obsessive. The man's life is not about Trump. Everyone else is using the Times obit, so you'll be reading the same lines all day.
I view him as a good man who found his footing living well in the swamp. So did he cease to be good when he found he could make a great living off the people? Not sure the answer to that. But there's a lot of it up there.
68 seems very young to die. That's my sister's age. (And our hostess')
Also, 20+ years is too long for someone to be in Congress though. He should have been replaced long ago. What new ideas/insight did he bring lately?
From the AP obituary: 'Trump responded by criticizing the Democrat’s district as a “rodent-infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” The comments came weeks after Trump drew bipartisan condemnation following his calls for Democratic congresswomen of color to get out of the U.S. “right now,” and go back to their “broken and crime-infested countries.”'
Since everyone above is pilling on, I’ll chip in: One less vote for impeachment.
5 references to Trump in the Cummings obituary, I see.
Not good journalism.
The radio news reports on his death this morning mentioned noting about him other than his reactions to Trump.
These people are mentally ill.
Btw, what's wrong with "sharecroppers?" Would "renters" be as provocative? Is it because they paid the rent with cotton or wheat instead of cash? Would "son of renters" elevate a persons victimhood status?
That you ask this question shows a shocking ignorance of American history. Being a "sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery under a different name.
My initial reaction? Good.
This from someone who felt a twinge of sadness upon hearing that Timothy McVeigh had been put to death. A wasted life
Didn't know Cummings was ill, but I oddly feel no sadness whatsoever
God rest his soul.
Perfect timing for the Dims. New rallying cry: Impeach the bitch was his last dying breath
There is a saying that may apply here with the death of Congressman Cummings of Baltimore.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Recent news has said the streets of Baltimore are dirty and crime ridden.
In short, it’s a hellhole.
The son of sharecroppers rose to notoriety through “public service”, looting those he “served” by enriching himself and those masters he served.
What a guy! What a legacy!
All the headlines I've read make it sound like he died under mysterious circumstances and Trump is involved.
But no, continue reading; he was quite ill. But still makes it sound like he inexplicably died and Trump was involved.
Or was it Trump, after all those horrible, horrible accusations make him sick? Did Trump finish him off?
This is what Trump Derangement Syndrome looks like. What has Trump got to do with any of this?!
Probably a lot of stress with his job trying to smear, oops I mean conduct an impeachment investigation.
And Trump highlighting the deplorable condition of his district did not help.
Freder Frederson said...
Btw, what's wrong with "sharecroppers?" Would "renters" be as provocative? Is it because they paid the rent with cotton or wheat instead of cash? Would "son of renters" elevate a persons victimhood status?
That you ask this question shows a shocking ignorance of American history. Being a "sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery under a different name
So, my maternal grandparents were slaves? They raised 5 children during the Great Depression while being sharecroppers. The kids helped on the farm, so I guess that means my mother was also a slave. Does that qualify me for reparations?
< i >. Being a "sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery under a different name.< /i >
Please enlighten us! Oh, wait.....you can’t!!
"Being a "sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery under a different name."
NYT obituary would be more accurate if it reported: "Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a son of slaves who rose to become one of the most powerful Democrats..."?
Frankly I prefer the obituary focus on Trump.
It spares us weeks of KKK photos and being told white people are inherently deplorable.
Wow. That's sad. 68 seems really young for someone who seemed fine every time I saw him on TV.
He may have been a civil rights icon, but I remember him for as the disgusting liar he became.
After the passage of Obamacare, Congressional Democrats took a victory lap, marching to the Capital with Pelosi leading the way with her comically large gavel. Tea Party protestor were present. Lewis LIED and said racial epithets were hurled at him and he was "spat upon".
They were NEVER able to prove any of that happened. Even though EVERYTHING is on video tape.
He crapped away his legacy at that point, for cheap political points. Disgusting.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/01/15/john-lewis-false-racism-hero-partisan/
I’m sure the Dems are already fundraising off his death.
Cause of death seems to be an area of secrecy. In a previous health challenge, in 2017 he had a surgery on his aortic valve and then suffered a surgery-related infection. Born in Baltimore - which many do not realize is a farming center but which contains an hitherto unknown agricultural area in which his parents were sharecroppers. In a similar geographic mystery, he represented a wealthy Baltimore area which included John Hopkins but did not include the rat-infested, crime-ridden area in which Johns Hopkins is sited. At any rate he stated that such an area did not exist and so certainly did not represent it. In Congress his main achievement was sponsoring the law which said that Secretaries of State and others must preserve electronic, as well as written, communications. Here too in his Congressional career, a mysterious area existed such that flagrant disregard of the law, even disregard of his own records law, could not be committed by one person of his own party while he found himself unable to believe that another person in another party was not guilty of something which his committee would find somewhere, sometime if allowed enough subpoenas. He loved fishing and leaves behind a grieving committee.
Perhaps it were those who learned to "go along to get along" who survived?
Will it be another Paul Wellstone/John McCain funeral?
I've thought he looked unwell for some time. The incidence of hypertension and type II diabetes in overweight African American men is very high, so its likely this was cardiovascular instead of something sinister. I'll not speak ill of the dead but much of what he's said in recent years just sounded stupid. The leaves open the question of whether he himself was stupid - probably not, his constituents were stupid - debatable, or his staff just kept handing an ill old man stupid things to say.
Some combination I suppose.
Well, we shall all be called to account one day. He's probably watching with trepidation the scales swinging back and forth to a decision. One day it will be you and I. Bank up some Good Place points when and where you can.
I have translated a number of Norwegian bygdebøker ("community (history)books") and arrangements very similar, if not identical, to "sharecropping" have been very common through the centuries. Yet I have never seen any such "sharecroppers" referred to as "slaves."
It is just a natural financial arrangement where there are landowners with land to rent and poor people needing land to farm, but no money to pay rents.
That you ask this question shows a shocking ignorance of American history. Being a "sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery under a different name.
Freder once again shows us how arrogant he is in his utter ignorance a perfect modern day Leftist.
My Norwegian grandfather was a sharecropper in Wisconsin until he could get the money together to buy his own acreage.
"He was sued by Mr. Trump as the president tried to keep his business records secret...."
Secret. Not "private" or "confidential," but secret. There must be something bad in there. More is manipulated by the choice of modifiers than anything else.
He was sued by Mr. Trump as the president tried to keep his business records secret...
The accurate term is confidential.
Being a "sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery under a different name.
Today the word is adjunct.
Why wasn’t he Speaker?
He's race baiting in heaven now.
Following the old adage my Mother used to tell me.
If you can't say anything nice about someone just say nothing at all .............................................................................................................................................
The Dems will probably add killing Cummings to their list of impeachable offenses.
Trump is right about Baltimore. Twenty years ago, it was safe enough to come in from the BWI airport on the light-rail, walk the main drag (Pratt St.) between the hotels, Camden Yards and the Inner Harbor area into the evening. I wouldn't do it any more based on what I read.
"I'll say what everyone is thinking: fuck him and good riddance."
You don't know what I'm thinking.
Jim Crow does not equal slavery. Once legal title to a person was broken, that person could leave. And they left for the North by the millions. That is not slavery.
Freder, why do you insist on speaking out with such phony authority, on stuff you have no understanding?
Share cropper. A person that provides all the labor, and half the cash inputs, to produce a crop. In return, that person receives half the production. (There are infinite variations inside that definition, and my job was to split the inputs and settle the grain at harvest for all of them)
+95% of all Iowa farmers today use this arrangement on a large percentage of the acres they operate.
The reason? Profit per acre is variable, but you're doing good if you can generate $50-$100 per acre. 1000 acres=$50,000 per year. Land owners rent, are share crop acres, using owned land to cost average land costs, and to spread fixed overhead over a larger acreage base, thus reducing per acre equipment costs. A $500,000 combine needs a lot of acres to justify ownership
There are "share croppers" that have died with estates in the millions, never owning land.
There are farmers that have lost everything, that were given a farm. Like everthying, some people aren't very good businessmen.
"On Thursday morning, Trump tweeted his “warmest condolences to the family and many friends of Congressman Elijah Cummings. I got to see first hand the strength, passion and wisdom of this highly respected political leader.” His brief tweet made no reference to their past feuds."
Proving Trump is a bigger man than his media critics. But we knew that.
Mama said don't say anything.
I met him several times since I work in Baltimore. This is me not saying anything at all.
Look, folks, Freder is merely regurgitating what he learned in class. A professor told him that! With tenure! It must be true.
A this point he’s got the credential, but not yet the education. Maybe things will change some day.
I saw him give one of the commencement addresses at Goucher College about 10 years ago. He gave a good talk - I was pleasantly surprised he did not grind any racial or liberal axes. He did way better than the billionaire airhead who preceded him.
AP story this morning said "Trump told Congressional women of color" to go back to their countries. Talk about in the tank for the Dems- I wondered if the AP writer, Brian White, is a member of a downtrodden group i.e. gay or black or Latinx or all of the above?
Peggy Noonan on Elijah Cummings, commenting on the February hearings where Michael Cohen testified: (Wall Street Journal, subscription: https://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-cohen-makes-history-11551397848)
We close with Mr. Cummings, in his 23rd year in the House. He put a fair-minded face on the hearing. His closing remarks were powerful and humane, and seemed targeted not only at Mr. Cohen but perhaps at the newer members of Congress.
We are here to improve our democracy, he said.
To Mr. Cohen: “If I hear you correctly, it sounds like you’re crying out for a new normal—for us getting back to normal. Sounds to me like you want to make sure our democracy stays intact.”
Then, more broadly: “The one meeting I had with the president, I said, ‘The greatest gift we can give to our children is making sure we give them a democracy that is better than the one we came upon.’ ” He hoped all of us can get “the democracy we want,” and pass it on to our children, “so they can do better than we did.”
Amen.
Thank you MayBee...
68 seems really young for someone to have participated in any kind of Civil Rights Fight in the 1960's!
Trump has class. I don't.
“My warmest condolences to the family and many friends of Congressman Elijah Cummings. I got to see first hand the strength, passion and wisdom of this highly respected political leader. His work and voice on so many fronts will be very hard, if not impossible, to replace!” Trump said.
"5 references to Trump in the Cummings obituary, I see"
There he goes again. making everything about him.
I'm sorry that you all deliberately misinterpreted my post (I will give you the benefit of the doubt and not conclude you are all total morons)
I thought it was clear from the context that the sharecropping I was referring to was the black sharecropper system as it developed after the Civil War in the states of the former Confederacy. To tell me that, "oh sharecropping in Norway or Iowa isn't anything like slavery" is just ignoring my point, and frankly, makes you look stupid.
I do not want to give my progeny a better democracy. I wish to preserve the republic that was carefully crafted to keep power from consolidating to make me a serf.
I want my progeny to be free citizens.
So thank you Carter Wood, for drawing my attention to one more thing about which Elijah Cummings was wrong. Dead wrong.
"68 seems very young to die. That's my sister's age. (And our hostess')
Also, 20+ years is too long for someone to be in Congress though. He should have been replaced long ago. What new ideas/insight did he bring lately?"
Scary thing to me there is that I haven't been 68 for a very short time. Days really. More likely from the detested class of 69 (along with Ann and Rush) than my glorious class of 68. In other words, very much an very close age cohort. I don't think of myself as esp old, despite facing being a septegenarian next year. Heck, my next brother, a year younger, is still alpine ski racing.
I know that historically, our age was considered old. And a lot of people couldn't expect to live that long. But following the obituaries in my college news quarterly, my guess is that most of us (maybe even 90%) are still hanging in there, with most of the ones we have lost having been gay (and, thus, most likely succumbing to AIDS).
As for his time in Congress having been too long, he was a Democrat. That is how they operate - power for them in Congress has traditionally been based on seniority (Republicans have imposed term limits on themselves). That is because, they are the socialist/top down party. The purpose for them serving in Congress is for the most part getting rich and exercising power. No one should be surprised that Pelosi, being one of the oldest, is their House leader. A bunch of the younger House Democrats will likely get wiped out next year, and their geriatric core will survive, with much of their turnover being through death.
The NTY put the Trump's bit about the rat infested district in his obit?! People read these things years after someone dies - this doesn't belong in an obit. The NYT has become trashy as well as stupid.
I thought it was clear from the context that the sharecropping I was referring to was the black sharecropper system as it developed after the Civil War in the states of the former Confederacy. To tell me that, "oh sharecropping in Norway or Iowa isn't anything like slavery" is just ignoring my point, and frankly, makes you look stupid.
Actually Freder, it makes you look like a bullshit artist who cannot convey his points in a clear and cogent manner. Maybe thinking before you write will help.
Trump was very complimentary to Cummings in his tweet. But the man was a mediocrity and a partisan hack. Of course, so are most Congressmen.
Poor Freder, once again showing his ignorance.
My grandparents' farm was farmed by a young man and his family. I guess you call them sharecroppers. Alvin grew up on that farm which had been farmed by his father until he bought his own farm nearby. We used to visit when I was a child. It had been homesteaded by my grandmother's parents when it was unbroken prairie. One year my grandfather had Alvin plow up the pasture and plant corn. That pasture was virgin prairie and the corn that summer was 8 feet high.
We never knew they were slaves.
People who think "Sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery, should go read some history. Most sharecroppers in Texas and the South after 1890 were white. Audie Murhpy's family were sharecroppers as were Johnny Cash's. Go read James Agee's book.
No mention of the trial and tribulations (which may end in a trial) of Cummings' wife/girlfriend. I forget which. Like John Conyers' wife and Biden's son, the graft seems to attach itself to the close relatives of the politicians.
It was wife.
"Let us now praise famous men" by James agree was about White sharecroppers.
Freder Frederson said...
I'm sorry that you all deliberately misinterpreted my post
Oh! I'm Sorry FrederFredFred!
I Understand it NOW!
Sharecropper, is a dog whistle, that Only You can hear!
I guess that makes you, a son of a bitch?
If you google you'll find a PBS post headlined "Sharcropping was a continuation of Slavery" - that's where the talking point came from. Liberals are such dumb robots.
The statement from Elijah Cummings' office attributed his death to “complications concerning long-standing health challenges," whatever that means. Do you think he died from a rat bite?
iowan2: "Freder, why do you insist on speaking out with such phony authority, on stuff you have no understanding?"
Because its a nice break from all the other times that Freder does understand something and simply chooses to blatantly lie about it anyway, like the Bundy trial results.
Freder Frederson said...
I'm sorry that you all deliberately misinterpreted my post (I will give you the benefit of the doubt and not conclude you are all total morons)
I thought it was clear from the context that the sharecropping I was referring to was the black sharecropper system as it developed after the Civil War in the states of the former Confederacy.
No one is misinterpreting you, you're just ignorant of history.
The sharecropping system that arose in the South after the war affected both Southern Blacks and Whites and developed largely due to Carpetbagging and the excesses of the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction.
I'm crushed./s
Sincere thanks to Death for doing what American voters refuse to do.
Your work is not yet complete, Death.
Freder is as good an example as Inga/Sunsong is/are of Dunning-Kruger Effect.
FredFF, i'm sorry i called your mom a dog; that was mean of me
But, Serious Question?
Your saying that if i farm a field, and split the harvest with the owner: That's SLAVERY
In that case; What were company stores?
I mean, let's say there was a mining company, that paid its workers in script;
and that script was Only redeemable, at the company store;
So that the workers were not Actually Paid; ANYTHING, and after a lifetime of working,
they were MORE in debt than when they started.
Was THAT slavery?? I'm asking for personal reasons (WHERE'S MY REPARATIONS????)
Face palm.
Freder, that’s just embarrassing for you.
Pssst: under your rationale, that’s calling both Darcy and Mr. Bennett slaveholders in “Pride and Prejudice.”
Flag at WH lowered to half mast.
In that case; What were company stores?
I mean, let's say there was a mining company, that paid its workers in script;
and that script was Only redeemable, at the company store;
So that the workers were not Actually Paid; ANYTHING, and after a lifetime of working,
they were MORE in debt than when they started.
Was THAT slavery?? I'm asking for personal reasons (WHERE'S MY REPARATIONS????)
Yes, debt slavery is a form of slavery.
The sharecropping system that arose in the South after the war affected both Southern Blacks and Whites and developed largely due to Carpetbagging and the excesses of the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction.
Even if your description of how sharecropping in the south developed after the Civil War (and it isn't), how does that contradict the point I made?
Pssst: under your rationale, that’s calling both Darcy and Mr. Bennett slaveholders in “Pride and Prejudice.”
Tenant farming in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth century (and even more so in Ireland) was not much removed from slavery. And remember that Russia did not free the serfs until the time of this country's civil war.
I think it's fair to say that Cummings was born into conditions of servitude that were unfair and oppressive. I also think it's fair to observe that for some of his life at least he behaved with courage and integrity.....I don't think his opposition to Trump was his finest moment. I got the impression that he was a hack politician in later life,but he was, nonetheless, one who had shown himself to be a better person than the forces that had shaped him. There are worse people than hack politicians. Or look at those Baltimore Mayors and DA's for really pernicious examples of hack politicians. Cummings would be better served if people remembered him for something other than his late life feud with Trump.
readering: "Flag at WH lowered to half mast."
Just like Hitler would do.
Exactly.
Sharecropping is slavery. Just because someone isn't owned by another, has the right to leave at any time, and has the right to sell one's services to someone else doesn't mean it isn't slavery.
Take this example, you buy a Chik-fil-A franchise. You are required to make the food the way THEY tell you to, you have to use the marketing tools THEY tell you to, your building must look the way THEY want you to, and you can't be open on Sunday because THEY tell you you can't. And you have to split some of the profits with THEM to boot.
This is SLAVERY obviously.
That you idiots don't see that isn't surprising. You probably eat Chik-fil-A all the time. Not me! I won't support SLAVERY! That's why I choose KFC.
I got your six, Field Marshall Freder. Keep on truckin'!
I know you get called 'stupid' all the time, but for all you haters out there I guaranty FMFF doesn't know the meaning of the word.
Your words are wasted on him.
-Steffi Delmonico
Freder said: I thought it was clear from the context that the sharecropping I was referring to was the black sharecropper system as it developed after the Civil War in the states of the former Confederacy.
Then you had better educate yourself. It wasn't a "BLACK" sharecropper system. Blacks were not the only people doing "sharecropping" or Tenant Farming. This system existed throughout the South...and even in the North well before the Civil War.
From my link below....Although the tenant/sharecropping system is usually thought of as a development that occurred after the Civil War, this type of farming existed in antebellum Mississippi, especially in the areas of the state with few slaves or plantations, such as northeast Mississippi.
Not all whites who emigrated to even the poorest parts of Mississippi in the years before the Civil War had the funds to purchase a farm. As a result, most of the men who headed these households worked as tenant farmers or sharecroppers.
White Tenant Farmers were a thing before AND after the Civil War. While not exactly the same thing. The results were similar in that poor people who couldn't own land for various reasons (no money or discrimination) were trapped in a system.
After the Civil War, tenant farming and sharecropping became a way of life for the vast majority of Mississippi farmers. Freed African-American slaves generally had no resources or access to credit to purchase land, and most of Mississippi’s black population that worked in agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries became sharecroppers. With Mississippi’s devastated economy in the years following the Civil War, increasing numbers of white landowning farmers were also reduced to the status of landless farmer.
Contrary to popular uninformed (aka ignorant) opinion. Many if not most people in the South did not own slaves. Were not in a position to own slaves and some who also were opposed to owning slaves on religious basis. Only the wealthy had that ability and while it was lucrative for some people....the holding of slaves was not universal..
I have some ancestors from the South who were never slave owners and some of whom were 'sharecroppers'....even up through the Great Depression. Landless farmers. Many of whom eventually became the reviled Oakies and Arkies (Arkansas version) who fled to California to work on other people's land
People in the north who worked and farmed in similar situations. Tenant farming and working for the "Company Store" don't get the boo hoos and sympathy that they deserve. Screw them and their history because they are White people...Amirite?
Damn!!!....just like math...History is haaaaard.
This death at age 68 with no lengthy illness and no sudden cause of death is covering up something.
Sharecropping spreads risk. If a farmer has a fixed rent payment, in good years he'll do well, but in bad years he can be wiped out. Making the rent contingent on how well the crops do pushes some of that risk onto the landowner, who is probably in a better position to handle it.
I don't doubt that black sharecroppers were among the most oppressed people in America, but American exceptionalism comes into play. Agricultural workers have been the most oppressed people in the world since forever. Black sharecroppers probably had a better deal than rack rent Irish peasants. At any rate, they didn't suffer malnutrition. And, of course, the real champions in the oppression sweepstakes were the workers on Soviet collective farms. They starved to death in the millions....It is the peculiar disability of people like Feder and, maybe, Cummings that they are only capable of recognizing certain colors of oppression in the misery spectrum. There are movies and novels about the duress of black sharecroppers, but the millions who died in the Soviet famines go to unmarked graves. The abandoned pets of Chernobyl have received more a more sympathetic treatment than the dead kulaks......My guess is that the half million slaves in Mauretania live in conditions of greater distress than, say, the citizens of Baltimore. Sadly those slaves are in bondage to brown people and have never attracted much sympathy from people like Cummings or Feder.
"Being a "sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery under a different name."
Share croppers were not sold down the river.
His death resulted from “complications concerning longstanding health challenges
Can these people not just be honest & upfront about anything?! For God's sake, what did the poor man die of? He's a public figure. And the damn reporters, mouthing the line above like it means anything.
As a resident of Maryland who has seen what';s become of Baltimore in my time in MD (since 1980), I think that Baltimore deserved better than Elijah Cummings, but I doubt they will get it.
He has gone on to the other side now, and is beyond our concerns. May God rest his soul.
From the Office of U.S. Representative John R. Lewis: No, goddammit, I'm not the dead one!
“and they say that there's never any Good News!’
Millions would’ve felt the same way had it been Trump who had dropped dead instead.
Debt slavery is slavery.
What if you choose it?
/bites tongue
68 is fairly young; condolences to his family.
Also, Trump was appropriately respectful.
Too bad the NYT can't let go of their dislike of Mr. Trump in the obit!
Just because someone isn't owned by another, has the right to leave at any time,
Although you theoretically have the right to leave anytime, if you owed the landowner money (because he lent you the money for your seed and food until your crop comes in, and each year you are a little deeper in debt), you better make sure that you have crossed the state line before he figures out you are gone. Because the he will contact the police and they will drag you back to pay off your debt (which will be never). That is when sharecropping becomes debt slavery.
Tenant farming and working for the "Company Store" don't get the boo hoos and sympathy that they deserve. Screw them and their history because they are White people...Amirite?
If you think this is my attitude then you are definitely not right. Slavery did indeed harm poor whites too (It is pretty hard to compete in the labor market, when your competition is forced to work for free).
And apparently you missed the point of To Kill a Mockingbird. The Ewells may be poor white trash but at least they are white, and therefore can make up an impossible story (to conceal their own crime) that will condemn an innocent black man to a life in prison.
is just ignoring my point, and frankly, makes you look stupid.
On the contrary. Ignoring your points does the opposite.
so thanx FFF!
You've Conclusively SHOWN, through YOUR LOGIC, that
A) wage slavery is Exactly the same as Slavery, and that there is NO racial component
B) slavery is widespread, and that Blacks should STFU
Thanx FFF, I'm Not Sure, WHY you just spent all your time today proving that
But, you've convinced ME!
What if you choose it?
I can't imagine anyone, except out of ignorance and desperation, would choose debt slavery. Fortunately, in this and most civilized countries, such arrangements are not only null and void, but a criminal offense.
I've read this in the past, and I've seen it a few times today, now I'll say it.
I've never wished a man's death, but I've read some obituaries with great pleasure.
So he had a black nanny?? Did she call him 'Marse John'?
Waiting for Field Marshall Freder to call this slavery...
-Steffi D.
Freder is so ahistoric he does not know about apprenticeships and indentures that were part of the apprentice system.
My cousin used to have a copy of her grandfather's indenture papers. He was a bricklayer apprentice in England. He was indentured as such and came to the US where the man who bought his indenture was a farmer. Instead of having him farm for him,. he rented him out as a bricklayer until the indenture ended. He was the superintendent of bricklayers at a steel mill in Chicago later.
Freder, you keep posting opinions on things you have no knowledge of. That's why we mock you.
Maybe you learned that stuff in college, which means you are one of the miseducated youth. If you are older, do some reading.
Here, read.
That you ask this question shows a shocking ignorance of American history. Being a "sharecropper" was a continuation of slavery under a different name.
Well, there were white sharecroppers, so you should be happy about that, Freder. Also, if you didn't like sharecropping, you were free to leave. So, other than being totally wrong, you're absolutely right. Trust Fritter to understand nothing about freedom.
Tenant farming and working for the "Company Store" don't get the boo hoos and sympathy that they deserve. Screw them and their history because they are White people...Amirite?
Freeder If you think this is my attitude then you are definitely not right. Slavery did indeed harm poor whites too (It is pretty hard to compete in the labor market, when your competition is forced to work for free).
If you think that slavery or oppression is just about Blacks then you are historically ignorant. Slavery in the Americas was not JUST about Black people from Africa. There was a thriving IRISH Slavery trade even before there were such things as Plantations in the South. There was even a later slave trade in Chinese in the Western part of what would become the US.
Slavery didn't just merely harm poor whites. They WERE also slaves.
The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
The Irish Slave Trade _The Forgotten "White" Slaves
The British were determined to turn Ireland Protestant so they purposely set out to decimate the Catholic Irish. Depopulate the Island and replace the Irish in Northern Ireland with Scottish Protestants....who then became the Scots-Irish and are responsible for much of what makes America unique.
Millions of people were "removed" from Ireland and also Wales, Cornwall and other places where they population was considered less than human.
Some of the removed people were Indentured Servants, basically voluntary debt slavery. Often they were tricked into perpetual debt slavery. Others were just out and out sold as slaves.
I suspect that the switch from Irish and other undesirable White people as slaves to African Blacks was due to the irascible rebellious nature of the Irish.
The issue of slavery isn't just Black and White (no pun intended). All Black people are not descended from slaves. Not all White people are descended from slave owners. Some of us are descended from neither. Some are descended from BOTH. Slaves or Slave owners.
So...if we want to acknowledge that a person like Cummings was descended from slaves, had sharecropping in his history.....then we MUST acknowledge that the same is true of some White people too.
Cummings has a history and it should not be hidden. Neither does it elevate him above others. Struggling to overcome the wrongs of the past should be celebrated. HIDING other wrongs because the people affected are not in the favored "victim class" is wrong as well.
History.
"Another man done gone
To the county farm.
Another man done gone."
Enemy of the Republic. Door. Ass. Bang. Buh-bye.
You've Conclusively SHOWN, through YOUR LOGIC, that
A) wage slavery is Exactly the same as Slavery, and that there is NO racial component
B) slavery is widespread, and that Blacks should STFU
You may have concluded this, but you certainly did not arrive at it through my logic. Debt slavery is obviously not "Exactly the same" as chattel slavery, but it is indeed a form of slavery.
"Although you theoretically have the right to leave anytime,"
Your theory is belied by the reality of 6 million people leaving the South, and millions more black Southerners leaving rural areas for cities.
Trey Gowdy @TGowdySC:
Elijah Cummings was one of the most powerful, beautiful & compelling voices in American politics. The power and the beauty came from his authenticity, his conviction, the sincerity with which he held his beliefs. We rarely agreed on political matters.
We never had a cross word outside of a committee room. He had a unique ability to separate the personal from the work. The story of Elijah’s life would benefit everyone, regardless of political ideation.
The obstacles, barriers, and roadblocks he overcame, the external and sometimes internal doubt that whispered in the ear of a young Elijah Cummings. He beat it all. He beat the odds.
He beat the low expectations of that former school employee who told Elijah to abandon the dream of being a lawyer, that he would never become a lawyer, to settle for a job with his hands and not his mind.
Elijah loved telling that story because that school employee wound up being Elijah’s first client as a lawyer. We live in an age where we see people on television a couple of times and we think we know them and what they are about.
It is true Elijah was a proud progressive with a booming, melodious voice who found himself in the middle of most major political stories over the past decade. It is inescapable that be part of his legacy.
But his legacy also includes the path he took to become one of the most powerful political figures of his time. It is a path filled with pain, prejudice, obstacles and doubt that he refused to let stop him. His legacy is perseverance. His legacy is fighting through the pain.
His legacy is making sure there were fewer obstacles for the next Elijah Cummings. His legacy to me, above all else, was his faith. A faith in God that is being rewarded today with no more fights, no more battles, and no more pain.
DBQ. I don't know why you think that your points nullify my point. While many whites were indeed transported without consent, often for a term of life, the major difference between such slavery and the chattel slavery of African Blacks, was that not only were Blacks enslaved but their issue became the property of their owners. It was multi-generational slavery. This also led to the frequent rape of slaves because not only did you get your rocks off but potentially you create another piece of property for yourself.
I remember how the left treated the news that Tony Snow had cancer. Don't expect any sympathy from me for any partisan left-wing hack.
All Black people are not descended from slaves.
The vast majority of Black People in this country (and indeed in the Americas) are indeed descended from slaves. If you are Black in this country and your family has been here since before the mid 1960's, then it is almost all. Even New Orleans, which had more free people of color than anywhere in the U.S. prior to the Civil War (it was easier to gain freedom under Spanish and French rule than English or U.S.), those people were descended from slaves, even if they were never enslaved in the U.S. they were descended from formerly enslaved people in the Caribbean.
The citizens of Baltimore will pay their respects with some extra looting this weekend.
The NYT provided a useful service by using this obituary to remind everyone about (i) how awful the deceased's district is and (ii) how killer Trump's truth-filled insults are.
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