Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

The revolution will be supervised.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

You cannot love your country only when you win.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / #BLM #M4BL / Alabama G-ddamn.

Alabama G-ddamn.

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(Following up on yesterday’s promise) I don’t wanna be the Black Reporter for Balloon Juice, but I think there’s unexpressed importance in the recent Alabama Asswhooping.

For those unaware: When a Black riverboat worker asked some White people to obey the laws of the place he worked, they chose violence. A very racially-charged brawl ensued.

Responses have ranged from the pride in self-defense among a number of Black folx (and White supporters), to…well, selective editing and outrage in the people you’d expect.

There’s a lot here. So I’ll focus on those eager with the “violence isn’t the answer” prompt. Those uneasy with how easy so many seem to be with the asswhuppin’. You’re right! Violence isn’t the answer to all the issues plaguing Black folx in America — much less, the issues around Reproductive Justice, or attacks on LBGTQIA+ folx, or the treatment of people with disabilities.

And yet. If we don’t all work together to resolve these issues, and the issues of so many others. If we don’t start to recognize the source of so many challenges in America…well. I mean, Dr. King said it, a few months before White violence took his life:

First, is the guilt for riots exclusively that of Negroes? And are they a natural development to a new stage of struggle? A million words will be written and spoken to dissect the ghetto outbreaks. But for a perceptive and vivid expression of culpability I would like to submit two sentences that many of you have probably heard me quote before from the pen of Victor Hugo. “If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin but he who causes the darkness.” The policy-makers of the white society have caused the darkness. It was they who created the frustrating slums. They perpetuate unemployment and poverty and oppression. Perhaps it is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes, but these are essentially derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

(Emphasis mine – MD)

It’s also important to understand that “enjoying” this moment, in the Black community, isn’t carefree. It’s with the background of the weight of centuries of oppression, and the very real issues of the present moment that reflect in this brawl. In the people who almost certainly chose violence against a Black man because — in the American South, yes, but elsewhere as well — his life and liberty isn’t worth the same as them. And that some Black folx aren’t about losing any more liberty, without a literal fight.

As Joy Reid put it:

[Back in the day] There were no consequences for [White Folx] and deadly ones for us if we tried to fight back. Well that era is done and it ain’t coming back, no matter how many sundown-town fantasy songs their country singers make. Seeing Black folk come as a community to that security guard’s rescue, one guy even swimming over like Aquaman to help him, was a ‘Wakanda Assemble’ moment, in which a group of old school southern bullies effed around and found out.

Those “greater crimes” are not things that a whole group can ignore, forever. You cannot say that one side gets all the Stochastic Terrorism they want, and expect the attacked people to bend over and take it, forever.

I don’t know who needs to hear this. But I hope they do, and do so with a quickness.

I don’t wanna be the Black Reporter for Balloon Juice. I cannot be the Marginalized People Reporter for Balloon Juice. But Alabama might be a sign of things to come, if we aren’t real damn careful as a country.

 

Reader Interactions

349Comments

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    From the moment this broke on Twitter on Sunday morning..

    Black Twitter and Black TikTok  haven’t let me down. They have been absolutely hilarious.

    I would like to repeat something that was said, in between all the humor that has been given..

     

    ” What would have happened to that Black Guy, just doing in his job, if those people had not decided to help him?”

     

    ” Why did they think that they could jump that man – for doing his damn job – and nothing was going to happen to them?”

     

    ” Why did they think that Black folk were just going to stand there and let them beat on that man?”

     

    Violence IS the answer..

    When Violence WAS the question…

     

    I shall be posting a lot of stuff in this thread.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    colorfullstory (@colorfullstory) posted at 5:49 AM on Mon, Aug 07, 2023:
    Can’t believe I was alive to witness the Montgomery, Alabama Steamboat Uprising August 6, 2023.

    Y’all made the ancestors proud! Also, never stop recording run ins with nonBlack people who assault/attack Black people. This could’ve gone a whole other way without video. https://t.co/mKLB61fZdb
    (https://twitter.com/colorfullstory/status/1688502558006849536?t=PydIGxcb1XL0JVGHols7Ag&s=03)

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    a group of old school southern bullies effed around and found out

    Yes.
    The folding chair memes have been absolute fire.

  16. 16.

    laura

    Oh how I wish this post could just capture every tweet, every tik tok-, all the joy, the humor, the righteousness of justice, the context, the history, the comeuppance of caucausity that is riverboatbrawl

    No worries- Valued Commenter Rikyrah IS ON IT!

  20. 20.

    Ken

    I saw a couple complaints that the worker should have called the police. The replies agreed with my reaction — they’d show up, shoot the black guy, and help the white guys get their boat refueled and launched.

  21. 21.

    H.E.Wolf

    Thank you for this post and THANK YOU for its title. You said it all in those two words – although I’m very glad you didn’t stop there.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    I haven’t even touched the hilarity from Black Twitter and Black Tiktok on this subject.

    They did not let me down.

     

    Both hilarity, and historical/cultural context.

  23. 23.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Black Twitter is amazing!  So are LGBTQ Twitter, Feminist Twitter (not TERFs) etc.  I always enjoy when some bullshit happens and marginalized groups find ways to make fun out of it (while never dismissing the seriousness of the bullshit they routinely face).  People of various privileges, I highly recommend you follow marginalized people, groups, pages on social media.  In addition to learning a ton you will also get to enjoy some of the best fun that happens on these internet streets.

  28. 28.

    lowtechcyclist

    This made me think of Stonewall. Anybody think it was wrong for those gay men to fight back? Of course not! Same here.

  31. 31.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: I think this viddy was one of the finest takes in a great line up of fine takes.

    I’ve been there for all the smiles.

    Someone called the original victim’s hat toss, a “Mary Tyler Moore toss.”

    “Scuba Gooding Jr.” and “Blaquaman” also get special mention.

  32. 32.

    Karen S.

    I haven’t enjoyed TikTok as much as I have in the past couple of days all because of the Battle of Montgomery. The ancestors must be proud!

  33. 33.

    Betty Cracker

    The clip I saw was only a couple of minutes long and showed the beginning of the fight, but that was enough to establish that the assholes from the pontoon boat deserved every bit of the beat down they got. I’m all too familiar with drunk, belligerent jerks like that. An ass-whupping is exactly what they deserve.

  37. 37.

    Alison Rose

    Thank you. It was painfully predictable that so much of the outraged response from non-Black people was aimed almost entirely at the Black people who came to the man’s rescue. They made meager mouth noises against the white people, but for some (many) of them, it really seems like fighting back in self-defense (when you aren’t white) is worse than starting the fight in the first place. Very much the “calling me a racist is worse than experiencing racism” school of thought. Repugnant.

  39. 39.

    Immanentize

    I am apparently late to the party… because I’m not the fastest of swimmers, but, pro-tip, if Black people are swimming to get you, you done messed up, A-Aron.— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) August 7, 2023

    IYKYK

  41. 41.

    Trivia Man

    Starts with the hat toss: BRING IT

    Ends with all the bystanders helpfully pointing out who was involved as they tried to slink away

    Eagerly waiting for the actual charges and identities. The boat owner I believe has been outed as a C-Store owner up in Selma, the store has been closed – perhaps permanently. He tried “I was there but didn’t get involved” but video evidence from 25 angles has proven that was a lie.

  42. 42.

    AM in NC

    Thanks for this, MisterDancer.  I am white, and I generally despise violence, but (as you and every other sentient human knows) that worker and the people who came to his rescue were protecting themselves against racist violence they did not start.  I was pumping my fist and belting out a “fuck yeah!” as the brawl unfolded and the racist instigators got both pummeled and arrested.

    And Black Twitter/TikTok have not disappointed in the aftermath!

  43. 43.

    Ajabu

    My wife, born and raised in Alabama, who experienced her older siblings, having to sit in the balcony when they went to the movies- enjoyed the hell out of this!!  It’s about fucking time… and yes, we should make it an annual celebration. As a child in Jamaica, we did it with ridicule: “ the British woman is so refined. No lips, no bosom and no behind.” I think I like the ass kicking better…

  44. 44.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Well said, Misterdancer. “Violence is never the answer” is a luxury of the privileged.

    @rikyrah: Black Twitter is one major reason I’m still on the hellsite, I spent much of Sunday relishing the reactions.

  45. 45.

    cain

    @rikyrah:

    We had a chat about mastodon in regards to this event. Mastodon doesn’t have the same kind of hilarity. In a way, people take themselves very serious there – there just seems less joy there compared to black twitter.

    The funniest comment I ran across was “if we have to swim our asses across a river to beat your asses, you’ve done wrong!”

  46. 46.

    ArchTeryx

    Were I down there I probably would have jumped in to help the security guard. That poor guy was just doing his job and got assaulted by a would-be lynch mob. Screw that. This white dude would have been firmly on the side of the Wakandans here, and so would my friend, the “Last Rural Liberal in Tennessee.”

  48. 48.

    Chief Oshkosh

    In one of the longer videos, taken from the upper level of the dock, there are A LOT of people that look like LEOs (they all had handcuffs hanging from the back of their belts) just watching. What the heck is up with that? Why weren’t they assisting in breaking up the fight(s)?

    As to the fights themselves, glad nobody got hurt more than what it appears. I didn’t see any teeth or blood on the ground, so hopefully none of those who stepped in to help the lone black worker will face serious charges.

    That said, it sure would’ve been nice if someone had thought to undo the lines to the cracker boat and shoved it off.

  49. 49.

    Karen S.

    @The Thin Black Duke: Same. I’ve been grinning like a loon since yesterday. For me, it’s been euphoric. It’s hard to describe. I wish I could share all the videos with my late mother. She would have enjoyed them immensely. She grew up near and among white people like those fools in Virginia during the Jim Crow era. She would have called them “peckerwoods.”

  51. 51.

    cain

    @ArchTeryx: There was a 16 year old black kid that jumped into the river and swim over and to help his colleague.

    One of the great things about this incident is that there is video that happened from the very start. This heads off the racist trope where someone has to comment “We need to see what happened before the brawl” – of course, racists will find ways to show something else. Fuck them.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

     

    Mr. Christopher (@iamalmostlegend) posted at 3:18 PM on Mon, Aug 07, 2023:
    Jennifer, a contract worker at a Selma hospital, saw the people who started the brawl come in for treatment.

    She says they were terrified because everyone on the hospital staff was Black and said, “Everybody’s n***ers in here,” then called the police.

     

     

    Here For THEE Comments 1 (@forthecomments1) posted at 0:37 AM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
    OMG, one of them went to hospital with a footprint in their face? They went to a hospital that was predominantly staffed with BP, in a predominantly Black city, and said “Its nothing but Nigs, here”? 
    (https://twitter.com/forthecomments1/status/1688786507572629504?t=c1oQg9L8uZEk2oGFNonD-w&s=03)

  55. 55.

    hells littlest angel

    I love Joy Reid. She does not get the credit she deserves for her incisive commentary.

  64. 64.

    DaBunny42

    @rikyrah: “And because they thought they’d ‘Try that in a small town’ they ended up ‘Wading in the water.'”

    I laughed with delight at that line

  65. 65.

    Mel

    @Betty Cracker: This. Absolutely.

    I grew up in rural, red state Appalachia, and let me assure anyone that says that defending the man who was attacked was wrong because violence is never the answer that responding in kind almost certainly saved that man’s life.

    Those drunken rednecks were not there for a conversation about right v.wrong; they saw an opportunity to commit a hate crime and they took it.

    Chances are very high that if the employee asking them to honor the rules had been white, there might have been a little half-assed backtalk and maybe a hollered “F**ck you” as they pulled their boat away.

    Instead, they attacked an innocent man who was just doing his job, and the attack was NOT because they didn’t want to move their boat. That was just their thin excuse for unleashing their racism and bigotry and violence.

    Kudos to each and every person who stepped in to defend and protect the man who was attacked.

  66. 66.

    Old Man Shadow

    Unless you’re an unrepentant white supremacist asshole, the proper response to someone telling you to please move your vehicle because it’s not supposed to be parked there is to say, “I’m sorry” and move your vehicle.

    If you and your Nazi filth jump the man asking, you deserve a beatdown.

  70. 70.

    Redshift

    Black Twitter is truly awesome! It was so much fun catching this in real time.

    On July 7, 1911, a black man by the name of Nathaniel Alexander patented a folding chair. Let’s give him all the flowers because this invention came in very handy at Montgomery today 👀😊 pic.twitter.com/1VtKCwS2My
    — KAMALA NATION (@KamalaNation) August 7, 2023

  74. 74.

    RaflW

    The queens, kings and transfolk of the Stonewall Inn had a similar moment in 1969. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there are new uprisings in these years by LGBTQ people. The right wing in this country is aiming to stamp out all expressions of liberation not benefitting whiteness, ‘nuclear families’ and especially white maleness.

    I abhor violence, but whole classes of people being legislated out of existence in some states may engender desperation. King & Hugo are correct.

  75. 75.

    cain

    Here is some context about that particular area in black history:

    https://twitter.com/brockbooneLAW/status/1688428541333950464

    “I regularly walk these Montgomery streets. Hundreds of Black people who were enslaved came in by boat EVERY day on the riverfront in Montgomery. 2 blocks away there was a massive slave market. Also 2 blocks away Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus. ”

    It isn’t the 60s anymore. Pull something and you’re gonna get your ass beat with a folding chair.

  83. 83.

    sdhays

    I hope the people who intervened and protected the riverboat worker get a light treatment from the prosecutor (I won’t hold my breath). They didn’t start it, but they finished it, and they may have saved the worker’s life.

  85. 85.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @hells littlest angel: She’s gotten way too enamored with Do Something Twitter and promotes way too much anti-Garland/DOJ bullshit*, but other than that, yes, she’s really great.  Like Melissa Harris-Perry she seems to be pretty well revered in Black spaces, she just doesn’t get enough credit/attention from White People.

    *Sadly, she’s not the only otherwise brilliant person who has fallen for it.

  91. 91.

    Eolirin

    @UncleEbeneezer: I think a lot of that is the bubble our journalists have put themselves in. On topics about which they, as a class, have very little knowledge but speak of a lot, like politics and the legal system, there’s a ton of group think.

  93. 93.

    p.a.

    @sdhays: I hope the people who intervened and protected the riverboat worker get a light treatment from the prosecutor (I won’t hold my breath). They didn’t start it, but they finished it, and they may have saved the worker’s life.

     

    Seconded!

  94. 94.

    TaMara

    @rikyrah: Black Twitter is the best…

    I suppose it’s not the thing to say, but I’m okay with the violence. An asswooping is what was called for. I’m appalled more white folks didn’t jump in to help that guard, but I guess, Alabama.🙄 Shortage of decent white folks (Mama Tot being an exception)

    And you know, “don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing.”

    fucking white trash assholes.

  95. 95.

    Barbara

    @sdhays: I am guessing that few will be charged, which is typically what happens in brawls.  Fortunately, no lethal weapons were involved.  I can’t quite cheer violence, but I definitely agree that “fighting back” was not the problem here.

  98. 98.

    sdhays

    @rikyrah: That is really fantastic!

    I support open carry for folding chairs!

    (The best part is the end with the folding chair under his pillow and he wakes up to a noise! LOL!!!)

  104. 104.

    HumboldtBlue

    This entire thread and related links have me laughing like I haven’t laughed in a loooonnnggg time. Well, at least since this weekend and the memes started popping up!

    Just glorious, and how fitting it was Birmingham.

  105. 105.

    suzanne

    Personally, I don’t consider defense of oneself or another person to be violence. The intent is to protect and to stop harm. If it becomes a retributive beatdown, that’s a crossed line. But i wouldn’t classify any of the black people’s behavior as violent that I can see on this video.

    I haven’t seen anyone pearl-clutching about this in good faith. I think most people are FAFO!!!

  106. 106.

    Bupalos

    @cain: Except we definitely do see what happened before the brawl. The Riverboat dude is telling the pontoonies they have to move the boat. We can’t hear the words of the exchange but the gestures and reason he’s doing that is more than clear, and it goes on long enough that he’d be more than justified if he started dropping f-bombs in addition to clapping in their faces.

    It’s also pretty clear that the pontoonies’ violent reaction comes from being insufficiently flattered and deferred to by a black person. They are standing on their fundamental right to be assholes and hold up like 60 people disembarking, because they think they can. And it would be shocking if the fact that the majority of people on the riverboat were black wasn’t part of what made that seem like a super fun thing to do.

    I’m all there for them finding out that wasn’t such a clear-cut super fun thing to do. Good and hard.

  108. 108.

    Paul in KY

    @cain: I drive through Montgomery sometimes on my way to Navarre Beach and you just see these white dudes with the pinched in faces. Like they came out of central casting for To Kill a Mockingbird jury.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @suzanne:

    Personally, I don’t consider defense of oneself or another person to be violence

     

    Agree. I mean it’s technically violence, but it’s the type of violence that everyone without an agenda would call acceptable.

  110. 110.

    Curtis

    Another liberal white dude that usually does not condone violence here as well, but man… it does feel good to watch some racist white people get what was coming to them.  What a bunch of assholes. That kid swimming across the river is amazing, and that dock worker throwing his hat up in the air before cutting loose… (chef’s kiss)

  113. 113.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Paul in KY: Could be, but having been in my fair share of barroom brawls a lifetime ago, it’s much better for all if nobody has lasting injuries. Things can get out of hand real quick, and if those people were LEOs, they had a duty to prevent that.

    Anyway, per Baud’s post at 87, seems like all’s well that ends well.

  115. 115.

    Baud

    Four arrest warrants have been issued in connection with a riverfront brawl in Alabama, with the potential for more to be issued pending a comprehensive review, according to Maj. Saba Coleman of the Montgomery Police Department.

    So I guess people aren’t out of the woods yet.

  119. 119.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: The first definition in Merriam-Webster defines violence as such:

    the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy

     
    So, literally by definition, if you’re using physical force to protect, you’re not being violent.

  120. 120.

    MisterDancer

    @suzanne: I haven’t seen anyone pearl-clutching about this in good faith. I think most people are FAFO!!!

    I think most people are, yes. And maybe that bodes well for America. I can hope. :)

  121. 121.

    Ken

    @sdhays: I support open carry for folding chairs!

    I think you have to have the snazzy ones with the armrests, so they fall under the 2nd Amendment’s right to bear armchairs.

    Come to think of it, I’ll bet there’s a fair overlap between people who are complaining about this violence, and those who would normally say that the worker should have stood his (employer’s) ground and shot the attackers.

  122. 122.

    Redshift

    @Suzanne:

    So, literally by definition, if you’re using physical force to protect, you’re not being violent.

    Hmm, only if you don’t injure or damage, which can definitely happen if you’re fighting in self-defense.

    I’m not a pacifist, and I don’t feel the need to split hairs. Violence in true self-defense (not Zimmerman bullshit) is always acceptable, and I’m fine with a bit beyond that to teach a lesson to bullies.

  123. 123.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:

    It’s cool that it was a good old fashioned ass whooping without guns or knives.

    There’s the case.  It was a fair fight.

    I worry that Aspiring Crackers learned the lesson:  bring a gun.  Then say you were in fear for your life, and defending yourself.

    Stand your illegally parked pontoon, filled with poltroons.

  124. 124.

    Baud

    This is just precious.

    Although Shipman claimed he didn’t take part in the fighting and wanted to stop it because he knew it was wrong to attack the dock worker, video of the incident appears to show him punching the dock worker repeatedly while he was on the ground

  125. 125.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I know the chair waving fellow was the first to get laid out and cuffed. I would not be surprised to see a charge against him, if only for his late hit on the seated frau.

  128. 128.

    Lyrebird

    MisterDancer, thanks so much for this alert!  And totally agree on your needing to NOT get stuck with a job like Official Black SpokesPoster.  Thanks for going ahead and posting this anyhow.
    Annndddddddd
    @rikyrah: Thanks for making a highlight reel for us non-Twitterati!  And these are exactly the two questions  that went through my mind when I just now watched the video, ESPECIALLY the first one:
    ” What would have happened to that Black Guy, just doing in his job, if those people had not decided to help him?”
    ” Why did they think that they could jump that man – for doing his damn job – and nothing was going to happen to them?”
    I would add, if this goes to court, I hope they take note of how differently the white brawlers acted against one man on his own versus when it was anything close to a fair fight. (ETA: take note of it because that was fking sinister, totally unprovoked, and they were gonna harm him and play it off. Rat bastards.)
    @Ken: Yeah, I could believe that the boat staff might have low expectations of calling 911, and also, the boater racists totally rushed him, like they wanna be listed in the dictionary next to “gang up on”
    I am glad the police came and actually restored order rather than something else.  Also impressed to see the pretty significant restraint used by the defenders rushing in.  The woman who got tossed in the drink was slapped around and given a message, but not attacked at the level that the worker was attacked by the cowardly Klan fans.​

  132. 132.

    Ken

    I just realized that the post title “Alabama G-ddamn” perfectly fits the “Oklahoma, O K” from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma. Do we have a volunteer skilled in the arts of poetry and parody who’s willing to take a crack at the rest?

  133. 133.

    The Dark Avenger

    @Redshift: That’s why there’s a concept of justifiable homicide. Homicide is death by the hands of another. Justifiable means one has the right to defend oneself against another if they initiate force or threaten to.

     

    Han shot first.

  134. 134.

    Barbara

    @Villago Delenda Est: Right, so long as it is self-defense.  A lot of the outrageous incidents perpetrated against African Americans (the jogger in suburban Georgia, for instance) are often claimed to be in self-defense when they aren’t.

  135. 135.

    Jess

    Now THAT’S how to Stand Your Ground! I sure hope any of the righteous who get arrested can use that defense.

  136. 136.

    Trivia Man

    @JWR: the pic of a guy beat out of his crocs is unrelated. Still funny but not part of the Blaquaman event

  139. 139.

    Brachiator

    @MisterDancer:

    Thank you for posting information on this incident and your commentary.

    For those unaware: When a Black riverboat worker asked some White people to obey the laws of the place he worked, they chose violence. A very racially-charged brawl ensued.

    I have seen video clips and am curious as to what might have been said and how the apparent instigators escalated things. Just would like more context.

    I tend to think that the retribution was a long time coming. But had there been just restraint of the bullies, and handing them over to the police, I would also have been fine with that.

    I am very glad that things didn’t escalate to weapons being pulled out.

  140. 140.

    Immanentize

    @Paul in KY: Tru dat! Montgomery is the South. Birmingham is a College Town. Roll Tide!

    I worked in Montgomery for a while for the predecessor organization to the Southern Center for Human Rights (the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee which was started by the SCLC during the first boycotts). There were many amazing moments, but when I would go to the Capital Library to do research, on the small median park right in front of the Ebeneezer Baptist Church was a marker and plaque: “On this site the song ‘Dixie’ was first performed…”

    It was the south south, for sure.

  142. 142.

    JaneE

    Brown v. Education may have made integration of the schools a legal requirement, but it took the national guard and/or federal marshals to get black children safely into their schools.  What Ruby Bridges experienced as a child is now considered to difficult for Florida children to read about.

    The only way for black people to have rights is to fight for them, and sometimes that still means physical fighting.  And there are still people like DeSantis that will call defending yourself and defending your rights instigating violence.

    I wish I knew some easy and quick way to change that, but I am afraid that the years of slavery turned southern whites into sociopaths, or sociopaths in their relation to other races.

  143. 143.

    Trivia Man

    @Elizabelle: as I understand Stand Your Ground, it can only be invoked if you are someplace you have a legal right to be. Standing on a public dock? Maybe. Aggressively refusing to follow a lawful instruction? Probably not. WHY DIDNT THEY JUST COMPLY?

  147. 147.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    @Ken: Have you never heard the Nina Simone song “Mississippi God Damn”?

    Beat me to it. And someone earlier posted a link to the song.

  150. 150.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Soprano2:

    My husband says that one thing TFG suffers from is never having been curb stomped. I think he’s right. 

    Hell, the orange shitstain suffers from never being told No, much less never getting a hard smack across his fat, orange fascist face.

  152. 152.

    Mousebumples

    @The Thin Black Duke: Is it time to start a GoFundMe for the brothers who got arrested?

    Last I saw on Twitter this morning was that the bail funds didn’t need assistance to cover these Black warriors (both male and female, I think). Not sure if that means no charges filed?

    Anyone have details on current status?

  154. 154.

    MisterDancer

    @Brachiator: I have seen video clips and am curious as to what might have been said and how the apparent instigators escalated things. Just would like more context.

    I’m told there is video of the early bits with more sound, with enough to grasp the racial implications that kicked off the brawl.

    However. For the same reason my Black ass left Twitter the moment Elon was formally forced by the court to buy the service, I ain’t digging that footage out for anyone. I’m glad Black Twitter still lives, but I don’t need to listen to people screaming N-CLANG to know, in my bones, what I’m seeing on the videos I did watch.

    Look, point blank I saw enough to have revisited the parts of my life where, even without the use of racist language, I saw my life flash before my eyes. I’m a big, tall Black Man, but I’ve been in Corporate Boardrooms where the implicit threat was enough to leave me shaking in my boots for hours afterwards — enough for me to report it to my manager. I chose not to relive that in this moment, and for the foreseeable future.

    This is exactly why I said in my post that “It’s also important to understand that ‘enjoying’ this moment, in the Black community, isn’t carefree. It’s with the background of the weight of centuries of oppression, and the very real issues of the present moment that reflect in this brawl. ”

    Others may chose to share that with you, or you may chose to find it for yourself.

  155. 155.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @JaneE:

    I am afraid that the years of slavery turned southern whites into sociopaths, or sociopaths in their relation to other races.

    I get that happening to the actual slaveowners, but I have never, ever understood how, generations later, so many southern whites are still sociopaths. First, why even identify with those absolute horrors of human beings? Even if you’re a direct descendant (and most aren’t), why identify with some of the worst human beings to have ever walked the face of the earth? And they’re such losers

    ETA: Don’t really need the “southern” part in there.

  156. 156.

    Gretchen

    Last week, during all the reporting on teaching about slavery in Florida, I read Sinead O’Connor’s autobiography. It included her time in a reform school descended from the Magdalen Laundries. There were still some older women there who had been imprisoned back in the day for being pregnant out of wedlock, and one girl who was there when O’Connor was gave birth and had her baby involuntarily stolen from her for adoption. At the same time, I was listening to the podcast Stolen, about Native American kids stolen from their families and sent to residential schools, abused and punished for speaking their language. Being immersed in those three threads of history at the same time really brought it home that this wasn’t just one place or one time – white Christian men have had complete dominion over the bodies, lives and fates of everyone else forever, everywhere. It’s so entrenched and ubiquitous! That explains why they’re so absolutely furious that that time is over.

  158. 158.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: “I didn’t punch the guy!”

    “Here are multiple videos showing you clearly punching the guy.”

    “Nuh uh!”

  159. 159.

    Brachiator

    @Alison Rose:

    What context are you looking for?

    I would like to know what was said. I have seen one video with no audio of the conversation between the worker and the other people. I have not yet read other news stories about the encounter.

    The perpetrators might be even bigger assholes than they appear to be. I presume that this might matter if there is any future criminal prosecution.

  160. 160.

    Ruckus

    Mister Dancer

    Please keep saying it. Because it does need to be heard, is it very, very important that it is said over and over. This country  has been around for some time now, with a start that said all men are created equal. That is ALL of us and that men was used in the concept of all humans. And a lot of the white humans thought that didn’t mean anyone but white men, because they were, well, illiterate, misogynistic and racist.

    A lot still are.

    And the only way that continues to change is to keep saying it, making it happen.

    I am an old white man, and this old white man, for all my shortcomings, was taught that equality means just that, we are ALL equal in our rights, privileges and in life. Some seem to think that money makes one more equal, and they are full of shit. Some seem to think that having male organs makes them more equal, and they are full of shit. Some seem to think that having white skin makes them more equal, and they are full of shit. A human being is just that, equal. No mater their gender, their skin color, their job or lack there of, their bank account or lack there of. Equal means considered the same, a citizen, with all the same exact rights and duties of a citizen. We welcome those from other countries to become citizens, it’s not as easy as being born here but still we welcome them. Because equality, the basis of our formation means equality for EVERYONE. Every color, every gender, including both and neither. EQUAL. It’s the basis this country was formed on, because the founders came from countries that DID NOT see everyone as equal. Monarchies, property ownership, citizenship were three things that many other countries used to separate the haves and the have nots. This one did not. But changing the perceptions as well as the laws was absolutely necessary and that part was most often left out of the picture. We have to continue to fight and win this battle or we will never be the country that it was supposed to be.

    Thank You for reading, from this one, old, white man.

  161. 161.

    JWR

    @Brachiator:

    But had there been just restraint of the bullies, and handing them over to the police, I would also have been fine with that.

    Restraint from where, and by whom? I don’t think any of the first 3 or 4 people involved in the initial beatdown of the lone dock worker would care much for being detained by the same dock worker. How would he have done that, anyway? As @Alison Rose asked, what context are you missing? Also, too, what @MisterDancer said.

  162. 162.

    cain

    @MisterDancer:

    This is exactly why I said in my post that “It’s also important to understand that ‘enjoying’ this moment, in the Black community, isn’t carefree. It’s with the background of the weight of centuries of oppression, and the very real issues of the present moment that reflect in this brawl. ”

    Something to well keep in mind as we scroll through the comments by Black folx on Black Twitter and Tik Tok.

  164. 164.

    MisterDancer

    @Chief Oshkosh: I have never, ever understood how, generations later, so many southern whites are still sociopaths.

    They aren’t. And I say that as a direct target.

    What they are, are threats to all marginalized people that have been cultivated thru both major media and familial knowledge. They are threats because that’s what they are taught to be, taught to know to be.

    This is what they came from, before the American Civil War, and in too many ways have never been able to escape:

    Widespread illiteracy and semi-literacy among the lower classes — as well as the South’s stringent censorship laws — further prevented poorer whites from involvement in the political process. When the rich did allow the non-slaveholders to vote, they were still able to control the outcome of elections, as one man observed, by “means of the votes of the poor whites whom he owns, in owning all by which they can live for another day.”

    A lower-class man who owed money to one of the county’s affluent slaveholders, or was in his employ, or lived as a tenant or renter on his land, surely felt compelled to support the rich man’s political causes. Whether this influence was subtle or overt or even coercive, poorer white men’s voting habits were carefully monitored. In some states like Alabama, a man’s right to vote could be challenged not only by the slaveholding election inspectors, but also by “any qualified elector.”

    This is why so many are invested in dismantling and destroying our educational system — it was starting to work too well at uplifting these people not just out of poverty, but out of the mental bondage that enabled Jim Crow in the South, Redlining across the urban US, Sundown towns in rural America, and so on.

    For Today? The ones who do harm must be held accountable. But we must also dig deeper than that immediate harm, the risks of terrorist activities. We must see how — again, as Dr. King once noted in a jail call — our jailers and wardens are trapped in this system, as well.

    And they must be freed.

  166. 166.

    Alison Rose

    @Brachiator: I don’t think it matters what was said, by either the victim or the perpetrators. Whether the latter are “even bigger assholes” is immaterial. They could have been singing Kumbaya at him, it doesn’t fucking matter. They very likely used slurs against him, but the only way it matters to know that for a fact is if they end up being prosecuted and there is a question of charging it as a hate crime. And it sure as absolute hell does not matter a whit what the Black man said to them.

  167. 167.

    Jay

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I get that happening to the actual slaveowners, but I have never, ever understood how, generations later, so many southern whites are still sociopaths

    Overseers, slave catchers, even sharecroppers all got implied “white man” status in the Slave States. Even after Abolition that has continued in many places.

    It’s a hell of a privledge.

  168. 168.

    West of the Rockies

    @Brachiator:

    I would think a chair could cause TBI.  I suspect a charge of assault with a deadly weapon would not be inconceivable.

  169. 169.

    skerry

    @rikyrah: The chair under his pillow made me laugh so loud that I woke the dog. That’s hard to do these days because he’s old and losing his hearing.

  170. 170.

    cain

    @Brachiator:

    I would like to know what was said. I have seen one video with no audio of the conversation between the worker and the other people. I have not yet read other news stories about the encounter.

    I’m sure you’ll find a news article eventually especially from the man who got jumped from local news.  What was your interpretation of the video where audio would have provided more context?

  171. 171.

    Roger Moore

    @TaMara:

    I’m appalled more white folks didn’t jump in to help that guard, but I guess, Alabama.

    I wonder if some of it might have been fear of mistaken identity.  If I saw White guys joining the fracas, I might initially assume they were joining the attackers.  Once it was clear there were enough Black defenders to help out, it might have been wise for White people to stand back rather than join in and possibly make matters worse.

  172. 172.

    Lyrebird

    @Alison Rose: ​
     
    I don’t think it matters what was said, by either the victim or the perpetrators.

    I’m not sure whether Brachiator is one of our BJ legal eagles, and I only know a little about hate crime statutes, but when it comes to prosecuting the perpetrators, what was said could make a difference in what they can be charged with.

  173. 173.

    Sherparick

    @rikyrah: ​
      I see more white people are engaging in “fuck around & find out.” Stupidity of is putting yourself in the Fox World Universe.

  174. 174.

    Gary K

    Wait, are you claiming that MLK ever did or said more than that one utterance about color of skin and content of character?

  175. 175.

    Chris Johnson

    @Roger Moore: That was my thought. Stresses me out even to think of that situation. I don’t believe for a second that I could jump into such a thing and not get a chair to the head.

    I think if I witnessed stuff like that, I could probably grab and hold a raging white dude and try to pin him, and that would be correctly seen as ‘not on the cracker side’ no matter what I looked like. But if the dude got loose I’d be in bad trouble again because I would look more like him than like the people defending the guard that got ganged up on by violent racists.

    Beau of the Fifth Column had a video out on this, quickly. That’s a man who immediately understood the significance of the location. I have no sympathy at all for the white fucks starting shit. They’re the worst, and it has to stop somewhere: sometimes ‘right here, right now’ is where it has to stop.

  176. 176.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @MisterDancer: You make excellent points and I take them to heart. But my experience of growing up white, poor, and rural is that these people have agency and not all of them make the same bad decisions. And the ones who do decide to be racist shitheels KNOW that they are very intentionally deciding to do that.

  177. 177.

    No One of Consequence

    @Ruckus: ​
      Right on.

    Either we are all God’s children or none of us are — No Exceptions.

    On a lighter note, while I do appreciate Karma’s timely attention to this specific instance, I would like to encourage more consistency in her performance, please. Patience being a virtue having thus far eluded me.

    Thank you kindly, and Peace,

    – NOoC

  178. 178.

    Alison Rose

    @Lyrebird: Yes…as I said three lines down in the very same comment you were responding to:

    the only way it matters to know that for a fact is if they end up being prosecuted and there is a question of charging it as a hate crime

  179. 179.

    Brachiator

    @MisterDancer:

    I was asking about context to see if something might be useful in any future prosecution of the idiots who apparently initiated the brawl.

    This is exactly why I said in my post that “It’s also important to understand that ‘enjoying’ this moment, in the Black community, isn’t carefree. It’s with the background of the weight of centuries of oppression, and the very real issues of the present moment that reflect in this brawl. ”

    I understand all this, perhaps more than you realize.

    In my family, and among the people I grew up with and who influenced me, looking for every opportunity to fight back against bullies and oppression has been a core principle.

  180. 180.

    JWR

    @Alison Rose:

    And it sure as absolute hell does not matter a whit what the Black man said to them.

    Abso-freakin-lutely! It’s like I used to tell my co-workers about the Rodney King beating… I don’t give a single damn what happened before the cops beat him half to death, there’s no (good) reason on earth for what they did once the video begins.

  181. 181.

    Gary K

    Thus far today I have learned the wonderful words “caucacity” and “klansplaining.”

  183. 183.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    An hour and 10 minutes left on the order to confer on a date for this week.  Methinks Lauro is stalling.

  184. 184.

    Roger Moore

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I get that happening to the actual slaveowners, but I have never, ever understood how, generations later, so many southern whites are still sociopaths.

    Because the legal end of slavery didn’t mean the end of exploitation.  That has always been the core value proposition for bigotry and discrimination.  Violence is a means of maintaining control, but exploitation has always been the main goal.

  185. 185.

    Barbara

    @Gretchen: Not to start anything, but misogyny, control of women, and slavery are not limited to Christian communities.   Maybe in our hemisphere we can make that distinction, but it hardly matters because the power structure over the last 400 years is almost entirely occupied by Christians.

  186. 186.

    eversor

    @Brachiator:

    Restrain how?  There is no restraining once it’s a beatdown or a massive brawl.  That’s why the restraining forces use stuff like tear gas, rubber bullets, battons and choke holds!  All of which are an escalation in force.

    It’s funny that people here hurl around FAFO.  It’s not liberal.  It’s not about the law.  It’s not about verbal stuff.  And it’s dumb as snark.  FAFO is a literal call and stands for violent retaliation at provocation as a warning to people not to start shit because you may well end up being beaten to a bloody pulp.

  187. 187.

    Warblewarble

    As an outsider commenting from  Ireland ,one small hopeful sign was the the police did not escalate the situation and brought it to what appears to be an even handed conclusion.

  188. 188.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: I kind of wish the same thing had happened when that thug cop sat on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes. That was nothing but a modern day lynching. Defending someone being attacked is perfectly justified.

    I’ve heard that some of the Black defenders were arrested by the police because of course they were.

  189. 189.

    Brachiator

    @Alison Rose:

    I don’t think it matters what was said, by either the victim or the perpetrators.

    These things might matter in a criminal or civil prosecution.

    And I can imagine that the idiots who started the brawl will be looking for anything they can muster to mitigate their bullshit.

  192. 192.

    AM in NC

    @Gretchen: Great and important comment that ties together the commonality of why so many of us have suffered for so long.

    And why the white Christian men are losing their shit right now.

  193. 193.

    Baud

    @eversor:

    It’s funny that people here hurl around FAFO.  It’s not liberal.  It’s not about the law.

     
    I don’t know about you, but I mostly see FAFO in connection with legal proceedings. People use it all the time for Trump and J6 defendants.

  194. 194.

    Immanentize

    @Gary K: Of course MLK said more than that — he also said something about the arc of justice. But those two things were the only things he ever said.

  195. 195.

    zhena gogolia

    When the security guard was backing away from the pontoon boat guys, what it reminded me of most of all was Officer Eugene Goodman luring the rioters away from the Senate chamber during J6.

  196. 196.

    Gretchen

    @Barbara: the thing those three examples brought home to me was the absolute certainty that those white, Christian men brought to their crimes, that God had ordained that they had dominion over all those other people, and explicitly told them to submit because that’s what God wanted. That they could beat the sin out of the people they dominated.

  197. 197.

    eversor

    @Baud:

    It’s been around for a long time and right up until the snarksters started to use it was used for first fights and associated with Philly.  If you got your ass beat that’s FAFO.  Such as “you feel froggy leap” is a direct call out to someone who’s obviously itching for a fight.

    Play stupid games win stupid prizes is another with a less violent connotation.

    This Alabama is a true fafo.

  198. 198.

    Brachiator

    @cain:

    What was your interpretation of the video where audio would have provided more context?

    Words were exchanged. There was significant verbal back and forth before the fighting started. I would like to know what was said. It’s pretty simple.

    It might even make things worse for the idiots who started the fight.

  199. 199.

    Alison Rose

    @Brachiator: Again, I said as much in this exact same comment, if people could please finish reading before replying. But WE are not the cops, prosector, judge, jury, or anyone else whose opinions will have any bearing on what happens here. So right now, for us, what was said doesn’t matter in how we respond. I don’t care if the victim told them he would kill their dogs if they didn’t move their boat. Nothing he said warranted what they did, so what he said does not matter. What they said to him only matters, as I said in the comment you’re responding to, if the prosecutor might be looking at hate crime charges, and if so, we will learn about that in due time. I just think it’s a weird response to be like “but what did they say????” as though that could possibly change how we should be viewing this situation.

  200. 200.

    Barbara

    @Gretchen: It still overlooks most of the rest of human history when it comes to misogyny and slavery.

    I mean, the movement to abolish slavery in the U.S. was also steeped in Christian theology.

    Which is all just another way of saying that Christianity dominated U.S. religious experience until very recently.

  201. 201.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eversor: FAFO may mean a call for violence to you, but it doesn’t need to be so.  Finding out could be losing a job, getting sued, being convicted of a crime, or even being viciously mocked online.

  202. 202.

    Gretchen

    @AM in NC: Thanks. Yes, the white Christian men are losing their shit right now, and they’re doing their best to take it out on the rest of us and maintain their power. It’s going to be a rocky time until they get the message. I talked to an ER doctor yesterday who said that her work is a lot harder now because people are meaner than they used to be.  The anger is out there.

  203. 203.

    The Thin Black Duke

    It was bad when the white guy hit the black man trying to do his job. But when multiple white guys joined in, they became a lynch mob. I don’t care what they said because I saw what they were going to do.

  204. 204.

    Baud

    @Alison Rose:

    What if the black guard said “I love Trump” and the white pontoon boat guys said “Biden is awesome”? Then how would you feel?

  207. 207.

    Brachiator

    @Gretchen:

    Last week, during all the reporting on teaching about slavery in Florida, I read Sinead O’Connor’s autobiography. It included her time in a reform school descended from the Magdalen Laundries.

    I highly recommend the 2002 film “The Magdalene Sisters,” directed by Peter Mullan. It is sad and eye opening.

    Also, note that the last Magdalene Laundry in Ireland closed for good on Oct 25, 1996. 

  209. 209.

    Barbara

    @Gretchen: You do realize that many African-Americans (not to mention other ethnic groups) are also Christian?  There is no doubt in my mind that religion is being used or misused by people used to dominating society’s power structures as a way to undermine equality and civil rights, and as a pretext for tribal allegiance, but I still think it’s a mistake to center this on, or attribute it to religion per se.

    This framing strikes me as being too similar to the tendency of the press, especially, to use “working class” as a stand in for white working class, when, in fact, the true working class is comprised of many, even mostly, non-whites.

  210. 210.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eversor: Not everyone lives in your world.  Even if if it did start that way, the meaning has broadened.  BTW, if I say that the Packers killed the Bears, do you think that several homicides were committed?

  211. 211.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    No action in PACER yet.

    I feel like a seven year old at Christmas.

  212. 212.

    jimmiraybob

    As a white guy myself I’ll just say that I recognize those white guys. I learned how to fight back against those white guys in a younger part of my life. Put two of those white guys together and you should be mildly wary. Put three or more of them together and you better be ready to rumble. The only thing they recognize is a sound beatback – no holds barred. And then watch them go from barbarian warriors to whinny ass victims (which, I might add, was captured perfectly on video).

    As Huddie Ledbetter once put on record, stay woke. The outcome in this case had a better ending than what he was singing about.

  213. 213.

    Bupalos

    @Chris Johnson: I’m pretty sure the black folks who were administering the justice weren’t just going for random racial revenge. They had pretty much witnessed the whole thing and were striking back at the specific people who jumped the guard. I’d give them that credit.

    Several witnesses seem to be saying that the lady who got cracked on the head while sitting on the dock had been involved instigating from the get-go.

  214. 214.

    West of the Rockies

    I hope hitting people on the head with folding chairs doesn’t become a source of comedy.  They weigh between five and 13 lbs (just Googled it).  A hit could cause brain injury or serious neck injuries.

    I hope the dumb-ass white boaters are prosecuted harshly.

  219. 219.

    Barbara

    @Baud: You don’t get to hit people as a response to rude comments.  I mean, this brings me back to one of the worst nights of my life, when I tried to explain to someone who had given me a ride home that I wanted to run in to my house to get money to buy him a six pack of beer, as a thank you.  He thought I was being disrespectful so he attacked my boyfriend and slammed his head into a brick wall and nearly killed him.

  220. 220.

    eversor

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    It’s more laughing at people who call for non violence, even in situations where violence is completely called for, using terms that are violent inherently.  Especially from a group (and not saying people here) that can be extremely policing of language.

    I’ve just found it funny over the past year.  In sort of a “you keep using that term, it does not mean what you think it means” sort of way.

  225. 225.

    Maxim

    @The Thin Black Duke: I am reminded of James Baldwin: “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.”

    Thank you, MisterDancer, for this post, and thank you rikyrah for all the excellent links in the comments. It was very gratifying to see that mob experience some consequences for their behavior. If every situation like this could end with no weapons but fists being used, and accountability for the instigators, then I’d want to see it happen over and over again.

  227. 227.

    Gretchen

    @Barbara: I’m just reporting on my own line of thinking. I always thought of slavery as one terrible thing, the Magdalen Laundries as one terrible thing, the Native Residential schools as one terrible thing. Reading/listening about all three during the same week made me see that that they’re not three separate terrible things. They were all one big connected terrible thing. Sure, there’s a lot of Christianity that’s not involved in the one big terrible thing, but in these three examples it was explicitly used to enforce them. I’m not commenting on other places/religions/expressions of Christianity.

  228. 228.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    LOL

    From the joint notice:

    The Government is available at any time on August 9, 10, or 11. The defense represents
    the following:

    President Trump will not appear. However, he would like to have both his counsel
    John Lauro and Todd Blanche at the hearing. Todd Blanche is not available on
    Thursday, since he must appear for a court proceeding in the prosecution brought
    against the same defendant, President Trump, by the Special Counsel in SD Florida.
    Mr. Lauro is available on Thursday, with a preference for an afternoon setting.
    However, since we lost Friday as an option, we would respectfully request a setting
    on Monday (after 12:00 p.m.) or Tuesday (all day) to allow for both Mr. Blanche
    and Mr. Lauro to be present

    Lard ass has been criming so much that both of his lawyers can’t be present at the same place at the same time.

  229. 229.

    Brachiator

    @Alison Rose:

    But WE are not the cops, prosector, judge, jury,

    The whole point of the court of Internet opinion is to be all those things and to render an instant judgment.

    I just think it’s a weird response to be like “but what did they say????” as though that could possibly change how we should be viewing this situation.

    As I very clearly said, more information might lead me to hate the perpetrators more.

  230. 230.

    JaySinWA

    In other FAFO news:

    On the front page of the Seattle Times, Patriot Front members are suing a “leftist” activist for outing them. The only thing I saw that seemed actionable was secretly recording them (WA is an all party consent state with some exceptions)

    Seems like the Streisand effect is still a thing, although these folks already lost their jobs, maybe the think they have nothing left to lose.

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/far-right-patriot-front-members-sue-leftist-infiltrator-who-exposed-their-identities

    Five people affiliated with the far-right white nationalist group Patriot Front are suing a Seattle-area man who allegedly infiltrated the organization and splashed their identities online, leading them to lose their jobs and face harassment.

  232. 232.

    blindyone

    @oatler: And the comparisons of the tossed in the air hat to the bat signal. That was the part of the first video segment I watched that really got my attention- then the swimming and the skipping. Too much.  lol

  234. 234.

    Gretchen

    @Brachiator: I think O’Connor was there in the early 90s. What I didn’t realize was that some of those « wayward girls » never left, and Sinead reports seeing them as old women drifting around the home like ghosts. She said when they took her friend’s baby away, her friend became like a ghost too.

  235. 235.

    JWR

    It’s all in the family day down Texas way. (From NPR)

    The cousin of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooter was arrested in San Antonio after threatening to commit a school shooting.

    Nathan James Cruz, 17, was arrested on a felony charge of making a terroristic threat to the public and a misdemeanor charge of making a terroristic threat against a family member, according to Bexar County Central Magistrate records.

    It was Cruz’s mother who called the police and reported threats that her son had made, Officer Nick Soliz of the San Antonio Police Department tells NPR.

    Soliz confirms that Cruz is a cousin of Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old who killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde last year.

  236. 236.

    Barbara

    @Gretchen: Yes, well, something that I think needs to be continually fought against on every level, personally and by society: the willingness to accept a narrative that “makes sense” or “explains” things in accord with our emotional needs, whether that narrative is true or not.

    Almost from the time slavery was initiated in the western hemisphere there were people who vehemently opposed it, some, certainly not all, on religious grounds.

  237. 237.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @RaflW:

    Yep.  I’ve had the joy of those lovely Federal scheduling orders where the judge says “I don’t give a shit about your calendar or your desires.  There’s more than one of you and here’s the date and time – figure it out.”

  238. 238.

    Alison Rose

    @Brachiator: Okay, I really don’t get what you’re on about here. Because “The whole point of the court of Internet opinion is to be all those things and to render an instant judgment.” sounds like you’re being sarcastic about the way most people have been responding to this situation, as though they’re applying all those labels to themselves and “rendering an instant judgment” in error. And since it is an easy bet those white men were using slurs and saying other hateful shit, what surprise things could they have said which would be even worse? You can loathe them well enough based on what you saw. Saying “I need to know every word they said so I can determine the exact right level of hatred to have for them” is just an odd approach. But you’re dug in, and if you wanna stay there, that’s your right, I suppose.

  239. 239.

    Roger Moore

    @Barbara:

    Which is all just another way of saying that Christianity dominated U.S. religious experience until very recently.

    Depending on where you put the line of domination, it’s reasonable to say Christianity still dominates US religious experience.  According to Pew, more than 70% of Americans still identify as Christian, which is still pretty dominant.  Of the remainder, the majority are religiously unaffiliated.  Only a relatively tiny sliver- less than 6% of the population- identifies as a member of some non-Christian religion.

  242. 242.

    Suzanne

    My favorite response to this whole incident is the black dude who offered the white thugs “thoughts and chairs”.

    BAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DED.

  243. 243.

    Gretchen

    @Barbara: We can say « not all Christians », but it’s a fact that there is a certain strain of Christianity that this very day is trying to seize power and impose their will on the rest of us. See Ohio, this very day, voting on a referendum to raise the bar to amend the state constitution to 60% approval. They want to impose their views on abortion on the rest of us, and realize that the majority of Ohioans disagree, so their answer is to end majority rule.

  244. 244.

    Yarrow

    Thanks for this post. I completely missed all of it. I’ve been so busy I’ve barely seen any news and haven’t followed anything on social media. Wow, this is so great. Hours of entertainment (if I had the time) and sheesh, those entitled crackers. Glad they got what they deserved. And the chair memes are awesome.

    @TaMara:

    I’m appalled more white folks didn’t jump in to help that guard,

    Me too. I know, Alabama. But still. Terrible.

  245. 245.

    Brachiator

    @Gretchen:

    I think O’Connor was there in the early 90s. What I didn’t realize was that some of those « wayward girls » never left,

    When I noted that the last laundries closed in 1996, I should have emphasized that this shameful practice continued for far too long.  When the film came out, some people thought that the practice ended in the 1950s or early 60s.

    And as you rightfully note, the pain and sadness continued for many women who had been sent to these terrible institutions.

  246. 246.

    Barbara

    @Gretchen: “There is a certain strain of . . .” Well, yes, of course, I agree.  And I’m not going down the road of “Not all . . .”  It’s wrong for anyone to try to cram their theological beliefs down our throats.  To the extent that those people are hogging public discourse “in the name of religion” they deserve to be called out. I just don’t see the need to paint with such a broad brush your points effectively lose accuracy and cast blame in a direction where it isn’t deserved.

  248. 248.

    blindyone

    @MisterDancer:  I was born in the Northeast and grew up watching the lunging, snarling police dogs, and fire hoses directed towards peaceful (mostly Black) civil rights protestors on the TV news. I was told that was something that happened “Down South” I was comfortable with the idea that racism didn’t involve us. Nobody in my extended family ever said the N word that I ever heard. Colored was the usual adjective for “those people”. Never heard about any kind of slavery in the Northeast until I was a young adult on the West Coast. So I don’t join in with the common chorus of let’s just let Florida, or Alabama, or the Southern states secede. Our Northern, Western, liberal hands aren’t as historically clean as we’d like to think they are. And institutional racism persists to this day all around this country.

  249. 249.

    Gravenstone

    @Bupalos: I understand their reasoning for not doing so, but I’d have loved if the worker simply gave an explanation of why they needed to move then signaled the paddleboat into it’s slot and let them swamp the pontoon.

  250. 250.

    cain

    @Baud: and when that comes around, he’ll ask for another delay. The whole thing is about delaying – meanwhile, he’ll be shooting his mouth off on truth social and elsewhere.

    The man needs a short leash and some immediate consequences. The man is still getting handled by lightly probably because of his power over his cult.

  251. 251.

    Brachiator

    @Alison Rose:

    Okay, I really don’t get what you’re on about here.

    I tried to explain my perspective. I’m sorry that you don’t get it.

    It will be interesting to see if the perpetrators are charged with anything.

  252. 252.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @blindyone:

    When I was a kid during the mid-late 60s, I have vivid recollections of my normally sweet-natured rural Central Kentucky-raised maternal grandfather spewing harshly racist invective about black struggles for recognition and inclusion. His favorite phrase was a sneer about “poor n*****s” for wanting to participate in the economy and society.  Meanwhile, every black guy he worked with, and the old former slave who had lived down the road from him during my mother’s childhood could expect and receive the shirt off his back, because they were personally known to him, the “good ones” described in the code of old white rednecks. Hell, he always picked up Uncle Levi (the man raised in slavery) to go vote every election day – they undoubtedly canceled each other out.

    It was maddening, and clearly a cultural message grafted onto a man who wasn’t otherwise inclined to nasty exclusion by way of personality. I didn’t like it then, and I still don’t like that mom never bothered with any pushback – which I think could have made a difference.

  254. 254.

    Alison Rose

    @Brachiator: Don’t talk down to me, please. I “get” that you have a strong desire to know every word that was said. What I meant by “don’t know what you’re on about” was the weird sarcasm that popped up with your “instant judgment” comment.

  255. 255.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @blindyone: Especially since those Northern manufacturing towns and centers of banking/insurance etc., were all fueled by Slavery.

  256. 256.

    bbleh

    @Baud: @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: @RaflW: interesting principle, that ALL the Defendant’s lawyers must be present for a routine hearing.  That could certainly slow things down, especially as more are added to the team.

    I hope she says, “ok, Thursday 12:01PM, so ordered.”  Or even better, “since Defendant’s counsel has expressed no objection to Wednesday and is silent concerning Mr. Lauro’s availability or lack thereof except on Thursday, the hearing is set for Wednesday 10AM, so ordered.”

    It’s gonna be a walkover anyway.  Just put ’em outta their misery.

  257. 257.

    Nelson

    Let’s not forget that the Ron DeSantis “slaves were taught skills” bullshit is a pernicious attempt to whitewash the context that is the historical root of the pontoon patrol’s kind of misplaced entitlement.

  258. 258.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @bbleh:

    As it turns out, that lost Friday? Its the first day of LIV at Bedminster.

    She could really make something happen that he won’t like AT ALL.

    I’d make him appear personally on Friday at 2 pm, since they didn’t say why they lost Friday.

  259. 259.

    Cameron

    @Nelson: I saw some of that putrid PragerU junk that he’s unloading on Florida schools. The history I learned in grade school in the ’50a may have been whitewashed, but this crap is outright false.

  260. 260.

    Brachiator

    @Omnes Omnibus:

     I guess the question that your comments are raising is who you perceive the perpetrators to be.

    I don’t see how there could be any ambiguity.

  261. 261.

    skerry

    WaPo: (gift link)

    Authorities in Montgomery, Ala., charged three White men with assault after they attacked a Black riverboat co-captain at the city’s Riverfront Park over the weekend and ignited a brawl largely along racial lines.

    Montgomery Police Chief Darryl J. Albert told reporters on Tuesday that three White men aboard a private pontoon boat — Richard Roberts, 48; Allen Todd, 23; and Zachery Shipman, 25 — have four warrants pending for attacking Damien Pickett, a co-captain of the Harriott II Riverboat that was blocked from docking. Roberts has two warrants pending, while Todd and Shipman each have one pending warrant.

  262. 262.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Cameron:

    Blue-eyed Columbus cracked me up.

    Wonder what their undoubted hagiography of Lee shows?

  263. 263.

    lowtechcyclist

    I’ve seen a few video clips of the brawl, but what’s the deal about the chair? Seen the dozens of references to it, but don’t recall seeing it in any of the clips I saw.

  265. 265.

    Cliosfanboy

    @Roger Moore: ​
      I thought the same thing. As an old white guy if I jumped in, once the fight started, I might be mistaken for one of the crackers and gotten a folding g chair along the side of my head

  268. 268.

    MisterDancer

    @lowtechcyclist: There’s some later-in-the-brawl clips involving a Black Man wielding a chair as a weapon. Look around some more for ’em, I’m sure they are still circulating.

  270. 270.

    Brachiator

    @Alison Rose:

    I try to respect everyone here and responded to your comments because they were insightful. No slight of any kind was intended.

     I “get” that you have a strong desire to know every word that was said.

    I am curious about what was said because it might be important to any subsequent prosecution. I am happy to see that warrants have been issued.

  271. 271.

    JWR

    He’s in New Hampshire today. Here’s what he just said: (From Mediaite)

    JUST IN: Trump Attacks Georgia DA Fani Willis, Baselessly Claims She Had An Affair With a Gang Member

    Former President Donald Trump launched a personal attack on Fulton County DA Fani Willis on Tuesday, calling her a “racist” and accusing her of having an affair with a gang leader she was investigating.

    “And I probably have another where they say there’s a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta, they say racist,” Trump declared, referring to a likely fourth indictment.

    “And they say, I guess they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member. And this is a person that wants to indict me. She’s got a lot of problems, but she wants to indict me to try and run for some other office,” he claimed, adding:

    “What’s going on in this country is, by the way, wants to indict me for a perfect phone call. This was even better than my perfect call with Ukraine. Remember that call? That was a perfect call. This one’s better. This one is more perfect.”

    ETA “This one’s better. This one is more perfect.” Can’t get much better than “more” perfect, can you?

  273. 273.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud:

    What if the black guard said “I love Trump” and the white pontoon boat guys said “Biden is awesome”? Then how would you feel?

    Dizzy and out of sorts?

  274. 274.

    FelonyGovt

    Thank you for this post, which I’m getting to late (as usual). I’m very grateful for your perspective, as well as that of valued commenter
    @rikyrah as well as various IRL friends. I’m definitely Team Folding Chair.

  276. 276.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Brachiator:

    I have seen video clips and am curious as to what might have been said and how the apparent instigators escalated things.

    • Racist white boaters illegally dock their boat in the zone for the riverboat arrival/departures. Covered their boat in tarpaulins, so they clearly meant to leave it there awhile.
    • May have been blocking the second riverboat from departing.
    • Black employee gets off the docked riverboat, and tells them to move. Not sure what their response was, since they’re off-camera, but judging by the employee’s body language, they blew him off.
    • Black employee begins undoing the docking rope, to move boat out of the way (probably by pulling it somewhere else), which is SOP at pretty much any marina I’d sailed out of.
    • White racists run over and start aggressively confronting black employee.
    • Words exchanged, white racist attacks black employee, who then gets jumped by the rest of the white racists.
  277. 277.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato: “No can do. I’m in court for a different felony case being brought against him.”

    Still, not as bad as “He’s planning to commit some more felonies and wants to meet with me that day, to come up with the legal excuses in advance.”

  278. 278.

    Ruckus

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    They were possibly raised by the people that likely have never understood why racism is wrong and still believe in it. They likely learned this at home early on and that can create a person who never sees the world as it should be but as the racist haters want it to be. And they often hang out only with people that feel the same way. It’s a spell that has to be broken. And any place/person that does not actively attempt to break the spell of stupid and racism will not change. This event/fight shows that. The shit starts early in life and if there is no real internal reasoning it won’t change. It takes effort and desire to change human misconceptions of reality and life. They should have been there a long, long time ago but this shit gets handed down and that can change but that change requires the person to desire change. And racists often don’t because it gives them an unearned, unrealistic place in life. It makes them think they are better, when it’s the exact opposite.

  279. 279.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: You might find the 3+ minute clip “Mic Tyson” posted on Twitter. That shows the chair, and Tyson’s narration is very funny. I found it through Ragnarok Lobster, who retweeted it.

  280. 280.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I get that happening to the actual slaveowners, but I have never, ever understood how, generations later, so many southern whites are still sociopaths. First, why even identify with those absolute horrors of human beings? Even if you’re a direct descendant (and most aren’t), why identify with some of the worst human beings to have ever walked the face of the earth?

    They pour the poison in your ear from the moment you’re born, and you don’t know to counter it. Some people never even figure out that anything needs countering.

    I got out of Alabama the first chance I could, and it still took me years of hard work and therapy to get over what I witnessed and what I was taught.

    ETA: “get over” is an overstatement; I don’t think anyone ever really gets over it. I should have said “come to an understanding that I can live with”.

  281. 281.

    Gravenstone

    @Baud: I believe they were told that the meeting would proceed, regardless of the presence of defense representation. Specifically because these interminable delays are expected if they aren’t given consequences.

  283. 283.

    Immanentize

    @Sister Golden Bear: I think that is an excellent summary.

    👏👏👏

    Whenever anyone says, “I would really like more context” I hear — was the black guy ever arrested? Did he graduate from college? Does he have kids? Is he married? Where his parents married? Does he have more than one baby mommas? Were drugs involved. Does the black guy listen to Hippety Hoppety? And of course: were the white folks in fear for their lives?

  285. 285.

    cain

    @lowtechcyclist:

    on twitter – search for “black people” – that was what was trending and you’ll find all the information you need to know about the whole thing.

    The folding chair was about a few black folx who were using it to bash some white people who took part in the attack. The joke is that the folding chair was invented by a black man and now used against a white assailant

  286. 286.

    blindyone

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Yeah. I couldn’t begin to estimate how many times I’ve heard the phrase “the good ones”. Starting from when I was a little kid with people I knew and loved. I grew to realize that pushback in the moment is really important, and the minimum that we White folks should do although it’s gonna be uncomfortable.

  287. 287.

    AM in NC

    @Barbara: But CLEARLY Christianity and other organized religions have had political arms and have used those political arms to oppress others. Hell, the Papacy had its own army to literally conquer infidels.  And pretty much every organized major religion explicitly casts women as subordinate to men in their sacred texts.

    No, not All Christians, but, yes a lot of Christians, and more to the point, a lot of official Christendom (Catholic Church, SBC, Latter Day Saints, regs.).  This is true of not just Christianity, but organized religions everywhere.

    I don’t think we should condemn all “believers” for this belief system/behavior, but there is, demonstrably a strain of Christianity (and a large one in this country) that uses its religion to justify the oppression of their fellow human beings.   Same with Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc.

  288. 288.

    Anotherlurker

    In my (admittedly) biased experience, owning a pontoon boat is a strong indicator of a redneck owner.

  289. 289.

    Brachiator

    @JWR:

    Trump is a sick fuck. Future psychology journals will be full of analyses of his demented bullshit.

    His desperation is becoming more apparent. He knows he has backed himself into a corner.

    “What’s going on in this country is, by the way, wants to indict me for a perfect phone call. This was even better than my perfect call with Ukraine. Remember that call? That was a perfect call. This one’s better. This one is more perfect.”

    It’s weird how he keeps coming back to this “perfect” phone call stuff. It’s almost pathetic how he keeps coming back to the same tired tricks. Fortunately, the prosecutors coming after him now have seen this before and don’t get distracted by it.

  290. 290.

    Immanentize

    @Ken: No one is entitled to two attorneys, especially at this stage in the proceedings. And if he wants to be there, Player Number Goddam Two can ask Judge Cannon for a reset. Or, PNT can join by phone.

    I am getting upset at the antics. Lawyers should act like, well, lawyers — not unprofessional dicks.*

    * I know some might think lawyer = unprofessional dick, but c’mon people!

  294. 294.

    blindyone

    @UncleEbeneezer:  Exactly. And many of the scenic rock walls around the fields, with stones plowed out of that rocky soil, were  built by slaves. And we could also talk about who was constructing some of the oldest buildings at the Ivies. If we wanted this thread to go on for days.

  297. 297.

    Ruckus

    @West of the Rockies:

    This was a folding chair with plastic back and seat. Those are lighter and when used as in this event they have more give and do normally/nominally less damage. Especially the back rather than the seat.

  298. 298.

    Miss Bianca

    @JWR: This fucking guy. At this point, I want to see him buried under the Supermax in Florence. Alive would be more than acceptable.

  299. 299.

    RaflW

    @JWR: He is, of course 100% unrepentant for his “find me 11,780 votes” call. He’s a stubborn, dumb sh*t, dimestore mob boss.

    Dan Shaffer, the Recombobulation Area blogger, has a good piece up today saying, in effect, Trump has never once really conceded the 2020 race, why is the press behaving as of Trump won’t claim victory in the GOP primary no matter what the official outcome?

    It seems so obvious, but I agree with Dan that not a soul seems to be prepared for that eventuality.

  300. 300.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Immanentize:

    In my locale, “pontoonies” are generally wannabe Trump flotilla folks with less money. You might not see the flags, but the attitude is there.

  308. 308.

    Roger Moore

    @Immanentize:

    * I know some might think lawyer = unprofessional dick, but c’mon people!

    I tend to think of lawyers (at least the kind who I perceive as dicks) as professional dicks.  They aren’t being dickish purely out of natural peevishness; they’re being paid good money to act that way.

  309. 309.

    Miss Bianca

    @TheronWare: So, since I order office supplies from Office Depot, I am besieged with multiple emails per week advertising sales and the like. This morning, I got one entitled: Don’t Miss the Chair Event!

    Alas, it was for deals on office chairs, not folding chairs. Still, I wonder whether some wag in the e-commerce department wasn’t having a little fun with that subject line.

  314. 314.

    Brachiator

    @JWR:

    From his perspective it may well have been a perfect call. He made the call, got his message across, and hence, the Perfect Call.

    I have never seen any adult with a fetish about a perfect phone call.

    It reminds me of a toddler being potty trained showing his parents his diaper.

  316. 316.

    Nelle

    Thanks for this thread.  So many are getting some relief to see arrogant, entitled white people get some amount of consequence and love seeing people come together to do it.  May it flower in the courts as well.

  317. 317.

    Citizen Alan

    @Gretchen:

    I believe three things.

    1.  I believe there is a supreme being who will call us to account for our actions in the afterlife, so at a minimum, try not to be an asshole.
    2.  I believe there is great moral value in the teachings of Jesus Christ as I understand them. Specifically, I genuinely believe we’d be living in a utopia if everyone followed the maxims of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”  I admit I have trouble with the second one where Republicans are concerned.
    3. I believe that the true purpose of organized Christianity and indeed every organized religion is to enslave people’s minds and make them submit to authority. That is true of Christianity (and especially Evangelical Christianity) in America. It is true of Islam in most of the Middle East. It is true in Israel where the political power of the ultra-conservative Orthodox Jewish organizations threatens that nation’s future as a democracy. It has been true of every organized religion that has obtained the slightest speck of temporal power in the history of the world. Literally ever since the first caveman figured out that he could get all the other cavemen to do what he said by attributing his demands to “the Great Invisible Sky Buddy” or whatever.

    Credo.

  318. 318.

    RaflW

    @Immanentize: In SE Wisconsin, it runs the gamut. I happen to be a ‘pontoon person.’ But we have a 16 year old, second hand boat (still in very nice, if slightly dented & frayed, condition). Are there entitled a-holes with $80,000 Benningtons pushing 250 hp and driving like crap? Oh, god, yes.

    There’s also middle class families and ordinary weekend folk out for a 10 mph put-put (some may be Maga, but others are definitely not). Can’t say what poontooners are like in the South, though.

  321. 321.

    Citizen Alan

    @blindyone: Fifty years in Mississippi here. “The Good Ones” are the ones who have never once in their lives displayed even the slightest hint of anger or of serious disagreement with a white person where it could be observed by other white people who did not share their feelings.

  322. 322.

    eversor

    @Citizen Alan:

    You just waved away all the patriarchy and gender roles and submission demanded in Christianity even by Christ himself.  So… it’s not Christianity you’re following.  And you claiming it’s good gives the people that don’t dodge the nasty bits a full on pass.

    I know plenty of good Republicans in nice NOVA who believe it’s only about low taxes, low regulation, and national security but that doesn’t suck the nasty bits out of it no matter how well intentioned they are.

  324. 324.

    cain

    @Citizen Alan: I think you would enjoy reading Hindu philosophy which really gets into the ugliness of human behavior – the texts from the epics do not shy away from stupidest of human behavior.

    The only thing that I find kind of silly is that almost all religious texts where they use stories to underscore a point seem to afford humans more wisdom that they actually have. Not many are self aware to self correct.

  325. 325.

    Citizen Alan

    @eversor: I was not aware that both Islam and Orthodox Judaism were both completely free of gender roles and Patriarchal influence. How progressive of them.

  328. 328.

    prostratedragon

    @rikyrah:  Love that! I have some rusty martial arts training, but some days like today my knees make a lot of that difficult or worse, so I was imagining racing over there in my electric wheelchair and bashing away with my cane.

  331. 331.

    MisterDancer

    @eversor: You just waved away all the patriarchy and gender roles and submission demanded in Christianity even by Christ himself.

    Jesus fuckin’ Christ! OK. You know, I try just not engaging you, but since you decided to ply your “everything is about Christians” in my post that isn’t about religion…well.

    Let’s talk about What Christ Says — and Does — around Women. Fair?

    Let’s get this out of the way first — Jesus isn’t perfect. But — and ironically parallel to Mohammad — what we have in most versions of the Bible as his words and deeds illuminates a man who broke a lot of the then-current conventions about women’s roles.

    There’s whatever-the-fuck was going on with Mary Magdalene, a woman who — at least according to the Gospel of Luke — ministered to Jesus. There’s the fascinating story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well — where Jesus straight up just talks to this woman about theology (and more) as an equal, a woman who was considered Fallen by the measures of the time.  Or the other, flat-out adulteress women in the Gospel of John, again with Jesus avoiding the judgment of the time and treating her like an adult.

    (No cites. Look ’em up your own damn self.)

    I’d be hard pressed to find any commandments or sayings of Jesus that expressed traditional gender roles, in fact. In my spinning around the ‘net to confirm my recollections, I see none. Yet I’m sure some asinine wag has a “why Jesus says you should be Barefoot and Pregnant” article…

    …and that’s not the Jesus I read, multiple times, as a kid. The Jesus who honestly surprised me, when I disconnected what I was reading from what others said Jesus was teaching.

    I’ll say it, as a very lapsed Christian — in no way am I saying  Jesus’ words around women are what I’d align a whole system of governance to. What I am saying, is that as a system of self-reflection and looking at the world, what Jesus actually said and did is very Progressive for the place and time he was born into, er he was at all a Real Boy.

    Now, what others have done around twisting his words (at least as passed down) into? Well, we can talk about that in the same breath as how the Persian custom of veiling got pushed into Islam. But that’s not what you said in the above, and that’s what I’m addressing, today.

  332. 332.

    Ruckus

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:

    I never once heard my grandfather use the N word till just a very few years from his death, I think I was 15 or 16 yrs old. Gran had died and he was staying with us for a few days and helping me to bring the trash cans back in from the alley after pickup. I remember him using the N word and it really bothered me and that was the only time I remember hearing that from any family member. I’ve heard it plenty from other kids that heard it from others or their family members. The difference between then and now is rather significant, but not significant enough. I just walked down a phone charger to a neighbors grand daughter so she can charge her iPhone. Her son is 6 and black and an amazing kid. I love that people just accept him here although I’d bet it’s not 100% acceptance. I want to leave him a better world because he and everyone that looks like him deserve it. We all have relatively short times on this rock, some much shorter than others, but the concept that some are lessor because of their skin is so fucking wrong that I some days hate humanity because of it.

  333. 333.

    delphinium

    Very late to this thread, but thank you MisterDancer for posting this. Hope those white racist shits get what is coming to them and serve some jail time for assault.

    And thanks rikyrah for all the tweet/video links.

  335. 335.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @rikyrah: ​Late to the thread and it’s going to take me a while to catch up as I’m going to watch every second of every video you posted.But here’s what strikes me immediately watching the first one. What kind of person sees three or four people beating up some guy who is lying on the ground and thinks, “I want to jump in there and get a few kicks in myself on that guy on the ground”? Who thinks, “this guy being beaten up by a mob, he needs a BIGGER mob to beat him up”?​​

    In case it’s not clear, I’m talking about when the security guard is first being beaten up by three or four white guys, and suddenly a bunch more white guys appear out of who knows where, like seagulls appearing out of the sky when you feed one.

  336. 336.

    blindyone

    @Citizen Alan: Right. Because Black Americans, as a matter of survival, need to know us White folks better than we have to know them. They are around 13%? of the population. Most of us live and socialize in relatively segregated areas. Working situations probably bring us together the most. And all of us behave, talk, one way at work and one way at home. At home, with people we trust- we’re not keeping our thoughts to ourselves like we do at work.

  339. 339.

    cain

    @Ruckus: Growing up in the 80s in Indiana – I have never heard the N used amongst kids in high school or grade school.

    In college, I’ve heard it – but usually when telling jokes. One time, a group of em yelled the N word at me while I was walking down the street. Group of white people in a car. I was walking with other folks and they were all like “fuck you assholes!” lol.

  340. 340.

    cain

    @MisterDancer: The man has some serious trauma around this topic.

    Kind of reminds me of another friend of mine – he was sexually molested and he doesn’t even like me saying the word “spiritual” – because of its religious connotations.

  344. 344.

    Ruckus

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Yep. He wants to postpone as long as possible as he wants to run for president because he thinks that will get him out of his troubles. It won’t and it won’t work because the law sees through these types of delays. SFB thinks he’s so smart. But he’s really not even close to smart.

  345. 345.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I noticed in the video one of the “economically anxious” gentlemen also punched a white teenage girl who was trying to help break it up.  Racists or just three assholes looking to beat on someone who can’t fight back? There a difference?

  346. 346.

    Yoyce

    Longtime lurker out of Seattle, but went to a couple of meetups years ago.

    This post and all the links gave me life on so many levels. Please and thank you. I’m so proud of my skin folks out chere acting like kin folks. This type of “you rolled up on the wrong one,” I’m here for everyday.

  347. 347.

    worn

    @Brachiator: Day late because of an international travel nightmare, but hopefully not a dollar short. Here is a link to a more complete version of the attack, which clearly shows the interactions leading up to that one white dude running up & assaulting the security guard. I don’t know whether you are going to get much more context short the judicial proceedings that will inevitably come from this, but as a child of the South, I’m going to tell you I don’t need any more context.

    And when I see seven (!) fucking choads attacking a one man who is down on the ground, my first reaction is I hope those assholes get beat to within an inch of their life. Your mileage may vary.

    (posting from London tomorrow morning for y’all in the States)

    https://www.wsmv.com/video/2023/08/07/full-video-viewer-records-montgomery-riverfront-brawl-begins/

    ETA: I know everybody jockeys for frist and second, but I have a pretty good ‘dead last’ streak going!

  348. 348.

    worn

     

    @Chief Oshkosh: Culture is sticky. One of the proximate causes of the Yugoslav war was the Serbs still bent out shape over the defeat of King Lazarus at Kosovo polje (so?) 500 years earlier. There’s a reason Milosovic gave his famous speech, where he did, where he did.

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