Well you could start by refraining from purporting to speak for my motives then -- couldn't ya.
At no point in this thread, or any other thread, have I intimated that slavery still goes on or that we live in the 1920s. This is a historical event, which DID take place on the dates of the weekend when it was posted. It DID happen, people DO find the story informative, and there's not a damn thing you can do about that.
Yep, unlike the hardcore left, there's not a thing I'd want to "do about" words I don't like.
This, of course, is a thread meant to anger and divide and poke. We can pretend it's about anything, maybe deep sea diving or preparing couscous.
My only point is that this kind of thing hampers progress. I realize that's not a high priority for those who are more interested in division and political advantage.
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This thread is dedicated to the memory of those unfortunate Black souls murdered by rampaging Caucasians in Greenwood, OK. Remembering GreenWood is the key understanding just how successful Blacks can become if left alone. It is also a reminder that certain types of White males will always find ways to destroy anything Blacks build collectively. All they need is an excuse.
DIVISIVE?
You speak of this thread being divisive. What nerve! Are you comparing this thread to the thousands written by people like Shoot Speeders, Matthew, Geux4it, and other resident bigots? Most of their inane drivel emanates from dubious sources like Storm Front or Fox News. I don't recall you having any concerns over divisiveness in any of their numerous rants.
Thank you.
It's also a simple matter of knowing one's history. If Tulsa were an old story that we all heard in grade school over and over, I could see his point of asking what the point is. But it isn't; it's been buried, and other similar events (such as Rosewood), have been buried even more.
History is crucial. You can't know where you're going --or why you're going there-- if you don't know where you've been.
What I find extra-weird about these downshouters --- this IS the Racism/Race Relations forum. This kind of story is exactly why this forum is here. Why would somebody want the dialogue to
stop? Things that make ya go hmm...
Here we are talking about one of the greatest examples of successful Black enterprise ever in these United States and people like SJ want us to forget it! Hell no, we won't forget it and we won't forget how it was destroyed. How can they excise that huge tragedy out of the history books and pretend it didn't happen? That omission in and of itself is a tragedy.
SJ insists that no one cares about something that happened almost 100 years go because it has no relevance today. How wrong he is!
Most people just haven't heard about this dark side of American history. Whenever I have introduced this story to friends and relatives, their eyes light up and I have a rapt audience for the duration of the narrative. Black people, in particular, are interested in this history. They saw the same racist mindset exhibited by Caucasians when MLK marched to Selma and when two Back students tried to enter an Alabama High School. That was a little over 50 years ago.Do we forget that too?
Oddly enough, he just articulated exactly what the issue is in one line:
Nobody gives a shit about what happened in 1921.
Voilà . "Nobody cared" for way too long. "Nobody cared" enough to write it into the history books, for decades. The locals themselves didn't know about it. I can't possibly think of a better reason to remember and inform on such a significant event than that.
So he's actually just validated the very existence of the thread and the idea of serving these histories.
Obviously nobody came to their homes and forced these downshouters to navigate to the Race Relations forum and look for this thread -- they voluntarily came. That says they do indeed care to do what they're here for -- actively shut down the dialogue, that it may be swept back under the rug.
I mean we don't drive ourselves out to a school, find a class in physics, poke our head in the door and go "nobody cares about this!"; we simply find something we DO care about and leave the physics class be. It takes a special kind of authoritarian mindset to walk around shutting down discourse -- at all, let alone somebody else's discourse they claim "nobody cares" about.
Social cohesion depends on understanding. When we acquire a new neighbor, we'll make some effort to find out who they are -- including where they came from, what they've been through, that we might piece together what made them who they are. Or we may pay no attention to them, never meet them, never have an idea who they are, and just plug in our own assumptions. Usually the ignorance approach doesn't end well. What we
don't do is walk over to their house, knock on the door and tell them "nobody cares" and go home.
So thanks SJ (2thums, Mac, whoever else); you've let us know there's a definite need to fill these gaps in history. I hadn't heard about Rosewood before this thread; that's one right there --
and there are more.
