100 People Who Are REALLY Screwing Up America -- #2 Maurice Bessinger

[Chichiri]

In the 1950s and '60s, Maurice Bessinger was the head honcho of the National Assocation for the Preservation of White People. He was a strong and vocal opponent of desegregation, spoke out loudly against racial mixing, and refused to let blacks into the main dining room of his restaurant. He complains today that people have been treating him unfairly for his racist views. "What the blacks didn't realize," he said in an interview, "was that they got the best food, because their dining room was in the kitchen."

How have the years treated Bessinger? Has he changed his ways since the bad old days? The answer is, not really. He's a bit older, a bit more religious, quite a bit more wealthy. He owns a chain of restaurants, Maurice's Piggy Park, that has come to define barbeque in South Carolina -- and outside his restaurants you will invariably find the Confederate flag, proudly waving in the wind.

If you aren't already repulsed enough to turn back and find an Arby's, and actually set foot inside the restaurant, you will find a variety of religious tracts for sale. One of them, entitled "Biblical View of Slavery," argues that slavery is not evil because it is permitted in the Bible. The tract states, in part, "Don't let anyone try to load you with guilt and say you need to make reparations for what your forefathers did. No! What our forefathers did was not evil in and of itself." It also argues that African slaves actually felt happy and blessed to be slaves, and they were sad when slavery was abolished, because they were happy to be beaten and spat upon and removed from their families, etc.

According to Bessinger, Abe Lincoln was an evil man who issued "illegal" executive orders.

Nevertheless, his barbeque continues to sell very well indeed -- and with every purchase of a bottle of his mustard-based sauce, Bessinger peddles his racist, neo-con wares. The scope of his audience would make many media moguls blush, andthe message is straight out of the Dark Ages.

If you want to hear Bessinger's side of the story, incidentally, stop into his restaurant, or go to his website and click on "Truth Store" to buy a copy of his book, "Defending My Heritage." Just don't read it while eating his world-famous BBQ, unless you have an incredibly strong stomach.

[evil eggplant]

1. Another racist

Racists deserve everything they get. And they should get plenty. I wonder why Minority racists get a free ride so often?

Jesse Jackson calling NYC "Hymie-Town". Jesse got a free pass on that one. I wonder why?

Anti Semitic low-life.

Must be one of those "oppressor/oppressed" things I don't get.

[Cleita]

3. Everybody is a bigot about someone. The idea is to admit it

and then work on it. Our laws, however, should recognize the equality of everyone and that they have equal opportunities to gain happiness and success in life.

[Gabi Hayes]

4. free pass, as in he didn't get lynched? are you kidding, or what?

he got as little a free pass as anybody who's ever gotten caught for making such a horrible statement

how much more publicity could he have gotten from it?

what else could be done about it?

keep him off TV like they do Falwell or Robertson when they spout off their hideous idiocies?

[evil eggplant]

9. No, that's not it. A racist is a racist. Period.

he got as little a free pass as anybody who's ever gotten caught for making such a horrible statement

Really? Who the fuck is Jesse Jackson to call Vicente Fox a racist? Nobody seems to have caught that one. That fact is that Jackson said it. So, he's a racist. period.

how much more publicity could he have gotten from it?

Look at it another way. Why is he still credible?

what else could be done about it?

Jackson does not represent me. I am a Liberal, and proud of it. I will not give a racist a free pass, or allow a racist to stand beside me. Hymietown? In New York City, of all places?

What can be done about it? Lets start by seating Jackson in the Bigot section. We can go on from there.

keep him off TV like they do Falwell or Robertson when they spout off their hideous idiocies?

Not relevant. He wants to go on TV, he can. That's his right. He can do what he wants to do. I just say we recognize him for what he is. A bigot.

[evil eggplant]

10. Black and White only? Where are the midtones?

So, my choices are

1) lynch him
2) embrace him

I'll settle for something in between the two. Like calling him what he is: a racist.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Oy! The schvatzahs, they always get a free ride already!

You'd never catch a shainer member of the synogogue talking mishegoss about schvatzahs that way. Oyf mir gezukht! They should go kakh in zu meer before they do such a kopedreinesh thing!

What could we do? So we forgave Jesseleh already. Right after we gave his chainik a good hokking and plotsched his tookhess good.

As mein Rebbe once told my uncle Yankel, only a nudniklikh shaptzitvinik with a black, black heart would hate a schvatzah.

--p!

Translation:

You'd never catch a devout member of the synogogue talking craziness about black people that way. So help me G-d! They should go poop in the sea before they do such an empty-headed thing!

But, without a reason otherwise, and with time, we forgave Little Jesse. But first we gave his teakettle a good banging (i.e., complained) and struck his buttocks well.

As my Rabbi once told my uncle Yankel, only a stoopid religious turncoat with a black, black heart would hate a black person.

[evil eggplant]

11. A bissell schvartze dreck

Oy, mein got. Ala yagush kish mein tookas. A bissell schvartze dreck.

(Or something like that)

I grew up in Brighton Beach. Brooklyn, NY. When I was there, Brighton was 100% Jewish. I remember seeing people with numbers tatooed on their arms. I remember asking my mom what the numbers meant. When I asked her, she started crying.

Jackson is a low-life racist.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Why is Bussinger defaming Lincoln?

After all, as any (and nearly every) Republican can tell you, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, which makes it perfectly okay for the Boy-King to have his USA-PATRIOT act.

Yes, indeedy, there were a lot of happy slaves in the South. But there were far more who lived in appalling conditions -- and the economy of the South came to depend on slavery for its existence. Even worse, the lawmakers in the South never had the guts to just plain abolish the practice and stop the death spiral they put themselves into.

But it was that city-slickin' whippersnapper Lincoln -- a trial lawyer -- who destroyed everything.

Ri-i-i-i-ight.

At least one thing remains -- good barbecue.

:eyes:

--p!

[NinetySix]

7. Do you like good barbecue?

Leave Maurice's special recipe (mustard, and LOTS OF IT!) behind, and cross the border into North Carolina. Vinegar-base is the best barbecue there is, bar none.

[NinetySix]

6. When Maurice's Piggy Park was integrated by force back in 1964,

he put a sign in his restaurant that went from floor to ceiling and read, in big bold letters:

"THE LAW MAKES US SERVE NIGGERS, BUT EVERY NICKEL WE GET FROM THEM GOES STRAIGHT TO THE KKK"

Nowadays Bessinger even hires blacks, but I've heard tell that whenever there's grunt work to be done (e.g., cutting wood for the pit-fired barbecue, cleaning the grease trap), it's always the black employees who are forced to do it while the white employees mind the store.

Nice guy.

[hfojvt]

8. it is pretty revolting that this guy is still in business

and in my home state, no less.

He definitely belongs on the list, but what about his customers? He seems to have all too many enablers.

[NinetySix]

12. What town are you from?

I just thank God I no longer live in (URK!) Irmo.

[hfojvt]

13. I was barn in Columbia

but we moved in 1964.

[Chichiri]

14. Seriously?

Is there a source on this?

[NinetySix]

15. Here's a link which describes the sign:

http://www.scpronet.com/point/0010/lips.html

As far as the discrepancies between black and white employees, what I've described is commonly known, but I have no link to offer in evidence.

[lonestarnot]

16. I wouldn't eat his shit barbeque or read his fucking book!