Time to Play "Name the Guv"

Here's a little quiz. What former governor's collection of quotes includes "She walks well, she looks good. Let's see how she kisses." Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good guess and I can't verify that he never said it, but that line is officially attributed to Strom Thurmond, famed segregationist, one-time presidential candidate, and long-time U.S. Senator. The context of the statement is beyond the reaches of a simple Google search, but Thurmond, like Arnie, never wasted an opportunity for a laugh. That's not all they had in common though, and I'm not talking about the lucrative career Thurmond had in Hollywood as a high-salaried swashbuckler before he went into politics (okay, not true). I'm also not talking about the extra care it took to decipher their respective versions of English. Nor am talking about the fact they are (were) both Republicans. I'm talking about their sordid family affairs. Not knowing the current appropriate term for love child (bender baby? progeny of indiscretion? Daddy's little secret?), I will just go with love child of which Schwarzenegger and Thurmond both had - one apiece, that we know of so far.
Strom Thurmond's daughter Essie Mae Washington-Williams


Both men fathered extra-marital children with domestic servants working in their homes. Both men had the child-producing congress outside their race, reflecting figurative cases of jungle fever (if that term is appropriate for liaisons of white people with Latino as well as black people). Both men one-upped Thomas Jefferson by making sure their l'il illegitimacies were provided for.


The two unions differed in that Thurmond was not married at the time of his ahem, you know. He was 22 while Miss Carrie Butler was 16. Today we know it as statutory rape and had the races of those involved been reversed at that time, hoo-boy. To me, 22 seems like a long time for a young Southern dandy to be laying around the shack, but perhaps we have discovered just what kept him around so long. I'm not naive, but I am optimistic in hoping the sex was in any way possible, good for Miss Butler, but in the South where black women were traditionally "gifted" to young white men, the best she could probably hope for was that it did not last long.


Another difference is that it took 78 years for Stom's secret to come out. Daughter Essie Mae Washington-Williams waited until after Thurmond's death to reveal who her father was. With Thurmond living to the age of 100, she must have wondered to herself more than a few times "Is this motherfucker gonna outlive me just to keep my mouth shut?"


While Arnold's political career is dead, he is not. He opted to take control of the story before a more nefarious reveal was made. That nefarious reveal was reportedly going to be done by the mother of the child in question. Mildred Baena had no interest in taking the secret of her affair to her grave. She was ready to come forward and it put Schwarzenegger in the difficult position of having to go public first. But in doing so he has also given himself the luxury of knowing when his temporary penance begins (now). He will have an imaginary scarlet letter on his chest for a year or so, but eventually it will fade after which time he can get on with making movies. When those movies disappoint at the box office he will have a handy excuse: "The people, they have not gotten on with the forgiveness and these kind of things."


If one were to stack the historical significance of the two events against each other I would put more weight on the story of Thurmond's daughter. It could be the history buff in me that finds the older story more intriguing. It could also be that the idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger boning anyone these days is nauseating. Yet, Latin Americans may find the Schwarzenegger story just as captivating given the "tradition" of sex between Hispanic servants and their employers. What may strike some people as juicy celebrity gossip to some may strike others as another case of abuse of position, but who knows. As disturbing as it may seem, maybe Ms. Mildred Baena had a taste for some of that flab strudel. However the secret events played out between the two, gossip outlets portray Schwarzenegger as having done the right thing every step of the way - with the exception of having the affair and hiding the truth from his family. Ms. Baena is said to now be retired a the young age of 50, living in a four-bedroom house with a pool. Not too shabby.


Both cases are far from the worst case scenarios. While visits with her father were infrequent, Washington-Williams had a relationship with Thurmond who by scant accounts expressed pride and joy in his black daughter. After her father paid her way through college, Washington-Williams went on to become a professional educator, wife, mother, and grandmother. Terminator Jr. should be at least as fortunate.

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