“That Conversation about Race” category archive

My local rag’s editorial today is certain to provoke a reaction. I look forward to an outpouring of Lost Cause bilge in the week’s Letters to the Editor. Indeed, the fun has already started in the online comments.

Here’s a bit to give you an idea of why:

A Confederate memorial in a public square speaks volumes about a community, especially absent an accompanying admission that victory by the South would have perpetuated a brutal and morally corrupt system that treated people as property.

The same goes for schools or public buildings named for leaders of the rebellion. Surely a community can identify other figures more deserving of such tribute.

At the very least, cities and counties should be free to make these decisions independent of Richmond’s consent. Lawmakers need to get out of the way.

I realized this morning even before I opened the paper, that one (not the only one certainly, but one) of the dynamics in the refusal of the Secesh, old and new, to recognize that the Old South was built on cruelty, exploitation, and theft of labor; that the narrative of racial superiority was created as an elaborate rationale so the exploiters could tell themselves and others that what they were doing was not only okay, but divinely ordained.

Persons now do not want to admit even to themselves what their ancestors did (and they still like the idea of theft of labor), so they perpetuate and nourish the lie.

The lie will live until white Americans cease the denial and make peace with the history they have, not the history they made up.

Two North Carolina charter school teachers speak out about the rot inside the charter school movement. A nugget (emphasis in the original):

Soon after we arrived at Central Park, structural shortcomings became apparent. Students of color comprised 81 percent of the demographics of Durham Public Schools in 2013, while students of color at Central Park comprised only 29 percent of the student population. Whereas 66 percent of students in Durham Public Schools were eligible for free and reduced lunch, only 7 percent of CPSC students were eligible for the program.

This realization led to greater clarity: regardless of our intentions, we had become part of the problem of school resegregation*.

________________

*Which, or course, was part of the plan all along. Charter schools are the new seg academies.

Trumpling sportsmanship.

The Haddonfield High School 2018 boys’ lacrosse season has come to an abrupt end as state civil rights officials look into allegations filed by Sterling High School that one of its athletes was called a racial slur during a track meet.

(snip)

The incident allegedly occurred May 1 when the Sterling and Haddon Heights girls’ track teams competed at Haddonfield in a tri-meet. A member of the Haddonfield boys’ lacrosse team allegedly told a ninth-grade competitor to “get off the track” and called the girl the N-word, according to the complaint.

I’m certain that the complaint will be found valid, because, honest to Pete, you can’t make this stuff up.

A Trumpled student.

The racism. The presumption of guilt. The privilege of whiteness.

Words fail me.

(Well, actually, they don’t fail me. I just know when to stop.)

Via Raw Story.

Badtux tangles with a frolicker.

Trumpery in the snaring economy.

A moving experience.

In the Charlotte Observer, James E. Ford cuts through the rationalizations crap about charter schools.

A Trumpled work-out:

Two black men said they were humiliated when staffers at their Secaucus gym twice called police on them and wrongly accused them of not paying, despite one of them being a member for eight years.

Rachid Maiga, 27, and Tshyrad Oates, 25, told WNBC-TV in New York they were playing basketball for a few minutes at the LA Fitness club in Secaucus on April 15 when an employee asked them to leave.

Gruesome and familiar details at the link.

Here’s the thumbnail: Of course, the police were called and of course there is a video and of course the video went viral and of course LA Fitness apologized after that happened and of course the victims think the apology is about as sincere as a Trump promise . . . .