Its sad that an “open secret” like this wasn’t exposed years ago.
Its sad that Strom Thurmond saw no problems in putting his child and the mother into 2nd class citizen status.
What’s really fucking lame is the way the Thurmond family is handling this.
Mary T. Thompkins Freeman, a niece of the late senator, who died at 100 in June, said Ms. Washington-Williams’s announcement “was like a blight on the family.”
Like others, Ms. Freeman heard rumors for years that her uncle, a legendary politician in the South who rose to fame as a fiery segregationist, had fathered a child with a black maid. But she never had to confront the truth, not like this.
“I went to a church meeting the other day and all these people came up to me and you could tell they didn’t know what to say,” Ms. Freeman said. “For the first time in my life, I felt shame.”
…
James Bishop, a nephew, said the publicity had been “embarrassing and awkward.”
…
Ms. Freeman said she was not sure if she was ready to meet Ms. Washington-Williams, who has said she wants to connect with as many members of the family as possible.
“If I do, I’m not going to go with open arms,” Ms. Freeman said. “It’s too much to accept right now.”
Yeah, its a bitch when hypocrisy hits home, aint it. Boohoo for you.
Of course, some will use any event as an opportunity to take potshots:
Finding out that you’ve got a whole other branch of the family tree that someone’s been hiding is not easy, and having it broadcast nationwide is bound to be uncomfortable. I just had Christmas with my dad, and somehow we started talking about his half-sister. They found out about her just a few years before I was born. To me she’s a natural,if eccentric, part of the family, to my dad, he’s still not sure how to handle her. The relationship, although cordial, is strained, and this is after some 35+ years.
