White kids from the high school hang nooses up on trees on school property, and one of them gets his ass kicked for it. Something to learn from, nothing too serious, as he was up and about that night, attending a function. Rural Louisiana has a number of things locked up for whites, and the judgement of a DA in this case, was that the six black kids needed to be charged with attempted murder. Now there are thousands of protesters inside of that town, and for the black community this is the place to take a stand. I agree.
UK Guardian – Bell, 16 at the time of the attack, is the only one of the “Jena Six” to be tried so far. He was convicted on an aggravated second-degree battery count that could have sent him to prison for 15 years, but the conviction was overturned last week when a state appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult. Thursday’s protest had been planned to coincide with Bell’s sentencing, but organizers decided to press ahead even after the conviction was thrown out. Bell remains in jail while prosecutors prepare an appeal. He has been unable to meet the $90,000 bond.
I haven’t been able to confirm it for myself just yet, but apparantly the DA went to the school and spoke to all of the black kids in the cafeteria or auditorium, telling them that if they continued protesting the arrest of their classmates, if they didn’t accept the fact that they were no good niggers for thinking they had the right to criticize white folk, that he’d come down on them hard. The slate of injustice is stocked full at the moment, but this example right here speaks to what America really is.
I don’t enough about this case to offer an opinion, but I don’t think this is typical of America as a whole. I don’t believe that America is a racist country.
Anyway, I’ve posted my football predictions for week three; I hope you’ll have a look.
I don’t see how America can’t be considered a racist country. How have we been treating Arabs in the past few years?
1 million dead Iraqis, 3 million + turned into refugees…our government is talking about how “the surge is a success”…completely oblivious to the suffering we’ve caused. If white people lived in Iraq, would we be so casual about things like 500 Kurds dead in a single day?
What about all the Germans and Italians we killed in World War II? Besides, many of the Iraqis have been killed by each other and by foreign terrorists; not by us. We don’t set roadside bombs, bomb mosques, or use children as human shields.
A while back wasn’t Lou Dobbs trying to say that Immigrants from Mexico had leprosy? Racism takes many forms all the immigrant bashing that one can hear on any right wing radio show is just one form of the ugliness that seems to live in many places in the US. I think it was Chris Matthews who said “white people need to go make more babies”. Why would someone say that, especially in a public forum, unless they think racism is OK. The fact that no body calls Tancredo what he is, a sad old bigot, or at least someone who says what sad old bigots want to hear, shows that many people are OK with racism.
The Jena case is pretty disgusting, hopefully people will start to understand that racism still exists and certain people are happy to perpetuate it.
The country as a long way to go before racism is just an ugly memory, as people like Tony Snow want to pretend.
I forgot to mention the Barrack the magic negro song that Rush Limbaugh played a few times. The lack of public outcry against Rush shows that many people still accept racism, and even encourage it.
The fight against illegal immigration has little to do with skin color and much to do with preserving our laws and our culture. Illegal immigrants are not assimilating, and that’s largely why we don’t want them here. And yes, man of them, though not all of them, do bring in diseases such as leprosy. If we had a better system of enforcement, we could screen out people with diseases. Asians (Japanese, Chinese, etc.) are not discriminated against in this country because they respect this country and they actually make this country better.
As for the song “Barack the Magic Negro,” that is a parody of comments by a (black) columnist in the LA Times. That columnist and others, I think, have made comments about Obama not being black enough, and described him as “a magic Negro.” I don’t care for Rush Limbaugh, but that song is not racist.
Germany attacked its soverign neighbors. Germany wasn’t rolling into Poland so it could gain control of the kielbasa market!
napoleon, the leprosy thing was proven to be false. Lou Dobbs made a mistake when he said that.
Yes, Germany attacked its neighbors, but my point is merely that there wasn’t much of an outcry when we killed millions of Germans, Italians, and other white Europeans. That was war, and we had to do it. There wasn’t any more outcry over that than over the deaths of all those Iraqis, many of whom have not been killed by us anyway. I don’t see any racism there; we killed white Europeans, and we also killed Arabs. Other Europeans were our allies then, and other Arabs are our allies now. And as for causing suffering in Iraq, we haven’t caused any more suffering than Saddam caused. Iraq was a miserable place before we occupied it, and it still is.
I’ll assume you’re right about the leprosy because it’s relatively minor point anyway. They bring in other diseases, and we should not allowing diseased people into this country, no matter what country they come from. We simply don’t need them.
We didn’t kill millions of them. There was an outcry when we unnecessarily bombed the city of Dresden. Look back through the archived newspapers and magazines from that time. I learned a great deal about history in high school, but not nearly as much as I’ve learned about it as an adult.
I think we’ve caused more suffering in a short amount of time than Saddam did. Before we invaded they had universal health care, safe streets, jobs to go to, electricity, running water.
Let’s not understate the hell that people in Iraq have to endure on account of our actions. How long would you like to go in 120 degree heat with none of that? How would you like to own a home, raise a family in it, and then be forced out of it by a sectarian militia? 2 million refugees are in Syria right now, and another million have been displaced within the country.
Iraq’s pre-invasion population was 25 million. Saddam never did anything like this to 20% of his population (counting upwards to a million dead).
These numbers aren’t important in US politics now, but they certainly will be important to the story our kids learn in school about all of this. The Vietnam portions of what I learned in school were watered down, but there’s no way to get around the fact that we lost that war or how many were killed on either side. Those facts are included in even the most watered down history written, because they have to. It’s what happened.
I think we did kill millions of them, considering that more than 12 million Axis perished during the war. Take out the Japanese and those killed by the Russians, and I think there would still be well over one million white Europeans left, who were killed by our forces. Also, there is no room for comparison between the level of suffering inflicted on Germany and that inflicted on Iraq. Finally, concerning Iraq, I think I would rather live in fear of being shot or blown up than live in fear of being fed feet first into a plastic shredder. You might argue that Saddam didn’t kill or torture most of his people, but then most Iraqis haven’t been shot or blown up since then, either.
You’re right, I was thinking past that first statement. I feel bad about it actually.
Again though, mapoleon, we’ve hit this point in the past when this debate unfolds, where you assume to know how life is under a dictator or how life is in a situation like present day Iraq. I feel like I know enough about life under a dictatorship, having read history/stories/etc in that setting, and the distinction between the two seems to be that under a dictatorship you can keep your head down, not make waves, and when someone asks you about politics, just say what will keep you and your family alive.
In Iraq today, you can’t simply go about your life in a way like that and expect not to be killed or made homeless.
Somehow losing my house, like whath appened in New Orleans…it’s a nightmare to think about. My family having no place to go.
I’ve also read about life in dictatorships, including William L. Shirer’s history The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and George Orwell’s novel 1984. I wouldn’t want any part of it. It’s not always possible to merely say what will keep you and your family alive, because you are constantly under suspicion. If you or one of your family members makes even a slight error, it can mean prison, torture, or execution. If you do speak out against the dictatorship in your own home, your children may repeat what you have said to their teachers without realizing the consequences. If you don’t speak out against the dictatorship, your children may be indoctrinated (the Hitler Youth, for instance). You may also be forced to cooperate with the dictatorship in committing various crimes; turning over the Jews to the Gestapo comes to mind.
I’ve also read accounts by Iraqis concerning both Saddam’s brutality and al-Qaida’s brutality. Which is worse? They’re probably about the same. Saddam, though, had greater control over the country than al-Qaida does, and greater capacity to terrorize and inflict suffering. That’s why, in my opinion, it was worse. A government has greater ability to inflict suffering than does a gang of ruthless thugs.
For a second, napoleon I took your last post as a subtle warning (who knows the heck is reading this board?), but I figured I’m cool and haven’t been openly asking big questions recently.
Yet, I wonder if an Iraqi tonight is sleeping up against the corner of the wall, and asking himself whether life was better under Sudan… and then wakes up with a shout “Hell, those BlackWater Cats a freaking crAZy!”
Figure I’d take my chance with a meglomanic control freak and kid with my buds about toppling his ass one day, then