White Supremacy And Inequality
Hat tip to BuzzFeed for three very good articles. From The Intercept, a statue of the first KKK Wizard:
Forrest The Butcher
As President Donald Trump gave his tacit support to white supremacists on TV, Memphians returned to a place they had been protesting for years: the large bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/02/memphis-wants-to-remove-statue-honor...
From Salon:
What is the online equivalent of a burning cross?
Since July 2017, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a civil rights nonprofit founded at the suggestion of President John F. Kennedy, had been trying to focus tech companies’ attention on the violent and hateful content on Stormfront.
The argument the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and its allies made was that “Stormfront crossed the line of permissible speech and incited and promoted violence,” the group’s executive director told the Guardian.
An example of a more subtle racist site, martinlutherking.org. The summary:
If Americans are serious about wanting to dismantle white supremacy (and this remains an open question), then we are going to have to learn to see burning crosses in our midst, and seriously confront how this destructive set of ideas is part of the fabric of our culture.
But if we want a society that respects human rights and rejects white supremacy, we can begin, in my view, by refusing to grant platforms for harmful ideas, on white nationalist websites and in monuments to the Confederacy.
http://www.salon.com/2017/09/02/what-is-the-online-equivalent-of-a-burni...
Another Salon article on Inequality:
A tale of two literary Americas: What a brilliant anthology on inequality accidentally reveals about inequality
Literary America is also a country of haves and have-nots, of those with born with access and those without, of systemic obstacles that some can overcome with luck and desire and some, no matter how much they desire, can’t. It is as much of a pure meritocracy as any other America, and deserves the same scrutiny.
http://www.salon.com/2017/09/02/tales-of-inequality-new-anthology-on-cla...
And an article from Talking Points Memo about a group advocating Violent White Supremacy:
Neo-Confederate Group That Was Out In Force In C’ville Embraces Violent Turn
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/florida-league-of-south-violent-t...
Trump has revealed a dark side of America I did not know was so widespread.
Comments
I agree with Coretta
She is attributed with saying - the color isn't black or white, the color is green.
I've been involved with the civil rights movement my entire life. I'm convinced the way to deal with it is with economics. Lifting people of all colors out of poverty will solve many of the racial problems. Race is the issue TPTB use to drive a wedge to keep people (especially poor people) from uniting to work for a better life. In fact I suspect the CIA had a hand in organizing and fomenting the C-ville encounter.
Black lives do matter, and we have imprisoned so many. We have a racists culture that is blind to its bias. Give people a decent education and a good job and it is much harder to create hate.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Mass Incarceration
and right to work laws must end. Prison Abolition and collective bargaining are both key issues that can be unifying issues, but require a lot of patient, persistent education.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Amen brother!
Alabama is one of the worst. There is a effort though
http://freealabamamovement.com/index.html
Bryan Stevenson and the Justice Initiative also work in Alabama (located in Montgomery)
https://eji.org/
Also in Montgomery is the Southern Poverty Law Center who does some great work around these (and other hate) issues. https://www.splcenter.org/
Alabama needs these organization, but it still isn't enough. My initial premise is we have to create and economic system that gives people a chance...and that doesn't exist here in Alabama.
I know the battle is uphill especially in this part of the world, but I speak out and work for justice knowing we'll not get there...but maybe we can bend the arc toward justice.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
California Is #1!
in Mass Incarceration. Very long, strange story how that happened. Actually, Texas may have taken a small lead because of court ordered reductions to over crowding.
Here's a diary I did on Prison Abolition last month with a few links:
https://caucus99percent.com/content/prison-abolition
This link to Prison Legal News was flawed:
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Most people but not highest percent
That honor (well disgrace) goes to LA
https://smartasset.com/mortgage/which-states-put-the-most-people-in-prison
The south is number one!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Kudos
To Buzzfeed and Salon for taking a journalistic stand by reporting on white supremacy in our militarized police force where the inequality and brutalization is much more equivalent to a burning cross thrust into your front yard than a website you have to choose to go and read to be outraged.
Oh, what's that you say? Buzzfeed and Salon reported on the MSM approved statue outrage? My mistake.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Nobody's Perfect
I dunno. Does the plaque on the KKK statue celebrate racist victories or what? I'd like to think these statues could be used as educational lessons, but I don't see that happening.
Looks like a local control issue to me. No biggie either way.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I'd still like to see the proposal argued properly.
Perhaps its opening salvo would look like this: "Statues of Confederate traitors should NOT be put in museums, with accompanying plaques explaining their accurate roles in history, because..."
"the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters" -- Antonio Gramsci
Yes!
Pull down the statues, and our problems are over!
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
Nobody's arguing that.
But the straw man must be immortal if it's so necessary to kill him over and over again.
"the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters" -- Antonio Gramsci
You clearly missed the point...
about unintended consequences.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
When Mnuchin said they weren't going to put Tubman on the $20
My first thought was they want Nathan Bedford Forrest...
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "
White supremacist are so half assed.
If we're going to do supremacy right, let's outlaw anyone with less than 120 IQ from having children, regardless of skin color. That way, within 3 generations everyone in America will have 120 or better IQs.
How 'bout it White supremacists? Wanna up the ante? What are you afraid of?
Can't cut the mustard?
(Crickets)
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
They've Been Wading Around
in the shallow end of the I.Q. Gene Pool for so long that anyone in triple digits is a genius.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
idiocracy
You mean you don't want:
[video:https://youtu.be/YwZ0ZUy7P3E]
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
That is so hilarious
I've got to watch the whole thing sometime.
Thanks for the preview.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
While doing my genealogy, one of the most exciting findings was the discovery that my great-great grandfather served in the Union Illinois Cavalry 6th Regiment and fought against Nathan Bedford Forrest and his men throughout Tennessee and Mississippi. It gives me some peace when I read of these white supremacists.