I have Located Ward Connerly NYT bio info - re Repeal of race preference programs: Effects on Asians and public reactions

[Barksdale, Yvette]

This post also did not go through  -  if duplicate please ignore.

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-----Original Message-----
From: Barksdale, Yvette 
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 9:06 PM
To: 'davidebernstein at aol.com'; nebraskalawprof at yahoo.com;
conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: Ward Connerly bio info - re Repeal of race preference
programs: Effects on Asians and public reactions 

 

Hi all, 

 

I have located the New York Times article re Connerly. The article  is a
fairly extensive biography of Ward Connerly from July 27, 1997. 1997
WLNR 4822986.

 

o   Re ancestry - The NYT quoted Connerly as saying the following: 

 

""One drop of blood does it," he said, reviewing the computation: 25
percent black plus 37.5 percent Irish plus 25 percent French plus 12.5
percent Choctaw equals 100 percent black. "I suppose I could claim to be
Irish, but who wants to stand there and argue the point every time? So
I'm black." 

 

The grandmother is listed as part European, Indian and Cajun. However,
this mixture, I don't think is unusual for Louisiana.  

 

o   The article also discusses his grandmothers bigotry:  The article
states: 

 

"Ms. Stansberry and another cousin, Grace Haynes, go much further,
saying that Ward Connerly was reared by an out-and-out bigot, that their
late grandmother was openly scornful of black people, including those
married to five of her six children.

 

"Maybe that's why Ward decided to be as much of a white boy as he
could," Ms. Stansberry said. "That's the way he was, you know. We'd play
cowboys and Indians. He was always the cowboy and we had to turn up
dead."

 

She said Mr. Connerly had tried to create his own past. "Isn't that what
this campaign against affirmative action is all about, so Wardell can
bring down black people and forget his own blackness?" she asked.

 

Ms. Haynes agreed with these comments, adding that her grandmother
freely used slurs like "jigaboo" and "baboon."  Family members also
recalled these verbal slights and worse. 

 

Yvonne Soniea, Grace Haynes's elderly mother and Ward Connerly's aunt,
refused several requests for an interview before finally answering some
questions. Old wounds left by her mother-in-law's barbed tongue still
hurt. In the telling, she broke down inconsolably. " I never wanted
others in the family  to know these things," she said. " These were
secrets." 

 

Her mother-in-law, Yvonne Soniea said, tried to prevent her from
marrying into the family. "I'm not dark, but I'm definitely
African-American," Yvonne said. "She told me I'd have black babies and
she didn't want them around."

 

I was very  incorrect though about his "upper-class" heritage. His
family was definitely working class to poor.  

 

And, I will have to stop posting based upon memory - which obviously is
decreasing rapidly with age.  ( I will certainly in the future qualify
any unchecked assertions as "I believe" :-)

 

 

Ciao, 

yb

 

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Professor Yvette M. Barksdale

The John Marshall Law School

315 S. Plymouth Ct. 

Chicago, IL 60604

(312) 427-2737 (phone)

(312) 427-9974 (fax)

 

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-----Original Message-----
From: davidebernstein at aol.com [mailto:davidebernstein at aol.com] 
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 8:05 PM
To: Barksdale, Yvette; nebraskalawprof at yahoo.com;
conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Repeal of race preference programs: Effects on Asians and
public reactions

 

FWIW, Ward Connerly has only one African American grandparent, is
otherwise of European and Indian ethnic background, and defines himself
as being of multiracial background.

 



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