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Thadius -> RE: US facing surge in rightwing extremists and militias (4/7/2010 5:06:46 PM)
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
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ORIGINAL: Thadius
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Other than the obvious partisan cherry pickers, I don't think anyone is saying that.
America has plenty of racists, and from a variety of demographics.
It sure did sound a whole lot like she was suggesting just the opposite.
I do agree with the rest of your statement.
Tim, the reason this bugs the shit out of me so much is because of where and what I came from. I was born in arguably the most racist neighborhood in the city of Chicago, Bridgeport. I was surrounded by the Dem machine that condoned it, to keep the neighborhood clean and nice. I moved a few blocks south and had crosses burned in my yard because I wasn't the same religion, I remember seeing lynchings under the viaducts every summer as a kid. I remember these same Dems protesting the bussing in of minorities, and was even subjected to being held out of school because of the violence. I remember my dad having crosses burned in his yard when he married my step-mom, my sisters being called every slur you can think of, bricks being thrown through windows, cars being keyed with racial slurs. I also remembering having to deal with the other side of the issue, as the Panthers, Nation of Islam, Rev. Jackson all marched and held rallies through the neighborhoods. I was called racist by one side, and race traitor by the other. You can say that I learned in the school of hard knocks that it was more important to judge folks by who they are as people and not what race, religion, or political party they belonged to.
So yeah, I am a bit sensitive to the generalizations and claims made by some posters around here.
I was tempted to let this slide but it was too much. You're a liar. The simple fact is you have repeatedly attacked people not for who they are but for groups and people they are very slightly associated with. I've pointed it out to you dozens of times and you simply refuse to even acknowledge that it is wrong and now here you are claiming to have learned the lesson as a youth.
BTW you drastically overstate the amount of violence in those neighborhoods in your lifetime. You're at least a decade too young to have been around for the stuff you're claiming to have witnessed.
From your idealistic point of view I suppose light being shed on Chicago's dirty little secret is a bad thing. To accuse me of lying about it, is not surprising, what neighborhood you from Ken? Sorry but I didn't grow up in a homogenized neighborhood and none of the neighborhoods surrounding mine were homogenized either. I have no clue where you were during those days, honestly I don't care. However, your claims that I didn't witness or that the violence that I am speaking about didn't occur, is ignorant and bullshit.
Since you want to claim I am lying, lets see how locals and the media feel about the issue even a couple decades after my experiences...
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Written April 6, 1997
Chicago: The Streets Where Black Kids Ain't Allowed
The Racist Beating of Lenard Clark
Revolutionary Worker #901, April 6, 1997
It was early evening on March 21, and 13-year-old Lenard Clark, Jr. had just finished playing basketball with two other kids at Armour Square Park bordering Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. As the teens left the park, they decided to check out the nearby Chicago White Sox stadium, being prepared for opening day. It was just a few blocks away. They never made it.
According to witnesses, Lenard and the other two youths were attacked by a gang of white racists, who were angry that two Black and one Latino youth were in "their neighborhood." The three teenagers split up in order to get away. Two escaped. Lenard didn't.
Shouting racist insults, the group of whites knocked Lenard off of his bike. They smashed his head into a wall. They beat and kicked him into unconsciousness. They left him for dead. It was reported that they later boasted about how they had, "taken care of the n*ggers in the neighborhood."
Lenard remained in a coma for a week following the beating. His eyes were closed, his body hooked up to monitors. Various tubes ran to and from his head. His father, Lenard Sr., described his shock upon seeing Lenard with swollen head and hands--as if he had been in a fight for his life. Lenard's mother, Wanda McMurray, who continued a round-the-clock vigil at Lenard's side, expressed the fear that her son may never be the same. There are many unanswered questions about the future of Lenard's health, but on March 28 Lenard started coming out of his coma.
A Double Standard
Two days after the attack, three white teenagers from the Bridgeport area were arrested--each charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery and two counts of committing a "hate crime."
In court the next day, the assistant state's attorney asked for a $1 million bond on each youth. Instead, the judge set bail at $100,000 to $150,000 and the three suspects were quickly bailed out and back home.
The quick release and relatively low bond on the men accused of the beating brought an angry response from Lenard's family. "They should be held in there until their first court date," one of Lenard's cousins said, "not walking the street and enjoying life and maybe laughing about it." Lenard's mom was disgusted as well. "It's not fair. They left my baby for dead. Once they bond out, they can do it again."
Adding to that outrage was the sympathetic way much of the media treated the suspects. One newscaster commented that the beating of Lenard seemed "out of character" for the white teenagers, in part because two are currently students and the third a recent graduate of De La Salle Institute, a Catholic high school that's the alma mater of four previous Chicago mayors as well as the current Mayor Daley. A good deal of time in the news was also given over to the suspects, their lawyers and families to present their side of the story. Their denials all had a similar ring. "My son isn't like that." "We're not racist." "We're hurt that people think we're racist." "I didn't do it, I just saw it." "We pray for the family." And so on.
To anyone with open eyes, the double standards at work here were hard to miss. A number of people pointed out that had the situation been reversed--had three Black teens been arrested for a brutal assault on a young white victim--none would be strolling out of jail on bond for a very long time, if ever. Nor would there have been a sympathetic media spin expressing surprise at the charges, or allowing extensive on-camera regrets by their family and friends.
The first court date for the white youth who brutalized Lenard is April 14, and many eyes will be watching and demanding justice.
<snip>
Hypocritical Calls for
"Racial Healing"
"In the face of all the `racially motivated violence' being brought down, what is needed is not hypocritical--or even well-intentioned--calls for `peace and reconciliation.' Talk about `changing racial attitudes,' without focusing on white supremacy and fighting against it, is useless--or worse than useless. What is needed is to draw a hard line against white supremacy and to wage a bold, massive, non-stop and uncompromising struggle against this white supremacy and the system that upholds it."
Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP
The most recent ugly incident in Bridgeport got a lot of people discussing, once again, the big question, how can we fight against racism?
But in the wake of the beating of Lenard Clark, the mainstream press, politicians and "civic leaders" have not done any serious soul searching about how to uproot the systematic oppression of Black people. Instead the airwaves have been dominated by hypocritical talk of "racial healing." For many people, the desire to see "racial harmony" reflects heartfelt disgust with racism in the city and across the country. But for representatives of Chicago's ruling circles such as Mayor Richard Daley--the calls for "healing" amount to a cynical exercise in damage control.
Daley visited Lenard's bedside, where he reportedly shed tears with the family. Daley denounced Lenard's suspected attackers as "thugs" and praised the police work leading to the arrests. In a letter printed on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times, Daley spoke against "racial slurs and racial attacks" and called on adults to take "full responsibility" to stop intolerance. But coming from a man who lived for many years in Bridgeport and never spoke out against or did anything to combat racism in this white enclave--these words rang hollow. And Mayor Daley's calls for "healing" never came anywhere near exposing the way racism is built into the whole political and economic system he works for.
It will take more than a few exhortations on tolerance and good parenting to uproot the racism found in Chicago's white enclave communities. There's a soil that allows it to grow and flourish--a soil connected to the whole history of segregation and oppression of Black people in Chicago--and throughout the United States. It's a soil of real estate profiteering, of bank redlining, of job discrimination, of businesses searching for cheap labor, of police brutality, of land grabs and the conscious planning of the power structure. No local or national politician can or will dismantle all this, which is an integral part of the capitalist system.
And we might ask Da Mayor: What message of "racial healing" was sent when he defended the Chicago police when they recently opened up with gunfire on a Cabrini Green highrise building, endangering the lives of dozens of Black children? What kind of message against racism is sent when Daley pushes ahead with a plan to demolish that same public housing development for the benefit of wealthy developers, and at the expense of thousands of poor Black families? Daley may not be uttering crude racist remarks, but his actions clearly say that the lives of Black people--particularly poor Black people--really don't mean much.
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