The white Southerners who fought US segregation

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47477354

Trying an experiment. Everything’s excerpted below, but if you want to see the excerpts in context, try this hypothes.is link (you may need to collapse the right-side pane). It’s annotated, but each annotation is just “.”:

https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-us-canada-47477354&group=__world__

«”There’s the danger of presenting a white saviour figure,” says Mr Ownby, adding how Finch, while fictional, is probably the best-known representation of white resistance to racism.

“Of creating hero worship for people whose heroism came through doing their jobs within the system as it existed. After all, the civil rights movement was about changing the system.”»

«Mr Doggett says that he understands people holding a stereotypical view of the White South as racist, because such a view is “justified.” He agrees with Mr Gorton that the problem of the region’s racism was compounded by the machinations of the White South’s wealthy elite.

“There’s a long history of wealthy whites manipulating poor whites to put the blame on blacks,” Mr Doggett says. “People became so full of racial hatred that they couldn’t see that blacks were actually their allies.”»

«”While there certainly were white Southerners who advocated for civil rights for black Americans, many more didn’t,” says Ansley Quiros, a historian and author of “God With Us: Lived Theology and the Black Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942-1976.”

“In some ways it’s easier – at least for Americans – to tell those few, heroic stories than to grapple with the majority position.”»

«”There has been progress,” Mr Doggett says. “Sometimes now younger people seem hopeless about the situation, but people have no idea about how bad it used to be – the police would dredge the river for a black person who had been lynched and come across other bodies no one knew about.

“We’ve come a long way – yes, there is still forever to go, but it is better.”»

«But, at the same time, he notes how a visitor to the museum – especially a white one – can leave having been given the impression that all whites were bad all the time, which has a “a depressing effect.”

This in turn, he explains, doesn’t encourage white Southerners – or any Americans – to think more expansively about racial tensions that the South, and the country, still wrestles with.

“I do wish there was more info about those whites who have done progressive things in the South,” he says. “And are still doing them.”»

Some Democrats Regret Their Scattered Responses to Trump’s Speech to Congress – The New York Times

«But Ms. Slotkin quickly added that her approach differs strongly from Mr. Green’s.

“We can’t just be against something,” said Ms. Slotkin, a moderate Democrat who won in November in a state that Mr. Trump carried. “We have to be for something.”»

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/us/politics/trump-speech-congress-democrats.html?unlocked_article_code=1.204.9tMT.poX8cGvINbsZ&smid=url-share

Mr. Green can do whatever TF his constituents want him to do, thank you, *New York Times*. I shoulda knowed better than to read that.

I keep toying with the idea of cancelling my subscription. Wonder if the Cooking subscription can be standalone.

Trump’s 2.2 billion-gallon Calif. reservoir dump just got even uglier

«Rather than actually assist Los Angeles County with firefighting, the water was used downstream of the reservoirs for “limited irrigation demand” and “groundwater recharge,” according to a joint statement from local water agencies.»

Well… at least they didn’t dump it in the sea.

https://www.sfgate.com/centralcalifornia/article/trump-california-reservoir-dump-kaweah-success-20209496.php

ACLU sues Cleveland County Schools over LGBTQ+ trivia ban

«prohibiting a trivia game about LGBTQ+ figures at Shelby High School’s Activism Club.»

https://www.advocate.com/news/aclu-sues-lgbtq-trivia-ban

At the *Activism Club.* I e., among the students who *signed up for this.*

Yeah, good job suing. (Not being sarcastic.) *Great* exercise in activism. You go, kid.

«A school district attorney responded to the ACLU on January 20, stating the game was deemed “indecent based on community standards,»

In Shelby? Yeah, I bet.

Status: On the road to Selma

FWIW.

«The first of three protest marches took place on March 7, 1965, a day known as Bloody Sunday. Led by John Lewis and the Rev. Hosea Williams, as many as 600 civil rights protesters began marching from Selma to Montgomery along U.S. Highway 80. As marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, they were met by state troopers and armed citizens. Troopers on horseback charged the marchers, attacking them with nightsticks and tear gas. The crowd also participated in the attack [emphasis mine], leaving many marchers severely injured and some even beaten unconscious. Fifty marchers were injured and 17 were hospitalized. The brutal attack was televised across the nation, and public outrage at the violence helped the Selma voting rights campaign gain support.»

https://civilrightstrail.com/experience/marching-for-the-right-to-vote/

https://19thnews.org/2025/03/bloody-sunday-anniversary-black-women-stories/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=19thnews/magazine/The+19th

Fearing Retribution, Trump Critics Muzzle Themselves – The New York Times

«Mr. Levitsky, the Harvard professor, said he had some hope. The United States, he said, has a “wealthy and diverse opposition,” and rather than outright authoritarianism, there could be “a slow and gradual slide into a gray area.”»

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/us/politics/trump-democracy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2E4.6gh3.p9Ck-aAFZtaM&smid=url-share (gift)

Lovely.

Exclusive: Judges face rise in threats as Musk blasts them over rulings | Reuters

«In response to that post, some of Musk’s followers on X said the judge should be arrested for treason or deported. One suggested “US patriots fire upon him.” Some assailed his Muslim heritage and questioned his patriotism, including one who falsely asserted Ali had ties to Muslim militant groups.

After an earlier February ruling by Ali in the same case, an X user called for him to be beheaded. Another questioned “why so few judges are hanged.” One posted a picture of a noose.»

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judges-face-rise-threats-musk-blasts-them-over-rulings-2025-03-05/

This. This is when law enforcement needs to get IP addresses and pay people visits, even if it’s in the middle of the night.

Regardless of whether Musk reposts stuff like this and manages to get away with it, these folks need to be squashed like bugs (by which I mean the full force of the law should be brought to bear on them, to be clear).

Exclusive | Draft of Trump Executive Order Aims to Eliminate Education Department – WSJ

«Conservatives have been targeting the Education Department since it was established in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter and Congress.»

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/draft-of-trump-executive-order-aims-to-eliminate-education-department-5315c3a4?st=51PsUS&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink (gift)

And there you go. Anything that helps the marginalized (i.e., anybody but mainstream white folks, the wealthier, the better, basically) has got to go.

To be “conservative” in America is basically to be something else, uglier than “conservative.” To always want to go backwards is to want to return to an older era of… what? What is it when non-white people know their place and white people have the freedom to do pretty much do whatever they want so long as they respect the rights of other white people? There must be a word, or a short phrase for that, but it’s not coming to me right now.

One other point: I don’t believe President Carter established the Dept. of Education. *Congress* did that, during the Carter administration. Maybe by enacting a law *proposed* by President Carter, and *administered* by President Carter. Maybe enhanced by other laws under other administrations. No President gets to tear down what Congress has enacted unless Congress enacts other laws to that effect. Republicans control Congress now, so it shouldn’t be too hard.