On top of that, many of the core Civil Rights organizations that had been around from the 19teens and 20s went through a major purging of their most leftists members or associations. I’m sure you’re aware of how Paul Robeson had his passport pulled for a while, for example. He was an unapologetic leftist, including having his son educated in the Soviet Union for a while. I want to say WEB DuBois’ leaving the US for Ghana was in part due to stuff like this (HUAC, CR orgs purging the left, using anti-communism to hide racism, etc). I do think this goes right back to the interwar period as well, since everyone in the capitalist countries were freaked out by the Communist Revolution in Russia. Part of the reason the summer of 1919 was called the “Red Summer” was because of the huge spike in race riots and in the fear of a revolution in the US. The Palmer Raids were both racist AND anti-communist…
But it’s weird how interconnected the history of racism is with the history of communism/socialism/radicalism in the US and how little that’s remarked on today, except in comments like your bigoted (all our bigoted) uncles…
Wow. That billboard is a period Facebook meme. That photo could be of literally anything, but it no doubt reinforced a lot of peoples’ ridiculous beliefs about King. I guess we’ve always done the same awful things, social media has just made it all nuclear.
Also, I love that the placard complaining that black people will ruin schools had a spelling error on it that was corrected. I guess that hasn’t changed either.
That’s good news that you’re able to avoid him! It really sucks that people have to avoid blood relations, but it’s a fact of modern life. Well, probably always been a problem, though.
It depicted people of different races sitting together in a peaceful gathering and People of Color with reading materials. No further context necessary to earn the condemnation of the Right.
Indeed. It’s specifically from the Highlander Folk School, who taught classes on non-violent resistance during the civil rights era, but that goes back to the 30s:
People in seeing that billboard would likely have been familiar with that and would have been familiar with the Highlander school.
Her kids being Biracial basically created a schism in my mom’s side of the family; though never spoken aloud in front of us, they never ‘forgave her’ for having kids with a Black man.
She’s been the “black sheep” ever since my older sister was born, back in the late 60’s.
The only interaction I had with her side of the family was what my Gram initiated, and after she passed away, I rarely had any occasion to see them.
I’m on okay terms with most of my younger cousins, but the older gens I tend to ignore completely; we were never a close, tightly knit family anyway.
That’s just my reality; only one of many tales of how racism and bigotry taints everything.
It’s probably why I relate so strongly to the struggles of our LGBTQ+ sisters & brothers - I know firsthand what it’s like to have shitty small-minded relatives and the need to form your own family from people who actually respect and care about you.
The right is not mistaken in their perception that racial equality is a threat to the core structures of US society. Instead, they’re being unusually perceptive.
See also: “Immigrants will steal your jobs!”, rather than “Your boss will sack you because they can make more money by employing an immigrant for less than they’re worth, and they care more about making money than they do about you or anyone else”.
Is no one else going to call this out? The First Amendment doesn’t apply here. The government isn’t stopping you from teaching Critical Race Theory. It’s stopping itself from teaching Critical Race Theory.
That’s the definition of a violation of the first amendment, actually. The US government deciding what is proper history and what isn’t. It silences alternate voices that don’t align with the agreed upon narrative.
So it’s a violation of the First Amendment for the government to decide what it’s speech should be? Does that mean that it’s a violation of the First Amendment for it to not be teaching white supremacy?
it’s a violation for the first amendment for the government to suppress speech that is considered politically charged. Yes, it’s a violation to suppress speech that is critical of white supremacy.
Funny how many people online think youtube violated the first amendment at some point but then when our insanely corrupt government makes actual attack on the first amendment …
