American Experience: Reconstruction: A 2nd Civil War

"Six [negro] men with their children walked off, using the most abusive language,..."

Whites Can't Even Count (1919 Came Before "The 60s")

Wear the "wrong" pants and blacks deserve whatever whites do

Racist white's oppressive focus on the blacks they've made poor - and not white's own racist behavior - began long before LBJ:

During the Reconstruction era some Black Americans believed that the solution to social uplift was not in social reform but in individual moral behavior. Behind the idea was the concept that discrimination and systematic oppression took place because Whites did not respect Blacks. However, the theory went that if Blacks changed their behavior, fashion, and even music, Whites would begin to respect them and therefore treat them as deserving of dignity. 

Politics of respectability was,...an ideology, targeted towards poor Blacks, urging them to get on board with behavior that Whites deemed respectable, as a necessary and sufficient condition of racial uplift,…The Chicago Defender posted weekly reminders targeting poor Black Chicago migrants, admonishing them against vulgar language and ragged clothes. Avoiding these things, the newspaper argues in a May 17, 1919 issue, "will disarm those who are endeavoring to discredit the race." 

Instead of moral excellence being a possibility for us all, politics of respectability places the burden of virtue on the oppressed and lets the oppressor off the hook. Instead of challenging the oppressor to be fair, loving, or unconditionally compassionate, they demand that the oppressed "pull up their pants," "don't wear hoodies," "remain chaste," and "don't be lazy" -- while simultaneously excusing the unethical acts of the oppressor towards them.

We must still be in the Reconstruction Era

Whites in blackface just like always - but in 2014

Blacks seem to change much easier than whites - why is that?

When racist whites focus, on what racist whites do, then racist whites might become respectable themselves,...

This is how a white person looks "thinking about race"

ADDED:

History has shown that 'acting better' does not bring about being 'treated better.' We must remember that four girls were in Sunday school when their Birmingham church was bombed. Amadou Diallo did not commit any crime, obeyed the police, but yet was shot 41 times by the police. We can count numerous times in which women were raped not because they wore short skirts or were intoxicated but simply because they were women. This is why in "A Case For Reparations", Ta-Nehisi Coates claims: 

The kind of trenchant racism to which black people have persistently been subjected can never be defeated by making its victims more respectable. The essence of American racism [or any hatred for that matter] is disrespect. 

Moreover, respectability politics is not a philosophy where we value morality for morality sake but it is used as a means to achieve respect from Whites and men: a goal that may never be achieved.

As The Country Changes (White Supremacy Fights On)

You'll figure a way out of this.

Considering all the talk at the Althouse recently, about white "indifference," I thought Jordan Davis' father nailed whether or not it's racist to be so:

  This guy had indifference towards my son and killed him and continued to shoot at these boys.

A person like Michael Dunn could be so callous as to disregard the life of Jordan Davis. Just threw his life away like it was nothing.

'You didn't do what I told you to do, so I'm going to shoot you.'

Big men on campus.

I don't know what it will take, to make whites care about what they do, if they didn't grab all the opportunities to show it, previously, with Reconstruction, 40 Acres and a mule, reparations, etc. It's almost like whites want to be seen, historically, as Nazis or something, simply out of a misplaced sense of you-don't-tell-me-what-to-do pride. It's sad, man - especially if you're the type to actually give a damn about white Americans, too.

Almost created to cry.

Coming out of a deeply caring culture - which whites cynically regard as the "race hustle" - I truly can't relate,…

 

Equality Sure Does Have A Bizarre Meaning In America

Professor Jim Downs, author of “Sick from Freedom: African American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction,” says that in the transition to freedom from 1862 to 1870, hundreds of thousands of freed slaves never lived long enough to enjoy their freedom. A lifetime of suffering was followed by a massive death toll.

The portrayal of newly liberated people, with their belongings piled high as they journeyed toward freedom and into a bright new world of opportunity, is far from factual. Many had no shoes and only the clothes on their backs. During the winters, many froze and starved to death. They were without shelter and experienced severe hardships and suffering. Enslaved Africans in Texas were not freed until June 1865, as slave owners there ignored the proclamation for two years.

Freed slaves entered a completely foreign and hostile world. They were illiterate, since it was a crime for them to read or write, and segregated. They had no knowledge of the monetary system or of social customs, and no paid jobs.

Millions of newly freed slaves succumbed to yellow fever, dysentery and other diseases. It is estimated that at least 1 million of the 4 million former slaves got sick or died between 1862 and 1870. That’s not counting the large numbers of enslaved Africans who were worked to death, beaten to death or lynched on plantations by slave owners.

Hot Air Doesn't Have The Integrity Of It's Convictions

Poor white people. They don't understand white people. Here's Hot Air on Obama's claim that “There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President”:

"Er … riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. In order to buy this nonsense, one would have to believe that millions of people approved of him despite his ethnicity for several years before deciding over the last few months to discover their inner Bull Connor."

That "nonsense" couldn't happen, right? That simply doesn't happen. It would be outrageous. Unbelievable - because white people have been so consistent in their adherence to principles of equality and justice.

 They died in The Civil War - then what happened:

"During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly enfranchised blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South."

"Less than a decade" - and the result?

"What remains certain is that Reconstruction failed, and that for blacks its failure was a disaster whose magnitude cannot be obscured by the genuine accomplishments that did endure."

Hot Air - the #1 conservative news site - should be ashamed:

They think the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor,…

 

40 Acres & A Mule II: Weren't Whites Being Generous?

Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis had grown weary of the black refugees that were following him, especially the women, children, and elderly, who numbered in the thousands.  They were not able to help out as much and were seen as a burden.

…Some historical accounts present the offer of 40 acres of land as government benevolence toward wandering refugees, but it's not about the 40 acres at all.  It's about the actions of General Jefferson C. Davis at Ebenezer Creek.  It’s about the bloody massacre of hundreds of freed slaves,...

Reconstruction Lasted 10 Years & The Right Says Squat

  "If we are all willing to be a little more patient and less critical, I think we’re headed to a good and honest space. Maybe we can finally reach that Jewish space where our community’s past pain is widely respected and no one calls on us to 'get over it' and 'move on'. Wouldn’t that be something?"

"It isn’t as if they’ve hired the best and the brightest whites, either.”

Everything's Working Fine As Long As The Blacks Lose

Do you see how racism, like NewAge, "works"? 

A black guy takes the heat online, going over a couple of years, for telling the truth about Mormons in the face of vicious opposition. Then, the Mormons step out with this bullshit, and will undoubtably get massive credit (instead of being forced to break up) for this previously-hidden honesty they didn't possess while they were too busy attacking that black guy with over 100 years of LDS lies:

  “In the past, the LDS Church has said history isn’t clear on why blacks were banned from its all-male priesthood for more than a century.

Apparently, it now is.

The reason, according to a newly released explanation from the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is rooted more in racism than revelation.” 

If I replaced "whiteness" with "racism" in that last sentence, it wouldn't change significantly.

Because, in the end, the whites' actions mean that black guy's marginalization for telling the truth will stay in place - with his readers, donations, and credibility gone - as those who ruthlessly wronged him continue on, as though nothing important ever happened they need be concerned about.

 You know - like slavery and Reconstruction.

The results will always speak for themselves: 

The Mormons - just like these other whites I'm speaking of - are the best I could ever hope for,...

 

"My Country, 'Tis of Thee,..."

Here's an idea going around, amongst my friends, anyway:

"No More Slave Movies; Show Us as Kings and Queens Too"

I agree with the "too". It's important, that Hollywood finally makes movies about black successes in history, but here's what I also see:

   

 When you have over 400 years of untold American stories - on the brutality (and length and breath) of slavery, slaves outwitting slavers (brilliantly) the effects of slavery today, then Reconstruction and it's lies and failures (also length and effects), followed by the Civil Rights Movement, etc. - not only is it a crime how few have been told, but it's harmful to society not to mine them so we can, all, be on the same page culturally. Blacks, whites, and everyone else, need to know these stories:

Like studying the noxious, and obviously taboo, topic of NewAge (to understand our current "spiritual but not religious" culture) our racial politics - especially when it comes to identifying bad actors - too often make little sense because, as I've said, they lack context. 

We simply have to look back - to know how we got here:

And why some still resist,...

 

I Don't Condone Racial Violence (I Also Don't Stupidly Pretend To Ignorantly Wonder Why It Happens Either)

Conservatives can't keep their story straight:

After someone is hurt by blacks in The Knockout Game, they become desperately concerned about the remaining impact on the white victim's lives.

But, after centuries of being brutally "knocked out" of white society's embrace, those same conservatives insist this treatment had no effect on the black victims' lives they must concern themselves with.

It's a very peculiar way of looking at the world,...

The White Knockout Game Went On For Over 100 Years

Without much complaint, either,...

If We Didn't Start Right How Do We Get Right?

Into the Fire examines the most tumultuous and consequential period in African American history: the Civil War and the end of slavery, and Reconstruction’s thrilling but tragically brief “moment in the sun.” From the beginning, African Americans were agents of their own liberation, forcing the Union to confront the issue of slavery by fleeing the plantations and taking up arms to serve as soldiers in the United States Colored Troops. After Emancipation, African Americans sought to realize the promise of freedom—rebuilding families shattered by slavery; demanding economic, political and civil rights; even winning elected office. Just a few years later, however,  a swift and vicious campaign of terror in the South restored white supremacy and rolled back rights for African Americans. Yet the achievements of Reconstruction would remain very much alive in the collective memory of the African American community.