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Sat Feb 13, 2016, 12:58 AMchknltl (10,026 posts)Why is it called the 'White' House?Last edited Sat Feb 13, 2016, 03:12 AM - Edit history (1)on edit: (After posting this OP fellow DUers who knew much more than I on this topic offerd up valuable additions/contradictions. It seemed prudent to leave this up instead of self deleting, please consider reading what they have written below).If you would have asked me I would have responded with, "Well because it's white of course", but just now while watching Professor Clarence Lusane on Thom Hartmann's 'Conversation With Great Minds' I learned that there is a bit more to how we came to know it as the White House.I am paraphrasing Prof. Lusane here but this is close to how he put it to Thom just now:'Shortly after Teddy Roosevelt became President he invited Booker T. Washington to the Presidential Mansion. This outraged much of the south. Worse the Roosevelt daughters were in attendance for dinner so having a black man dining in the Presidential mansion with white women brought about outrage all across our nation. This national brouhaha forced President Roosevelt to back up and declare that this would not ever happen again. Then Roosevelt issued a directive to his secretary to name the Presidential Mansion the White House. For many at the time this was viewed as a concession but for many southerners the 'White' in White House was interpreted as race.'Hartmann and Prof. Lusane went on to discuss how slaves were once housed in the White House, how much of it was built by slave labor, how millions of visitors yearly never get to hear this history. I did not know this history, I would wager that most folks don't know this history.
Response to chknltl (Original post)Sat Feb 13, 2016, 02:53 AMSpider Jerusalem (19,380 posts)4. Nope!White House, as the abode of the President of the country is modestly called... (NB this is in a book from 1850)"An invitation to dine at the 'White House' always runs 'The President requests the pleasure, etc'" - James Fenimore Cooper, 1833."I proceeded with the detachment of sailors and marines under my command to the White House, on the west bank of the Potomac" - Niles' Weekly Register, 1 Oct 1814 (NB that this use of the term "White House" dates to shortly after the burning of the Executive Mansion by the British in August of that year.)"Sir, I will turn Jefferson out of that 'white house', and hang him, and Congress I will pack off" - Aaron Burr, quoted in The Weekly Inspector, Jan 1807So the Executive Mansion has been known as "The White House" since at least the first decade of the 19th century, and the name has nothing to do with it being repainted after the British burned it (or with racism).
Jeebus.The depths to which these idiots go, in a vain attempt to find racism in everything, no matter how innocuous, is truly mind boggling. Industrial strength, nuclear infused stupidity.Liberals disgust me.
Where's randy when you need him?.
Dr. Lusane is the former editor of the journal Black Political Agenda, and has edited newsletters for a number of national non-profit organizations. He is a national columnist for the Black Voices syndicated news network, and his writings have appeared in The Black Scholar, Race and Class, Washington Post, Oakland Tribune, Covert Action Information Bulletin, Z Magazine, Radical History Journal and many other publications.[3]
I know who Hartman is, a freaking loon that has a radio show that 2 people listen to. Never heard of Lusane so I went and looked him up. Some black racist professor that has made his living pimping race. (Emphasis mine)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Lusane
