This guy is why the Southern Strategy works

Sadly, this man shares my grandmother's maiden name, but she was not originally from Birmingham.........he looks like so many good people I grew up with who have hate in their hearts and grew up in a de jure Jim Crow society, which now has been replaced by dog whistles, voter restrictions, and Donald Trump.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/alabama-board-denies-parole-for-birmingham-church-bomber/ar-BBvcA9N?li=BBnb7Kz

It must be hard to revisit this after so many years.

I rarely openly cry while watching a documentary, but Spike Lee did a special for HBO on the church bombing, and listening to the McNair parents commenting on their daughter's death was just too powerful for me. As a child who had listened to a Southern Baptist minister blame this on outside agitators.....I was bothered to my core that these kids were about my age, and they were blown up in church......but that hate.....I saw it, I lived it, and I see the same in the Panhandle......it is just under the surface, and it is not my imagination, nor was this church bombing in my imagination. When you build by law a social structure which allows stupid people to put other people just below them......you have no easy method to undo history moving forward.....it will take generations before the South will have divided elections and diversity......and now very harmful politics are fermented in this Southern hate which drives bad American policy as the Republican Party under the Southern strategy has become the White Nationalist Party.

2seaoat wrote:I rarely openly cry while watching a documentary, but Spike Lee did a special for HBO on the church bombing, and listening to the McNair parents commenting on their daughter's death was just too powerful for me.   As a child who had listened to a Southern Baptist minister blame this on outside agitators.....I was bothered to my core that these kids were about my age, and they were blown up in church......but that hate.....I saw it, I lived it, and I see the same in the Panhandle......it is just under the surface, and it is not my imagination, nor was this church bombing in my imagination.   When you build by law a social structure which allows stupid people to put other people just below them......you have no easy method to undo history moving forward.....it will take generations before the South will have divided elections and diversity......and now very harmful politics are fermented in this Southern hate which drives bad American policy as the Republican Party under the Southern strategy has become the White Nationalist Party.

Taking it a step further...when you put yourself above other people...and I mean any other people...you'd better stop and ask yourself what's so special about you in God's eyes. And, yes, it's still there. I could give you several specifics, but they're mostly private business & affect other people, so I won't go into detail...although I have talked about a few experiences here. I know where I live...and I know the barriers I had to overcome in dealing with my own prejudices. As I said to Bob (as an Indian friend once advised me): you have to break the chain. Stop living your life in the shadow of your ancestors (my contribution)...although I have to say that I have great respect for those that came before me and taught me to seek for myself.

It is like every junior high in America where cool people want to be different from losers, but my brother was the loser in Junior high.....he took the little bus to school because he was hyperactive, had a widowed mother who had to work and could not guide him like she needed to do, and he failed in school, but despite having the highest IQ in his third grade class......he was looked down on as a loser......well he now goes to class reunions knowing that he is worth ten fold any other classmate, and employs hundreds building commercial projects and now those same folks who are small failed people......look at him quite differently, but in junior high ......they needed him, but the truth is they made him stronger, and the truth in America is that some have gotten stronger because of this repression.....as the old dylan song says....the times are a changin....and each of us who are gray and old must push for the same.

Did I mention David Duke is running for office. Like Seaoat has been anything but correct the last 10 years on the PNJ and here.

One of my favorite songs...couldn't be more true now.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
Your old road is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

I saw Dylan at Gillys around 1980. He had released a religious album or something and only wanted to play those tunes. People kept yelling requests and he finally went into a tirade/lecture. After a little bit the place erupted into a riot. I just hustled my gf out of there. Worst concert ever.

Dylan -- now you're speaking my language. This is the music I grew up on.

For today

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall


Saw him at Georgia Coliseum Athens and was the worst show I ever paid to see.