From the linked story:
Like I said, the story implies a total of three jurors but doesn’t say they were all on the same jury.
I see what you’re saying: it does sound like two different juries, but doesn’t explicitly say that. Fair point; carry on!
Daniel
A “real jerk”?
I thought the victim was a “mentally retarded man” who functioned “at the level of a twelve-year-old.” In my opinion, the question of his being a jerk isn’t even worth asking.
In the original article on this in the printed Chicago Tribune, there was a picture of the local post office. Right above the entry way was a mural of cotton-picking slaves.
The USPS was quoted as saying “they have no plans” to remove the mural!
Zoe, pointing out that bad shit happens elsewhere does not negate it happening here. I am not entirely sure where you are, but I see that fucking shitrag flying every single day. Not just as a flag but on cars, shirts and tattoos. It is, simply, repulsive.
A friend of mine moved here from N.C. He is married to a white girl. You better believe they have noticed a lot of shit since being here. N.C. was no picnic, but they say this is much worse.
The South has a reputation. Because it is deserved. Not everyone thinks in racist terms here. But the majority do. Many of them do not even know they are doing it.
A few quotes I have heard - from seemingly nice people
“Date a black guy and you had better never come home again” (from a teacher to her daughter)
“N****-lover” to me from a recent high-school grad. Someone I though was intelligent and beyond this
“We ought to segregate schools again” Another highschooler. This one very intelligent.
It is not dying out in the South like it should. These attitudes are perpetuated each generation. They come from family and from churches. Yes, churches. Many actively discourage African-Americans from joining and suggest they might be better off “with their own kind” (whateverthefuck that means).
You need to stop being so defensive and admit that we have a problem here and that it is not going away.
I can imagine plenty of Alabama towns where what happened in the OP could happen.
Thank goodness we have places like Minneapolis to counteract places like Texas and Alabama.
I’ve said, on this board, that one of the main reasons I had for leaving Texas in 1963 was the blatant bigotry and racial hatred that was virtually institutional there. This incident is typical of that attitude, even if the result is not. I didn’t understand racism then and I don’t understand it now. I hope and believe racism is less prevalent now; obviously it still exists in places.
The difference, as you know but have chosen to ignore, is that those Nazi creeps in Minneapolis are a miniscule minority while the rebel flag waving creeps are, if not a majority down south, a substantial minority.
[QUOTE=dropzone]
The difference, as you know but have chosen to ignore, is that those Nazi creeps in Minneapolis are a miniscule minority … QUOTE]
Yeah, sure they are. You’re aware that the midwest, not the southeast, was pretty much the real stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan in the 20th century? You’re aware that at one time the Klan pretty much owned the state government of Indiana? You’re aware the American Nazi party has its HQ in Illinois?
Unlike the midwesterners, southerners have historically never had much of a problem with overt, flagrant displays of racism as a matter of public record, law or tradition, or politicians running as segregationists, or having the Klan rally to uphold Jim Crow laws and disenfranchisement, or excusing mob violence. Numerically you can look at the south as being a trendsetter and holdout in this regard.
I suppose its a matter of what is seen as decorum.
And they’re still a miniscule minority.
Lib, if you read your own cite, you’ll see that the organization you linked to typically has less than 200 members nationwide. I can’t find a membership figure for the “headquarters” in Minneapolis but given that the entire 200 member population is stretched out between 38 chapters across the country the average chapter membership would appear to be less than 5 idiots per chapter. Even if we double that in Minneapolis,we’d still have less than a dozen members. I’d hardly call that any sort of significant indication about anything within the larger metro population.
A few years ago, I remember a miserable attempt at a demonstration atthe Capitol in St. Paul by these buttheads. IIRC there were maybe 10 or 12 uniformed demonstrators, maybe 20 or 30 sympathizers and several hundred vocal anti-racists staging a counter-protest. The White Power movement isn’t exactly thriving in the Twin Cities (but you can find it if you drive west into the barren rural areas of North Dakota and Montana).
Why yes, I am aware of all of those things. I am also aware of a certain amount of racism still endemic in the Midwest. I am also aware that the period of Klan strength in the Midwest was 80 years ago and that it was disbanded in 1944, sixty-one years ago, and can hardly be used against the modern Midwest (though other groups have used the name since then). And the American Nazi Party is headquartered in Eastpointe, Michigan, not Illinois. Still the upper midwest, but see Dio’s post about “miniscule minorities.”
Absolutely! There are some things you just don’t DO in public. Kissing your spouse and burning a cross on your neighbor’s lawn are just two of them.
Trying to get an otherwise reasonable, and personally non-racist, southerner to admit that there’s more racism in the south than in other parts of the country is like pulling Superman’s teeth.
Or like not reading the FBI’s Hate Crimes Statistics Report for 2003 for racially motivated hate crimes, with 154 in Texas and 152 in Minnesotta.
True, although it depends on what you mean by the phrase “more racism”. I would argue that racism in the South is more pervasive and accepted among the community at large, but not that individual racial incidents are more violent or intense.
On the contrary, understanding the motives of why people do seemingly bizarre things is always worth doing. Three points:
- He need only be a “real jerk” from the viewpoint of the people on the jury for the payback idea to be true. He could be an “absolute saint” in my eyes or yours, but if those jurors disliked him, it’d explain his behavior.
- Nothing about being a mentally retarded man who functioned at the level of a twelve-year-old precludes his being a jerk: folks with mental retardation can be every bit as awful or as wonderful as folks without mental retardation.
- Even if he’s the world’s biggest loser jerkwad, that’s in no way, shape, or form an excuse for having a “he got what’s coming to him” attitude. I merely offered it as a hypothesis for why a horrible juror might have let those criminals off so lightly. My other conjectures (that the black jurors buy into the racist attitudes against black people, and that the black jurors were intimidating into going along with the results) stand beside it: none of them excuse the verdict, only attempt to consider explanations for it.
Daniel
I agree. I don’t know why the denial is so strong. Maybe they don’t spend any time outside of the south, and they really don’t know that things aren’t like that everywhere else.
I travel all over the country and I can’t recall ever hearing a racial slur or bigoted remark made to me by a stranger (I’m white) outside of the south. In the deep south/Texas, I often get one before I get out of the airport. People feel it perfectly acceptable to comment to other white people about “those people” or “those kind”. There is a very pervasive “us” and 'them" attitude. It just isn’t that way in other places.
That should read “explain their behavior,” not “his.” Sorry for any confusion that might cause.
Daniel
Well, since we’re sharing anecdotes, the most bigotry I ever encountered was in Philadelphia, Boston, and Minneapolis.