St. Louis Protest

Time for the good ol' :

 

That's actually a good point because observation is a source of empowerment. If people stop paying attention, it will dissipate. But the "story" is being pumped into the mainstream by a live wire / live feed. It's only a matter of time anyway until it breaks away and a new story will come to life to take its place. People gotta stop eating it up, then everybody rises ~ inspired ~ to want to do something, take a stand, change the world, save the planet ...

 

Racism in America is so much more complicated than a lot of people think it is.

I went to one of those high schools where, even though the majority was white, we lived in fear of the black students. If a white guy made a less than respectful comment to a black guy, or even gave him a dirty look, he paid a heavy price after school. When he came out of the building, he would find himself surrounded by 5 or 6 huge black guys who would proceed without comment to beat the shit out of him. The victim usually wouldn't report it, for fear of getting something worse next time. I witnessed one of those, from a distance.

In my four years of high school, I never heard of a white guy or group of white guys winning a fight.

The black football players disrupted the one and only reunion my high school class ever had. We had a schedule for the evening, but they took over for about twenty minutes of crazy, loud, scary, racist bullshit. They acted like they had never been to a nice event before. The people who rented us the room said we could never come back there again.

Of course, this has nothing to do with race relations on a national scale.

 

A lot of black people act like fools and get away with it. They are essentially given a free pass because their behavior is largely defended by their own people, and white people are too scared to say anything for fear of being deemed "racist." Not that white people are any better, because they're just as fucked up in their own way. In general people are idiots, regardless of their race. But black people especially take the cake when it comes to the degree of ignorance that so many of them relish in. What's sad is that these attitudes are not their own, but have been marketed to them by white men with the intention of keeping them enslaved, both mentally and physically. Furthermore, this is all being used to fuel racism, because racism is needed for political reasons to create division and tension within society.

 

But Not All! There are voices in the wilderness.

[SIZE=24pt]T.I. Criticizes Looters and Authorities in Impassioned Ferguson Plea[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]August 20 2014, 10:56 AM ET[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt][/SIZE]

T.I. has joined a slew of other musicians and concerned citizens by chiming in on the events of the past week in Ferguson, Missouri, with two lengthy Instagram posts about police brutality and Michael Brown's death, although his take is particularly critical of that minority of protesters who resorted to looting or violence, particularly during the initial fervor and chaos.




(To My People)Look at us. Rebels without a cause. Soldiers without a general. A lost generation. Ready for War. No strategy,no training. Armed only with our grief,aggravation, and passionate disdain for our treatment in America. Sick and tired of everything...especially ourselves. We'd rather use the tragedies of our environment as an excuse to act-out,go-off,or turn-up, rather than use our education,talents & future opportunities to get-out,speak-up,& make-a-change. Look at us... Too Enraged to sit around & do nothing. But Too Entrapped in da cycle of vengeance/hostility to do anything WORTH doing. Look at us. So upset with our conditions that we've gone into "Fuck-it" mode... "Fuck-the-world" "Fuck-the-Police" And even "Fuck" the wishes & request of a grieving mother,father,family who lost a son...who's memory they would NOT like to see tarnished by OUR negative ACTIONS/DECISIONS. Naaah G,that ain't the code, this ain't da way. What I see us doing is just as futile as swinging wildly into the wind,waiting on the air to get tired. One question to MY PEOPLE: What are we changing...Really? Look at us. Destroying our own community, but continuing to spend money in theirs. Refusing education... re-volving in the same cycle of ignorance instead of e-volving out of it. I must admit that I TOO am disgusted wit America's treatment. I TOO demand change. But Goddddaaaaamn man.... Look at us!!!!! Although I too am at fault to a degree & I admit that I may not have all da answers... I do have a fun fact for you. Insanity is...Going about things the same way,expecting a different result. U wanna different result? U must take different action. What else do u expect? Look at us!!!


Look at us....America has created a monster. The result of ignoring & mishandling an already fragile spirited, recently enslaved, presently oppressed race/generation of people. Look at us. We're the monster that now refuses to be dismissed, overlooked,& ignored. We were brought to this place,unaware of our own cultures,religion,&traditions therefore,we created our own. Now look at us. For years we've been crying out for the nation to address the substandard education systems & disparaging treatment of our citizens in communities across America. Our people have had an increasing lack of opportunities for generations. There have been homes broken,lives shattered,and futures lost on your watch....unanswered. Look at us. How long can u expect a nation/race/generation of people to be blatantly disrespected? Spoken to and treated with arrogant tones of insignificance. Our fathers,uncles,brothers& role models were killed& Imprisoned more often than educated. Now look at us. Our friends,& relatives Murdered and cast aside without thought,as though your human life is more valuable than ours. How long can that go on without consequence? Now Look at us. How long can u continue to pass the buck & make excuses of why u can't do today what should have been done yeste-year? Although I DO NOT support the negative responses & actions of my people in light of dis tragedy....I WILL NOT condone your lack of effort to show any urgency to improve the treatment of our people, nor the living conditions in our communities. Your refusal to address these life altering issues makes events such as these seem inevitable. Although I too am at fault to a degree & I admit that I may not have all da answers... I do have a fun fact for you. Insanity is...Going about things the same way,expecting a different result. U wanna different result? U must take different action. What else do u expect? Look at us!!!

 

IDK where we went wrong since I went to school in St. Louis County in the early 1960s. St Louis is rife with racism (as we have seen this past week) but it had been legally integrated since 1948. When we moved to the 'burbs there were black ppl in my high school and tho a minority due to demografics, there was no racial animosity that I knew of.

While the black kids socialized in their own segregated group, I had several black friends due to common interest and got along with all the black students as well as the white ones. One of our football stars was black and was looked up to for that despite the minority color. (He was the first black person I got close to - he sat in front of me in one class and I got to study his hair curls that lined up in very precise rows and the back of his neck which was so black it looked blue).

Strange to think how we have regressed over the decades. Is it a racial thing or a general deterioration of values in both racial communities. We all, black and white subscribed to some midwest work ethic with a desire to excel in school. There was none of that thug attitude, none of that derision of smart, aspiring black kids as being "too white," like I have seen in more recent times. We accepted that the black kids were as smart as the white kids and guess what, they were.

BTW, this was also the time when Missouri was one of the old racist states with a miscegenation law - blacks and whites could not get married or be a couple. The year before me in the class yearbook we had two homecoming queens. Like I mentioned our football stars were often black and I suppose that the prominent black player was chosen as the homecoming king but the queen was a very pretty white girl. So, they had a double page with a white football player with the white girl and another pretty black girl with the black football player. It would have been hell with our parents generation if the homecoming king and queen were of different races.

 

Who is the companion who received a beating ? Has everyone forgotten this person ? I want info today , please .

 

i see the friend did an interview , but did not say he'd been injured .

name - Dorian Johnson .

 

There was protesting in regards to the Eric Garner murder, as far as i know it was pretty much completely civilized.

Protesting need not be violent, that's a riot. The point of protest is to be heard by the politicians/city government/police department.

 

when police come to break up a peaceful protest. shit flies..

 

Governments fund provocateurs and the media keeps spinning lies.
That's the biggest reason this socially radioactive shit flies,
turning the masses into divided sub-humans, despite all of the common sense cries.

 

Maybe things were never as good as we thought they were, in terms of race relations and police brutality. Looking back (on Wikipedia) at a lot of violent incidents in major Southern cities over the years, there was a bit of a sag in activity in the eighties, but it never stopped.

We have some crazy double standards now, almost like reverse Jim Crow. Such as, it's perfectly fine in most cities for black people to patronize white bars and clubs, but it's not okay for white people to visit black bars and clubs. The rule is not enforced by law, but by the regular customers, by violence and intimidation. And... I know that if I choose not to interact with a white street person begging for money, he's going to take no for an answer. If I treat a black street guy the same way, he's going to call me a racist. Every time.

We're all headed in a bad direction.

T.I. has his finger on the pulse.

 

I have a new theory that just popped into my head that might have something to do with all of the racial/class tension in humanity.

tl:dr: Because of possibly genetics and/or social engineering, some of humanity, a small portion these days is mammalian brain dominant, and the rest are reptilian brain dominant.

Long post with details here:
https://muut.com/campexist#!/general:chimp-brains-vs-bonobo-brai

 

This made me think of a moment in New Orleans when I was the ONLY white face in the whole bar. Of course my friend Charles took me there. I was the exotic!

 

Reminds of when I was working in the Caribbean. The guys I was working with were mostly black, some hispanic, and I was the only white guy. After a few months I called one of the black guys - we'd become good friends by then - and when he answered his cell he said: "S'up nigga?"
At first I thought he wanted to "include" me into his circle of (black) friends. Then I thought about it some more and felt a bit weird about it. Wasn't that something that you NEVER called a whitey?
Anyways he kept it up. If I met him in the street somewhere, or maybe in a bar he'd always hold out his fist and go: "Yo nigga s'up man?".

 

Looks like more fun than being the only white face on an Atlanta subway train, or half of the only white couple on a San Francisco city bus, both of which I have done. Even though the great majority of people in such situations are always polite and civilized, it's far too commonplace to find one individual who wants to manufacture some racial drama. Most white Southerners have reacted by simply avoiding public transportation at all costs. Sad.

Reading back over your quote from T.I., it makes me wonder who's going to step up and take a leadership role for the current generation of young black Americans. Al Sharpton is an elderly man. He isn't going to be around forever. Nobody pays any attention to Jessie Jackson anymore, and Colon Powell blew his chance by linking himself to the Republican Party. I have no idea who might be next. Somebody desperately needs to pick up where MLK left off, pushing hard for nonviolent solutions to all racial problems.

 

I think it's pretty cool how you've documented most of your life with pictures, keeping track of when the pictures were taken, where they were taken, etc.

 

I've been only one of two white people on the Marta in Atlanta and it was fine. I've found myself the only white person many times and never really had a problem.

I feel like sometimes white people are fearful when they're the only white person in the room and black people pick up on this fear as dislike or distrust, which makes them react with animosity.

that's not to say racism against white people doesn't exist because it does, but I think sometimes it can be a manifestation of white fear and paranoia.

 

I agree with Meli.

I have been the only white person plenty of times... at people's houses (and not people I know- but like I went with one person I knew and there were like 25-30 black people there and...me) and also, I don't know... in jail at times it would be me and one other white person and about 17 black people... in any case, there are other situations but those are the ones I think of off the top of my head.

In those situations, I just acted like my silly, goofy self... not nervous at all (why would I be? that's how I view it) and no one acted weird or intimidating to me at all. I think one of the earlier stories though that someone (karen?) told was from the south though and I'm above the mason dixon line so that may be a difference....


Oh but in any case yea, I think they can sense fear like dogs. Can kinda smell it out.

 

I've been taking fotos since the mid 1950s with box or Brownie camera and knew to write the date on the back of them. (However - I did not know to keep the negatives - damn) So, I've been digitizing these from paper prints.

IDK who took the one in the bar, but I got a print of it - That was in the days when you waited a week from taking the foto to when your prints came back at the corner drugstore. BTW, Charles and I were cops in that pic - do we look like cops?