No. Really?
If anybody was calling Till a hero, maybe you’d have a point that it demeaned Rosa Parks. It’s obvious he was a victim, and that his death had a major impact on the civil rights movement.
Okay, so he didn’t deserve to be shot. I’d like to get a reading of how you feel about this pervert, so please tell me which of the following he did deserve.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2997393
*Broken wrists
*Fractured skull
*Fractured legs
*‘Extensive’ head trauma
*Eye gouged out
The FBI recounts Carolyn Bryant’s version of the story, which has Till grabbing her hand a few times and saying lewd things. That’d be harrassment, but I guess it’d be in character for you to believe her even though other people say she helped in the murder.
And the FBI report also says the men who killed Till were so intent on revenge that they grabbed another black kid off the street and were ready to give him the same treatment- until Carolyn Bryant told them the kid they grabbed wasn’t Till. Then they threw the kid out of their truck and knocked some of his teeth out. You think race had something to do with this, Bull?
Oh, and I forgot one other question: Unregistered Bull, do you really think it’s okay for a pair (or more) of adult men to beat a 14-year-old boy, even if the boy did what Till is alleged to have done?
Here’s another question, Unregistered Bull: Would you participate in the “justified” beating of a 14 year old boy?
Well, he knew that Till was 14, because i pointed out that fact earlier.
And after that he said “Till deserved a beating even if it was just verbal sexual harassment.”
So it appears that the answer to your question is an unqualified “yes.”
::Rilchiam raises voice to be heard above din:: What I read, and was taught in school, was that Emmett Till’s case was groundbreaking because it was the first time that a black man testified in court against a white man. (“Do you see that person in this courtroom?” “Thar he.”) What happened to him was awful, but the reason it’s remembered is that there was a trial. People were held accountable, and that was a huge thing at the time.
::Rilchiam sits back down and wonders if she can slip out for a smoke::
There’s certainly someone in this thread who’s getting a richly deserved Pit-beating, and it sure as hell isn’t Till.
Unmitigated Bull is a more fitting name.
I don’t know what about it doesn’t look staged. The girl ain’t even that pretty.
And people still wonder why teachers’ unions are necessary.
Uh, yeah she is. She’s smokin’ hot.
http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/orkin/orkinphotos.htm
Not that that’s even the point anyway.
I’ve been trying for an hour now to come up with a good reply, as Emmett Till’s story has so many complexities; that we have a hard time believing how bad life was for Black people a scant 50 years ago. But, that is the truth of this country, and rather than shy away from it, we should teach it as how far we’ve come since then, with a vision of how to become ever better.
Emmett Till was a boy, 14, from a culture which, in Southside Chicago, allowed him to be a more normal American boy. When he went down to Mississippi for the visit with family, he didn’t know the proper kowtowing, and did a very risky thing. Something that, for a 14 year-old today, we’d view as stupid adolescent behaviour. He, unfortunately, became the literal whipping boy of clashing cultures. His killers didn’t murder him in immediate heat, they waited days, and drove around for hours while figuring out what to do. They tortured and terrorized him, beat him to a pulp, finally shot him, tied a giant cotton gin fan around his neck , and threw him in the river.
To set an example, by their own admission. That N— should know their place. And that example was when people had just had enough. This was a bellwether point in the Civil Rights Movement; a boy being killed that way, when enough people were making a better life, just tipped the scales. Enough. The events that happened after made the whole world wake up, and have made it a better place. A 14 year-old’s sad demise changed the world. Why shouldn’t kids that age know that truth?
Marion Nelson, who wrote the Emmett Till poem for young people, has a recent response to the OP situation, well-said.
And what “Truth” are we teaching them? Go along with the gangs that try to recruit them? Stand up for what is right? Take steriods and be a Millionaire? Know when to shut your mouth? Score the easy buck and sell dope? Work your ass off for mediocracy?
These are difficult topics, and need to be addressed carefully…
You are right. The whole Till affair is far to complex for a poem in an assembly for kids to learn anything.
The activities planned for students are supposed to relate directly to the stated objectives. I understand why the administrator originally rejected the idea. But once the students petitioned to have the poem included in the program, the administrator had a beautiful chance to reenforce this positive way of bringing about change in a civilized way. And firing the teachers is unthinkable! The administrator has some serious “ruler of the world” issues.
The focus should be on the students and what is best for them. They have given a very strong signal: the poem on Emmet Till.
moving on, you mentioned that Emmet Till’s martyrdom or death…
I understand what you are saying in one way. Actually, Emmet wasn’t a real martyr because he really didn’t do anything special for the cause. But you can’t decide what is profound for someone else. And that child’s death had a profound effect on me later on in life when I finally learned about it. The image of that broken little body stayed with me. It gave me the courage that I had lacked to draw a line in the sand with a couple of people. Overall, that may have been a little thing, but it has made it easier to live with myself.
You must have really weak-minded women where you live. Can’t your women handle children themselves?
Now about that photo in Italy:
I don’t think it would make most feminists’ blood boil unless it became physical or took place in a business situation. She doesn’t seem to be showing any distress to me. I think she looks fairly poised. I guess she is used to it. So much depends on the individual woman. Not all feminists are alike, you know. I never minded a whistle, but I didn’t like crude language. On the job I didn’t like to even be complimented on the way I looked by the opposite sex. (But I wasn’t unpleasant about it.)
I was a teenager in the 1950s when “wolf whistles” were a compliment, but you were supposed to pretend that you didn’t hear. It is entirely possible that Emmet Till had no idea that what he was doing would be considered out of line. At fourteen then, you were still trying to figure out your own culture. He was a stranger in a strange land.
Eh, I’ve seen it. She just looks kind of stuck up to me. Which isn’t attractive.
I started this thread to expose a bit of idiocy. I now see that it has uncovered some more of it here.
I wrote the bit you’re responding to here. So let me say this. The Emmet Till tragedy represented a very pivotal moment in the Civil Rights movement, no doubt about it. I hope no one interpreted anything I’ve said as being dismissive of this fact. My main position is that the school was well within its rights to take the poem and wreath ceremony out of the program, because tying this event in with a celebratory theme does seems like a stretch to me. Just because the 7th graders wanted to do it really really bad doesn’t mean that the school was wrong for sticking to its position.
Now citing sexual harrassment as a reason for it not belonging is rotten baloney. But unless Till’s story is given a thorough treatment, with ample attention given to those heros (like Edgars, like Till’s mother) who weren’t afraid to fight for justice along with a clear explanation of why this incident was so significant to the struggle, the importance of the Emmet Till tragedy could easily be lost on a young audience. So although I object to the “sexual harrassment” characterization, I do recognize that the administrators have a legitimate point-of-view if they felt that the Emmett Till poem did not adequately put the whole incident in context.
I think if the school deserves to be pitted, it’s for firing the teachers.
Personally I don’t think she looks stuck up, I think she looks scared shitless, like she may be about to be gang raped in the street.
Look again. She’s not stuck up, she’s uncomfortable and defensive.
Either way, it’s not a very becoming look for a woman.
I will concede that’s possible, but who knows- they could be saying “you are very pretty miss”, to which she would be overreacting, or they could be saying “we are going to follow you home and rape you in front of your wimpy American husband” 