Just over 63 years ago, in the summer of 1960, the “Greenville Eight,” led by 18-year-old Jesse Jackson, were arrested. Their crime was insisting on reading at the main public library in their South Carolina town, despite clearly being Black, and thus not permitted.
The case led to a federal court ordering Greenville to integrate its libraries. So the town did what it thought was the only decent, moral, Christian thing it could do: close all the county libraries rather than accept the obvious impossibility of letting Black people paw books intended for whites.
Now nobody could use the library, and it was clear who was to blame.
“The efforts being made by a few Negroes to use the White library will now deprive all White and Negro citizens of the benefit of a library,” Greenville Mayor Mayor J. Kenneth Cass said in a statement.
The fault lay with the eight teenagers trying to use the public library, not with the town trying to stop them.
Bear in mind this nimble sleight of hand, almost a magician’s trick. Because we see it all the time, now, in our day.
The Greenville Eight echoed when Elon Musk said he was going to sue the Anti-Defamation League because the ADL called for companies to suspend advertising on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, until Musk addresses the neo-Nazis and other hardened haters he permits to run wild there.
“ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss,” Musk posted. Not himself and his policies. The pushback is to blame.
The NAACP also begged advertisers to avoid the website.
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Hitler was voted into power in 1933. It happened before. It can happen again, and it probably will. I, too suspect it already is happening here, right now. And if Biden loses, in 2024, then it will already be a grim reality two years hence. A done deal.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually glad that my life is mostly behind me, and not ahead of me. I would not want to be a kid of six...or 16 or 26 or even 36 right now. I don't envy younger folks their looks and their vitality and their youth and their more active lives. To be quite honest and blunt, I actually feel sort of sorry for them.
When the shit finally hits the fan, I hope to hell that I'm long-forgotten dust by then. If I'm still around, I'll probably last about a week. No. Make that a day.
Let's not quibble. He was appointed chancellor in January, 1933, based on the vote of the previous year. From the Britannica: "The rapid rise in unemployment in 1929–30 provided millions of jobless and dissatisfied voters whom the Nazi Party exploited to its advantage. From 1929 to 1932 the party vastly increased its membership and voting strength; its vote in elections to the Reichstag (the German Parliament) increased from 800,000 votes in 1928 to about 14,000,000 votes in July 1932, and it thus emerged as the largest voting bloc in the Reichstag, with 230 members (38 percent of the total vote)"
DeleteWe are so divided that 2024 is going to be a squeaker. Whoever wins the rematch will not win by seven million votes this time around. If Orange Julius manages to "eek' out a narrow victory, that's all it will take for the wheels to come off, and for the trolley to leave the wire.
DeleteAnd after that...what? All bets are off. Even I'm not stupid or crazy enough to predict what might follow. But it will not be pretty. Or peaceful.
DeSantis: "...learning about racism makes white kids “feel bad.” Wouldn't that make those children "snowflakes" for being overly sensitive to things? I thought liberals were the snowflakes? Musk: Maybe he should appeal to the ACLU to have his rights protected. Let's thank God for these problems ahead for the future residents of this planet, since we won't be around.
ReplyDeleteEven though I was alive during most of World War II, I have mostly considered the events of that era to be "History" and a long done deal. But looking at the statue of Anne Frank and seeing that she was born in 1929, I realized that she could very well be alive today were it not for Hitler and the Germans that made him and his vile ideas overpowering. And there are children, some just as endearing as Anne, many more just as deserving of a decent life, who could suffer unremitting discrimination and even death as a result of the ideas promulgated by Hitler, Trump, DeSantis, and their ilk. We mustn't let this happen again.
ReplyDeletejohn
Very good column!
ReplyDeleteWhere are these “whites only” riots that occur in the aftermath of team championship victories at which you hint? I’ve seen lots of footage over the years of post-championship riots from cities everywhere, and they are always extremely diverse.
ReplyDeletehockey fans
DeleteOh I see, no black or Hispanic hockey fans. That's certainly news to me.
DeleteEarth is essentially a closed system for us humans. It is all we have, and large as it is, it is not limitless. Intelligent people know this, even the ones expressing denial of climate change. They just don't care. Long ago we learned to protect our neighborhoods, tribes camping on rivers dug their latrines downstream and drew water above. Chicago built water intakes far from shore and eventually reversed the river to keep the lake clean. By the 70s we realized that our chimneys and vehicles were polluting the air. A sunny day at Santa Monica Beach didn't include a view of the sun, too much smog. But the build up of carbon dioxide is not as easily understood. We can't see it with our own eyes. So those who perpetrate the problem and profit from it spend a portion of the extreme wealth fossil fuels produce to convince us that they are indispensable. Most likely they could profit from the transition to cleaner sources and technologies, but it seems they don't want to risk their lofty place in society. When the bill for their folly comes due it will be us, and sadly the children and grandchildren who will suffer the approaching cataclysm . We've survived despots and tyrants and increased the population. Runaway global warming will be more deadly especially if we are unprepared. When the Earth turns against us, whose children will bury the dead?
ReplyDelete