(Adapted from an article in today’s Washington Post) On this day in 1963, four Black girls were killed when a bomb ripped through Sunday services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. More than 20 people were injured. Ku Klux Klansmen were eventually convicted of carrying out the attack.
It would be wonderful to confront some of the people and tell them that they are all Africans too. All humans alive today are descended from people who emigrated out of east Africa many thousands of years ago. "Race" is a social construct to allocate power and influence - who has it and who doesn't. We "white" people showed up only about 6-8000 years ago - before that we were all Black or Brown. Arguing over race is like arguing over the color of Labrador Retriever puppies.....
It's always amazed me that minorities have been represented in the US military in numbers that far exceed their percentages of the general population. That these enlistees choose to protect a nation that's done them such dirt is puzzling, but then they are probably all far more religious and generous spirited than I. This military enlistment truth is what I scream at the TV whenever the wingers want to smear and lie about Black Lives Matter and other groups committed to peaceful protests. The goobers feel entitled to smear and lie, and in a world where minorities, through education and entrepreneurship are making their way into the professions, business, and other areas it's got to sting the goobers mightily. Even the right wing majority on the Supreme Court felt it necessary to commit a subtle form of bombing of minorities' futures by killing Affirmative Action. That subtleness is what's changed, but not the sentiment.
I remember the “whites only” in the South, the bombing and the assassination of JFK vividly. For the readers here who are much younger than I am I highly recommend “The Watsons go to Birmingham 1963” by Christopher Paul Curtis. It’s a children’s novel, so it’s an easy read, and it got the Newbery Award. Told with bits of humor, it’s about the Black Watson family’s car journey with two teenage boys and their younger sister from Detroit to visit family in Birmingham and the boys’ experiences there. The bombing is near the end and I felt it as a gut punch.
America owes its Black citizens for the rich heritage in music, sports, style, literature, for its martyrs to emancipate other minorities, women. Until Dixie-KKK-MAGA whites recognize that Blacks, minorities, women as an allied force contributing to our national heritage - rather than as an adversarial one taking away finite opportunities in the country- this vision of the glass half empty, of hate, holds back America's true potentials.
If we are kept busy fighting among ourselves, China & Russia are free to exploit America's weaknesses and prove that democracy is inferior to their authoritarian regimes.
Yeah, not much has changed in the heart of Dixie. Hate, fear, and violence is just bubbling beneath the thin veneer of civility there…
It would be wonderful to confront some of the people and tell them that they are all Africans too. All humans alive today are descended from people who emigrated out of east Africa many thousands of years ago. "Race" is a social construct to allocate power and influence - who has it and who doesn't. We "white" people showed up only about 6-8000 years ago - before that we were all Black or Brown. Arguing over race is like arguing over the color of Labrador Retriever puppies.....
It's always amazed me that minorities have been represented in the US military in numbers that far exceed their percentages of the general population. That these enlistees choose to protect a nation that's done them such dirt is puzzling, but then they are probably all far more religious and generous spirited than I. This military enlistment truth is what I scream at the TV whenever the wingers want to smear and lie about Black Lives Matter and other groups committed to peaceful protests. The goobers feel entitled to smear and lie, and in a world where minorities, through education and entrepreneurship are making their way into the professions, business, and other areas it's got to sting the goobers mightily. Even the right wing majority on the Supreme Court felt it necessary to commit a subtle form of bombing of minorities' futures by killing Affirmative Action. That subtleness is what's changed, but not the sentiment.
As retrograde as the South may be, never forget the largest KKK contingent north of the Carolinas is in Pennsylvania. This filth is everywhere, sadly.
Yeah, I call it "Southernism."
I remember the “whites only” in the South, the bombing and the assassination of JFK vividly. For the readers here who are much younger than I am I highly recommend “The Watsons go to Birmingham 1963” by Christopher Paul Curtis. It’s a children’s novel, so it’s an easy read, and it got the Newbery Award. Told with bits of humor, it’s about the Black Watson family’s car journey with two teenage boys and their younger sister from Detroit to visit family in Birmingham and the boys’ experiences there. The bombing is near the end and I felt it as a gut punch.
America owes its Black citizens for the rich heritage in music, sports, style, literature, for its martyrs to emancipate other minorities, women. Until Dixie-KKK-MAGA whites recognize that Blacks, minorities, women as an allied force contributing to our national heritage - rather than as an adversarial one taking away finite opportunities in the country- this vision of the glass half empty, of hate, holds back America's true potentials.
If we are kept busy fighting among ourselves, China & Russia are free to exploit America's weaknesses and prove that democracy is inferior to their authoritarian regimes.
Tom, can you provide a link to the Washington Post’s article?