Without mentioning that the police did it
And yet:
Not “a journalist was struck with his own microphone”
Are they fucking serious
What was neccesary in that post though? Better yet what was your point even? Plenty of people grew up in the south. Racism in the south is a broadly shared experience. Whether you meant it that way or not it really comes across as a lot of boring framing/excuse to quote your dad being racist… On a post about a racist massacre no less. As for Huck Finn… Mark Twain at least knew to include a plot kwim?
Let’s not derail this topic with a discussion about racially charged language, especially in a topic about the horrific_actions_ that bigotry hath wrought in the last century.
Consider the source: The New York Times.
And people are commenting (at that Twitter link above) in that thread with gems like this:
If nothing else, we certainly understand where sympathies of the editors of the NYTimes lie.
Amazing, really, their use of the passive voice, considering what sticklers they are, editorially, to proper [American-]English usage.
One would think that they knew what they were doing with all those word-thingies.
I was already aware of the massacres in general terms, but I initially learnt about Black Wall Street specifically from looking into the background of Akala’s Fire in the Booth.
You can say that they’re just Black,
But I like to deal with facts
In the 1920s you would’ve found in America
Black towns,
Prospering centres of economics
and education to make you proud
But some people couldn’t bear
that the former slaves would not just lie down
So the KKK and other hate groups burnt
those towns to the ground
Killin hundreds,
If it ain’t understood,
You think you were always livin’ in the hood?
Manuals of style are fascists…
Sheeesh, tell me about it!
https://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Police-Badge-Pinback-Button/dp/B077GGFC2G
I have a dear friend who does brandish her stamped metal Grammar Police Badge occasionally. Her vigorous defense of the proper use of transitive verbs (in her undeniably charming Texas Panhandle twang) is a thing to behold. Do not–repeat not–get her started on lie vs. lay.
ETA:
more here
I could not possibly count the times my mother has launched into lie vs. lay. She is physically incapable of hearing it misused (along with several other common errors) without a lecture on correct usage and how the world is going to hell because we are not making kids learn the difference. Of course she does it with a Mississippi delta twang rather than a Texas panhandle one, but otherwise the same.
I think I must avail myself of one of those grammar police badges!
Not to divert from the general trend of this thread, though; as a number of people have said, the Tulsa massacre was completely unknown to me, until I watched the Watchmen series. I at least have the excuse of being English, and the history I was taught was that of my own country, with only general world history included, I went on to concentrate on geography, so it’s only with wider access to world events via the internet and historical events being included in series like Watchmen and Dr Who, (Rosa Parks) that these events become known to wider audiences, which I’m thankful for.
Most children attend taxpayer-funded U.S. public schools (clumsily worded here, because I realize the terms “public” and “private” schools in England mean different things), and for several decades public school curriculum has largely eliminated the study of geography–of both inside and outside U.S. borders.
Geography and history are utterly, inextricably linked.
Erasure of historical events requires ignorance of geography, among other things. I admit that, being of a particular mindset, it is hard not to interpret the omission of the Tulsa Race Massacre from school curriculum as yet another example of white supremacy. What conclusions are we to draw that all perpetrators of this 99-year-old massacre are likely dead and beyond accountability?
See also #3 listed in this powerful tool by Paul Kivel, Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies Adapted from Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Social Justice:
So it is with very mixed feelings that I post this:
The first sentence in this article:
Oklahoma’s Education Department is adding the 1921 Tulsa race massacre to its curriculum for the first time, [emphasis mine] in a move that doubles as a contingency to stop the tragedy’s centennial from devolving into a pile-on of the state’s failure to fully reckon with the tragedy.
The date in the by-line of this article: February 21, 2020.
Every state in the U.S.A., likewise, has much to answer for regarding genocide of its indigenous peoples. This is true for the entire world.
We are back to geography and history again.
I thank you for willingly studying geography and history. I hope you inspire others to do the same. And thank you also for being willing to learn about this piece of human history.
If it’s any consolation, I did not really understand the timescale, scope and geography of the British Raj’s massacres of the people of India until (as a teenager) I watched Gandhi the year it came out.
ETA: clarifying who the British were killing in India
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