There were originally 8 contestants for Homecoming queen. Top 5 make the court. 3 of the original 8 are African-American. 2 of the top 5.
@JHS I am going to hazard a guess, too, that for years there has been one African American finalist in the homecoming queen derby – supported by the African American greek system – but that this year could be the first ever in which there are two.
Google shows your guess is wrong.
@jonri I don’t know . . . As far as I could tell, Google shows my guess is pretty close to right. There were three or four African American women actually elected homecoming queen from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, but then the rules were changed. Maybe there have been some other years with two African American finalists; maybe there have been some years with none. What point,exactly, were you trying to make? There was still political significance to this particular woman running.
I very much appreciated the background you provided in your post #41. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it missed the point. I’m sure the woman who won the election – the one backed by the mainstream frats – is a perfectly lovely person, but her involvement in suicide prevention seems to date from her boyfriend’s suicide, and her nomination appears to involve as much sympathy as admiration. Lindsay, on the other hand, may have less dramatic personal ties to her chosen charity, but that’s in part because her real “platform” is the integrationist agenda of the organization she helped found and leads, and that succeeded in electing a non-fraternity candidate as head of the student government. That’s actually some pretty impressive engagement and leadership.
There will always be deserving white candidates for anything meaningful. From the standpoint of the dominant culture, decisions like this are never about race. They are about merit, about qualifications, about waiting your turn. From the standpoint of functionally segregated racial minorities, as long as those merits are being judged primarily by whites and recognized primarily in whites, every decision is in large part about race.
“Why is this news?”
I think there are four reasons.
First, because it is so unAmerican to try to keep people from voting for the person of their choice.
Second, because the white controlled “Machine” is feeling threatened enough to decide that they need to work subversively and coercively to stop a young black woman from winning even the most minor election possible.
Third, because it is happening in Alabama. When something like this happens in Alabama, or Mississippi, states with particularly long and ugly histories of racism, people are unsurprisingly more skeptical.
Fourth, the fact that so many people view this as business as usual, and see nothing concerning about the first three points, further raises the attention of some of us. It makes you think that it is possible that perhaps not much has actually changed since reconstruction.
Why is it difficult for many people to see that this would raise attention?
@JHS,
I’m not a fan of things like Homecoming Queen, fraternities and sororities, and/or organizations like “the Machine.” But I think it’s a bit much that you are giving Lindsay credit for her boyfriend’s election as SGA president. I’m sure she was instrumental in getting some of her sisters to vote for him, but I don’t think we can conclude that his election was HER accomplishment. Indeed, I can’t find a single article on Crimson White or professional media that even mentions BLEND as a factor in his election.
The young woman who was elected Homecoming Queen had an impressive list of accomplishments. Your post 61 reads as if she wasn’t involved in the college community at all until her boyfriend died. In fact, she has been a student ambassador for the past 3 years and is president of Capstone Men & Women this year. https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/in/kjkatsafanas That position seems to be a “big deal” at UA. http://cmw.ua.edu/ She was also treasurer of her sorority. She was selected one of the 4 most outstanding sophomore Greeks and one of the four most outstanding junior Greeks. After her boyfriend died, she also got involved in events to publicize mental health services available on campus and to raise money for suicide prevention efforts. Yes, I think her selection may have been in part a sympathy vote—but again I suspect it’s more complex. Sometimes, people are impressed by the way others handle a crisis. So, if students at UA were impressed by how she did something constructive in a time of grief, I think that’s celebrating an achievement.
The fact that Spillers, an African-American, was elected SGA president shows that the Machine can be defeated. Maybe fewer people care who the Homecoming Queen is than who the SGA president is. Or maybe the kind of people who join fraternities and sororities are more likely to care who the HQ is. The turnout was lower. Or maybe the fact that 3 of the 8 candidates for HQ were African-American split the vote. I don’t know.
So what’s my point? My point is that we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Lindsay wasn’t elected HQ because of the color of her skin or because a few sisters in her sorority urged others to vote for the Machine candidate—.or at least to avoid saying they were voting for Lindsay on social media. There are 5 students in the HQ court. Two of the five are African-American. Should we conclude that the vote was racist because the winner wasn’t African-American? Should we conclude that it’s Lindsay’s failure to capture WHITE votes that lead to her defeat? Maybe most African-American students who voted for HQ backed one of the other two African-American candidates.
I don’t know and you don’t know.
Just found an article about this which may be of interest.
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20151010/NEWS/151019952/1291?p=1&tc=pg
Hmmmn, this is what I know: when you conflate the south, politics and a black person, whether at the core or the peripheral, race is tethered to the issue.
@jonri “My point is that we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Lindsay wasn’t elected HQ because of the color of her skin or because a few sisters in her sorority urged others to vote for the Machine candidate—.or at least to avoid saying they were voting for Lindsay on social media.”
You will notice that in my four reasons that this is newsworthy, none of them assert that this was racist. You are right that we don’t know. However, the people who are arguing that this is not news are don’t know that it isn’t. It is clear that it has all the necessary ingredients. I mean, just because white people were lynched too, does not mean that lynchings of black people had nothing to do with them being black.
Sadly, racism may not happen as often or as openly, but it is not dead yet. The facts are that there is a lot being done, especially in Southern states, today to prevent black people from voting. That is disturbing an should get lots of attention paid to it.
I’m not pointin’ any fangers. But I think it coulda been done better. So, how 'bout, no bags this time?-- Django
So “The Machine candidate” won?
Duh. It was a foregone conclusion.
Meanwhile, the article @jonri posted shows that pretty much everyone at the University of Alabama understood that this particular homecoming queen election was not about who had the most winning combination of sugar, spice, and everything nice, but was about who gets to call the shots. Lindsay’s candidacy seems to have been a canny bit of political theater, right up to and including her graciousness in defeat, so vividly documented in the picture that accompanied the article. She ran, she lost, she probably never had a chance to win, and people are falling over themselves trying to gut the power of “the Machine,” including some of its own members. That’s a pretty good achievement, for an also-ran homecoming queen wannabe.
And, for the third or fourth time, it’s NOT about whether the Machine picked a deserving candidate. Of course, its candidate was deserving, was everything a homecoming queen ought to be. Why wouldn’t she be? Why would the Machine not pick a great candidate?
“My point is that we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Lindsay wasn’t elected HQ because of the color of her skin”
We CAN say that the Machine has never supported a black candidate for HQ, and that most of the candidates they support for any office win. Whether that “most” is 66% or 98% of their candidates, I don’t know. But the Machine’s endorsement has immense weight, and it’s a whites-only endorsement so far.
It looks like five out of eight Homecoming Queen candidates were out of state students. These days less than half the student body is in-state. When these out of state students don’t believe in The Machine or racism, that may be a good thing. On the other hand, maybe it is better if they do believe and push back. Will the Machine eventually lose power on campus? That is what I wait and hope to see. This isn’t my state but I am a white southerner and I’m just ashamed.
I am pretty much in awe of Halle Lindsay and wish her all the very best.
adding: and yes, Homecoming Queen is important. It’s political. It’s symbolic.
The Greek system is stronger than ever at Alabama (and many other schools). I doubt the Machine is going anywhere soon.
I note in passing that the winner is, apparently, actually Greek. Perhaps that’s relevant.
Race is inherently mixed up in this kind of situation. It may not be the only factor, or even the most important factor, but given the history and the continuing situation, it matters.
I haven’t been reading the past couple of days, but I think post #61 said it very well, and Hunt - too - in the post just above.
I noted several posts ago, someone defending sororities as being more integrated by saying that you can’t make any judgments from looking at their web pages because they are out of date. Well, their facebook pages are not out of date. They show their pledge class - and I do believe that the numbers of non-whites are no where near the % of the non-white populations at most universities/colleges. Progress is slow. I know that people tout the availability of non-white sororities, but I find that a “separate but equal” kind of argument. Also - how many of the historically non-white sororities have houses and all the trappings that the main stream Greeks have? It is an endlessly debatable topic. Good for Lindsey at any rate! I wish her every success - a brave young woman.