Race, lets make this serious! It is nearly 2013.

[Vrede too]

Young (Quinault tribe) father run down, killed in Grays Harbor County (WA) campground confrontation

[homerfobe]

They got him. They're calling it a deadly crash. Idiots.

[Vrede too]

Thanks, homerfobe!


The Color of Law
A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America



“The Color of Law” documents how federal, state, and local governments, with racially explicit intent, segregated cities from San Francisco to Boston. It exposes little-known facts about racially conscious government policy to enforce residential segregation, accelerating in the New Deal and continuing for decades afterwards. And it demonstrates that government’s purposeful creation of ghettos created a framework for conflicts in places like Ferguson, Baltimore, Milwaukee and Charlotte.

[Vrede too]

I don't think I've ever heard about this before:

The Destruction of Black Wall Street

[JTA]

I don't think I've ever heard about this before:

The Destruction of Black Wall Street

That's really messed up. People are disgusting. I just finished reading the slave narratives. Wtf is/was wrong with people?

[Vrede too]

... Wtf is/was wrong with people?

This partially answers your question:

New Orleans mayor denounces 'false narrative of our history' in speech defending Confederate monument removal

Excerpt:

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined 'separate but equal'; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame ... all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.

As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, "A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them."

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other.

So, let's start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This 'cult' had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

[Boatrocker]

Got nuthin to add to that.

[billy.pilgrim]

Got nuthin to add to that.

They shuda put up a bug statue like y'all gots. Don't much nobody care about bug statues up, or down. Sure not enough to cause such a big row.

[Boatrocker]

True, thought it does (even with the explanation of its history) give visitors from non-southern and non-American environs pause to wonder, "What the fuck?"

[Vrede too]

They shuda put up a bug statue like y'all gots. Don't much nobody care about bug statues up, or down. Sure not enough to cause such a big row.

True, thought it does (even with the explanation of its history) give visitors from non-southern and non-American environs pause to wonder, "What the fuck?"

:?:

[O Really]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_Weevil_Monument

[Vrede too]

True, thought it does (even with the explanation of its history) give visitors from non-southern and non-American environs pause to wonder, "What the fuck?"

To be fair, that's not an unusual occurrence for visitors to Alabama.

"... it stands as the world's first monument built to honor an agricultural pest."

Is there a second one? She looks like she's about to smash it to the ground. Is there even one monument to plantation slaves in all of Alabama?

[O Really]

Is there even one monument to plantation slaves in all of Alabama?

How about a lynching monument? http://www.al.com/news/montgomery/index ... racia.html

[Vrede too]

Sounds like an important museum, but the article doesn't mention statuary and I would hope that other AL museums already mention slavery.

There may be some public involvement, but at first glance it looks like an entirely private undertaking.

Wiki: The Memorial to Peace and Justice

Equal Justice Initiative

[O Really]

OK, here's one. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... a/3989611/
Not exactly a statue, but still...

[O Really]

I'm not sure why all those Civil War statues were allowed to be put up in the first place, years ago. If you consider, there are only two alternatives for the Confederate states and their hot-headed short-sighted leaders. One could agree that their secession was successful and the Confederate States of America was a real country. If that was the case, then that country was defeated, occupied, and why would you let them put up statues to the memory of that. The winners of wars get to write the history - in pretty much every instance ever except the Civil War. Or, you could agree with those who say the secession was not successful because the Constitution didn't allow it, in which case the leaders of the rebellion were traitors, engaging in violent attacks on the United States. Why allow statutes of the traitors? Defeated country leaders or traitorous rebels, either way I bet you can't find many if any similar circumstances where the losing side gets to commemorate its losing cause. I'm thinking that if the Indians had prevailed overall, there wouldn't be any Custer memorial at the Little Bighorn. On the other hand, you can find lots of pics of winners pulling down statues of people like Saddam Hussein, and all these... http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/good-bye-lenin ... os-1467932

[Vrede too]

You can usually get a roadside sign put up for anything, but this wasn't that easy.

... Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said he was hesitant to allow the organization to put up the markers about slavery.

"It's history," Strange said, adding that the city already has a marker that memorializes events of Montgomery's slave trade at the Court Square Fountain on Dexter Avenue, where slaves were once traded....

Part of the reason he said he agreed to allow the initiative to place the markers on public rights-of-way is because it will promote tourism.

"I would have preferred not to have the additional markers, but I believe they are part of history," he said....

They had a token marker.

Sounds like folks are working hard on it though: "The Black Heritage Council is a statewide organization that advocates for the preservation of African-American historic places, artifacts and culture ..."

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu spends some time discussing the 'why' above.

Now that you mention it, there are plenty of commemorations of Native Americans, including a very, very well done Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument about their beating Custer. So, I guess losers do sometimes get monuments, BUT we stole the land from them, it was self defense on their part, they weren't traitors, they didn't do slavery on an industrial scale and they weren't fighting to maintain slavery.

[Vrede too]

I'm not sure why all those Civil War statues were allowed to be put up in the first place, years ago....

Here's the Real History Behind Arizona's Confederate Monuments

[Vrede too]

50 years ago tomorrow:

Lovings won interracial couples the right to marry

[Vrede too]

Just heard about this for the first time ever on public radio:

Robert Smalls: Escape from slavery