Civil War? What Civil War?

[Flash Walken]

Racism alive and well in the south

The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the “white tree” at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree. The white jury and white prosecutor and all white supporters of the white victim were all on one side of the courtroom. The black defendant, 17 year old Mychal Bell, and his supporters were on the other. The jury quickly convicted Mychal Bell of two felonies - aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. Bell, who was a 16 year old sophomore football star at the time he was arrested, faces up to 22 years in prison. Five other black youths
await similar trials on attempted second degree murder and conspiracy charges.

...

Jena, with a population of less than 3000, is the largest town in and parish (county) seat of LaSalle Parish, Louisiana. There are about 350 African Americans in the town. LaSalle has a population of just over 14,000 people - 12% African-American.

This is solid Bush and David Duke Country - GWB won LaSalle Parish 4 to 1 in the last two elections; Duke carried a majority of the white vote when he ran for Governor of Louisiana. Families earn about 60% of the national average. The Census Bureau reports that less than 10% of the businesses in LaSalle Parish are black owned.

Jena is the site of the infamous Juvenile Correctional Center for Youth that was forced to close its doors in 2000, only two years after opening, due to widespread brutality and racism including the choking of juveniles by guards after the youth met with a lawyer. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the private prison amid complaints that guards paid inmates to fight each other and laughed when teens tried to commit suicide.

Black students decided to resist and organized a sit-in under the “white tree” at the school to protest the light suspensions given to the noose-hanging white students.

The white District Attorney then came to Jena High with law enforcement officers to address a school assembly. According to testimony in a later motion in court, the DA reportedly threatened the black protesting students saying that if they didn’t stop making a fuss about this “innocent prank… I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen.” The school was put on lockdown for the rest of the week.

...

What happened to the white guys? The white victim of the beating was later arrested for bringing a hunting rifle loaded with 13 bullets onto the high school campus and released on $5000 bond. The white man who beat up the black youth at the off-campus party was arrested and charged with simple battery. The white students who hung up the nooses in the “white tree” were never charged.

[FireFly]

Oh my. I couldn't even finish the story. It's just disgusting that those in power would abuse their power to such a degree. The whole thing could've been stopped right at the start with the expulsion of the three boys... but as I write that, I think it probably would've just made things worse in such a hatred filled town. Truly sad that people still can't look past a person's skin colour.

[badnarik]

not surprising at all. the civil war certainly didn't end racism.

[Vulcan]

It's not like we have to go to the southern USA to find rascists enforcing their law.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../National/home

[cgy2london]

I had a friend who worked in Alabama, he said racisim is right out in the open. one of his good friends was asian and ppl often looked at him and treated him poorly because of his association with his asian friend. Also if he would open a door for a black person or something simple like that ppl would look at him like he was crazy.

funny fact in the town he lived in, They mad segretgated Grads until 1991!!!

[ernie]

My boss told me a story about being in the South. He's white but was meeting a college friend who is black for lunch. They met up and went to a diner. As soon as they walked in the guy behind the counter yelled "n****r in the house get the noose". It was followed by laughter from the patrons. This was last summer. Needless to say they found somewhere else to eat.

It just shocks me that there are still so many people that can't look past skin colour.

[Vulcan]

All interesting stories guys or girls. I stopped into a MacDonalds, right here in good old Canada with a native woman. I was buying [woopdeewoop] but before I went to the counter, I had to use the washroom. She took a seat. After coming out of the washroom, I couldn't find her. She was outside and she told me the manager kicked her out. A friggen MacDonalds. Now this lady was well dressed and didn't drink, ever. I was livid but as someone else did, why stay where you aren't wanted, so we went on to a decent restaurant. Racism and inequality is alive and well right here folks, although I understand the temptation at poking fun at someone else instead of looking at ourselves.

[Bobblehead]

I was walking down the street in Hamilton with a couple buddies (one of whom is black). A pick-up pulled over and started shouting nasty stuff before racing off again. The type of thing you associate with the deep South. I had never encountered anything so blatant before, but my buddy said that it happens sometimes. Not a lot, but every so often.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I was walking down the street in Hamilton with a couple buddies (one of whom is black). A pick-up pulled over and started shouting nasty stuff before racing off again. The type of thing you associate with the deep South. I had never encountered anything so blatant before, but my buddy said that it happens sometimes. Not a lot, but every so often.

Ah the true sign of a coward, willing to yell racial slurs at someone while driving away... way to stick by their beliefs

[Cowperson]

Calgary's own Nirmala Naidoo, a visible minority anchor of 2&7 News and once looking very fetching on the cover of Time Magazine in a white stetson as an example of the new face of Canada, told a story of when she and her husband (now divorced) were down in some obscure place in Montana, stepped into a bar/eatery and she was immediately targetted by the local good ole boys for rough verbal treatment, these lads assuming she was black (she's east Indian of South African origin I believe.)

Her profile:

http://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/helping_albe...=NirmalaNaidoo

There's racism everywhere to some degree and not all racists are white either, something that should be remembered.

Two years ago, I was walking around Atlanta, a city with a heavy population of blacks, on a pedestrian mall near a subway station downtown and had some racial oriented epithet hurled my way behind my back by a black guy whom I hadn't even noticed in the crowd to that point.

Three years ago, I was walking a street in Nassau, Bahamas and the same thing happened - although far rougher language - with some crusty black guy sitting in a doorway on one of the main commercial streets. Unsolicited. I hadn't even looked at the guy.

At first, you can't believe you've heard it . . . . and then you're several paces away before the words come together again and understanding dawns . . . and by that stage its rather pointless to reply.

In some ways, at least in my case, both were kind of humourous because they seemed so stereotypical, they're essentially one-off experiences that you're unlikely to encounter again, and you've got a couple of stories to tell.

Others who experience it more often probably wouldn't have found them funny.

When I was a kid, before the dinosaurs, I remember being with my parents in a diner in Edmonton and there was a black guy sitting on the other side of the room . . . . . I was totally astonished by the skin colour and couldn't stop staring so my pop gave me a good swat, probably because he didn't want a problem versus him being a progressive.

Working as a slave on my grand uncle's farm in the late 1970's, some guys came into the yard and were asking permission to use the firing range down the hill . . . . my uncle said no and as they were driving off he revealed the reason, the black man who was with them. "I won't have any "n . . ." on my land." About five years ago and about 25 years after the incident, I reminded him of that day and, to his credit, he was genuinely ashamed and said: "That isn't the way it is anymore."

There's hope. Keep plugging away. Maybe we'll get to that Star Trek utopia some day.

Cowperson

[shane_c]

At the call centre I used to work at in NB, we took calls from Georgia for peoples natural gas bills. I was surprised by how many were still going on about the civil war, north vs south, etc. The vast majority of the callers sounded extremely uneducated and a lot couldn't even read so would have to give their bill to someone else to read it for them.

[GrrlGoalie33]

One of my neighbors, right here in Calgary, yelled the n-word at a black man walking down the street. It happens very close to home still.

And who can forget all of the stories Global has done about racism against asain and east indian people within our city - different skin color but the result is similar.

[Flash Walken]

Just as an aside, the article references insitutionalized racism as opposed to the every day ignorant idiot.

[flip]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

It's not like we have to go to the southern USA to find rascists enforcing their law.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../National/home

boy i hate to sound racist but after reading the link about the story in louisiana and then reading the story about the natives doesn't sound like the natives story is remotely similar.

the native guy ran a stopsign with numerous teenagers in the back of the pickup who were standing then refused to stop when the police tried to pull him over. "Despite police efforts to block his path, Mr. Mayers did not stop for several hundred metres."then natives surrounded the three cops.

im sure that if i was surrounded by an angry mob (regardless of race) who were mad because i arrested someone who ran a stop sign and evaded police and resisted arrest i might use excessive force.

don't get me wrong i think it's terrible that children got pepper sprayed and im sure the cops went overboard as they sometimes tend to do. but i would hardly classify it in the same statosphere as the louisiana case.

[Burninator]

Wow reading that story was sad. At first I thought the year must have been wrong, like maybe that happened twenty or thirty years ago. This talk of a "white-tree" just...wow...how disappointing how that whole event unfolded.

Nuke the south

[CrusaderPi]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Wow reading that story was sad. At first I thought the year must have been wrong, like maybe that happened twenty or thirty years ago. This talk of a "white-tree" just...wow...how disappointing how that whole event unfolded.

Nuke the south

Yup, I hate southerners. I wish we'd kill every last one of 'em.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by flip

boy i hate to sound racist but after reading the link about the story in louisiana and then reading the story about the natives doesn't sound like the natives story is remotely similar.

the native guy ran a stopsign with numerous teenagers in the back of the pickup who were standing then refused to stop when the police tried to pull him over. "Despite police efforts to block his path, Mr. Mayers did not stop for several hundred metres."then natives surrounded the three cops.

im sure that if i was surrounded by an angry mob (regardless of race) who were mad because i arrested someone who ran a stop sign and evaded police and resisted arrest i might use excessive force.

don't get me wrong i think it's terrible that children got pepper sprayed and im sure the cops went overboard as they sometimes tend to do. but i would hardly classify it in the same statosphere as the louisiana case.

The way I read it is the natives were having a procession, you know like a parade, on their own property that they had been doing for 20 years. Pulling the guy over for going through a stop sign would be like pulling a parade float over for going through a red light at the Calgary Stampede. Obviously not as well organized as the Stampede but in the natives eyes, just as important.

[Antithesis]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Wow reading that story was sad.

Nuke the south

Uh ... am I missing something? You're being just as judgmental as the people you are decrying here ...

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Antithesis

Uh ... am I missing something? You're being just as judgmental as the people you are decrying here ...

If you can't detect the sarcasm in that you are not spending enough time on the internet. I guess I should have ended it with one of these

Of course I don't think we should nuke the south, but at times it seems to be going backwards in time.

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

It's not like we have to go to the southern USA to find rascists enforcing their law.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../National/home

I'm not quite sure how this is classified as racism. A police officer attempted to stop someone in a truck who broke the law, who subsequently refused to pull over (another broken law)? Or is it because he was on a reserve, and they were celebrating a soccer victory that it suddenly becomes okay? I'm not trying to say i'm not sympathetic or agree with the outcome, but I think the racism card is thrown around way to often.