Legend: Bigot who demands the local military provide suitable escorts for his teen daughters is given his comeuppance.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002]
President Lyndon B. Johnson once had a reputation for calling on military agencies and demanding special services. The following conversation took place when he called to the Marine Basic School in Quantico, VA: "Good morning, The Basic School, how may I help you?" LBJ: "This is President Johnson. We're hosting a formal get-together at the White House tomorrow night, and I need two lieutenants, tall and good-looking, to serve as escorts for my daughters, and they need to be there at "Yes, sir. Two lieutenants, tall and good-looking, LBJ: "And no damn Mexicans!" (Remember, he was a southerner and a Texan and this was the 60's...) "Right, sir. No damn Mexicans." The next night, at six o'clock, "We're here to escort your daughters, ma'am." "But you're both black. There must be some mistake." "No, ma'am," one of the lieutenants spoke up, "Captain Rodriguez never makes mistakes." |
Origins: This story has been part of the humor canon for decades upon decades, so those encountering it for the first time should not trustingly accept that just because the account they've
been favored with asserts it as a Lyndon Johnson anecdote that it actually is. A version circulating on the Internet in 1993 is an almost word-for-word match to the above, with the exception that it was an "uppity white mom" who insisted upon "no Mexicans!" who was served her comeuppance by that self-same "Sergeant Rodriguez" of the Johnson rendition.
Other versions cast a Jewish officer as the put-upon military man who is imperiously ordered to supply escorts for someone's daughters, so in those accounts it's "Commander Rosenthal," "Major Goldstein," or "Captain Cohen" who sends black officers in response to the "no Jews!" restriction. Likewise, where this has supposedly happened changes from telling to telling
During World War II, a local society leader asked that a few soldiers from a nearby army camp be sent to her home for Thanksgiving dinner, specifying that they do not send any Jews. On schedule, two Negro soldiers arrived at the home. "There must be some mistake," said the embarrassed and disconcerted hostess. "No, there could be no mistake, ma'am," said one of the Negroes. "Major Rabinowitz never makes mistakes."
[Woods, 1967]
The oldest print sighting of this tale hails from 1919. Notice that despite its appearance in a newspaper as a news item, it lacks checkable elements, such as the date of the party, the city in which it was held, and the name of the hostess:
She Barred Irish and Jews: Negroes Sent To Her Dinner Camp Devens, Ayers, Mass. — A woman living in a nearby Massachusetts city notified camp officials that she would be glad to entertain fifty soldiers at her home at Sunday dinner. The only stipulation she made was that there should be no Celts or Hebrews. The fifty men were sent. They were all from the Sunny South — fifty colored troops from the Well, let us be thankful for that. She could have had no more grateful, brave or loyal guests.
[Union, 1919]
A tale lacking the racism element yet displaying facets similar to this legend (i.e., woman reeking of a misplaced sense of entitlement makes demands on local military; compliance is granted but not in the manner envisioned) circulates about Barbra Streisand, a lady long rumored as making excessive demands on those around her:
During the filming of The Prince of Tides, Barbra Streisand apparently didn't endear herself to the locals [of Beaufort, South Carolina]. She rented one of the historic homes and promptly erected a 10-foot-high black fence, to deter the [ . . .] Streisand then complained by phone to the local commanding officer and told him she didn't want it to happen again. He reportedly responded, "I'll see what I can do about it." The next morning the jets roared over at
[McCaslin, 2002]
We don't know if the Streisand story is true, but we can tell you that the "she phoned the local base to complain about the noise of the jets" aspect of it was scuttlebutt common to Beaufort during the filming of Prince of Tides in 1990. Possibly the bit about the
Barbara "what's up doctored" Mikkelson
Last updated: 2 August 2007
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