Haley Barbour pledges to veto license plate honoring KKK leader

[Jagermeister]

FUCK the NAACP!

Mississippi GOP Gov. Haley Barbour on Monday issued his strongest language yet on a state license plate honoring a Ku Klux Klan leader, telling the Associated Press he would not sign the proposal if it reached his desk.

"I said accurately this is not going to happen," the Republican said in an interview. "The bureaucracy denied it, the legislature won't pass it and if the legislature passes it, it won't become law because I won't sign it."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) last week called for Barbour to condemn a proposal to create a license plate honoring Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Klan leader. Barbour refrained from formally disavowing the proposed plate, sparking controversy.


Barbour further inflamed his critics by stating he would not denounce Forrest. "I don't denounce individual people whether they've been dead 100 years or not," the governor said.

Monday's statement marks the first time Barbour has pledged to veto the measure.

The license plate flap is the latest race-related controversy dogging the governor as he mulls a 2012 bid for the presidency. Barbour this month denied he supported amnesty for illegal immigrants and continues to face fallout for suggesting the civil-rights era was "not that bad" in Mississippi during his childhood.


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[chefcraig]

What's the big deal? Move to Florida, and you can get a specialty plate for just about anything. Well, anything except advocating pro-choice. But if you happen to believe the opposite, there's a boat load of 'em.

Florida DMV Specialty License Plates

[jhale667]

FUCK the NAACP!

No, fuck YOU. Even you're not stupid enough to think some asshat of an old-school Klan-bot deserves a license plate, or anything other than a posthumous kick in the ass...newsflash: you can't honor someone who never had any to begin with.

[jhale667]

And for the record, Barbour is a douche.

[Guitar Shark]

Isn't this kind of a non-story though?

[chefcraig]

Isn't this kind of a non-story though?

It would have been informative if the original article bothered to include just who was behind the proposal in the first place. This is just plain old, lazy-assed writing, and provides a slant that is completely out of context, making it appear that some Klan members want to honor some obscure general. This is simply not the case, as can be gleaned from reviewing this more in depth piece from Yahoo/AP.

Miss. license plate proposed to honor KKK leader

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Thu Feb 10, 12:38 pm ET

JACKSON, Miss. – A fight is brewing in Mississippi over a proposal to issue specialty license plates honoring Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to sponsor a series of state-issued license plates to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which it calls the "War Between the States." The group proposes a different design each year between now and 2015, with Forrest slated for 2014.

"Seriously?" state NAACP president Derrick Johnson said when he was told about the Forrest plate. "Wow."

Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war.

Sons of Confederate Veterans member Greg Stewart said he believes Forrest distanced himself from the Klan later in life. It's a point many historians agree upon, though some believe it was too little, too late, because the Klan had already turned violent before Forrest left.

"If Christian redemption means anything — and we all want redemption, I think — he redeemed himself in his own time, in his own actions, in his own words," Stewart said. "We should respect that."

State Department of Revenue spokeswoman Kathy Waterbury said legislators would have to approve a series of Civil War license plates. She said if every group that has a specialty license plate wanted a redesign every year, it would take an inordinate amount of time from Department of Revenue employees who have other duties.

SCV has not decided what the Forrest license plate would look like, Stewart said. Opponents are using their imagination.

A Facebook group called "Mississippians Against The Commemoration Of Grand Wizard Nathan Forrest" features a drawing of a hooded klansman in the center of a regular Mississippi car tag.

Robert McElvaine, director of the history department at the private Millsaps College in Jackson, joined the Facebook group. McElvaine said Forrest's role at Fort Pillow and involvement in the Klan make him unworthy of being honored.

"The idea of celebrating such a person, whatever his accomplishments in other areas may have been, seems like a very poor idea," McElvaine told The Associated Press.

Mississippi lawmakers have shown a decidedly laissez-faire attitude toward allowing a wide variety of groups to have speciality license plates, which usually sell for an extra $30 to $50 a year. The state sells more than 100 specialty plates for everything from wildlife conservation to breast cancer awareness. One design says "God Bless America," another depicts Elvis Presley. Among the biggest sellers are NASCAR designs and one with the slogan "Choose Life."

The Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has had a state-issued specialty license plate since 2003 to raise money for restoration of Civil War-era flags. From 2003 through 2010, the design featured a small Confederate battle flag.

The Department of Revenue allowed the group to revise the license plate this year for the first of the Civil War sesquicentennial designs. The 2011 plate, now on sale, depicts the Beauvoir mansion in Biloxi, Miss., the final home of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president.

SCV wants license plates to feature Civil War battles that took place in Mississippi. It proposes a Battle of Corinth design for 2012 and Siege of Vicksburg design for 2013. Stewart said the 2015 plate would be a tribute to Confederate veterans.

Johnson, with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he's not bothered by Civil War commemorative license plates generally. But he said Mississippi shouldn't honor Forrest, who was an early leader of what he calls "a terrorist group."

"He should be viewed in the same light that we view Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden," Johnson said of Forrest. "The state of Mississippi should deny any vanity tags which would highlight racial hatred in this state."

Democratic Rep. Willie Bailey, who handles license plate requests in the House, said he has no problem with SCV seeking any design it wants.

"If they want a tag commemorating veterans of the Confederacy, I don't have a problem with it," said Bailey, who is black. "They have that right. We'll look at it. As long as it's not offensive to anybody, then they have the same rights as anybody else has."

[Jagermeister]

No, fuck YOU. Even you're not stupid enough to think some asshat of an old-school Klan-bot deserves a license plate, or anything other than a posthumous kick in the ass...newsflash: you can't honor someone who never had any to begin with.

It's obvious enough I posted this to provoke a repsonce.

[sadaist]

Anyone else having Forrest Gump flashbacks to the scene where he is talking about all his male ancestors & how he got his name? All performed by Tom Hanks in period costume.

[Jagermeister]

I think we should write the civial war out of our history. All of it. I think we should write slavery out also. We should just forget that ever happened in our country.

[chefcraig]

I think we should write the civial war out of our history. All of it. I think we should write slavery out also. We should just forget that ever happened in our country.

While we are at it, can we erase the awkwardness I felt as an adolescent, the horrible clothes I wore in the eighties, my first two marriages and the careers of Kenny G. and Michael Bolton?

[kwame k]

Forget the war of Northern aggression........

The south will rise again!

[Jagermeister]

While we are at it, can we erase the awkwardness I felt as an adolescent, the horrible clothes I wore in the eighties, my first two marriages and the careers of Kenny G. and Michael Bolton?

lol two marriages?

[sadaist]

the horrible clothes I wore in the eighties?

I smell a "worst concert t-shirt thread brewing. My entry would be a Ratt "Invasion of your Privacy" shirt that was a gay shade of purple and way too tight. But it had that hot blondie on the front. Conflicted for sure.

my first two marriages

You didn't learn your lesson from the first one? As my grand dad would say "that's your own damn fault". Chefs net worth equation 1/2 - 1/2 = 1/4. At least both times you got to keep the computer.

[chefcraig]

You didn't learn your lesson from the first one? As my grand dad would say "that's your own damn fault". Chefs net worth equation 1/2 - 1/2 = 1/4. At least both times you got to keep the computer.

Nope, first time it was the late 1990s, so we did not have one. The second time, I left with pretty much the clothes on my back.

[FORD]

I think we should write the civial war out of our history. All of it. I think we should write slavery out also. We should just forget that ever happened in our country.

Yeah, and them Jews just need to get over that whole Holocaust thing, right?