Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Cyrano

(15,020 posts)
Mon Nov 19, 2018, 07:19 PM Nov 2018

Jim Crow is alive, well, and still fucking up America

If you don't know what Jim Crow is, Google it. Learn about your country.

I wish everyone understood how we got here and why an ignorant, mentally deficient bigot/buffoon is occupying the White House. But too many people don't/won't "get it." Or don't want to. Or never will.

Here's the short version. When slavery ended, the South wouldn't accept black people as human beings. This ain't a history class. But in the 20th century, Jim Crow was a term that was applied to what many Southern white Americans did to deny the vote (or humanity) to black people.

(And they also beat, tortured, castrated and lynched black people for no reason other than they were black. And those criminals/beasts didn't get arrested, or charged with crimes, or even looked upon unfavorably by their neighbors. But then, you already know that. ... Don't you?)

So let me get to the point. Elections, in much of the American South and many Western states, were rigged before a single vote was cast. Voter lists were purged, new "rules" were passed, and ugly schemes were put in place to stop people (mostly Democrats) from either voting or having their votes counted. One would have to be brain dead to miss what has, again, taken place in an American election.

This month, senate seats, governorships, and so many other elections were stolen by an organized criminal organization that calls itself the Republican Party. This! This is the legacy of Jim Crow. This is the Jim Crow that is still alive and well in today's America. This Jim Crow thing is a disease. Jim Crow stands against the concept of democracy. Jim Crow, in all the forms it has taken today, must be defeated.

I know that hatred of all the "Others" will never go away. Jim Crow, today, is the hatred of blacks, Muslims, Jews, Hisanics, brown people, yellow people, red people and everyone who isn't a white, "Christian" of European descent. We must treat it as what it is: The poison that inhabits the minds of ignorant human beings who have a need to feel superior over anyone. They need to feel that others are beneath them.

This is a sickness. It is a deadly disease that has the potential to destroy humanity. Does any sane person want to allow that to happen? What will you do about it? When will you do it?

33 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Jim Crow is alive, well, and still fucking up America (Original Post) Cyrano Nov 2018 OP
GOP voter suppression is not new Gothmog Nov 2018 #1
One point of clarification ... VMA131Marine Nov 2018 #2
Wasn't 1964 the year the dixiecrats bolted to the repug party? brush Nov 2018 #7
1968 is by many considered to be the year the roles reversed The Mouth Nov 2018 #12
No. Jim Crow is not alive and well. GulfCoast66 Nov 2018 #3
Of course it is. You think they weren't legally suppressing votes back then? brush Nov 2018 #13
All those things are disgusting and should be fought. GulfCoast66 Nov 2018 #15
Jim Crow was just a term used for systemic racism. brush Nov 2018 #16
Jim Crow was not a term for racism. GulfCoast66 Nov 2018 #18
Ok, it was term for systemic racism. brush Nov 2018 #19
Well, we will just have to disagree GulfCoast66 Nov 2018 #20
Yup. It's still here zentrum Nov 2018 #24
This message was self-deleted by its author zentrum Nov 2018 #22
I think we weren't anywhere near hard enough on the south 47of74 Nov 2018 #4
...OR...maybe we have let so many of them suffer in poverty with low wages and no jobs flibbitygiblets Nov 2018 #5
I'm not saying now. I'm saying in the aftermath of the Civil War we should have been a bit firmer 47of74 Nov 2018 #6
You are second guessing Abraham Lincoln? Tipperary Nov 2018 #9
Yes I am. 47of74 Nov 2018 #11
Yes. They were traitors and there should have been hangings. brush Nov 2018 #14
The fact is most Northerners got tired of keeping troops in the south GulfCoast66 Nov 2018 #17
Most of the North at the time... zentrum Nov 2018 #25
Thanks for posting. In Georgia the Kemp and the repugs didn't even bother to hide their... brush Nov 2018 #8
Nor did Ohio or Wisconsin. It is a problem everywhere republicans govern. GulfCoast66 Nov 2018 #21
No mention of why the Electoral College as a result? maddiemom Nov 2018 #10
Exactly. That's a real example zentrum Nov 2018 #27
What are some things you think people should do about it? oberliner Nov 2018 #23
Southern Exposure struggle4progress Nov 2018 #26
I have personally confronted racists and a Nazi this year. guillaumeb Nov 2018 #28
Yellow people? virgogal Nov 2018 #29
Unfortunately, sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Firestorm49 Nov 2018 #30
Will it change in our lifetimes? Cyrano Nov 2018 #31
Great initial post and great posts afterwards. SWBTATTReg Nov 2018 #32
K&R ck4829 Nov 2018 #33

Gothmog

(143,999 posts)
1. GOP voter suppression is not new
Mon Nov 19, 2018, 07:59 PM
Nov 2018

I spent both the primary and the primary runoff days in a war room and I was in a candidate's office all day on election day. The GOP is busy suppressing the vote

VMA131Marine

(4,123 posts)
2. One point of clarification ...
Mon Nov 19, 2018, 08:00 PM
Nov 2018

In the South, the Democratic party was at least as much, if not more, the party of segregation as the Republican Party until the Civil Rights Act was passed; that's how we ended up with the Dixiecrat Rebellion and the 1948 candidacy of Strom Thurmond for President. That is not a great chapter in Democratic Party history, but we have moved forwards since then.

brush

(53,467 posts)
7. Wasn't 1964 the year the dixiecrats bolted to the repug party?
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 11:13 AM
Nov 2018

The Freedom Democratic Party led by Fannie Lou Hammer were seated at the Dem convention, among other factors led to the dixiecrats leaving (good riddance).

The Mouth

(3,123 posts)
12. 1968 is by many considered to be the year the roles reversed
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 05:47 PM
Nov 2018

Carefully crafted by the demonically brilliant Pat Buchanan ( say what you will, but is management of Nixon's 1968 campaign was brilliant, like taking a team that went 1-11 and winning 11-1) the 'Southern Strategy' worked nearly perfectly. He took full advantage of Johnson's civil rights moves to woo and win not just the hearts and minds but the apparatus and political machines.

GulfCoast66

(11,949 posts)
3. No. Jim Crow is not alive and well.
Mon Nov 19, 2018, 08:07 PM
Nov 2018

It was legally mandated racial oppression.

Legally mandated.

We can and should point out and fight the many, many instances of racial injustice we find.

But this kind of hyperbole does not further the fight.

brush

(53,467 posts)
13. Of course it is. You think they weren't legally suppressing votes back then?
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 06:59 PM
Nov 2018

Last edited Wed Nov 21, 2018, 08:56 PM - Edit history (1)

Ever heard of poll taxes, literacy tests, marbles in jars tests, LEO intimidation at polls? That was all legal vote suppression. It may not be called Jim Crow now but it's just as much racial discrimination.

Kemp suppressed hundreds of thousands of votes in Georgia, openly. It happened in Florida too just not as blatantly.

Hyde-Smith in Miss. bragged about wanting to attend a lynching, accepted money from white supremacists and said it was a good idea to suppress black colllege students' votes.

Jim Crow is still there, it's just dressed in a suit and holds public office.

GulfCoast66

(11,949 posts)
15. All those things are disgusting and should be fought.
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 08:47 PM
Nov 2018

And should be fought and opposed with vigor. And the motivation for them is the same with Jim Crow.

But they are not Jim Crow.

Lots of people fought, we injured, had their lives ruined and killed to bury Jim Crow. And they were successful.

You and I agree on all the issues I suspect. Just the semantics are dividing us.

But words have meanings. And Jim Crow was the legally enforced oppression of African Americans after reconstruction. It was actually illegal to treat a black man as an equal regardless of a persons personal inclination. It caused my white father to leave small town Louisiana in the early 50s. He hated the way blacks were treated. Had he stayed he would have been mandated by law to treat them in the same dehumanizing way. So he left. That town now has elected African American officials and many, maybe most people treat blacks the way they treat others. Unfortunately, many, maybe most do not.

Regardless, wherever I go in the South I treat everyone the same regardless of color. Under Jim Crow I would have been arrested, lost my job, had my business burned or whatever else it took to insure white society as a whole oppressed blacks. It is a huge aspect of Jim Crow most people do not think about.

Sorry for being so verbose. This subjects is entwined in my family history and it gets me animated.

Have a nice evening.






brush

(53,467 posts)
16. Jim Crow was just a term used for systemic racism.
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 08:59 PM
Nov 2018

There is still systemic racism, we just don't call it Jim Crow anymore.

Not that complicated.

GulfCoast66

(11,949 posts)
18. Jim Crow was not a term for racism.
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 09:12 PM
Nov 2018

It has always been called racism when called anything. Most whites, north and south just assumed their superiority.

Jim Crow is the name we have for a system of actual laws. It compelled all citizens to enforce a set of laws that insured the oppression of blacks. Granted, many did not need to be compelled. That is way different than systemic racism.

Again, I agree the remaining problems are as bad as you state. But things have been way, way worse.

GulfCoast66

(11,949 posts)
20. Well, we will just have to disagree
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 09:18 PM
Nov 2018

But we should leave this disagreement knowing we share the same goals for the future.

zentrum

(9,865 posts)
24. Yup. It's still here
Fri Nov 23, 2018, 07:18 PM
Nov 2018

....in red-lining, police shootings, longer sentences for black people for the same crimes, lowered expectations, lack of neighborhood services and micro-aggressions all day every day that remind black people of their "place">

The only name that's changed is that Jim Crow is now called White Nationalism and it's in the White House.

Or--the name has changed, but the spirit of this devil is still alive and well, systemmically.

Response to brush (Reply #16)

 

47of74

(18,470 posts)
4. I think we weren't anywhere near hard enough on the south
Tue Nov 20, 2018, 08:07 PM
Nov 2018

I’m not saying we should have done the 19tu century version of glassing the entire region. But I think we were a bit too kind towards the south after the civil war and have lowered the boom on the wealthy whites and anyone above the rank of Lieutenant in the Confederate military. I think 9/10 of the problems we face now are because we didn’t go far enough after the war.

flibbitygiblets

(7,220 posts)
5. ...OR...maybe we have let so many of them suffer in poverty with low wages and no jobs
Tue Nov 20, 2018, 10:08 PM
Nov 2018

that they're now uneducated and pissed as hell. Being uneducated and not likely to "get out much" on account of the poverty thing, they only see other white people, so they're afraid of the "others". Add Faux news telling them it's immigrants, Muslims and equal opportunity that's keeping them in poverty, and the cycle repeats.

Are you sure we want to be harder on the South?

 

47of74

(18,470 posts)
6. I'm not saying now. I'm saying in the aftermath of the Civil War we should have been a bit firmer
Tue Nov 20, 2018, 11:23 PM
Nov 2018

I think we let them up them up a bit too easy after the Civil War. We left their culture and institutions largely intact and even let them keep a form of slavery ( "except as punishment for a crime" ) after the war and made no efforts to effect lasting changes right after the war. We left them to their own devices and allowed the entire situation to fester for nearly a century. I think we should have insisted on imprisoning the leaders and the wealthy who led this treason.

 

47of74

(18,470 posts)
11. Yes I am.
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 12:00 PM
Nov 2018

As much as I admire him I think that he should have been a bit harder on the southern leadership after the war and not been so willing to let them off the hook as he had been.

brush

(53,467 posts)
14. Yes. They were traitors and there should have been hangings.
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 07:12 PM
Nov 2018

They were let off the hook and eventually came back with a vengeance after the Union ended reconstruction too soon for restoration of the region's economy (racial politics was the reason for the abrupt ending).

The KKK terrorists instituted their century-long reign of terror on African Americans, the daughters of the confederacy put up the statutes of traitor generals all over the south to remind black people to stay "in their place," share cropping and prison plantations literally re-instituted an open, neo-slavery.

The traitors were not held to account for their treachery at all as the racism is still flourishing as evidenced by the wholesale vote suppression we all just saw.

After the Nazi's defeat in WWll there were trials and executions and outlawing of Nazi paraphernalia. Germany is now a good world citizen which doesn't continue to honor Nazi war criminals.

GulfCoast66

(11,949 posts)
17. The fact is most Northerners got tired of keeping troops in the south
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 09:04 PM
Nov 2018

And did not give a shit about how blacks were treated. Yeah, there were some exception. But that is true in the south as well.

The danger in your thinking, without debating the actual merits of the idea, it that it perpetuates the idea that racism is primarily a southern problem. Hell, even the hate for the fugitive slave act was not really about blacks. Instead the northern people were incensed that southerners could come into their states to enforce a southern law. Northern citizens could not enforce their laws, any of them, in the south. Ironically, the northern hatred of the law was a states right issue!

Midwesterns and northerners were and are every bit as racist as southerners. You think during the great exodus when blacks moved up north they were welcomed with open arms? They were needed for their labor in the booming mills and factories of the north. But as in the south they were given the hardest, most dangerous jobs and were paid less than whites.


Racism is an American Problem.

zentrum

(9,865 posts)
25. Most of the North at the time...
Fri Nov 23, 2018, 07:24 PM
Nov 2018

....and Lincoln himself were still generally racist even though they didn't want there to be slavery.

Punishing the South would have meant a big hit to the wealthy of Wall Street who traded profits from tobacco and cotton, worldwide.

Had nothing to do with being "soft" on the South and everything to do with the flow of money that fueled much of the wealth of Northern financiers. There was a direct line between the Plantation and Wall Street.

brush

(53,467 posts)
8. Thanks for posting. In Georgia the Kemp and the repugs didn't even bother to hide their...
Wed Nov 21, 2018, 11:15 AM
Nov 2018

vote suppression.

guillaumeb

(42,641 posts)
28. I have personally confronted racists and a Nazi this year.
Fri Nov 23, 2018, 09:09 PM
Nov 2018

And I write letters to the local papers as well as work with a few local groups to target the haters.

Cyrano

(15,020 posts)
31. Will it change in our lifetimes?
Sat Nov 24, 2018, 12:24 PM
Nov 2018

I don't know if human enlightenment will come about in this century. I hope for it.

But perhaps the bigger question is, will we destroy this planet before we get the smarts to save it? And if so, hopefully we will learn to accept each other along the way.

SWBTATTReg

(21,856 posts)
32. Great initial post and great posts afterwards.
Sun Nov 25, 2018, 08:33 AM
Nov 2018

Voting democratic is one way that I'm currently doing something 'about it, NOW'.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Jim Crow is alive, well, ...