For me, driving. Its not that driving is difficult or i’m just not able to drive. Its that there are just too many awful drivers and pedestrians you have to care about on the road.
For me, driving. Its not that driving is difficult or i’m just not able to drive. Its that there are just too many awful drivers and pedestrians you have to care about on the road.
I truly did not understand how intense, widespread, and long lasting “massive resistance” was in the US south after reconstruction until my 30’s. Like holy fucking shit. Some states had an average of a public lynching every month for almost 60 years.
We do NOT teach this here. It’s baffling. And it explains so much about the current state of identity politics and race relations in the US.
The NAACP used to hang a black and white flag that read “a man was lynched yesterday” at their HQ any time it happened. It almost never came down for decades until the 50’s/60’s and even then it flew frequently.
Public lynchings were also a spectacle that was advertised out of state. You could take a drive to visit multiple lynchings as a road trip. It wasn’t uncommon to bring your kids and to take souveniers from the victim. It is untaught because America wants it forgotten
“Souvenirs” sometimes being a polite way to say “body parts,” which were not always removed after death.
Yup, there were even black defense groups and militias (and are still many today), like the Deacons for Defense.
But you won’t learn about them in school, on purpose, and you’re taught the illegitimacy of Malcolm X’ ideology and the Nation of Islam on purpose. The state wants you to think that peaceful protest is the only acceptable and legitimate means of protest.
The nation of Islam is not without fault of it’s own though, none that justified the actions of the state, but still not exactly a beacon of morality.
I’ll say mostly yes, but there was one thing in my school textbooks that contradicted that narrative. It was this picture of Malcolm X and Dr. King:
I felt I got a semi-decent education in public schools about the Civil Rights era hitting the highlights of:
With all of that picture of Malcolm X and Dr. King said something to me that words in the textbook never did. Dr. King, the man who preached non-violence and moved the USA forward to a better future chose to meet with Malcolm X. Malcolm X could not have been “all bad” or illegitimate if Dr. King wanted to interact with him. Further, after seeing pictures and film from Bloody Sunday (Edmund Pettus Bridge crossing), Malcolm X’s actions made much more sense.