Jon Stewart on the Charleston SC Shootings

[cupper]

Regarding the shooting, here's the shooter's "manifesto" in case you're interested (or attached, if the link doesn't work).  Be warned:  it's partly the Jews' fault, according to this  :facepalm:

It's true 'cause I read it on the internet, and it's against the law to put incorrect information on the internet. That's true too. Google it.  :facepalm:  http://www.infowars.com/doj-make-it-a-federal-crime-to-lie-on-the-internet/

Legacy down here is everywhere you look. Schools, streets, towns are all named after prominent representatives of the Confederacy, both political and military. And it does go beyond, as there are bridges and government buildings named after politicians from the segregationist era. Several states still celebrate Confederate Memorial Day.

I do find it very interesting how the dynamic has changed almost instantly from the need to tighten gun laws and background checks to a fight against racism. It's like everyone has said "Well, we know we are never going to get anywhere on the gun issue, so here is something we can work on." 

 

[blackberet17]

Is it really a long time? How long ago did Black Americans get the right to vote? Then, how long ago was it that they weren't intimidated into not voting? How about school integration, riding the bus wherever you feel like sitting, or going to the theatre?  There are still 'whites only' golf clubs in the USA - one isn't so far from Bethesda, where a relative of mine lives. There are millions of Black Americans who can still remember being spat upon, or harassed, or chased out of restaurants.  Some had the living crap beaten out of them for looking at a white woman.  The Tuskegee Experiment went on until 1972.

We're not a hell of a lot better in Canada, we've just had a better PR approach.  The last segregated school in Canada was in Nova Scotia, and it closed in 1983! Only 32 years ago!

Racism is very much alive, and the institutions that should be working to end it, don't.  Oddly enough, the most racially integrated organization I've seen in the US, is their military, and even that's only recent, and still experiencing problems.

This isn't something from our far distant past, it's still part of a painful living memory.

:goodpost:

 

[FSTO]

I have no issue with branding the Stars and Bars as a hurtful and damaging symbol of slavery in America. But in that same vein would not the natives of North America have the same case regarding the Stars and Stripes as a hurtful and damaging symbol of persecution and genocide (if you read the writings of Andrew Jackson) towards them?

 

[dimsum]

Is it really a long time? How long ago did Black Americans get the right to vote? Then, how long ago was it that they weren't intimidated into not voting? How about school integration, riding the bus wherever you feel like sitting, or going to the theatre?  There are still 'whites only' golf clubs in the USA - one isn't so far from Bethesda, where a relative of mine lives. There are millions of Black Americans who can still remember being spat upon, or harassed, or chased out of restaurants.  Some had the living crap beaten out of them for looking at a white woman.  The Tuskegee Experiment went on until 1972.

We're not a hell of a lot better in Canada, we've just had a better PR approach.  The last segregated school in Canada was in Nova Scotia, and it closed in 1983! Only 32 years ago!

Racism is very much alive, and the institutions that should be working to end it, don't.  Oddly enough, the most racially integrated organization I've seen in the US, is their military, and even that's only recent, and still experiencing problems.

This isn't something from our far distant past, it's still part of a painful living memory.

Great points. 

Also, I read a great article (can't find it now) that pointed out that David Oyelowo, who played Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma set in the 1960s, was also the unnamed US Army private who remarked "someday we may even get the vote" in the 1860s in Lincoln.