I was sort of there. Mostly I went to school in the overseas military school system. But one year we returned to Indiana. All the early focus of the civil rights movement was in the south. However Indiana was bad, really bad. Blacks could live in certain cities, if they had factories where black labor was needed to man them. We moved a half block outside of the small town of Jonesboro. Everyday I walked by a sign as I entered the town on my way to school and I would pass a sign "N---, if you enter into this town you may be shot. Lynchings were unnecessary because it was legally declared self-defense to shoot blacks when caught trespassing in towns that outlawed blacks from entering. One day i decided to uproot the sign and throw it face down (it was planted in soil, not concrete). Of course my father had to pay a fine and was pretty upset. Well I didn't attempt to uproot the sign that was reposted almost immediately.
The question is though, should I have pulled it out again and again, day after day. I was intimated and didn't. It's not just a matter of one protest, it's a matter of not becoming intimated to not continue day after day. The Floyd killing reignited a kind of city by city protest and then ended. Of course that is why some lament the demonstrations "have not changed anything." MLK and the other southerners kept the demonstations going for 13 years before he was killed. The immediate aftermath was an eruption of riots across the country and after that a rather big sigh that they hadn't accomplished anything. That's not true, they accomplished a great deal as you note. But what was accomplished will embolden others who might wish to suppress those when they sense the protests are no longer ongoing. So they can't stop unless you only want to prove a point you're dissatisfied today. But if you want to alter the direction, then the protests cannot end. The sporadic protest is "uncivil"; the continuous protest slowly wins the future.
You were living in a Sundown town; they were a midwest/northern phenomenon, mostly. James Loewen's Sundown Towns talks about the history there. It's largely been (conveniently) forgotten.)
ty. I am unfamiliar with the term. but more than likely it was a sundown county because there was only one town in the mostly agrarian county (with several small villages) and one mid-sized city where they had heavy and light industry that blacks could enter. even many of the county roads forbade blacks to travel on them. But before we returned to the county where my parents had grown up, my first memories were living in Muncie while my parents attended university. it was equally segregated and scarred the rest of my life when a black family invited me to go to see The Robe with them and none of us were allowed to see the movie after the mother had bought the tickets but when we entered they were forbidden to take me to sit with them in the balcony where they had to sit. I was only three years old but i was really feeling at that moment black people must always feel--still.
Indiana had the largest contingent of klan members. In the 20's when D.C. Stephenson ran the state nearly 80% were klan members. But even in the 50's of my childhood, klan membership was nearly double any single state in the south. Muncie coincidentally, did not "desegregate" until 1969 by federal court order. the issue was never official segregated schools---the state had abolished that in '49. But the towns themselves were segregated by neighborhoods. I'm pretty sure (possibly wrong) the first court ordered bussing cases were in Indianapolis & Gary.
Gods know I hate to be inconvenienced myself (I remember one time a Sharpton protest stranded by then-wife at her secretarial job for several hours, and she's hated Al Sharpton ever since!), but when you contrast it with what the protesters are protesting about? It really does seem like complaining about having gotten yellow mustard on my sandwich when I SPECIFICALLY ordered Dijon, doesn't it?
Clinton NeoLiberalism* is a monument to "proper" and "civil" behavior, always at the cost of changing anything. It's clear that Hillary and all who support her are largely delighted with the world just the way it is, because they're at the top of the heap just like they feel they should be. Sure, they have dissatisfactions, like their Qween losing an "inevitable" election to her hand-picked jibroni, but most of them aren't living their lives knowing they could be shot dead at any moment by a bigoted cop or a nervy White punk kid packing Daddy's assault rifle in "self-defense" against a group of nonviolent protestors. To them, Trump's victory was a case of getting yellow mustard on their sandwich, because they're never personally affected by a lack of access to birth control or pregnancy termination, or being felt up by a scumbag male boss! (Why else would they slut-shame Monica Lewinsky, or any woman who had the misfortune to get close to Creepy Uncle Joe Biden?)
If we want the world to change then sometimes we've got to make a lot of noise—or give our support to the people making a lot of noise, because the protest is about them, not us.
___
* Yes, it predates the Clintons by a long time, but to my mind there's a special place in Hell for Hillary Rodham Clinton after what she not only did to Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, and her psychotic insistence that Bernie Sanders is some kind of Fifth Columnist, but also for having given us all President Donald Trump.
I wasn't a Clinton fan...but I don't think she's primarily responsible for Trump, nor really for the kind of anti trans rhetoric Kasperian's been embracing. Kasperian is quite a bit to the right of Biden on trans issues at this point.
I'm afraid I know very little about Ana Kasparian, and I don't feel you added much more to my store of knowledge with this piece. For instance, until you mentioned her being transphobic just now, I had no idea she was!
the tweet is attacking trans activists. She's one of the main hosts of the young turks (TYT), a youtube network that's supposedly left, but has been drifting more and more rightwards.
Jul 6, 2023·edited Jul 7, 2023Liked by Noah Berlatsky
Oh...THAT clueless, patronizing comment. I took it less as transphobia and more as rich, privileged White liberalism demanding the peasants pipe down in the back!
I take it she's been more overtly transphobic in other comments.
TERFS suck 🤮
I was sort of there. Mostly I went to school in the overseas military school system. But one year we returned to Indiana. All the early focus of the civil rights movement was in the south. However Indiana was bad, really bad. Blacks could live in certain cities, if they had factories where black labor was needed to man them. We moved a half block outside of the small town of Jonesboro. Everyday I walked by a sign as I entered the town on my way to school and I would pass a sign "N---, if you enter into this town you may be shot. Lynchings were unnecessary because it was legally declared self-defense to shoot blacks when caught trespassing in towns that outlawed blacks from entering. One day i decided to uproot the sign and throw it face down (it was planted in soil, not concrete). Of course my father had to pay a fine and was pretty upset. Well I didn't attempt to uproot the sign that was reposted almost immediately.
The question is though, should I have pulled it out again and again, day after day. I was intimated and didn't. It's not just a matter of one protest, it's a matter of not becoming intimated to not continue day after day. The Floyd killing reignited a kind of city by city protest and then ended. Of course that is why some lament the demonstrations "have not changed anything." MLK and the other southerners kept the demonstations going for 13 years before he was killed. The immediate aftermath was an eruption of riots across the country and after that a rather big sigh that they hadn't accomplished anything. That's not true, they accomplished a great deal as you note. But what was accomplished will embolden others who might wish to suppress those when they sense the protests are no longer ongoing. So they can't stop unless you only want to prove a point you're dissatisfied today. But if you want to alter the direction, then the protests cannot end. The sporadic protest is "uncivil"; the continuous protest slowly wins the future.
You were living in a Sundown town; they were a midwest/northern phenomenon, mostly. James Loewen's Sundown Towns talks about the history there. It's largely been (conveniently) forgotten.)
ty. I am unfamiliar with the term. but more than likely it was a sundown county because there was only one town in the mostly agrarian county (with several small villages) and one mid-sized city where they had heavy and light industry that blacks could enter. even many of the county roads forbade blacks to travel on them. But before we returned to the county where my parents had grown up, my first memories were living in Muncie while my parents attended university. it was equally segregated and scarred the rest of my life when a black family invited me to go to see The Robe with them and none of us were allowed to see the movie after the mother had bought the tickets but when we entered they were forbidden to take me to sit with them in the balcony where they had to sit. I was only three years old but i was really feeling at that moment black people must always feel--still.
Indiana had the largest contingent of klan members. In the 20's when D.C. Stephenson ran the state nearly 80% were klan members. But even in the 50's of my childhood, klan membership was nearly double any single state in the south. Muncie coincidentally, did not "desegregate" until 1969 by federal court order. the issue was never official segregated schools---the state had abolished that in '49. But the towns themselves were segregated by neighborhoods. I'm pretty sure (possibly wrong) the first court ordered bussing cases were in Indianapolis & Gary.
Gods know I hate to be inconvenienced myself (I remember one time a Sharpton protest stranded by then-wife at her secretarial job for several hours, and she's hated Al Sharpton ever since!), but when you contrast it with what the protesters are protesting about? It really does seem like complaining about having gotten yellow mustard on my sandwich when I SPECIFICALLY ordered Dijon, doesn't it?
Clinton NeoLiberalism* is a monument to "proper" and "civil" behavior, always at the cost of changing anything. It's clear that Hillary and all who support her are largely delighted with the world just the way it is, because they're at the top of the heap just like they feel they should be. Sure, they have dissatisfactions, like their Qween losing an "inevitable" election to her hand-picked jibroni, but most of them aren't living their lives knowing they could be shot dead at any moment by a bigoted cop or a nervy White punk kid packing Daddy's assault rifle in "self-defense" against a group of nonviolent protestors. To them, Trump's victory was a case of getting yellow mustard on their sandwich, because they're never personally affected by a lack of access to birth control or pregnancy termination, or being felt up by a scumbag male boss! (Why else would they slut-shame Monica Lewinsky, or any woman who had the misfortune to get close to Creepy Uncle Joe Biden?)
If we want the world to change then sometimes we've got to make a lot of noise—or give our support to the people making a lot of noise, because the protest is about them, not us.
___
* Yes, it predates the Clintons by a long time, but to my mind there's a special place in Hell for Hillary Rodham Clinton after what she not only did to Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, and her psychotic insistence that Bernie Sanders is some kind of Fifth Columnist, but also for having given us all President Donald Trump.
Let the brickbats fly.
I wasn't a Clinton fan...but I don't think she's primarily responsible for Trump, nor really for the kind of anti trans rhetoric Kasperian's been embracing. Kasperian is quite a bit to the right of Biden on trans issues at this point.
I'm afraid I know very little about Ana Kasparian, and I don't feel you added much more to my store of knowledge with this piece. For instance, until you mentioned her being transphobic just now, I had no idea she was!
the tweet is attacking trans activists. She's one of the main hosts of the young turks (TYT), a youtube network that's supposedly left, but has been drifting more and more rightwards.
Oh...THAT clueless, patronizing comment. I took it less as transphobia and more as rich, privileged White liberalism demanding the peasants pipe down in the back!
I take it she's been more overtly transphobic in other comments.
yep.
...and thank you for NOT sharing any more of them!
Why give that lot any more oxygen than they already have?