Not to discount how terrible lynchings were, but the number of black people killed by lynching is absolutely dwarfed by the number of black people killed by violent career criminals kicked loose over and over again and in drive-by shootings and gang and drug related activity. Life for black people was safer then. Plus racism was getting better all the time anyway. It was better in the sixties than in the fifties, it was better in the fifties than it was in the forties, it was better in the forties than it was…you get the idea.
No one has ever been able to demonstrate how all the ridiculous shit we’ve got going on now was necessary in order to end racism. Or even that it was created with that in mind. On the contrary, it’s mostly just grown out of a shitpile of random wrongheaded liberal ideas about how things in general ought to be done.
That’s right, society was awash with mothers overdosing and/or breaking into houses and/or being forced into prostitution and/or killed in drive-by shootings or gang violence because of Valium and Seconal. :rolleyes:
And last but not least, dislike of illegal immigration is not racism. Learn it, accept it, own it.
That is undoubtedly very moving, and yes it would suck big time to have to live under those conditions. But can you explain to me how destroying family units with responsible parenting, creating ineffective schooling that graduates students who can’t read or write, creating a skyrocketing crime rate accompanied by a revolving-door justice system, and the promotion/defense/glamorization of drugs were envisioned as a surefire path to racial equality?
As I said before, most of the ills this country is now suffering were not created in order to achieve racial (or sexual or homosexual or transexual) equality. They’re merely the offshoot of a lot of wrong-headed liberal ideas about how life should work.
Trump has no chance of being the Republican nominee, but I hope he stays in long enough to drag all the other Republican hopefuls into the sewer with him.
To see Bush and the other nominees have to either refute Trump, or somewhat agree with his borderline (i’m not saying which side of that borderline he is on) racist rants is going to be delightful.
We had this conversation before, the fault of that goes to all, and liberals could get some blame, but that is debatable. And minorities can figure out that you are only bullshitting. (In fact you are tossing the anti racist efforts of many Republicans like Eisenhower under the bus just to get your dumb points across.)
I was not born yesterday indeed. The fact that you are tone deaf and continue to carry water for bullies like Arpaio (that Trump joined in his last rally in Arizona. Ignoring what the courts found against Arpaio) is evidence enough for many independents and moderate Republicans about what kind of allies they accumulated all these years.
XT, who is no liberal, preferred “pendejo” in another thread. I go for Bully only because that is what the OP preferred to and even the Arizona Republic newspaper called Arpaio a “bully with a gun”.
Feel free to use your also appropriate titles for those guys.
This is a ridiculous and extremely ignorant statement – not only were far, far more black people killed in racist violence than just lynching victims (and in fact, due to the times and the vigilante nature of the murders themselves, it’s likely that thousands upon thousands of murders were never recorded), but the character of the murders were entirely different.
Literally entiretowns and communities of black people were wiped off the map by anti-black racist violence. Millions of black people lived under the threat of daily random violence – and also without the chance to compete economically, without the chance to own property, get a good education, and their best (and sometimes only) chance to reduce the risk of violence was to behave without dignity in obeisance to every white person they encountered (and even this wasn’t always enough, since black people were always at risk of attacks without the protection of law). If a black man looked at a white woman, he risked beating or death. If a black woman didn’t get up and give her seat to a white woman, she risked violence, the loss of her job, or more. If a white man liked how a black woman looked and approached her sexually, turning him down could be extremely hazardous to her physical or financial health. Just try to imagine a young black woman who worked in the household of a wealthy and influential white man who wanted sexual favors – rape was a daily horror for many black women, during slavery and afterwards.
Huge swaths of America were fundamentally terrorist-occupied regions in which the black population was subject to violence and oppression meant to inspire permanent fear and acceptance of their inferiority.
It was nightmare-horror stuff. America for most of it’s history was the active and violent enemy of black people. Only in recent decades has this even started to turn around. It’s almost impossible to exaggerate how horrible life for black people in big parts of the country up until recent decades so often was.
Yes, it was really that bad. I trust black people and not you to tell me the truth of what life was like.
It wasn’t done to “end racism”. It was done to protect black people from racist violence and other forms of racial oppression. Legislation can’t do anything to change minds, but it can protect people.
It’s pointless to argue on Starving Artist’s terms because he has no understanding either of the past or the present. He thinks we are living in some kind of violent, drug-addled dystopia, when compared to the past, exactly the opposite is true. If he won’t open his eyes to look at the world as it actually is, then you can’t persuade him of anything.
Refusing to acknowledge your own possible biases isn’t something to be proud of.
I recognize that most older white Americans have a very hard time recognizing that the America they remember was pretty awful place for many Americans. I recognize that older people in general have the tendency to look on the past with rose-colored glasses. But at least acknowledging these is a step forward.
Y’know, anecdotal tales of standing up to a bully and becoming respected are unpersuasive. Partly because it does not account for what happens if the mismatch makes it near suicidal, or if you run into just not a regular bully working out his insecurities but against a junior sociopath who will seek to badly hurt and injure you just because he can.
OTOH I’ll concede that the policy by which s/he who stands up to the bully is punished equally or more severely than the provocateur may need some fine tuning at the very least.
This is however one thing in which I have to give a point to the advocates of the Old School: Nobody seems to be willing or able to directly stand up to him and call him out. The other Republicans have only themselves to blame for looking “weak” next to Trump, partly because thet have in the back of their minds the idea of harvesting his sympathizers sooner or (it’s beginning to look like very much) later.
Also I will grant another thing: probing to see what someone else is made of may not be necessarily bullying per se. Being gratuituously abusive about it, however, is.
I wasn’t attempting to speak to any of the causes, cures, or side effects that you describe; we’re far enough off the topic of this thread already. I just felt that your cavalier attitude toward racism, and whatever gradual improvement their may have been, was so eloquently and authoritatively demolished by Dr. King’s words that they were appropriate.
Notable accidental overdoses:
Judy Garland-Seconal
Anissa Jones (Jody from Family Affair)-Seconal
Dinah Washington-Seconal
Marilyn Monroe-Nembutal (pentobarbital) and chloral hydrate
Tommy Dorsey-prescription sleeping pills
Nick Adams-Paraldehyde (prescription written by his brother!)
Since you have such strong memories of Ye Olde Days, perhaps you recall how very common it was for doctors back then to prescribe what now would be criminally-powerful barbituates and amphetamines for the most minor complaints–speed to help one to diet and downers to overcome the speed so one could sleep was typical, all washed down with cocktails. And this was the good shit, made in proper factories with quality control and government oversight, not cooked up in a rural house trailer. You will recall that The Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper,” alluded to earlier, was about this common situation.
If that was outside your experience and memories, you really have led a sheltered life. If you are completely unaware of it, you are no authority on the time and have no business getting nostalgic for it with those of us who so. Shit, when I was a little kid I was prescribed pheno-fucking-barbital because I got carsick. :eek: Older brother asked, “Do remember much before you were eight?”
Not a drop or even an atom in a bucket of the crime, ruined lives and death caused by drugs the last few decades. I can’t believe you even posted that.
You mentioned mothers overdosing on Seconal, etc. I provided examples of famous people overdosing on Seconal, etc. No need for those people of the 50s and 60s to rob liquor stores to get a fix, since sweet, old, Dr Bob prescribed them, and that’s why there was a scandalous drug problem in the US and Europe back then.
