Just how strong is American racism?

zsomething wrote:Hell, it was so strong that most people who died for it were dying for other people's keeping of slaves.   Most of 'em didn't even have slaves of their own.

That's part of the stupidity of Southern conservatism -- poor people getting so easily tricked into busting their asses and suffering on the behalf of rich people who couldn't give a damn less about 'em.   The South is full of people yelling "Yay, Trump!"  when Trump and his pal Roger Stone are talking about "dumb Southerners" and "insubordinate hillbillies," and starting tariff wars that put their farms in jeopardy.   Yet they keep right on supporting those bastards, because the Republicans cynically play to their religion.   Say "Jesus" a few times and a conservative will crouch down and let you piss in their face.  It's like the magic word that makes their brains shut off.  They'll trust anyone who plays on their religion, which is a lot of the reason the South's in the sorry shape that it is.

And racism's also part of it.  A lot of conservative voting isn't motivated by what would be good for them, it's what would be hurtful to someone they don't like.  They (wrongfully) think black people get the most welfare, so they vote for people who'll cut that.  They vote for people who'll keep Mexicans and Muslims out... and if the upper 1% gets a huge tax cut out of it and they get screwed and grandma dies because they cut her health care, well, alrighty then, just as long as them black and Mexicans and Muslims are miserable!   Oh, and the liberals.  What, the liberals want people to have clean water?  Then HELL naw!   Cut regulations, dump toxins in the water, we don't care, as long as it makes the liberals mad we'll guzzle carcinogens and like it!   Them dang liberals think we're dumb, so we'll show them by fuckin' up the injectors on our trucks so they'll quadruple the carbon output and cut our power and gas mileage, just so we can "roll coal" and piss off the libs!  Haw haw!  That'll show them fer thinkin' we're stupid!

It goes on and on.  The South's improved in a lot of ways, but that's in spite of conservatives, not due to 'em.   Conservatives have consistently been in the way of every good thing, and spitefully cheering on every mean, nasty, dumb, self-destructive idea.  I've watched it up close for decades.  It's not "the media" making me think this, it's first-hand experience.  They constantly wreck themselves just out of ignorance and spite.

I'm not a Democrat because I'm some huge liberal lefty...  I'm a Democrat because I'm not stupid, and I've lived around conservatives my entire life and see how frickin' mean-spirited and moronic they are.   Don't wanna be any part of 'em.  Democrats aren't completely great, but they're the only viable alternative for anyone who doesn't want to be a theocrat or on the wrong end of a plutocracy.  

Wordslinger wrote:Consider:  the right to own and sale a black slave was strong enough during the Civil War that hundreds of thousands of southern whites believed that fighting and dying for slavery was worth it.

Fuck racism and all who practice it.  

Telstar wrote:

gatorfan wrote:

I realize you get most of your information from videos but try reading this and find out about the sad reality of present day slavery.

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/global-findings/

Telstar wrote:

gatorfan wrote:

I realize you get most of your information from videos but try reading this and find out about the sad reality of present day slavery.

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/global-findings/

Very sad. Doesn't erase the sins of the old South.

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union



In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.



Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.



That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.



The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.



The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.



It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.



It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.



It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.



It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact, which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.



It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.



It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.



It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.



It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.



It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.



It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.



Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.



Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

gatorfan wrote:

Wordslinger wrote:Consider:  the right to own and sale a black slave was strong enough during the Civil War that hundreds of thousands of southern whites believed that fighting and dying for slavery was worth it.

Fuck racism and all who practice it.  

May I suggest visiting their graves and tinkling a little on them? I do believe there are more pressing issues right now than the Civil War, which by the way was not solely about slavery......

zsomething wrote:The Civil War may not have been entirely about slavery... -- they were carrying the water of rich conservatives,