Whitewashing the Civil Rights Movement
Very gradually the history of the Civil Rights Movement has been Disneyfied, stripped of its rough edges.
The new retelling of the Civil Rights Movement has the blacks politely asking for their rights, and eventually wearing down white America through moral persistence. Any and all violence that happened at the time is viewed outside of the Civil Rights Movement and was detrimental to it.
This is all bull.
You probably already know about the most obvious example, MLK.
That hated and feared, radical socialist is now Santa Claus + Mother Teresa.
This is so well-known that I won't bother going into it.
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.”
(Dr. King, 1967)
"Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice."
From Why We Can't Wait, 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the finishing touch of civil rights legislation and it was all because of Democrats.
Or not.
18 southern Democratic Senators led a 54-day filibuster.
80% of House Republicans voted for it versus 61% of House Democrats, while in the Senate 82% of Senate Republicans voted yes versus 69% of Senate Democrats.
While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was immensely important, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 were nearly as significant.
The narrative being pushed by the media, and by white liberals in general, is that any violence, even the most modest of violence, will instantly discredit a movement.
The story is that violence never solved anything.
The reality is that violence alone never solved anything.
Violence can sometimes be very useful to an organized movement.
If even the most modest of violence will instantly discredit a movement, then how come the Voting Rights Act was passed after the Harlem Riots of 1964?
If it's important to ask TPTB nicely, then how come the Voting Rights Act was passed after the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party embarrassed the Democrats?
An even more striking example was the Civil Rights Act of 1968 being signed into law during the King assassination riots. According to the media, those riots should have stopped the Act from becoming law.
Another series of civil disturbances followed, including one in Washington, D.C., that required the President to call out the National Guard and impose a night-time curfew. The crisis in race relations in our country forced Congress to come to grips with these tensions.
The Rules Committee, jolted by the repeated civil disturbances virtually outside its door,finally ended its hearings on April 8. The next day, it reported to the full House a rule for debate that agreed to the Senate amendments, including the compromise fair housing title,and prohibited any additional amendments.
The following day, April 10, the House debated for one hour the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and passed it 250–71. The very next day, President Johnson signed the bill into law.
All it took was nationwide riots to force the political establishment to act.
The opposite of what we are being told today.
I have one last example to give from 1967.
The Detroit riot left 43 dead and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed, but it also got white people's attention.
State and local governments responded to the riot with a dramatic increase in minority hiring.
However, the big changes were in housing rights.
The governor publicly warned that if the housing measures were not passed, "it will accelerate the recruitment of revolutionary insurrectionists." He urged "meaningful fair housing legislation" as "the single most important step the legislature can take to avert disorder in our cities." This time the laws passed both houses of the legislature. The Michigan Historical Review wrote that:The Michigan Fair Housing Act, which took effect on Nov 15, 1968, was stronger than the federal fair housing law ... and than just about all the existing state fair housing acts. It is probably more than a coincidence that the state that had experienced the most severe racial disorder of the 1960s also adopted one of the strongest state fair housing acts.
Instead of riots holding back civil rights progress, the reality is that the violence put pressure on the ruling class to find solutions to end the violence. Those solutions could be found with the parallel non-violent civil rights movement, which ironically actually owed much of its success to that violence.
Comments
This!
Frederick Douglass
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I was thinking of that quote when I wrote this essay
I was also thinking about some labor history
When Dr. Cornel West spoke to Occupy Tallahassee
I was privileged to be there to see, hear, and hug this wonderful man. When Dr. West spoke, he mentioned how Dr. King had been homogenized and sanitized over the years. He then told a story that if Dr. King were still alive, he would have found a way to visit with the great funk master, George Clinton who lives in the area. I loved hearing that story.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@gulfgal98 I am sick & tired of all
I am sick & tired of all the Gandhiwashing.
Kwame Ture (Stokley Carmichael) : "In order for non-violence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none, has none".
More examples:
I would like to smoke my way into the fantasy of Amuricans leaving shamed by Vietnamese people marching, dancing, singing in a well-behaved way. Instead of royally handing our sorry asses on a platter thru violent resistance ( -do- Afghan. Episode coming soon).
And then the Disneyfication of Nelson Mandela. Who actually sought(& got) Cuban army support in defeating the Apartheid regime in Angola which started its downfall. Boycotts came later & added to the pressure.
P.S: Gandhi was lionised by the Brits because they were afraid of dealing with more radical leaders like the commie Bhagat Singh. Indian bourgeoise saw Gandhi useful in controlling any mass action by workers. Gandhi always lectured about NV to the oppressed, never to the oppressor. He suggested jews ahould just walk into the gas chambers so as to morally shame Hitler who will then let them free! ASSHOLE!
Walking into gas chambers is exactly what
many did. What other Jews who had a choice did was far more effective at bringing the slaughter of the Nazi regime to an end. They picked up guns and killed as many fascists as they could. The most effective Jewish resistance fighters joined the Red Army or communist-led resistance groups. That's the historically accurate, but largely forgotten, lesson of how to bring genocide and tyranny to a halt.
The erasure of the legitimacy of economic concerns
is especially terrible, and so ubiquitous that these days "respected" (or, at least, popular) "liberal" voices--black and white--in liberal forums everywhere push back on any suggestion to address economic concerns as coming from a position of (white) privilege. Being alive, they'll quip, is more urgent and important than economic problems because at least poor people are alive.
Somewhat related
I think race is an issue
in the context of our "justice" system and so many other areas.
That doesn't mean it's the only issue, and it certainly isn't "the issue." Poverty is a contributing and confounding factor here--the fact that blacks are more likely to be impoverished than whites (which is itself partially due to systemic racism) is a contributing factor to their relatively higher rates of being victimized by police.
But don't say that in certain circles, or you'll be ridiculed as an ignorant privileged white guy. It's disgusting and cynical, but that's what happens when puerile identity politics dominates the discourse.
I couldn't agree more
When is the last time that you saw a millionaire of any color get killed by a cop?
It happened in the early 80s
Some SoCal police force wanted to civil forfeiture a $5million home . They saw that it was owned by an elderly gentleman who showed no visible means of support, so they wrote up a phony search warrant, broke in at 3am, and killed the guy. The home was auctioned off and the money spent before the next of kin even knew of the murder. Turned out the old guy's name was DuPont. CA now (?) has a law that property cannot be confiscated for civil forfeiture without a conviction.
On to Biden since 1973
@gjohnsit But Prof. Henry
But Prof. Henry Louis Gates was seen as an intruder into his own house. Prez Obama was trailed by an employee when he was shopping in a store. Vaguely remember a sports guy who was racially profiled.... So, race does matter. That was the point BLM people forced Sanders to recognise when they took over the mic at his event in 2016. Sandra Bland had a job. Author Claudia Rankin has written about how her therapist nearly called police when she showed up for her appointment..
i agree that white supremacy
(race and color) matter greatly in the amerikan criminal Injustice system, but the intersection with poverty in the underclass does as well.
when i'd covered the police state pushback protests t my.FDL back in 2014 under the odious mayor berry, the APD had murdered 28 citizens since 2010. the APD had been put under a federal consent degree, and the UNM professor (david correia) who'd covered it all so well had reported that...with their federal 'help' came a total whitewash, almost as though there may have been bribes afoot.
his old twitter name is gone now, so i can't say what's going on there now, but i will say that of the 28, only one had black skin. i used to have a composite photo, and most looked to be latino.
Somewhat on topic ...
I saw my GP today, and he asked me what inside-info regarding the protests I had as an American with family in the states During our conversation he said he thought it quite ironic that the concept of ‘all lives matter’ is used by some as a point of discord. I understand and acknowledge his perception.
I don’t like “All Lives Matter”
It really misses the point, because black lives are the ones under relatively more threat: of course “all” lives matter, but not “all lives” live under the same dangerous circumstances.
That may have been true of Michigan, but, have first-
hand knowledge of the struggle in Alabama.
From my observation, what most swayed the bulk of racist white folks in that state was the fact that most protestors--black and white--remained nonviolent in the face of so much police brutality. That did as much as anything, to make their cause a sympathetic one. Even to a vile racist.
Haven't figured it out, but, perhaps, the divergence of views on this topic has to do with differences in member's personal life's experiences--influenced in part, by the region, or, perhaps, even the state, they lived in prior to/during the Civil Rights movement. Another 'lens' may be the factor of whether or not one came/comes from the faith community.
(the period of time I was living there as a child/preteen was during part of George Wallace's first reign; so, I think it's fair to say that I was smack-dab in the middle of some of the worse racial tensions, the country has ever known)
My current focus is on Keith Ellison. Heard the audio of him (again today) saying how difficult it will be to obtain a conviction. Why would that be? (they don't appear to be overcharging) Frankly, don't trust the man. He was totally duplicitous regarding his support for a "Grand Bargain." (during a congressional hearing--I posted about it, at the time)
This is a typical Dem ploy--put out a figure that the masses believe to be 'progressive,' who will give the Dem Leadership/Party cover for not doing anything substantive. Hope I'm wrong about him--will gladly eat crow, if he comes through for George Floyd. I truly hope he does.
Mollie
“Revolution is not a one time event.”
~~Audre Lorde
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
You are probably right
But I think the target demographic here are the white moderates.
The riots got them off the fence and moving.
Speaking of changing minds..
Yes, but I do not like the term "riots"
in this case. In nearly every instance that I have seen, the riots were provoked by the police. In fact, I believe they were directed to do so. Responding to violence by fighting back is not rioting, although the MSM would have us believe that the protestors are single handedly responsible for everything negative.
What I firmly believe is that the killing of George Floyd was a spark that ignited a long simmering rage among both black and whites against the system that the police represent. It has created a vast underclass of blacks and young whites whom the system has impoverished. I have posted here a number of times that people with nothing left to lose are very dangerous to power. The sanctions imposed by COVID-19 have disproportionately affected blacks and millennials of all colors. The result of this is that it created a critical mass of people with nothing left to lose and they are banding together against it in these protests.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I agree completely.
Here is the important point you make:
"What I firmly believe is that the killing of George Floyd was a spark that ignited a long simmering rage among both black and whites against the system that the police represent. It has created a vast underclass of blacks and young whites whom the system has impoverished. I have posted here a number of times that people with nothing left to lose are very dangerous to power. The sanctions imposed by COVID-19 have disproportionately affected blacks and millennials of all colors. The result of this is that it created a critical mass of people with nothing left to lose and they are banding together against it in these protests."
The only addition I would make is that in some areas such as California where I live, the latino population may just surprise the powers that be as well. I hope so because we need to dump the oligarchy and we need numbers to do that. We need a Toussaint L'Ouverture or Emiliano Zapata to start the ball rolling.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Viva Zapata!
Viva Bolivar! Viva Ché!
oh, my, yes to all
that you've written! i'd add that the underclasses (especially of color) are the groups who are most likely to die of covid-19 due to many factors, including lack of access to health care, food deserts, and so on.
when i'd earlier mentioned the *potential* for these protests to become a global revolution fueled by the US (in the main) out of control police state, i'd been trying to find more nations, cities, protesting than the Tweeter i'd given you on your thread.
how timely then was finding this today, bless his pea-pickin' heart: 'The police murder of George Floyd sparks mass protests throughout the world'
6 June 2020, thomas scripps
Woooot!
Heh,could very well be. Admittedly, due
to COVID, we've barely been out of the yard for almost three months, except for a few short trips to the ATM, etc. Don't know anything beyond what I read/hear on 'the news.' And, IMO, much of the reporting appears to be full of contradictions, and, exaggerations.
Have a nice weekend, and stay safe.
Mollie
“Revolution is not a one time event.”
~~Audre Lorde
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Is it too late to rehire Colin Kaepernick?
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
No shit.
My first thought upon seeing that tweet from the NFL. Really? Care about racism? Where is Kap???
Not that I am a football fan in any way either, but the hypocrisy is off the charts, although why I would find that surprising is anyone's guess.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Well you "owners" should do the right thing
"We, the NFL, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out."
And hire Kaepernick back.
As an aside, blacks HATE that the NFL bosses call themselves "owners".
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
evening mollie...
if you think about it, violence was still key to the turning of public opinion. it was the primary violence and brutality of the white people personified by the police whose actions held up a mirror to white people and showed them what they were really supporting.
the secondary violence by some african americans should not be underrated in its effectiveness. certainly the public understood that minority groups would not forever be able to refrain from responding to the brutality dished out by the police in kind.
my $.02
I wish you’d come and spend your money in Utah
Folks here see things in b & w only. Quite a few of them don’t think Floyd's or the other black peoples who have been killed by cops have anything to do with racism. And if they would have just minded the cops they wouldn’t have been killed in the first place.
I just saw a tweet from NYC where cops arrested people who were standing on their front steps just right outside their door and nowhere close to the sidewalks. No reason not to haul them off to jail instead of just telling them to go inside huh? Quotas? Kidding.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
heh...
i fear that it might not be 2 cents well spent. heck, a significant part of utah probably still believes that if black people repent for their sins they will become white.
Nah cuz the words of the prophet are written in
the tabernacle choir halls after gawd told him that he had made a mistake about blacks just sitting on the fence once during a big decision instead of choosing a side. I don’t remember what the argument was about, but it must have been an important one. So blacks now get to wear the funny underwear now too with their white brethren. And if they are good enough and rich enough they too can buy their ticket to the planet kolob and eventually become gawd’s of their own planet. I’m not sure how they divy up all the people or if it’s just for a very small group on each one.
I remember one trip to Montana when we were in glacier park and a woman asked if we had horns on our foreheads cuz she had heard that Mormons had them.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
God told the elders . . .
that if they wanted BYU to have a decent football team, their attitudes on race needed an updating.
A divine revelation if ever there was one.
Thanks for the reply, Joe. Decided
to reply over at your place, since I was going by to post a chart, anyway.
Have a nice weekend. You deserve the break!
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
i wonder if you might be referring
to 'passive resistance' and civil disobedience' rather than non-violence. it was a gandhian tactic that MLK, emulated. watching hoses being and snarling badass german shpherd dogs (i think of torture inside abu ghraib) turned on those practicing both CR on the televion sets around amerika may have made a huge difference.
same with the freedom riders, both black and white. who provided the violence? yes, the police and sheriffs! now in Civil Rights 2020, i don't watch teevee, but from what i hear from those who do is that 'riots and violence' from the protestor rules the airwaves.
Hi, WD - civil disobedience or passive resistence
would be apt terms, alright.
Regarding the characterization of the protests as "riots" and "violence"--there's (currently) very favorable coverage on CNN and MSDNC, and, frankly, was on Fox, until there was destruction or riots in some cities.
What's happened is that the coverage has gotten much more favorable after a lot of leaders came out, denounced the damage done in some cities, and, things calmed down tremendously.
Of course, FNC can't seem to help itself, and has a propensity to mindlessly praise cops and 'the military.'
To coin an old phrase--"it's gross."
Have a nice weekend.
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
i'm glad to hear that you
approve of separating those two tactics back in the day as different from 'non-violence', and to hear that coverage of the protests are improving somewhat as well.
Re the 1964 CR Act,
it's a straw man that
Primarily bc of Democrats, largely bc of them. It was a Dem president who first introduced the bill, then another D prez who carried it forward, as amended. The D/R politics: it was a given that the southern Dixiecrat Dems would oppose it, all of them, who in fact filibustered the bill. The Johnson admin knew they had to get enough of the mod/lib Rs on board. Note: at the time the bill was first introduced, or about to be submitted, by JFK, his admin counted zero support for it among Rs. Not sure if JFK got even private support from Rs on his bill.
On the filibuster, back then 2/3 was needed to end it (cloture) and so the admin's point men on the bill, MajLdr Mike Mansfield and Hubert Humphrey, along with RFK, had to work the Repub MinLdr Ev Dirksen, who didn't like the bill. It took weeks of cajoling and flattery, and allowing Dirksen some watering down amendments, until finally he agreed and thus opened it up for other R senators to come along. The final votes on the substance of the bill might be somewhat misleading as by then the bill was guaranteed to pass and so some soft R opponents may have decided at that point to get on board.
But that bill's existence can be attributed to peaceful protests and violent police reaction (Bull Connor's Birmingham) coupled with the entirely peaceful March on Washington protest in Aug '63.
Probably bc the Harlem events of 8 months prior were considered local and spontaneous in nature and not connected to any organized CR movement, and bc the violent police reaction to an organized peaceful protest on the bridge in AL in March 1965 led by a famous CR leader, disturbing images seen by many millions in this country on the national news, overpowered all else and was the clear immediate and proximate cause for spurring the Johnson admin into action, which they undertook only a week later.
Only for the 1% of the public who was paying close attention to and fully grasped that somewhat local and inside politics story. But on your first remark, who is arguing about asking nicely? MLK stated his case clearly and firmly and insisted that further fed gov't delay in needed legislation would not be acceptable. It would have been far nicer of him not to be so insistent on immediate action.
On the 64 CR Act, JFK probably would have preferred to delay it until a better political environment came along after Nov '64 (this was roughly Vp LBJ's position) but both he and RFK calculated that a) it was morally the right thing to do now and b) that waiting until much later would actually cause greater problems.
The CR Act of 64 was called by JFK the "Bull Connor Bill" bc of the great importance of the police overreaction in B-ham which caused so many in the previously indifferent white public to be upset and now pay attention. Similar reaction by the public to the next major police overreaction in Mar '65 on the AL bridge which spurred on introduction of the VR Act. In both cases, peaceful protests demanding change caused police overreacting violence which led to public sympathy which led to legislation. I think after B-ham in '63, MLK (and JFK) were keenly aware of how this peaceful protest-violent reaction could be a winning formula in achieving important CR goals.
Lyndon Johnson . . .
got more than a little traction out of the argument that the 1964 bill was the martyred president's bill.
On the 68 bill,
I would disagree that the rioting after MLK's assassination made it harder to pass. It was already through the senate before that, which was the major hurdle, and needed only some reconciliation in the House, and then it would be done. Further, the murder of the most important CR leader would have created more sympathy for the bill -- again, the violent forces of reaction helping pass important legislation.
(edit: btw, that 68 bill is usually referred to as the Fair Housing Act although it's official title is as you state. I haven't found a good specific source yet, but one says that the bill passed in the senate the day of MLK's murder, which I read as it passed a few hours before as he was killed in the early evening hours of Apr 4 '68. It passed in the House a week later, after King's death greatly speeded up the process and cleared away any obstructionists.)
that's a riot
a violent public disturbance, usu. involving a large number of people.
in law, such a disturbance by three or more people carrying out a common private purpose.
similar disorderly behavior or manner of living.
a violent or unrestrained outbreak of emotion.
a lively profusion, as of colors.
(rather like the last one) scripted color revolution
I'm a Michigan native.
Born in Detroit 1955, lived there or close by (1 mile north of the city border) until my late 20s. The 1967 riots helped end some of the most egregious police tactics used by Detroit cops. They had tactical units called "The Big 4". It consisted of 4 white cops. IIRC, the minimum height requirement for the unit was 6' 2" and minimum weight 250 pounds. They'd cruise around in a big sedan and jump out and beat the shit out of any black person on the street they wanted to "teach a lesson" to.
i'm a native ohioan,
and lived for one summer in the shaker heights suburb on cleveland, which was oone of the wealthiest enclaves in the US. just next door to it was the Hough Avenue district, and in 1967 the black underclass had rioted, and one could still smell smoke from some of the ruins.
but what did happen was many of their demand were met, and while i've forgotten all of them, i believe actual banks (not payday loan sorts), actual grocery stores, public transportation, maybe even free clinics and community police accountability, but i can't be sure of those.
also subsequently, the district threw parties, so that black and white could meet. the PTB kept track of how many of each color came, who had what gripes, etc. IOW: they met the challenges head on. i have no idea what's up there by now, of course.
Arguing beliefs is a waste of time --
You believe that protestors that perpetrate violence leads to constructive and positive changes for their community. I don't.
Pulling up a few incidents when riots didn't retard legislative changes doesn't prove that the riots were instrumental in the changes. There are far more instances of riots that produced nothing positive; that destroyed property and lives of communities that engaged in protests. Also ignoring the many AA leaders/groups that advocated being armed against the cops ended up dead or in prison.
You sort of left out that by 1964 the GOP still carried the public veneer of being the party of Lincoln, and at that time there were still many decent Republican politicians. Dixiecrats had been problematical for the Democratic Party for decades (the reason FDR put Garner well inside his tent where he couldn't make mischief); they only went along with the New Deal because their constituents were too freaking poor and they had no answer for that. Doesn't really matter that 80% of Republicans voted for the '64 Civil Rights Act when shortly thereafter they nominated one of their 20% for the presidency. The shock of the JFK assassination was also a factor in that it gave LBJ the political capital to act swiftly during his first hundred days.
Let's also no overlook that MLK Jr's stature in the general public and AA community was at a low point when he was murdered. Shifting from civil rights to economic justice cost him public support and as one of the earliest national leaders (1967) to reject the Vietnam War lost him more support. A leader that isn't ahead of the hoi polloi isn't actually a leader. Still his murder was felt deeply within the AA community and all those who supported civil and economic rights.
A solid majority of the general public in Los Angeles were outraged over the 3 Mar 1991 police beating of Rodney King (who wasn't the most sympathetic character), but quickly charging several of the LEOs avoided riots. The expectation was that they would get their day in court and be convicted. It was the miscarriage of justice, so familiar to the AA community and also outraged white people, that set off the riot. So much destruction and so many injuries and deaths. (The fires made it difficult for those in the LA basin to breathe.) In the end, there were some temporary truces, the odious LA police chief was forced out, four officers were charged under federal civil rights laws (two convicted) (also controversial among whites who viewed this as double jeopardy), but nothing structural changed because the riots decimated the outrage over the beating. (Or perhaps focus shifted too quickly from this to O.J.)
That isn't exactly my position
I said:
The reality is that violence alone never solved anything.
Violence can sometimes be very useful to an organized movement.
Ferguson was SIX YEARS AGO! BLM peacefully protested to a brick wall.
Washington was never going to respond to BLM.
The same goes for OWS and the 2002-2003 antiwar protests.
Power in Washington today doesn't respond to anything but wealth and power.
Since poor people have no wealth they only have numbers. And since elections are almost a lost cause, how can poor people demonstrate power?
King was never popular
in the public at large. He was hated, despised for his work. He didn’t really have much support to lose, at least in the white community.
And you’re exaggerating at best his supposed loss of support regarding economic issues. As I recall most of the disagreement was a matter of degree and scope, not kind. I wouldn’t exactly say the SCLC’s involvement in the Poor People’s Campaign indicated a lack of support. His message always, always included economic reforms because he believed—correctly in my view—that political and economic issues are bound together. That message used resonate quite strongly.
From the limited
polling I've seen on MLK (fewer polling orgs then, and Gallup didn't poll consistently on King in the 60s) he was slightly more favorably viewed in the 64-5 period then his ratings began to dip roughly in 66 (the year of his failed protest march in Chicago) and got worse after his 67 speech against the VN War.
I might wager a guess that in the 65-6 period, after 2 major legislative battles over the CR Act and then the VR Act, many people wanted to see a more moderate pace to civil rights change. In 67, on the War most in the public probably still (slightly) favored US involvement, though those numbers were beginning to dip. It was his antiwar stance, not his economic statements, which accelerated the increase in his unpopularity numbers as it was fiercely attacked by the intelligencia in the MSM and as enough people back then still regarded protests against the war as unpatriotic. Many mainstream black leaders denounced him in public statements.
Interesting that MLK actually wanted to come out against the war in 1965, but other leaders in the SCLC were against it, seeing it as too much of a political distraction and risk as they wanted to stay focused on discrimination related issues, and so King backed off for 2 yrs.
King's stance on Vietnam
May have cost him popularity, but it may have increased the fear and antipathy of the PTB - who have no fear of insular and divided opposition, but recognize broad and inclusive opposition for the threat (to them) that it is and tend to react decisively to eliminate it.
King taking up broader issues of social justice and war may have put a target on his back, much as with Malcolm X who, after his pilgrimage to Mecca and break with the Nation of Islam renounced hatred of white people and started talking about the importance of securing civil liberties for all Americans... and was assassinated for his trouble.
Doesn't require being black to incur this sort of thing. In the 80's, Earth First! was infiltrated and prosecuted by the feds, but it wasn't until they tried to move from confrontation with loggers and timber dependent communities to attempting outreach and dialogue that outright attempts to kill them occurred.
rec'd, and thank you.
a few days ago i'd asked longtalldrink if (given his excellent memory) if he knew where a meeting between MLK, jr. and post-Haj Malcolm X was recorded for history. as i remember it, the media at the time called theirs a 'cautious alliance' or something of that sort.
do you remember it? your memory also seems prodigious; whooosh.
on morning edit: never mind, i found info about their single meeting and opinions on it.
MLK harshly denouncing
US involvement in the VN War infuriated LBJ and caused him to cut off all ties. The second thing which greatly agitated Johnson was when MLK announced in March 68 that he would lead a Poor People's March on Washington in that summer. LBJ had a visceral reaction to this news, and actually considered such a protest would pose a direct threat to his presidency.
many panthers and members of
the Nation of Islam:
yes, nixon's and hoover's COINTELPRO program did its work. yet, they'd shot no one, as far as i've been able to discover, save in absolute self-defense. and apparently H Rap Brown's (SNCC) conviction's been overturned, although i'm not familiar with the case.
i was misinformed earlier, it seems.
many are still alive, though, more Power to them!
from the black power mix tape, angela davis:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIDgDFvyeS8]
"the reality is that the violence put pressure
on the ruling class to find solutions to end the violence"
Well, yeah - but were those solutions designed to help the black community or to marginalize it and destroy its identity and institutions?
I suggest it was the latter.
*Long* time ago - 1980-ish. I read an article in a peacenik Quaker magazine that claimed there was a secret annex to the Kerner Commission report on Civil Disorders (published in 1968) which concluded that it wasn't feasible (or maybe desirable, from the standpoint of the PTB) to meet the demands/aspirations of (esp. urban) black communities and so it was proposed - effectively - to destroy them.
This was not to involve simply wiping them out, but destruction of the physical centers of community life, the principal means being urban renewal. Centers of black owned businesses and residential areas were simply "helped" out of existence, in effect continuing and expanding on trends that had been going on for a while anyway:
whosedowntown.wordpress.com/urban-renewal-the-story-of-southwest-d-c
Multiply this by hundreds, add in destruction by freeway and what is the result? Big reduction in high profile riots, big destruction of family, business and community institutions. Reduction in violence? Hardly. Just redirected to underclass gangbangers against each other and whatever other vulnerable victim comes their way or stray bystander catching a round as collateral damage.
Not like that's a problem for the 1%.
nice catch;
and while that only addresses SW deecee, the idea sure did catch on: 'creative destruction by gentrification'.
slum lords keep their slums slummy, until a city says 'they gotta go!' whole blocks go, like in lower downtown denver, a new city with sports arena arises!
same shit in NYC, minneapolis, on and on...low-cost housing gets privatized: bingo! high rents! 2 of the freshman squad voted for those, by the by, even as they railed against them, & erased their old tweets.
rent controlled flats? drive renters out by #NeverFixing.Anything, including elevators, changing hallway light bulbs. Bingo again!
In other news
https://truthout.org/articles/gops-rand-paul-blocks-anti-lynching-bill/
Seems even in 2020 we need anti-lynching bills??? So uh, there needs to be a law to stop lynching...otherwise...lynching is totally cool???
Not only that, but there are those who are voting against it????
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
you must have clicked
and read it. did paul's reasoning make any sense to you? green VP candidate angela walker had called George Floyd's murder a lynching too, but given what his family's 'outside' (ahead of the 'official' minneapolis one) autopsy had shown, derek chauvin's 9 minut kneel on his neck and carotid (jugular) artery cut off the blood to his brain before the breath was squeezed out of him. now that's a hanging! twisting slowly in the wind with a noose thrown over a tree limb.
i dunno, i'd seen the news earlier, but hadn't clicked in.
I know you hate to read or watch anything long
But the article is not very long. Paul's reasoning (of course) made no sense. Seems his opposition to the bill lies in the "degrees" of strangulation. He notes that he does not want to give someone 10 years, when all they did was strangle someone a little.
Yes, that is actually his opposition, and since he is a Senator, he can (and did) hold up the bill.
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
i did read it, though...
and need to think about it further (as to my additions), although it may just be a red/blue thing. and rand is not his father, whose takes on things were often worthy.
oh, fie; i lost my comment.
first i than you for your sensitivity knowing what a slow reader i am, and that long videos make me queasy; as well, i'm not an audio learner.
now rnd may be on very thin ice as to the emmett till bill used for lesser crimes with bruising; that may include george floyd.
but given that it's been 55 years since the poor boy was murdered, and since jan, 2017 that his accuser recanted 'part of her story, and that her kin wee charged with murdering him, and found not guilty by an all-white jury (they later admitted to killing him):
where was their fucking outrage then?
additionally from truthdig:
i dunno, maybe i'm looking too hard. but why so many years later?
Paul's reasoning
makes sense to me - the language of the bill makes it such that even
the slightest injury (possibly not even physical) if racially motivated
could be charged under the law as a "lynching" and incur a ten year sentence.
Check the exchange in the video - Kamala's characterization of Rand's proposed amendment is a gross distortion of what he is proposing and Booker does not really refute any of Paul's concerns.
Paul explains his position from about 25:00.
FWIW - as Paul mentions in his remarks, racially motivated murder or an attempt to do so is *already* a federal crime.
Seems I can't embed the video - it's on C-SPAN here
a gross distortion, indeed.
thanks for the head-up that, and pointing us to the 25 minute mark.
lord luv a duck:
'Cuomo wants state lawmakers to pass ‘Amy Cooper’ 911 false accusation bill', june 5, 2020, nypost.com
now how in the name of Sweet Fanny Adams could the bolded portion be proven? if someone phoned 911 and said: 'hey there's a sand-n**ger harassing me?
rule 1: don't pass (or sign into law) a bill that can't be enforced clearly and decisively.
Turn the burner up.
Thing is (since they're all lawyers), they well know this. I would suggest that proposing a bill that "... can't be enforced clearly and decisively" is exactly why they proposed it to begin with. It's all eyewash and gives the politicians a chance to stand in front of the TV cameras spouting, "Look, we're going to fix all this!" Yeah, right.
They intend to fix nothing. There will be no fixing anything unless the heat is kept on high. Same as it ever was.
the level of empty virtue
signaling (especially by the Dems) has reached epic proportions by now. and as i understand it, the congressional black caucus (hint, hint) has been writing the D teams 'sweeping po-po reform package'.
but good catch on the 'whys' of the emptiness at play, amigo.
From linked article:
Too bad they won't create a law that federally charges district attorneys and the like, who refuse to prosecute killer cops, or who only charge abusive cops with minor misdemeanors. Betcha Kamala wouldn't co-author that one. She and Klobuchar would be shaking in their pumps. Karma doesn't forget, though! Just taking her time with those two (and all the countless others) I hope.
indeed;
klobuchar's bloody paws are all over george floyd's and many others' murders. is dementia joe still vetting her for his VP? or has he discovered a woman of a darker hue?
yeah, what would the poor Congress Kritters have to do,
if they can't lynch a negro, imagine the difficulties, they would have to do it to white folks. But I guess then they wouldn't call it lynching. Karma is very patient ... but it always comes to haunt you.
I must be careful, my English is so shaky, I might mix it up.
https://www.euronews.com/live
my above comment is shit,
(edited spelling mistake)
if the darn rules wouldn't be as they are, I would happily clean up my own dreck. But the rules are shittier than shit and are out to "get you/me". So, gotcha sez mimi to mimi.
I need to sleep. My temper control doesn't work.
https://www.euronews.com/live
No worries, mimi
I understood your point about karma.
About 20 years ago, in Houston, a 10-12 year old African American boy had finished his chores and told his mom he was heading to the convenient store for a treat. He had his own money that he had earned from helping neighbors with their chores. He had used it to buy 3 bikes. His parents taught him to work, earn, save. The first 2 had been stolen, and each time he started the work, earn, save process again.
On his 3rd bike, he arrived at the store just blocks from his home. At the pay phones were an early 20s Hispanic man and a 15 year old Hispanic teen. The adult demanded the little African American boy's bike. The demand was refused, and the young boy began to try to ride away. He was shot in the back, and the bike was stolen, leaving him nearly dead and paralyzed on the ground.
Fairly quickly after the incident, the teen suspect was apprehended. He provided the name of the adult suspect. Finding, and arresting the adult proved to be much harder than finding the teen.
However, one night, months later, the police were called to investigate a gruesome incident involving 2 vehicles. It seems that our cowardly bike thief and shooter had been hanging out of a moving vehicle, waving a tire iron at another vehicle whose driver was desperately trying to escape the situation. Then, just like that, the coward lost his balance as the driver of the vehicle he was hanging out of swerved to get him closer to the victims car, and in an instant, he was crushed between the two vehicles.
Indeed, karma is a bitch! She can't make the little, hard-working boy whose parents taught him work ethic and morals walk or ride a bike again, but she certainly made sure he'd never have to be afraid that the man who shot him would return to finish the job. One less piece of shit in the world terrorizing good people.
I often wonder about that little boy. His story was overshadowed by another tragedy on the east coast, but I never forgot him.
you are a wonderful teacher telling me this story
I will tell my son this story one day. But I think I wouldn't tell him something he didn't know and experienced already several times in his life. He often talks about karma to me on the phone, when he feels upset about unfair treatment of his co-workers and him at his job. He is way more wise than I am.
I wonder where he got this from.
Thank You, deja.
https://www.euronews.com/live
bloody hell;
i missed that one altogether. (i keep swearing one day i'll learn to read. learn to type? too late 4 that!)
i'll add:
'Videos: Spy Planes, Nuclear Sniffers Fly Over US Capital as National Guard Occupies City', june 3, sputniknews.com
too many links and tweets to bring... and mr. fish's Catch of the Day:
Tnank you for saying
What needs to be acknowledged on the left.