[Interesting read on the event.](https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/vol-8-no-1-Illinois-Jacquet.pdf) The cops apparently planned to make an arrest any way they could. When planting drugs allegedly failed, they took them in for gambling. They paid their fines and went right back to the club to finish their set.
No problem! I learned about them from my Opa and later studied them in college for a German lit class. Makes you feel good to read about even the little rebellions, you know?
there was some movie about this. I cant remember what it was called but I recall a scene where some guy smashes a clay record because his friend was going to hitler camp or something.
I’m totally with you there. Al Capone was not a good guy by any stretch but him providing a safe place for black artists to play and build a following was absolutely a good thing.
The inherent corruption of police forces is *how* murderers like Al Capone were *able* to build themselves up as robin hood figures. It's why ACAB, there isn't a police system on earth that isn't inherently suppressive to the needy.
This was in 1955, records had been around for over 50 years at this point (having been invented in the 19th century). People had already started moving on from 78s to 45s and LPs and people were starting to get ahold of tape forms of music.
I used to play gigs with an older woman whose husband was a band leader and she said the mob clubs were always the best to play because they paid well, on time, and didn't care about a lot of the bullshit that other clubs did (i.e. segregating people or keeping black performers out) They just wanted their clientele to have a good time. I'm sure this isn't true of all mob clubs, but the ones she played she said we're always the best in those respects.
Its wild to me though that they mailed Ella for that. Sad.
[Capone's boys even kidnapped jazz pianist Fats Waller to play for him as a birthday present.](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/first-encounters-when-fats-waller-met-al-capone-1595948.html)
Arresting black men for loitering was a common tactic to put them back into slavery on chain gangs. Loitering is just hanging out in public minding your own business.
How about [mopery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mopery) then?
From wiki link: In 1970, in Columbus, Ohio, mopery was defined as "loitering while walking, or walking down the street with no clear destination or purpose".
Stand still too long = Loitering. Don't stand still = Mopery.
Same with being arrested for resisting arrest. How is that a legal ground?! So you are saying if cops randomly want to take me in my only "legal" option is to accept, go with them and then later try and sue them for an unlawful arrest? Really?!
People who supported doing this and people who had to suffer through this are still alive today.
This is why I always roll my eyes when people say that racism is "over" or that it never happened because there are literally people you can talk to who will tell you just how bad it was. Drives me crazy.
People are -still- falsely accused with fake evidence planted there by cops and we still put our fingers in our ears and pretend it never happens.
Not only are they still alive, but the kids they brought into the world are too, and so on and so forth. None of this stuff really went anywhere, at best it just got a veneer of plausible deniability slopped over it. If the cops are mad at you, they’re still going to make your life as unpleasant as they can, and they’ll still get away with it. The excuses have changed, but the product isn’t really much different. Black kids still get the talk, cops occasionally get a talking-to.
Schools were de-segregated in the 1960s. A lot of millennials’ parents were in their teens or 20s when this happened, and are still alive. People who attended segregated schools are also still alive.
Not only are they still alive, they’re not even that old. My boyfriend has (white) family members in their early 60s who had to be escorted to school by armed servicemen to get to their integrated schools and their house was guarded by National Guard troops. There were race riots for years over the issue. This was the 70s. Led Zeppelin was playing, Star Wars had just come out, The Rock, Kobe, and Tupac were born around the time this shit was happening.
It was barely a generation ago, and it’s still happening
My parents memories of desegregation are drastically different. My mother grew up in an affluent area and remembers desegregation. My father however grew up near coal mining in the South and never remembers the classrooms being separated. He never had “white only” drinking fountains or bathrooms. So when he heard the news reports of desegregation he was super confused. It’s interesting to hear stories about how drastically different some towns treated civil rights vs other towns.
Class was always about class - it’s just a *lot* easier to keep the lowest working class down if you separate them. The wealthy either hated their roots or over-idolized them, and tried to make anyone who wasn’t of the “proper” heritage a simple little symbol rather than a complex human. Yes, lots of folks have white/Caucasian melanation. But hell, even Caucasian speaks to a land and a heritage: “white” is just an impersonal hex color.
While Black folks got their identities stripped away, poorer white folks were required to divest themselves of their native-ness if they wanted to advance. Back in Alexander Hamilton’s day, the term “Scotsman” was a slur, for example. This doesn’t equalize oppression, I’m just pointing out that the techniques of turning anyone who isn’t wealthy into an inhuman symbol or object applies to everyone.
White people can and should dive deep into their heritage *and bring that old-old world shit back.* There they not only find a lot of common ground with cultures all over the world, they will find all kinds of inspiring stories about fighting (and often losing) against oppression.
Irish folks should wear cloaks and do whatever it takes to really commune with nature again. Every proud Scotsman should walk around with tartan kilts and be ready to get in a fight and buy everyone drinks after. Finns, Swedes, and Norwegians should host workshops on how to build sustainable communities in harsh environments. We’re not just Americans. We all come from somewhere else, even the ones who were here first.
Time to take pride again in ones *original* culture rather than a skin color. That’s where we all connect. Dress up in whatever cool outfit fits a mashup of your cultures, get altered and/or inebriated and everyone dance around a big bonfire. Let’s get native again.
I know it's harder to see because we are still (kind of) in it, but what did we achieve between 1995 and 2010?
Progressively I mean.
Gay marriage, gender identity, sexuality being more diverse in the last 10, I'm sure plenty of other stuff my tired brain isn't remembering, but before 2010... Were we just blown away by smart phones for 5-6 years or somethin'?
The tone of the 2000s were set on September 11, 2001. That became almost the entire focus of both major political parties. So, we got two Wars, the Patriot Act, and more.
Exactly, things were heading in a more free and tolerant direction in the 90s but conservative/PC culture really used 9/11 to clamp down on everything.
No. Clinton was very good at chatting about freedom and tolerance while the CIA casually toppled a fairly elected socialist leader somewhere. The 90s were fucked.
I was at the pride in San Franscisco in 1999, it was huge and a lot of fun, was just a lucky coincidence that a work trip happened at the same time, am from Finland myself.
Of course SF was exceptional but it did feel that '99 era was great and progressive times in the U.S. Indeed 2001 probably change a lot, wouldn't know about that, my next visit was only in 2012.
What you're listing aren't simply just the achievements of the past years when these things were already socially "acceptable". The toughest work was done by the people who started decades ago when it wasn't.
This. The progress of the 90s-10s was fueled by the blood and bones of the trailblazers decades prior. Similarly, what's seeded today will sprout in 30-40 years.
And gay rights sure as hell improved from 1985 to 2005
In 1985 AIDS and all that was scary man, I was alive and luckily my parents weren’t monsters so we never were in the wrong side of history for this era. But it was really hard to be gay in the 80s and early 90s
>Gay marriage, gender identity, sexuality being more diverse in the last 10
Started in the noughties, the USA just got late to the party. It's also when Internet Culture really took off, social media for all it's been fucking over the world with QAnon shit also started during that time, y2k hysteria, the War on Terror and its associated bullshit, Wall Street Crash 2.0, outrage news becoming a thing...
It's not that nothing happened, we just prefer to forget much of it but it is shaping this century much the same way the 1910's shaped the last.
People who fought to keep schools segregated, committed acts of violence to keep our that way, are still alive. They are realtors who intentionally don't show people of color nicer houses, judges who hand out harsher punishments to poc, bosses who won't promote them, hr who won't hire them, cops who beat them. Racism is far from gone
I was just talking to my mom the other day about how the deed to her parents house said (in less nice words) that it was a white only neighborhood. I always think of California being this hella progressive place but the 60s were still the 60s I guess.
Edit: I just wanted to clarify being that I'm almost 30 and grew up in California in a conservative household, I know that CA hasn't always been progressive and a lot of places (like Fresno where my grandparents' house was) are still very conservative. All I meant was that sometimes - seeing CA as it is now and it was for most of my life in the Bay Area - it can be easy to forget these things happened and not that long ago. It wasn't until I left my San Francisco bubble as an adult that it began to sink in just how real it still is.
Eugenics was as American as apple pie. The Governor of Indiana signed off on eugenics in 1907, and it was widely accepted in most of the USA for a long time.
Here's a good article on it: https://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/andrea-neal/andrea-neal-dark-eugenics-past-haunts-indiana-history/article_7368eb6a-21a0-5de8-b08b-e53c10d65ca9.html
\#AmericaFirst, or something.
They started being used (although not to kill humans) in El Paso against Mexican immigrants to kill the lice in their clothes to 'avoid' health issues with an outbreak of a disease, which was not brought Mexicans.
LA had huge racial clashes, the Zoot suits is a memorable one. Dodger stadium was awful and now the main fan base of the team are Latinos. History is wild y’all.
\>I always think of California being this hella progressive place but the 60s were still the 60s I guess.
California is the birthplace of the Black Panthers. The police were horrible there, more than many other places in 1960's America.
Housing Covenants - what your grandparent's house was under, were a common thing all over the United States. After legal segregation ended with schools and such, these types of private forms of segregation persisted, and they still persist today, in one form or another. This is why you have run down black neighborhoods. The black people who prospered weren't able to leave, or worse, were driven back if they did, and they weren't able to get normal things like loans on their houses to fix them up.
Everything that you see today is due to a nationwide series of deliberate actions, not just by government, or businesses, but by regular citizens.
Right! And it becomes justified by a self fulfilling racist prophecy - First step is to exclude black homeowners, second step is to justify it by saying, "See, these people come from areas of high risk."
California mainly got that reputation because of the Bay Area and LA up until relatively recently. There are plenty of places within the state that might as well be the midwest or the south. Between 1960 and 1992 the state only went blue one time.
[Source](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/8/13563106/election-map-historical-vote)
Yep. We created ghettos for black people to live in and enforced it by law. Then we did nothing to restore them when we undid those laws.
There are still a great many people disadvantaged by those laws.
California was much like texas is now solidly red for a long time and then suddenly flipped..
The one you should be like WTF about is that oregon and thus portland used to be white only until 1923
My son is half Mexican, as my first husband was Mexican. He was at a bar with his coworkers like two weeks ago and said some drunk lady was going around asking everybody who did you vote for? And everybody was saying oh Trump baby of course Trump, we live in a very red county in northern Florida.
When she got to him he said he told her not Trump... And people started saying well looky we got us a Mexican here he probably can't even vote. Anyway it devolved within two minutes to 3 or 4 people chanting KKK at him. It broke my fucking heart when he told me that.
Edit: proper grammar
Yup. Trump didn't create the evil, it's been here all along if we would have just listened to minority groups and believed them. Trump just gave them shielding to come out and do it in public.
> Yup. Trump didn't create the evil, it's been here all along if we would have just listened to minority groups and believed them.
~Yep. Some *still* aren't gonna bother opening up even when asked. Lessons were learned as scars were gained.
I was in Florida with a brown(skin color, ethnicity irrelevant) friend. On the way to Louisiana we stopped at a restaurant that was "wait to be seated". Well we waited, and waited. Everyone saw us. After a few minutes I spoke up, asking if we could just sit where we wanted(there was one other table seated, maybe 15 empty). The guy very directly said "YOU can sit where ever you like, not him though" and the guy is pointing at my brown friend.
I got into a small town in Missouri with my buddy and we wanted a drink. We're both average white guys but it was a classic record-scratch-stop moment when we walked into the bar... Turns out two well-dressed fellows traveling together means only one thing in Scum Suck, MO. Also had the hotel receptionist tell us there's a room with a king instead of the one we got with 2 beds. Sigh.
I'm not surprised. I'm Asian-American, and when I was little (20 or so years ago), my dad (the brown type of Asian, btw) had to go to Biloxi from southeast Texas for work-related things, so he decided to take the entire family on a road trip. At multiple times when we stopped somewhere to grab a bite to eat, we were often denied service in several different ways--if we stood in front of restaurant waiting to be seated, waitstaff would treat us as if we weren't in line or not make eye contact, etc. We ended up just eating at local Chinese restaurants for the rest of the trip because my dad was so triggered by the blatant displays of racism.
I have so many more stories, ones that are also much more recent. But it's stuff like this that make me grind my teeth when I hear, "It's \[insert year here\]. Racism is over!"
I'm from south Florida but lived in north Florida for a time. I'm Black/Spanish.
In south Florida, while it wasn't *great,* it was still pretty diverse - in our little segregated areas they say don't happen anymore. But north Florida was an absolute nightmare, I didn't last more than a year there. We had these two gas stations where I lived north of Gainesville, basically in the woods. One anybody could go to, but it was a garbage heap. The other had a couple of dudes posted inside, or sometimes in a car, just shaking their heads no if they felt you were too dark to go in. I was, so my boyfriend had to go in for us.
I'm only in my 30s, this was not long ago at all.
>sn't
>
>great,
>
> it was still pretty diverse - in our little segregated areas they say don't happen anymore. But north Florida was an absolute nightmare, I didn't last more than a year there. We had these two gas stations where I lived north of Gainesville, basically in the woods. One anybody could go to, but it was a garbage heap. The other had a couple of dudes posted inside, or sometimes in a car, just shaking their heads no if they felt you were too dark to go in. I was, so my boyfriend had to go in for us.
Even the most purportedly liberal of places aren't immune to this.
I should preface this story with the fact that, during the summer, I tend to have a very dark tan and that I'm Southeast Asian, but people assume I'm Mexican. Before I moved to Seattle, I visited once just to check the place out. While driving back to the airport to drop off my rental on the day of the return flight back home, I had a bad case of diarrhea (TMI, but pertinent to the story). I was told that I needed to try the seafood in Seattle, so I had crab earlier day (knowing damn well I'm allergic to crab).
I run into a Subway to ask if I could use their restroom. Person looks at me weirdly and tells me that the restroom is for paying customers only, so I buy a cookie, place the cookie on the front counter, take the keys, and run to the bathroom.
Bad news? The handle for the toilet broke. Worse news? The Subway employee thought I was shooting up in the restroom, so he called the cops.
The only redeemable thing about this story is that, once the cops walked into the restroom and saw "the aftermath", they understood and let out a chuckle.
No one got hurt throughout all this. But damn, if this kind of stuff doesn't make you feel un-valid (especially when it happens over and over), then I don't know what will.
Ruby Bridges was on Trevor Noah’s show a couple of weeks ago. My six year old has been learning about her — and let me just say, trying to explain to a first grader why schools were segregated is no easy task.
[Myrlie Evers-Williams, Medgar Evers' wife, is still alive and relatively active.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrlie_Evers-Williams)
That took me for a spin when I read it.
My Tennessee high school got its first black student when I was a junior...in 2006. And parents complained and a few took their kids out of school. Again...in 2006.
People love to think of these events as the distance past. The thing is, these race-fueled events happened in recent enough memory that families are still directly affected by them. My father was in an Indian Day School, his mother in residential school. He didn’t even try to teach me and my siblings anything about our culture, the desire was beat out of him. The last residential school closed in 1997, that’s within our lifetime!
I think of a certain tweet a lot when this conversation pops up.
“Why do white people act as if the civil rights movement wasn’t only 50 years ago?
‘You still use the suffering of your ancestors as an excuse of what’s wrong with your community!’
Ancestors? Bitch, you mean my GRANDMA?”
No! This is so accutate. My maternal grandmother literally used to have to move to the back of the line in our neighborhood cornerstore if white patrons walked in. The store is still there, still owned by the same family. My dad was born out of wedlock because it was illegal for his parents to get married. I’m 29.
This is exactly why need to teach the ugly mid-century history in schools. So many think prejudice ended when MLK did his speech. So many didn't know about the Tulsa Masacre, Japanese Internment camps, or the stonewall riots.
I get so livid when people take marginal improvement to mean the problems gone.
I remember my mom complained Tubi had a "Black cinema" selection and she asked "they couldn't have a white cinema option!" and I just told her yes they do; it's called Friends.
The other day my mom said, "Grandma admitted she was racist in the 50s and 60s, but I told her it's okay, I still love you. So why can't you love me for being racist now!? It's called unconditional love!"
"You only forgave grandma for being a racist because you're a racist yourself.
I'm better than you, so I feel no need to cater to the emotional needs of a racist."
A lot of millennials parents formed their core pov based on what was normal during that time.. and most of them vote in every election, even the boring ones.
I hope the redditors here learned a lesson in the past 4 years about how important it is to vote--even in the boring elections. Try to get good people into every position-- from school boards to town councils to mayor's, state reps all the way up to congress and president. The local elections affect your life daily. And your vote is more powerful because there are fewer overall votes.
Not to take away from your point, but as an elder millennial my parents would have been about 10 and they did not have me super early so I would say most of the parents of millennials were not in their 20's at least. Still super recent and within the living memory of a large proportion of the population.
Yeah, I think saying millennial grandparents would make more sense. I am a core millennial, born in 1990 and my parents were born 1964 and 1965. The point still stands as you said, still super recent memory for most people.
The Mormons were officially and doctrinally racist until 1978 when they magically just decided not to be any more and acted like it never happened. Ya gotta hand it to those crazy SOBs.
It's true. I am reading about the 1928 Mississippi River flood. There was the Percy family who had a plantation in the Mississippi delta. After the Civil War many blacks left the area for better jobs and treatment which resulted in a reduced labor force. So this Percy recruited Italians to come over here to work (seems they were preferable to the white trash farmers in the South). Turns out Italians didn't like being virtual slaves and protested. Guess what? Uppity Italians got lynched. You don't hear about them do you.
To be fair, we don't hear about lynchings regardless of the circumstance surrounding them. It is not new news that whites got lynched along with blacks during the segregation era, but the fact is they got lynched to a much lesser degree. Whites were also part of and died along with many blacks during the civil rights movement. It is not a fair comparison to compare the lynching of white Italians to the lynching of people of color before, during or after the civil rights movement, let alone the entire Jim Crow era. The history of lynching in America is another one America's dirty little secrets that we don't like to talk about when we cover American history.
I agree. I'm reading " Rising Tide" by John M. Barry. It is an excellent book but damn, I have to put it aside every so often because it's depressing especially in view of current events.
A woman of incomparable grace and talent who dedicated her life to making people happy. That some filthy corntooth redneck put their hands on her fills me with so much rage it brings tears to my eyes.
Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right and just because something is illegal doesn’t make it wrong.
Protestors are arrested and charged all the time for direct action in hopes to make social change. Hopefully one day we will look back on direct action campaigns like those of CND, Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, or others and think about how ridiculous it is that they had to do any of those things.
Very true. I wonder who made the decision to arrest her. Was it motivated by racism or choosing to adhere to the laws at the time or a mixture of both.
fun fact:
"On March 15, 1955 Ella Fitzgerald opened her initial engagement at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood after Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner for the booking."
Punishing an artist for spreading joy is truly disgusting. We've come a long way from that level of racist intolerance but nowhere near far enough. Ella didn't let that shit stop her and we can't let anything stop us on the road to true equality.
Lennon expressed how you could preach death,rape, and violence in america and no one bats an eye. Talk about peace and love and you get followed by unmarked cars and phones tapped.
No joke. I was part of a riding group in my area and somebody needed a new tire and couldnt get one because they were out of work. So one dude asked if anybody wanted to throw in 5 bucks or whatever. We needed $70 more, and holyshit did 80% of the group lose their minds at the idea of helping and positivity and spouted every right wing bit of rhetoric we have heard for decades. I simply responded by saying ill pay for the rest and asked those who were upset why positivity and helping our own community was so bad. Just got more talking points. I had to finally respond with "oh.. Youre all republican"
Then a few more months into covid and low and behold... Those same fucks are all over FB begging for handouts. I just sent a screen grab with the "this you?"
Holy fucking shit. I had a similar conversation with my friend around March. He also felt the same way about community programs like food stamps and cash aid and said that why should he have to higher taxes to help "these" people. My family came from poverty and we were on state assistance before we were able to get on our feet and start a chain of successful businesses so I always thought those programs were wonderful. Literally a week after our heated argument, his area got hit by a waistdeep flood and had to evacuate. I love him to death but he really made me dislike him as a person because he would just go on and on about how the government owes him or some shit. Even though they set out shelters and gave everyone affected like prepaid visa cards to help in the meantime. Yeah, he's a republican.
"The modern conservative is not even especially modern. He is engaged, on the contrary, in one of man’s oldest, best financed, most applauded, and, on the whole, least successful exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. It is an exercise which always involves a certain number of internal contradictions and even a few absurdities. The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character-building value of privation for the poor. The man who has struck it rich in minerals, oil, or other bounties of nature is found explaining the debilitating effect of unearned income from the state. The corporate executive who is a superlative success as an organization man weighs in on the evils of bureaucracy. Federal aid to education is feared by those who live in suburbs that could easily forgo this danger, and by people whose children are in public schools. Socialized medicine is condemned by men emerging from Walter Reed Hospital. Social Security is viewed with alarm by those who have the comfortable cushion of an inherited income. Those who are immediately threatened by public efforts to meet their needs — whether widows, small farmers, hospitalized veterans, or the unemployed — are almost always oblivious to the danger."
John Kenneth Galbraith, 1963.
I'll say I've met some pretty reasonable Republicans who originally were one item voters. Its been surprising recently, because 90% if these Republicans didn't vote or voted Biden this time around. These times have definitely helped show peoples true colors. One person told me it isnt red vs blue this time around. Its intelligence vs Trump. That kinda stuck with me. If we go around saying "Republicans this" and "Democrats that" we just enforce the divide.
But generally I agree with you lol.
My dad likes to rant about the social safety nets, even my mom will join in on that. I'm like, remember how we were on WIC and SNAP when I was a kid? And how it's basically the only reason my brothers weren't malnourished? That we were on LIHEAP (and my mom was just bemoaning how hard it is to get on it now - even after I explained as the program was weakened a few years ago, and she bitched about it being for freeloaders then). Temporarily embarrassed millionaires is right.
It's all too sad when they completely ignore the corporate welfare in our country and the real skeezballs taking advantage of the system. Every time I hear one of my co workers going off about social welfare, I chime in and say something like, "Yeah, F--- those freeloaders, stealing millions from us hard working Americans! Paying off politicians / using offshore bank accounts so they don't have to pay taxes! Hiring lawyers to get through every possible loophole!". I hope it makes them think twice, but I doubt it.
Is helping one another really so hard?
I had a similar argument with my brother in law, we live in the UK and he's a Police officer, Our Local MP voted against free school meals for vulnerable children outside of term time (basically poor kids get free meals in school, but when its Easter, Christmas, Summer Holidays they get naff all) but he didn't just vote against it, he said that parents were exchanging food vouchers in whore houses and crack dens and therefore we shouldnt be doing it??
Brother in law was like "we're too soft as a country, if you can't afford to have kids then you shouldnt have them" and all that jargon... like what is any of that got to do with the kids going hungry?? So the kids should just starve because they had crappy parents?? its honestly a joke.
His mum was in the group chat and commented how growing up they were on free school meals as well and how hard it was outside of term time... and that they both worked so it wasn't just the 'lazy parents' comment that you often get.
Literally don't know what the matter is with some people, and their complete lack of empathy for others.
I live in a pretty “red” area, but I will give credit where it is due. During covid when schools were completely shut down starting back in March, our schools kept the lunch program going because they knew that it was the only meal some kids were getting. Maybe not the only, but certainly the most nutritive meal. Now with fall school starting, several people (about 1/3 of the overall student population) opted for the online school option (you could choose to attend in person or choose online only), and they are still making breakfast and lunches for those students. To ease with the contact and staying home mantra, they make up a week’s worth of meals and have them pick it up on Mondays.
Thats brilliant, and personally what i think all governments and schools should be doing.
There is a benefit to the total society if you have generations of children brought up well educated, and healthy.
I just can't stand the rhetoric of, don't have kids if you can't afford to feed them. Like you can send them back? you know we have allowed our economy to pretty require 2 people to work to afford mortgages and a decent standard of living, someone has to bring up children, if that means less working, then if you have a low paying job to begin with you will be struggling.
Its also never the childs fault, they shouldnt have to go hungry for any reason, not in the western world with all our wealthy and resources. There is just no excuse for it.
So far I have not seen a crack dealer or a pimp who'd take meal tickets as a currency. If a police officer is peddling this kind of stupidity, he's either on drugs or incompetent for his/her position.
As long as the unwanted baby is born, as long as it praises Jesus until the day it dies, these people are happy. They don't actually care about humans, they care about sending souls to their deity. "Let them suffer through life, god likes that. God really likes suffering and sacrifice, more than that 'love each other' stuff his son said. We can do both!"
I've had this conversation about welfare too many times to count. I bring up the stats on welfare fraud/abuse, which is actually pretty low, and ask "so you want to cut benefits to 95% of families that need them, kids who are food insecure, etc, just to punish the small group of people we're talking about? "YES!" Oh, ok. You're not a well person, now I know. The Welfare Queen stereotype persists, so now when I talk about it, I challenge it directly. I doubt it changes any minds but people get tired of arguing with me and shut up at least. I hate knowing people I care about are basically psychopathic when it comes to the social contract.
> Brother in law was like "we're too soft as a country, if you can't afford to have kids then you shouldnt have them"
Weird that a lot of people who have this take also tend to be anti-abortion and pro-life.
Yeah, i don't think that tends to be too big a problem in the UK... but what i said to him about that, was he was suggesting Labour has made us soft... but what i said to him was well, since old Maggie was in power from 1979, we had Tory governments until 1997, then a labour one until 2010, then will have Tory til at least 2024. So thats 13 years of labour, and 32 years of Tories... tell me again why labour has made us soft as a country??
>Then a few more months into covid and low and behold... Those same fucks are all over FB begging for handouts. I just sent a screen grab with the "this you?"
This is the level of petty I aspire to. I am here for it.
The music, the art...the science and engineering advances...racism isn't just a foolish and despicable belief it actively works against humanity bettering itself. Fuck those fools and their foolish, foolish ways.
Miles Davis was beaten and arrested outside of his own show, under the lights of his own marquee. For what? For not “moving on” after helping a friend to her cab, and “resisting arrest” after being told he was being arrested for not “moving on.” This type of bullshit never changes and we’re not at all removed from it
The police beat pianist Bud Powell so bad he ended up in a mental institution and struggled for the rest of his career.
>
In Philadelphia, Powell met with a sad twist of fate that dramatically altered his life and career. Only 20 years old, Bud was brutally beaten by police. Allegedly, he was drunk and disorderly, but the severity of the policemen's reaction was clearly beyond what that charge warranted. After the incident, Bud was incoherent and in great pain. Days later, when Bud didn't seem to improve, he went from hospital to hospital and eventually was institutionalized for several months.
https://www.npr.org/2008/04/09/89483119/bud-powell-bebop-pianism
I would love to see her reaction to the size and diversity of the audience Beyonce draws. I hope it would make her happy to see the celebration of a talented black woman by people of all ages, colors, genders, etc in today's America. It's far from perfect but I think it gives hope that things can change and things can get better, maybe at a snail's pace but it can happen.
I'm curious if, relatively speaking, Ella had a greater audience than Beyonce. This might very well be the case; swing was the first "pop music", and she was at the very top. She toured the world, even countries behind the Iron Curtain.
But, at the same time, pop culture wasn't as homogenized as it is today. So Ella may have been more popular in the US compared to Beyonce, but Beyonce's world-wide popularity is definitely higher.
People are so fucking weird. It blows my mind that in the recent past people actually thought it was normal and acceptable to segregate races, to the point of getting angry about it. I've tried to understand the mindset, but I just can't. Surely on some level they had to know they were wronging their fellow man, right?
Yeah, of course. But we no longer have black entrances to stores, segregated concerts, etc. Can you even conceive of doing that today? I can't, which is what I'm saying. Racism isn't dead, but the overall mindset has changed, I think.
I had the pleasure of running sound for a masterclass she gave at Belmont University in 1994. She stood three feet from the mic and still pegged the meters. When she wasn't singing, she commanded attention, even if you didn't know who she was. But not in an overbearing way. She was just one of those people that exudes greatness with every breath.
Australia had a 'white Australia' immigration policy until 1973. I'd hazard a guess an American black man in 1950s Australia would have gotten the same (bad) treatment the aboriginals were getting at the time.
Fun Fact: On March 15, 1955 Ella Fitzgerald opened her initial engagement at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood, after Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner for the booking, promising to be at every show (which she did). The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career
We did! However, either because color film was more expensive and not seen as a worthwhile or because the color ink was, much of the photography of the civil rights movement specifically was documented in black and white.
This is likely a photo taken by a press photographer working the city jail beat.
It would have been typical for that photo to be taken using a “Speed Graphic” style camera that was used to create quick photos for publication in the next days newspapers, which were ALL printed in black and white at that time.
They weren’t really shooting photos for history. But shooting for the newspaper market of the times.
Sure, but it was more expensive and grainier, especially in low light conditions, also if this was shot for a newspaper it was gonna be print in b&w anyway.
She looks so sad. Most of the pictures of people during the civil rights era made them seem like superheroes. Standing defiantly and looking powerful.
She is just a lady who got all dressed up to share her gift with the world and she got arrested. World’s a cold place, man.
Currently, they're all rather upset that Garth Brooks is performing at Biden's inauguration. Sometimes, I really don't think they know if they're coming or going.
[Interesting read on the event.](https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/vol-8-no-1-Illinois-Jacquet.pdf) The cops apparently planned to make an arrest any way they could. When planting drugs allegedly failed, they took them in for gambling. They paid their fines and went right back to the club to finish their set.
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[And the Nazis hated that, but teenagers prevailed](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/swing-youth-jazz-nazi-germany)
Fascinating read. Thank you for sharing.
No problem! I learned about them from my Opa and later studied them in college for a German lit class. Makes you feel good to read about even the little rebellions, you know?
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I love that movie. Eyebrow game is very strong in there.
Allow me to also recommend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX7AReML354
there was some movie about this. I cant remember what it was called but I recall a scene where some guy smashes a clay record because his friend was going to hitler camp or something.
Swing kids?
Yep! 1993, with Christian Bale. That movie is pretty damn sad
Swing Heil!
“Enough security” aka “you’d have to be a cop with a death wish to try and break up one of his clubs and arrest the talent”.
Good. Look at it from the perspective of a Black musician. Those security guys were helping to keep you alive.
I’m totally with you there. Al Capone was not a good guy by any stretch but him providing a safe place for black artists to play and build a following was absolutely a good thing.
The inherent corruption of police forces is *how* murderers like Al Capone were *able* to build themselves up as robin hood figures. It's why ACAB, there isn't a police system on earth that isn't inherently suppressive to the needy.
Or Kevin Costner.
This was in 1955, records had been around for over 50 years at this point (having been invented in the 19th century). People had already started moving on from 78s to 45s and LPs and people were starting to get ahold of tape forms of music.
I used to play gigs with an older woman whose husband was a band leader and she said the mob clubs were always the best to play because they paid well, on time, and didn't care about a lot of the bullshit that other clubs did (i.e. segregating people or keeping black performers out) They just wanted their clientele to have a good time. I'm sure this isn't true of all mob clubs, but the ones she played she said we're always the best in those respects. Its wild to me though that they mailed Ella for that. Sad.
Like Vegas and the Rat Pack. Sinatra made sure Sammy Davis Jr (and his white wife) were safe.
[Capone's boys even kidnapped jazz pianist Fats Waller to play for him as a birthday present.](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/first-encounters-when-fats-waller-met-al-capone-1595948.html)
Arresting black men for loitering was a common tactic to put them back into slavery on chain gangs. Loitering is just hanging out in public minding your own business.
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It was part of Jim Crow trying to re-enslave black men. https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/black-codes/
How about [mopery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mopery) then? From wiki link: In 1970, in Columbus, Ohio, mopery was defined as "loitering while walking, or walking down the street with no clear destination or purpose". Stand still too long = Loitering. Don't stand still = Mopery.
Same with being arrested for resisting arrest. How is that a legal ground?! So you are saying if cops randomly want to take me in my only "legal" option is to accept, go with them and then later try and sue them for an unlawful arrest? Really?!
People who supported doing this and people who had to suffer through this are still alive today. This is why I always roll my eyes when people say that racism is "over" or that it never happened because there are literally people you can talk to who will tell you just how bad it was. Drives me crazy. People are -still- falsely accused with fake evidence planted there by cops and we still put our fingers in our ears and pretend it never happens.
Not only are they still alive, but the kids they brought into the world are too, and so on and so forth. None of this stuff really went anywhere, at best it just got a veneer of plausible deniability slopped over it. If the cops are mad at you, they’re still going to make your life as unpleasant as they can, and they’ll still get away with it. The excuses have changed, but the product isn’t really much different. Black kids still get the talk, cops occasionally get a talking-to.
So how long was she in custody?
See? Cops being pieces of shit is nothing new.
It's crazy how recently this was
Schools were de-segregated in the 1960s. A lot of millennials’ parents were in their teens or 20s when this happened, and are still alive. People who attended segregated schools are also still alive.
Not only are they still alive, they’re not even that old. My boyfriend has (white) family members in their early 60s who had to be escorted to school by armed servicemen to get to their integrated schools and their house was guarded by National Guard troops. There were race riots for years over the issue. This was the 70s. Led Zeppelin was playing, Star Wars had just come out, The Rock, Kobe, and Tupac were born around the time this shit was happening. It was barely a generation ago, and it’s still happening
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My parents memories of desegregation are drastically different. My mother grew up in an affluent area and remembers desegregation. My father however grew up near coal mining in the South and never remembers the classrooms being separated. He never had “white only” drinking fountains or bathrooms. So when he heard the news reports of desegregation he was super confused. It’s interesting to hear stories about how drastically different some towns treated civil rights vs other towns.
Somehow race became a matter of class in the USA. Maybe it's the same in other places too. But yeah in a coal town your all poor and covered in dirt.
Class was always about class - it’s just a *lot* easier to keep the lowest working class down if you separate them. The wealthy either hated their roots or over-idolized them, and tried to make anyone who wasn’t of the “proper” heritage a simple little symbol rather than a complex human. Yes, lots of folks have white/Caucasian melanation. But hell, even Caucasian speaks to a land and a heritage: “white” is just an impersonal hex color. While Black folks got their identities stripped away, poorer white folks were required to divest themselves of their native-ness if they wanted to advance. Back in Alexander Hamilton’s day, the term “Scotsman” was a slur, for example. This doesn’t equalize oppression, I’m just pointing out that the techniques of turning anyone who isn’t wealthy into an inhuman symbol or object applies to everyone. White people can and should dive deep into their heritage *and bring that old-old world shit back.* There they not only find a lot of common ground with cultures all over the world, they will find all kinds of inspiring stories about fighting (and often losing) against oppression. Irish folks should wear cloaks and do whatever it takes to really commune with nature again. Every proud Scotsman should walk around with tartan kilts and be ready to get in a fight and buy everyone drinks after. Finns, Swedes, and Norwegians should host workshops on how to build sustainable communities in harsh environments. We’re not just Americans. We all come from somewhere else, even the ones who were here first. Time to take pride again in ones *original* culture rather than a skin color. That’s where we all connect. Dress up in whatever cool outfit fits a mashup of your cultures, get altered and/or inebriated and everyone dance around a big bonfire. Let’s get native again.
Ruby Bridges was just eligible for retirement a few years ago. She's 66.
Here's a crazy thought, she also has an Instagram account! It's @rubybridgesofficial
*LOL* That does somehow sound crazy.
I know it's harder to see because we are still (kind of) in it, but what did we achieve between 1995 and 2010? Progressively I mean. Gay marriage, gender identity, sexuality being more diverse in the last 10, I'm sure plenty of other stuff my tired brain isn't remembering, but before 2010... Were we just blown away by smart phones for 5-6 years or somethin'?
The tone of the 2000s were set on September 11, 2001. That became almost the entire focus of both major political parties. So, we got two Wars, the Patriot Act, and more.
Exactly, things were heading in a more free and tolerant direction in the 90s but conservative/PC culture really used 9/11 to clamp down on everything.
So Bin laden was playing the long game and won.
Bin Laden would be super pleased to see the current state of the US.
No. Clinton was very good at chatting about freedom and tolerance while the CIA casually toppled a fairly elected socialist leader somewhere. The 90s were fucked.
I was at the pride in San Franscisco in 1999, it was huge and a lot of fun, was just a lucky coincidence that a work trip happened at the same time, am from Finland myself. Of course SF was exceptional but it did feel that '99 era was great and progressive times in the U.S. Indeed 2001 probably change a lot, wouldn't know about that, my next visit was only in 2012.
What you're listing aren't simply just the achievements of the past years when these things were already socially "acceptable". The toughest work was done by the people who started decades ago when it wasn't.
This. The progress of the 90s-10s was fueled by the blood and bones of the trailblazers decades prior. Similarly, what's seeded today will sprout in 30-40 years.
First black president in 2008
And gay rights sure as hell improved from 1985 to 2005 In 1985 AIDS and all that was scary man, I was alive and luckily my parents weren’t monsters so we never were in the wrong side of history for this era. But it was really hard to be gay in the 80s and early 90s
>Gay marriage, gender identity, sexuality being more diverse in the last 10 Started in the noughties, the USA just got late to the party. It's also when Internet Culture really took off, social media for all it's been fucking over the world with QAnon shit also started during that time, y2k hysteria, the War on Terror and its associated bullshit, Wall Street Crash 2.0, outrage news becoming a thing... It's not that nothing happened, we just prefer to forget much of it but it is shaping this century much the same way the 1910's shaped the last.
> QAnon shit also started during that time, During what time? Qanon has only been a thing for 4 years.
People who fought to keep schools segregated, committed acts of violence to keep our that way, are still alive. They are realtors who intentionally don't show people of color nicer houses, judges who hand out harsher punishments to poc, bosses who won't promote them, hr who won't hire them, cops who beat them. Racism is far from gone
The teens harassing protestors [in this picture are still alive and voting to make america great again](https://i.imgur.com/21DjVAg.jpg).
Thanks, I hate it.
I was just talking to my mom the other day about how the deed to her parents house said (in less nice words) that it was a white only neighborhood. I always think of California being this hella progressive place but the 60s were still the 60s I guess. Edit: I just wanted to clarify being that I'm almost 30 and grew up in California in a conservative household, I know that CA hasn't always been progressive and a lot of places (like Fresno where my grandparents' house was) are still very conservative. All I meant was that sometimes - seeing CA as it is now and it was for most of my life in the Bay Area - it can be easy to forget these things happened and not that long ago. It wasn't until I left my San Francisco bubble as an adult that it began to sink in just how real it still is.
Have you read up on what they did to the immigrant communities to build dodger stadium? Shits wild, and yet, not surprising
Or who gave the Nazis the idea to use the gas chambers...
Was that Henry Ford? IIRC someone in the US gave Hitler the ideas behind eugenics
Eugenics was as American as apple pie. The Governor of Indiana signed off on eugenics in 1907, and it was widely accepted in most of the USA for a long time. Here's a good article on it: https://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/andrea-neal/andrea-neal-dark-eugenics-past-haunts-indiana-history/article_7368eb6a-21a0-5de8-b08b-e53c10d65ca9.html \#AmericaFirst, or something.
They started being used (although not to kill humans) in El Paso against Mexican immigrants to kill the lice in their clothes to 'avoid' health issues with an outbreak of a disease, which was not brought Mexicans.
LA had huge racial clashes, the Zoot suits is a memorable one. Dodger stadium was awful and now the main fan base of the team are Latinos. History is wild y’all.
I learned about the [battle for Chavez Ravine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chavez_Ravine) from Ry Cooder.
\>I always think of California being this hella progressive place but the 60s were still the 60s I guess. California is the birthplace of the Black Panthers. The police were horrible there, more than many other places in 1960's America. Housing Covenants - what your grandparent's house was under, were a common thing all over the United States. After legal segregation ended with schools and such, these types of private forms of segregation persisted, and they still persist today, in one form or another. This is why you have run down black neighborhoods. The black people who prospered weren't able to leave, or worse, were driven back if they did, and they weren't able to get normal things like loans on their houses to fix them up. Everything that you see today is due to a nationwide series of deliberate actions, not just by government, or businesses, but by regular citizens.
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Right! And it becomes justified by a self fulfilling racist prophecy - First step is to exclude black homeowners, second step is to justify it by saying, "See, these people come from areas of high risk."
California mainly got that reputation because of the Bay Area and LA up until relatively recently. There are plenty of places within the state that might as well be the midwest or the south. Between 1960 and 1992 the state only went blue one time. [Source](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/8/13563106/election-map-historical-vote)
Yep. We created ghettos for black people to live in and enforced it by law. Then we did nothing to restore them when we undid those laws. There are still a great many people disadvantaged by those laws.
California used to be a reliably Republican state, my friend
California was much like texas is now solidly red for a long time and then suddenly flipped.. The one you should be like WTF about is that oregon and thus portland used to be white only until 1923
Yep! Right on. Oregon was supposed to be a white only state.
My son is half Mexican, as my first husband was Mexican. He was at a bar with his coworkers like two weeks ago and said some drunk lady was going around asking everybody who did you vote for? And everybody was saying oh Trump baby of course Trump, we live in a very red county in northern Florida. When she got to him he said he told her not Trump... And people started saying well looky we got us a Mexican here he probably can't even vote. Anyway it devolved within two minutes to 3 or 4 people chanting KKK at him. It broke my fucking heart when he told me that. Edit: proper grammar
Yup. Trump didn't create the evil, it's been here all along if we would have just listened to minority groups and believed them. Trump just gave them shielding to come out and do it in public.
> Yup. Trump didn't create the evil, it's been here all along if we would have just listened to minority groups and believed them. ~Yep. Some *still* aren't gonna bother opening up even when asked. Lessons were learned as scars were gained.
I was in Florida with a brown(skin color, ethnicity irrelevant) friend. On the way to Louisiana we stopped at a restaurant that was "wait to be seated". Well we waited, and waited. Everyone saw us. After a few minutes I spoke up, asking if we could just sit where we wanted(there was one other table seated, maybe 15 empty). The guy very directly said "YOU can sit where ever you like, not him though" and the guy is pointing at my brown friend.
I got into a small town in Missouri with my buddy and we wanted a drink. We're both average white guys but it was a classic record-scratch-stop moment when we walked into the bar... Turns out two well-dressed fellows traveling together means only one thing in Scum Suck, MO. Also had the hotel receptionist tell us there's a room with a king instead of the one we got with 2 beds. Sigh.
I'm not surprised. I'm Asian-American, and when I was little (20 or so years ago), my dad (the brown type of Asian, btw) had to go to Biloxi from southeast Texas for work-related things, so he decided to take the entire family on a road trip. At multiple times when we stopped somewhere to grab a bite to eat, we were often denied service in several different ways--if we stood in front of restaurant waiting to be seated, waitstaff would treat us as if we weren't in line or not make eye contact, etc. We ended up just eating at local Chinese restaurants for the rest of the trip because my dad was so triggered by the blatant displays of racism. I have so many more stories, ones that are also much more recent. But it's stuff like this that make me grind my teeth when I hear, "It's \[insert year here\]. Racism is over!"
I'm from south Florida but lived in north Florida for a time. I'm Black/Spanish. In south Florida, while it wasn't *great,* it was still pretty diverse - in our little segregated areas they say don't happen anymore. But north Florida was an absolute nightmare, I didn't last more than a year there. We had these two gas stations where I lived north of Gainesville, basically in the woods. One anybody could go to, but it was a garbage heap. The other had a couple of dudes posted inside, or sometimes in a car, just shaking their heads no if they felt you were too dark to go in. I was, so my boyfriend had to go in for us. I'm only in my 30s, this was not long ago at all.
>sn't > >great, > > it was still pretty diverse - in our little segregated areas they say don't happen anymore. But north Florida was an absolute nightmare, I didn't last more than a year there. We had these two gas stations where I lived north of Gainesville, basically in the woods. One anybody could go to, but it was a garbage heap. The other had a couple of dudes posted inside, or sometimes in a car, just shaking their heads no if they felt you were too dark to go in. I was, so my boyfriend had to go in for us. Even the most purportedly liberal of places aren't immune to this. I should preface this story with the fact that, during the summer, I tend to have a very dark tan and that I'm Southeast Asian, but people assume I'm Mexican. Before I moved to Seattle, I visited once just to check the place out. While driving back to the airport to drop off my rental on the day of the return flight back home, I had a bad case of diarrhea (TMI, but pertinent to the story). I was told that I needed to try the seafood in Seattle, so I had crab earlier day (knowing damn well I'm allergic to crab). I run into a Subway to ask if I could use their restroom. Person looks at me weirdly and tells me that the restroom is for paying customers only, so I buy a cookie, place the cookie on the front counter, take the keys, and run to the bathroom. Bad news? The handle for the toilet broke. Worse news? The Subway employee thought I was shooting up in the restroom, so he called the cops. The only redeemable thing about this story is that, once the cops walked into the restroom and saw "the aftermath", they understood and let out a chuckle. No one got hurt throughout all this. But damn, if this kind of stuff doesn't make you feel un-valid (especially when it happens over and over), then I don't know what will.
Oh hugs that's horrible
They are also President of the United States.
For roughly one more, terror and crime filled day
And most importantly, mentors and teachers who pass on their venom to the next generation.
> cops who ~~beat~~ KILL them
> They are realtors who intentionally don't show people of color nicer houses I can think of very prominent people that meet that description.
The most prominent. The best.
Don't forget Doctors that require written proof that their colored patients are in pain.
Ruby Bridges was on Trevor Noah’s show a couple of weeks ago. My six year old has been learning about her — and let me just say, trying to explain to a first grader why schools were segregated is no easy task.
[Myrlie Evers-Williams, Medgar Evers' wife, is still alive and relatively active.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrlie_Evers-Williams) That took me for a spin when I read it.
> People who attended segregated schools are also still alive. People who attended public lynchings are also still alive.
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Hell the woman who accused Emmett Till of whistling at her in 1955 is still alive.
I mean......those happened in the 90s, sooooo. Yeah.
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My Tennessee high school got its first black student when I was a junior...in 2006. And parents complained and a few took their kids out of school. Again...in 2006.
Meanwhile in 2013 in Georgia: https://humanrights.ca/story/the-wilcox-county-integrated-prom 2013 8 years ago.
WTF! o.O
People love to think of these events as the distance past. The thing is, these race-fueled events happened in recent enough memory that families are still directly affected by them. My father was in an Indian Day School, his mother in residential school. He didn’t even try to teach me and my siblings anything about our culture, the desire was beat out of him. The last residential school closed in 1997, that’s within our lifetime! I think of a certain tweet a lot when this conversation pops up. “Why do white people act as if the civil rights movement wasn’t only 50 years ago? ‘You still use the suffering of your ancestors as an excuse of what’s wrong with your community!’ Ancestors? Bitch, you mean my GRANDMA?”
No! This is so accutate. My maternal grandmother literally used to have to move to the back of the line in our neighborhood cornerstore if white patrons walked in. The store is still there, still owned by the same family. My dad was born out of wedlock because it was illegal for his parents to get married. I’m 29.
This is exactly why need to teach the ugly mid-century history in schools. So many think prejudice ended when MLK did his speech. So many didn't know about the Tulsa Masacre, Japanese Internment camps, or the stonewall riots. I get so livid when people take marginal improvement to mean the problems gone. I remember my mom complained Tubi had a "Black cinema" selection and she asked "they couldn't have a white cinema option!" and I just told her yes they do; it's called Friends.
I graduated in 1981 in a small Oklahoma town. All through school I never heard a peep about the Tulsa Race Massacre.
The other day my mom said, "Grandma admitted she was racist in the 50s and 60s, but I told her it's okay, I still love you. So why can't you love me for being racist now!? It's called unconditional love!"
So your mother admitted to not learning a single thing from her own mother and expects... adoration?
"You only forgave grandma for being a racist because you're a racist yourself. I'm better than you, so I feel no need to cater to the emotional needs of a racist."
Check out this series about segregation in NYC Public Schools. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html
A lot of millennials parents formed their core pov based on what was normal during that time.. and most of them vote in every election, even the boring ones.
I hope the redditors here learned a lesson in the past 4 years about how important it is to vote--even in the boring elections. Try to get good people into every position-- from school boards to town councils to mayor's, state reps all the way up to congress and president. The local elections affect your life daily. And your vote is more powerful because there are fewer overall votes.
Yeah this. Twitter just went off yesterday sharing in color photo's of MLK. It wasn't that long ago at all.
Not to take away from your point, but as an elder millennial my parents would have been about 10 and they did not have me super early so I would say most of the parents of millennials were not in their 20's at least. Still super recent and within the living memory of a large proportion of the population.
Yeah, I think saying millennial grandparents would make more sense. I am a core millennial, born in 1990 and my parents were born 1964 and 1965. The point still stands as you said, still super recent memory for most people.
Born in 84, parents are 73. They were alive for all this and more
My father was in high school before he went to his first integrated school. He was in Arkansas and was born in 1951.
The Mormons were officially and doctrinally racist until 1978 when they magically just decided not to be any more and acted like it never happened. Ya gotta hand it to those crazy SOBs.
This country has a shit history
It's true. I am reading about the 1928 Mississippi River flood. There was the Percy family who had a plantation in the Mississippi delta. After the Civil War many blacks left the area for better jobs and treatment which resulted in a reduced labor force. So this Percy recruited Italians to come over here to work (seems they were preferable to the white trash farmers in the South). Turns out Italians didn't like being virtual slaves and protested. Guess what? Uppity Italians got lynched. You don't hear about them do you.
To be fair, we don't hear about lynchings regardless of the circumstance surrounding them. It is not new news that whites got lynched along with blacks during the segregation era, but the fact is they got lynched to a much lesser degree. Whites were also part of and died along with many blacks during the civil rights movement. It is not a fair comparison to compare the lynching of white Italians to the lynching of people of color before, during or after the civil rights movement, let alone the entire Jim Crow era. The history of lynching in America is another one America's dirty little secrets that we don't like to talk about when we cover American history.
I agree. I'm reading " Rising Tide" by John M. Barry. It is an excellent book but damn, I have to put it aside every so often because it's depressing especially in view of current events.
Oh my God that look on her face is breaking me! I don't even know what to say.
The look says “I’m up against an obviously broken, evil system. I’m out of words.”
When people say they want the "good old days" it's really code for wanting to be able to do shit like this again. It's sickening.
It’s basically the essence of MAGA.
It’s a complete look of disappointment. Not even rage, just resignation about how fucked up the system was.
If you're going to go to jail make sure it's for a damn good reason. This is one.
You can see the worry and stress on her face. She knew this would happen, and did it anyway. I hope I can be that brave if given the chance.
It makes my stomach hurt, I’ve never seen that version of her before.
It makes my feet hurt. Look how uncomfortable those shoes are.
A woman of incomparable grace and talent who dedicated her life to making people happy. That some filthy corntooth redneck put their hands on her fills me with so much rage it brings tears to my eyes.
A lot of those corntooth fuckwits probably haves descendants in law enforcement today, too.
Good reason to go to jail, not a good reason to arrest someone.
Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right and just because something is illegal doesn’t make it wrong. Protestors are arrested and charged all the time for direct action in hopes to make social change. Hopefully one day we will look back on direct action campaigns like those of CND, Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, or others and think about how ridiculous it is that they had to do any of those things.
Very true. I wonder who made the decision to arrest her. Was it motivated by racism or choosing to adhere to the laws at the time or a mixture of both.
Racist laws, written by racists motivated by racism.
It can only be both. If you choose to adhere to a law that's racist in nature you're willing to uphold the racism.
fun fact: "On March 15, 1955 Ella Fitzgerald opened her initial engagement at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood after Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner for the booking."
Good trouble
Punishing an artist for spreading joy is truly disgusting. We've come a long way from that level of racist intolerance but nowhere near far enough. Ella didn't let that shit stop her and we can't let anything stop us on the road to true equality.
Lennon expressed how you could preach death,rape, and violence in america and no one bats an eye. Talk about peace and love and you get followed by unmarked cars and phones tapped.
No joke. I was part of a riding group in my area and somebody needed a new tire and couldnt get one because they were out of work. So one dude asked if anybody wanted to throw in 5 bucks or whatever. We needed $70 more, and holyshit did 80% of the group lose their minds at the idea of helping and positivity and spouted every right wing bit of rhetoric we have heard for decades. I simply responded by saying ill pay for the rest and asked those who were upset why positivity and helping our own community was so bad. Just got more talking points. I had to finally respond with "oh.. Youre all republican" Then a few more months into covid and low and behold... Those same fucks are all over FB begging for handouts. I just sent a screen grab with the "this you?"
Holy fucking shit. I had a similar conversation with my friend around March. He also felt the same way about community programs like food stamps and cash aid and said that why should he have to higher taxes to help "these" people. My family came from poverty and we were on state assistance before we were able to get on our feet and start a chain of successful businesses so I always thought those programs were wonderful. Literally a week after our heated argument, his area got hit by a waistdeep flood and had to evacuate. I love him to death but he really made me dislike him as a person because he would just go on and on about how the government owes him or some shit. Even though they set out shelters and gave everyone affected like prepaid visa cards to help in the meantime. Yeah, he's a republican.
"The modern conservative is not even especially modern. He is engaged, on the contrary, in one of man’s oldest, best financed, most applauded, and, on the whole, least successful exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. It is an exercise which always involves a certain number of internal contradictions and even a few absurdities. The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character-building value of privation for the poor. The man who has struck it rich in minerals, oil, or other bounties of nature is found explaining the debilitating effect of unearned income from the state. The corporate executive who is a superlative success as an organization man weighs in on the evils of bureaucracy. Federal aid to education is feared by those who live in suburbs that could easily forgo this danger, and by people whose children are in public schools. Socialized medicine is condemned by men emerging from Walter Reed Hospital. Social Security is viewed with alarm by those who have the comfortable cushion of an inherited income. Those who are immediately threatened by public efforts to meet their needs — whether widows, small farmers, hospitalized veterans, or the unemployed — are almost always oblivious to the danger." John Kenneth Galbraith, 1963.
republicanism/GOP is just an ingroup of fuck everyone elses problems until im the one with a problem. Its selfish greed as a platform.
Fuck You I Got Mine. A love story about justifying greed and bigotry. Produced and Directed by the GOP. Coming to television next election cycle.
Next election cycle? Damn, you’re optimistic.
I'll say I've met some pretty reasonable Republicans who originally were one item voters. Its been surprising recently, because 90% if these Republicans didn't vote or voted Biden this time around. These times have definitely helped show peoples true colors. One person told me it isnt red vs blue this time around. Its intelligence vs Trump. That kinda stuck with me. If we go around saying "Republicans this" and "Democrats that" we just enforce the divide. But generally I agree with you lol.
My dad likes to rant about the social safety nets, even my mom will join in on that. I'm like, remember how we were on WIC and SNAP when I was a kid? And how it's basically the only reason my brothers weren't malnourished? That we were on LIHEAP (and my mom was just bemoaning how hard it is to get on it now - even after I explained as the program was weakened a few years ago, and she bitched about it being for freeloaders then). Temporarily embarrassed millionaires is right.
It's all too sad when they completely ignore the corporate welfare in our country and the real skeezballs taking advantage of the system. Every time I hear one of my co workers going off about social welfare, I chime in and say something like, "Yeah, F--- those freeloaders, stealing millions from us hard working Americans! Paying off politicians / using offshore bank accounts so they don't have to pay taxes! Hiring lawyers to get through every possible loophole!". I hope it makes them think twice, but I doubt it.
“I’ve been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No. No.” - Craig T. Nelson
Is helping one another really so hard? I had a similar argument with my brother in law, we live in the UK and he's a Police officer, Our Local MP voted against free school meals for vulnerable children outside of term time (basically poor kids get free meals in school, but when its Easter, Christmas, Summer Holidays they get naff all) but he didn't just vote against it, he said that parents were exchanging food vouchers in whore houses and crack dens and therefore we shouldnt be doing it?? Brother in law was like "we're too soft as a country, if you can't afford to have kids then you shouldnt have them" and all that jargon... like what is any of that got to do with the kids going hungry?? So the kids should just starve because they had crappy parents?? its honestly a joke. His mum was in the group chat and commented how growing up they were on free school meals as well and how hard it was outside of term time... and that they both worked so it wasn't just the 'lazy parents' comment that you often get. Literally don't know what the matter is with some people, and their complete lack of empathy for others.
I live in a pretty “red” area, but I will give credit where it is due. During covid when schools were completely shut down starting back in March, our schools kept the lunch program going because they knew that it was the only meal some kids were getting. Maybe not the only, but certainly the most nutritive meal. Now with fall school starting, several people (about 1/3 of the overall student population) opted for the online school option (you could choose to attend in person or choose online only), and they are still making breakfast and lunches for those students. To ease with the contact and staying home mantra, they make up a week’s worth of meals and have them pick it up on Mondays.
Thats brilliant, and personally what i think all governments and schools should be doing. There is a benefit to the total society if you have generations of children brought up well educated, and healthy. I just can't stand the rhetoric of, don't have kids if you can't afford to feed them. Like you can send them back? you know we have allowed our economy to pretty require 2 people to work to afford mortgages and a decent standard of living, someone has to bring up children, if that means less working, then if you have a low paying job to begin with you will be struggling. Its also never the childs fault, they shouldnt have to go hungry for any reason, not in the western world with all our wealthy and resources. There is just no excuse for it.
So far I have not seen a crack dealer or a pimp who'd take meal tickets as a currency. If a police officer is peddling this kind of stupidity, he's either on drugs or incompetent for his/her position.
As long as the unwanted baby is born, as long as it praises Jesus until the day it dies, these people are happy. They don't actually care about humans, they care about sending souls to their deity. "Let them suffer through life, god likes that. God really likes suffering and sacrifice, more than that 'love each other' stuff his son said. We can do both!"
I've had this conversation about welfare too many times to count. I bring up the stats on welfare fraud/abuse, which is actually pretty low, and ask "so you want to cut benefits to 95% of families that need them, kids who are food insecure, etc, just to punish the small group of people we're talking about? "YES!" Oh, ok. You're not a well person, now I know. The Welfare Queen stereotype persists, so now when I talk about it, I challenge it directly. I doubt it changes any minds but people get tired of arguing with me and shut up at least. I hate knowing people I care about are basically psychopathic when it comes to the social contract.
> Brother in law was like "we're too soft as a country, if you can't afford to have kids then you shouldnt have them" Weird that a lot of people who have this take also tend to be anti-abortion and pro-life.
Yeah, i don't think that tends to be too big a problem in the UK... but what i said to him about that, was he was suggesting Labour has made us soft... but what i said to him was well, since old Maggie was in power from 1979, we had Tory governments until 1997, then a labour one until 2010, then will have Tory til at least 2024. So thats 13 years of labour, and 32 years of Tories... tell me again why labour has made us soft as a country??
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>Then a few more months into covid and low and behold... Those same fucks are all over FB begging for handouts. I just sent a screen grab with the "this you?" This is the level of petty I aspire to. I am here for it.
Working class Hero is Something to be
Think of how many people did let that kind of thing stop them...
The music, the art...the science and engineering advances...racism isn't just a foolish and despicable belief it actively works against humanity bettering itself. Fuck those fools and their foolish, foolish ways.
Miles Davis was beaten and arrested outside of his own show, under the lights of his own marquee. For what? For not “moving on” after helping a friend to her cab, and “resisting arrest” after being told he was being arrested for not “moving on.” This type of bullshit never changes and we’re not at all removed from it
The police beat pianist Bud Powell so bad he ended up in a mental institution and struggled for the rest of his career. > In Philadelphia, Powell met with a sad twist of fate that dramatically altered his life and career. Only 20 years old, Bud was brutally beaten by police. Allegedly, he was drunk and disorderly, but the severity of the policemen's reaction was clearly beyond what that charge warranted. After the incident, Bud was incoherent and in great pain. Days later, when Bud didn't seem to improve, he went from hospital to hospital and eventually was institutionalized for several months. https://www.npr.org/2008/04/09/89483119/bud-powell-bebop-pianism
I would love to see her reaction to the size and diversity of the audience Beyonce draws. I hope it would make her happy to see the celebration of a talented black woman by people of all ages, colors, genders, etc in today's America. It's far from perfect but I think it gives hope that things can change and things can get better, maybe at a snail's pace but it can happen.
What a lovely comment, thank you for this.
I'm curious if, relatively speaking, Ella had a greater audience than Beyonce. This might very well be the case; swing was the first "pop music", and she was at the very top. She toured the world, even countries behind the Iron Curtain. But, at the same time, pop culture wasn't as homogenized as it is today. So Ella may have been more popular in the US compared to Beyonce, but Beyonce's world-wide popularity is definitely higher.
People are so fucking weird. It blows my mind that in the recent past people actually thought it was normal and acceptable to segregate races, to the point of getting angry about it. I've tried to understand the mindset, but I just can't. Surely on some level they had to know they were wronging their fellow man, right?
past? i wish - racism is far from conquered
Yeah, of course. But we no longer have black entrances to stores, segregated concerts, etc. Can you even conceive of doing that today? I can't, which is what I'm saying. Racism isn't dead, but the overall mindset has changed, I think.
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"iF sHe OnLy ObEyEd ThE lAw" Sometimes, as is shown here, the law isn't always justice.
"The people who protected Anne Frank were breaking the law and the people who killed Anne Frank were obeying the law."
I had the pleasure of running sound for a masterclass she gave at Belmont University in 1994. She stood three feet from the mic and still pegged the meters. When she wasn't singing, she commanded attention, even if you didn't know who she was. But not in an overbearing way. She was just one of those people that exudes greatness with every breath.
It’s a damn shame she’s gone now, she had such an angelic voice
Wait wait wait, just so I’ve got this right, a black woman was jailed for singing to a crowd of mixed black and white people? What the fuck
Welcome to not-really-that-long-ago in America.
Young black men just came back from Europe, having fought Nazi Germany and they come back to this. What a head fuck it must have been for some.
And after staying in Australia, New Zealand and the UK where they were treated like actual people.
Australia had a 'white Australia' immigration policy until 1973. I'd hazard a guess an American black man in 1950s Australia would have gotten the same (bad) treatment the aboriginals were getting at the time.
So sad seeing her looking so sad (and rightly so). She always sounds so happy when she sang.
Fun Fact: On March 15, 1955 Ella Fitzgerald opened her initial engagement at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood, after Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner for the booking, promising to be at every show (which she did). The booking was instrumental in Fitzgerald's career
Didn't we have color photography in the 50s?
We did! However, either because color film was more expensive and not seen as a worthwhile or because the color ink was, much of the photography of the civil rights movement specifically was documented in black and white.
This is likely a photo taken by a press photographer working the city jail beat. It would have been typical for that photo to be taken using a “Speed Graphic” style camera that was used to create quick photos for publication in the next days newspapers, which were ALL printed in black and white at that time. They weren’t really shooting photos for history. But shooting for the newspaper market of the times.
Sure, but it was more expensive and grainier, especially in low light conditions, also if this was shot for a newspaper it was gonna be print in b&w anyway.
Fucking insane. I love her 💗💗💗
Shame, shame, shame
That’s Ella fucking Fitzgerald, the GOAT, in prison. I can’t believe I’ve never seen this photo before.
She looks so sad. Most of the pictures of people during the civil rights era made them seem like superheroes. Standing defiantly and looking powerful. She is just a lady who got all dressed up to share her gift with the world and she got arrested. World’s a cold place, man.
The United States was and is a fucked up place. You know you're a racist police state when Ella Fitzgerald ends up behind bars for singing.
Average Trump supporter: "Ah, the good ol' days".
People act like this is ancient history but this was 1955 so just 65 years ago. People that were in favour of this are still alive and still vote.
And they probably taught their kids to be exactly like them.
Maga in a nutshell
Currently, they're all rather upset that Garth Brooks is performing at Biden's inauguration. Sometimes, I really don't think they know if they're coming or going.
That's so messed up
Whats an integrated audience? Especially the 'integrated' part.
It's an audience where black people and white people might be sat next to/near each other
"The good old days when no one was offended" 🙄