When I was reading your previous post about “Jim Crow laws,” I was recalling a time when in Law School a classmate invited me to visit his home on Spring Break in South Carolina. His family was from old money and they grew up on one of these large plantation houses. When we were hanging sipping on Bourbon and stoking Cubans, he showed me these old pics that were of Black people that were hung. He called them post cards that people in the south used to collect. He said he found them in some chest in the the attic and were throwing a bunch of stuff out, but the pics were going to a writer doing some story in New York about the old south.
Sounds very interesting. I was taught at an early age not to use the N word. There was always black transients working as farm hands. My Grandmother would routinely cook for them and who were allowed to eat on the porch.
I momentarily forgot the word, “lynchings”. He had post cards of actual black people that were photographed being lynched and at the time I remember being shocked as I couldn’t believe that people in the South used to collect these as souvenirs.
I have seen those cards before and it was appalling. There were black Catholics and they did attend the church I went to, but they always sat in the back.
I don’t think anyone is blind to the extreme racism that was residing in certain areas, particularly in the South.
My father’s parents in Indiana and later in Nashville Tn. were so bad he left home when he was 15, when his father died. His mother was both a racist and a Church of Christ fanatic.
I never met my grandfather of course, and only met my grandmother once. When I was around 4 years old, my father put me on a payphone with his mom once and I remember it well.
She said, “You’re Grand daddy refused to shake hands with Booker T Washington”…and something about “chasing darkies out of the Chicken coup with a broom.” My dad was mortified. They were poor white Southerners, my grandfather died of cirrhosis.
My mom always mentioned the one time she talked with her mother in law, she was asked, “what religion are you?”. When my mom answered “Lutheran” she was snapped at, “You’ll learn!”
The reason for these kinds of attitudes, runs deep and is not easily explained. But in my own life, people were not racist and the Suburban 50’s was paradise all over.
He was also a virulent racist of the first order. He actually believed minorities were sub human and just stupid enough to vote for him as long as he promised them freebies.
Racism is as old as the concept of race and unfortunately a lot of racists used the story of The Tower of Babel to justify it though that was never the intent in either the Old or New Testaments.
When I was ages 7-12 I spent my weekends swimming and diving at the Sands Point Bath and Tennis Club.
"Sands Point Bath and Tennis Club
Sands Point Bath [& Tennis] [and Racquet] Club, which burned down on March 12, 1986, was a landmark elite retreat on Long Island Sound with such members as financier Bernard Baruch, John Philip Sousa and W. Averell Harriman"
Here was a house I knew:
“A treasured piece of Long Islands affluent Gold Coast. Once owned by a member of the du Pont family, this 1920s timeless English colonial was the one of first of its kind on Plum Beach Point. Only a short walk from the famous Sands Point Bath and Tennis Club frequented by F. Scott Fitzgerald of Great Gatsby fame.”
I just want to say this before I post a deeper thought here, because I am in a state of lament currently watching Hong Kong fall once again. I am honoured to be sharing a space with like minded intelligent good people here who have a sense of profound humanity, and what it was like to be in time of peace with shared values. There are exceptions with the trolls and tinged cynicism but I do see a truer aspect of the American spirit by the quality of people in this thread. Where ever you go, I hope I can join you.
You are right. I always thought there was a differentiation between Politicians and being a “statesman “. Can we identify America’s greatest statesmen? Or do we have any statesmen in today’s political landscape?
Just maintain social distancing and I’m okay with that. No touching!
I truly hope Hong Kong remains separate from CCP and its dictatorial control. It is definitely inhumane for millions of free citizens to be absorbed by a brutal, subjugating regime like the Chinese Communist Party exemplifies. However, I see the takeover as being inevitable. Sad indeed!
I have many Chinese friends that are literally sick over what is transpiring in their homeland. Several have parents or grandparents that have lived in Hong Kong since birth and do not wish to leave.
I strongly recommend watching that 9 part commentaries of the origins of the CCP. That I posted yesterday In the CCP virus thread. It’s the most comprehensive break down of what their party is all about. It’s loaded with extremely useful information that puts current day discourse into perspective. It will change your perspective!
This is probably one of the most profound events in our modern time to take place. I am sick over it too because like you said it’s an inevitability, so we are about to find out soon how this is going to play out.
I was 6 years old when Mao Zedong came to power after the civil war that ended with the Kuomintang being forced to Taiwan. The Peoples Republic of China is younger than I.
My perspective regarding the Chinese Communist Party will not be changed by reiteration of its history. I was taught in school beginning in the first grade to love freedom, hate communism and be a patriot of the United States. That will never change except that my hatred of communism grows daily.
Today’s Chinese government is totally unacceptable. My hope is that enough members of the existing Chinese military defect and take sides with the Nationalists, the Hong Kong citizens and the Taiwanese to overthrow the Commie government and return some semblance of decency to the Chinese regime.
