About Me

Jack Kay is a professor of communication at Eastern Michigan University. He studies the power of language.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Mayor Orville Hubbard

In the news, 1978 (just 34 years ago): Orville Hubbard retired after 36 years as mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. According to The Detroit Free Press, January 1, 2012,
Hubbard is best known for his racial bigotry. For example, he twice prevented the construction of large housing developments that would have allowed black residents into Dearborn. (p. 15A)
The article continued:
The city slogan was 'Keep Dearborn clean,' with clean understood to mean white.
The article reported that Dearborn was 0.001% African-American when Hubbard died in 1982. The paper indicated that in 1968 Hubbard told the New York Times:
If you have integration, first you have kids going to school together, then next thing you know, they're grab-assing around, then they're getting married and having half-breed kids. Then, you wind up with a mongrel race. And from what I know of history, that's the end of civilization.
For The Detroit Free Press article, click here.

2 comments:

  1. This is not surprising to hear, however, it is unfortunate that many cities in Michigan and across America still enlist tactics to attempt to "keep their cities clean". For example, Livonia, MI where my grandparents (whom are "white" live and raised their kids has often been known in the past as "The Whitest City In America" and still is one of the whitest cities in America. Redlining although illegal is still apparently used to reject minorities from moving into certain areas.

    The language used by Orville Hubbard definitely invokes fear as a manipulative tool to both minorities and the majority. For instance, Orville Hubbard makes it clear he does not want African-Americans in Dearborn, therefore, letting the African-Americans know to be fearful of trying to reside, pass through, or visit Dearborn. For the "White-Americans" Hubbard poses others to be fearful of the African-Americans because they would taint, disrupt the "safe" atmosphere of Dearborn and tempt people to have interracial relationships, marriages, and children, which Hubbard suggest should not be accepted.

    Unfortunately, people still teach their children, grandchildren, and so forth to be racist and as long as people do that then language to oppress will continue to be used to give racism and prejudice "life".

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  2. Black people are the missing link to evolution, This is one of the
    Reasons why Germans are the master race.


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