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Those white fucking kkk should be run out of town. It fucked up to have a town that as no elections.
Especially a town that is 89% black. They should come together and take their town back.
And qualified immunity should not keep you away from breaking civil rights act. Fuck racist states.
Small towns are rough man. People will run as both the dem and republican candidate in my town and you can’t vote in town meetings if you aren’t a property owner
Small towns need to be made a bit smaller, so they stop being cesspits.
Oh it’s happening quite fast. My very small rural home town was already dwindling when I graduated 15 years ago. Now sports teams in the area are having to consolidate with neighboring towns and consolidating entire districts is in talks.
Great idea, now how do we do that? Cities gentrify and force people into towns and rural areas. Where do these people get to live, the unincorporated wilderness?
The only real answer I have to that question is that leftists need to move to rural areas and help slowly change its political landscape. Or you know, let the elected official govern. Still, I don’t have an answer for this exact scenario. The ultimate problem is who (who have the power to do anything in that exact area) cares? We do, but we aren’t there and I am out of ideas.
wooosh
Where is this? Outside of HOA nonsense, I thought property ownership died as a requirement in the 1800’s.
I guess the slightly less doxx-y question is: what states still allow that crap?
New England
I was so sure your town was doing something unconstitutional because it sounded so blatantly wrong. Found the answer and man, your state needs to sort that shit out.
Fwiw, a few MA towns are going the other way: pushing the state to allow noncitizens to vote in TM.
Yeah town was founded around the Civil War and I suspect that has something to do with the way it is now. Had a brief klan revival in the 80s and 90s, and, given the size, hitting way above our weight for number of people arrested for january 6
Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person’s home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.
There ain’t that many one solid protest from the surrounding communities would wreck the towns racists
Spoken by someone who has clearly never lived in the south.
Brown people in the south are afraid for good reason, you can’t imagine the kind of terror those fat fucks will inflict because they know nobody can stop them.
Bullets work on them as well as they do on everyone else.
The governor would send the national guard with tanks.
You don’t understand the south, black people aren’t citizens there, they’re the enemy.
🤔 I get what you’re saying. They’re very powerful, very well-armed and very organized. But that can’t stop us from stopping them from hurting us.
We can look up the National Guard bases throughout a particular state and just steal the tanks beforehand so they can’t just roll up on us.
You know, we ourselves could actually organize. Possibly claim a big land area and vote for it to be a new state so none of their bullshit is possible anymore.
I think it’s a nice thought, I just don’t think it would work.
When I lived there it felt like the entire social fabric of the source was founded deep down on unimaginable hate, I think they would gladly see everything burn before admitting they were equal in any way.
There’s a reason the civil war and ww2 only ended when there was literally no other choice, hate closes doors.
That being said, ww2 left Germany a much nicer place because all the most hateful people were not around as much anymore, we should have done the same after the civil war, maybe that’s a second chance.
This has the same problem as the southern white NRA attitude.
There aren’t enough untrained civilians to enact a violent rebellion without the support of our military. They don’t have to beat us to win, only stop us from beating them, and the law will take over from there. Unlike in Vietnam, the war of attrition would be against whoever rebelled. Nobody wants to be in a long and protracted war against the US, and if the rebellious behavior doesn’t break down, the perpetrators will stop being seen as heroes and start being seen as criminals.
We saw it firsthand recently with CHOP/CHAZ. Ultimately, a vast majority of onlookers (including some members of CHAZ) were done with it all by the end.
This small town in this snippet is not going to fix its problems by a bunch of people robbing tanks from the Federal Government.
Well then, we can organize, ger the training, or get weapons and go hide in the cities or the forests or the mountains and fight a guerrilla war. There’s always a way around every logistics problem, so arguing a revolution is impossible on logistics grounds is hopeless for you. No matter how many problems you’ll bring forth, we’ll solve them, and we know it’s possible because successful uprisings happened all the time throughout history.
We are not helpless babies and we are not going to be helpless victims acquiescing to racism and genocide just because you don’t want the left to accept use of force as a morally acceptable means to save their own lives. It’s just not gonna happen.
And that “X is the same as Y” shit isn’t gonna fly with me either, because I am not broken enough to be taken in by a pathetic attempt to derail the conversation.
CHOP/CHAZ failed because there was no real plan, no real leadership, no real attempt to do much of anything. But we don’t have to repeat the mistakes of the past.
You say this shit like the right wing hasn’t thought of it and organized militias of their own in response already, in fact, you use them as a wedge to scare leftists inti surrender and complacency, while ignoring 1) the right proves a political faction can successfully organize and arm themselves in the United States, 2) you’re a hypocrite with an agenda, for you try to bully us inti compliance when we so much as try to talk about use of force while they stand around in armor and AR-15s and you are silent. The most you do is use them as an emotional cudgel to beat us, and it’s not gonna work anymore.
We don’t have to listen to you anymore, and I sure as fuck won’t. It is possible for the left to use force to end the racism and it’ll likely have to, end of story.
They would arrest and convict the majority, and move on. With state support, 275 people is just not enough. A few surrounding communities? Their police forces would join in.
The small-town South Sucks if your skin isn’t white.
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This rural town is 89 percent black. 59 percent of the black population in the US lives in the south in mostly rural places. Rural towns would still exist, they’d just be more pleasant and less racist. I’d even argue that rural America would thrive, because the majority of the population down there would be able to live their lives and do whatever they want, free of discrimination and prejudice.
If all of the KKK were to leave their current towns and start their own, it would be relatively small. According to estimates from 2016 there are about 5,000 - 8,000 KKK members in the US.
So, after brown v board desegregated parts of the south the response of the white community of Memphis was simple:
They all picked up, moved 15 miles east through some wheat fields to set up a new city called Germantown.
I’m Indian, I’ve never seen that level of weapons-grade racism, usually it’s just poor people, this was everybody.
Bullshit. Don’t paint everyone with a broad brush.
Town of 275 people, 89% black? Total of 30 white people? They should just individually name the problem people in the article
and open themselves up for 30 lawsuits?
lol no
Lol lawsuits for naming elected officials in a news article? Sounds like America.
yes, libel. they’ve probably got good lawyers, after all
Defamation lawsuits are notoriously expensive and difficult to win. Meanwhile, truth is a valid defense.
Name and shame, let them dig their hole deeper.
well, best of luck with that
It’s not naming them, it’s repeating a claim, which, if not proven would be defamation.
Are black politicians immune from lying?
Your understanding of US law is slightly off.
Unlike many countries, the burden of proof for defamation is on the accuser. You must prove at some bar (based on factors like celebrity status) that the other party spoke false information, and then in most cases you must also prove ill intent. You can’t usually win a defamation suit against anti-vaxers (for example) because they genuinely believe they’re saving people by spreading the misinformation they think is true.
We’re a VERY tough country for that kind of suit, and the First Amendment is cited as the reason.
I don’t know what you mean by anti vaxxers. What defamation cases arr you talking about?
As for the rest of it, defamation laws vary from state to state, and defamation very much is an exception to to the first ammendment.
I think you are a bit confused about how defamation cases work.
If your comments are not protected if they are defamatory. The decision is made in the trial, not “before” the trial.
The defamatory statements are presumed to be untrue, it is for defendant to prove that they are not true.
If you go on record as saying something defamatory, and it can be shown be harmful to reputation, then you HAVE to be able to prove it is true.
Otherwise people could just accuse anyone of anything all the time, and that would be utter chaos.
You can’t prove a negative.
So it you accuse me of molesting my patients, and I have beverage molested my patients, how can one prove it or doesn’t make sense.
Here are the tests for defamation in Alabama:
To be defamatory:
- The statements must not be true but presented as facts (not opinions).
- The statements must be published or spoken.
- The statements must be read or heard by others.
- The statements must cause injury to your reputation.
- The statements are not protected under any kind of legal privilege.
If this black mayor guy is accusing others of racism, then they can sue him.
Obviously accusing government employees of racism and refusing to follow orders will harm their reputation.
There’s Tests to decide that, but it’s pretty obviously the case here.
The mayor has presented his opinions as facts. That is also clear.
Whether his remark are true or not would be for the court to decide, and would clearly be what the court case would be about.
The mayor has damaged to reputation of these people - and he will be found to have defamed them unless HE can prove his statements were true because HE is the one who made them.
Truth is a (the!) defence for defamation.
The last compounding factor would be whether he has a special kind of legal privelage. I don’t know how it works for them in that regard.
Sorry, but the longer I think about this the more I think it is you who are deeply confused about defamation law.
Instead of arguing over something well-established and well-documented, I’m just going to leave an NPR explanation of it for you or others to read at your leisure.
It might surprise you, but you can prove a negative in a court of law, and you actually have to in the US for defamation, unlike European libel laws.
I wish the press was braver
So leak it on the darknet under a throwaway name on a burner phone on a random open wifi network, then toss the phone in a woodchipper.
Horrific article to read, old mate had to go to fires by himself and respond to emergencies from black people while all the white people hid. Terrible
Not just that, but they locked and restricted his access to medical equipment so he had to make a detour to get a different one, and that time cost the person he was trying to save her life.
Complete scum.
Not just hid but tried to prevent him from responding at all.
Undeniably racist and absolutely disgusting.
Hopefully their houses catch on fire and no one helps them.
I feel like we need to have a more concerted focused effort against the racist bigoted trash people, wherever they are. Because they are the ones that don’t belong in this country.
And by “concerted focused effort” does that mean we beat them within an inch of their lives until they promise never to do it again? Because that’s what it’s gonna take.
Why bother with stopping at an inch? We didn’t beat the nazis by doing that. Stamp out racism where ever it is found.
We didn’t fight Nazi Germany because they were racist. We fought them because they attacked us (through their ally, Japan). The sad truth is there were a lot of Americans who were ok with Nazi ideology.
From the looks of it it takes another civil war, where the less barbaric people remove the more barbaric people from power. Unfortunately i am afraid that nothing short of that will work, as the system is so unstanle that things like this can happen.
All a civil war will do is put a bigger boot on all our necks.
Nobody rational wants to see that happen.
Unless you enjoy the thought of American military might amped up to 11 and deployed on it’s own citizens.
This already happened in Portland 2 years ago
The US military putting racist authoritarian southern states into order seems like a fairly okay alternative to people constantly being supressed, denies their democratic rights and often being outright murdered without any consequences for the perpetuators.
As you mention the might of the US military that could also mean the issues to be resolved within a short time and without much bloodshed, as the local cop gang probably is made up of pussy posers that only attack the weak.
As a bonus, many of those lunatics who have weapons “to protect themselves from the government” would finally see how laughable is the thought of a redneck with a gun overpowering trained soldiers in their prime.
From the other side of the world, it would be fun to see that happen.
Your racist uncultured citizens citizens duly deserve that and the collateral damage would be overlooked.
You really think the less barbaric people are going to win a fight? Lmao
But I was assured racism was over because Obama was President!
Sounds about white.
I think this is the same guy who was arrested by his own police force not long ago for “trespassing”. The guy walked down the driveway of a house he thought was abandoned, the homeowner saw him, grabbed his gun and held him at knife point until the police arrived and arrested him. I’ll see if I can’t find a link.
Edit: I was thinking of another (acting) black mayor of a southern state who’s being stymied by his racist colleagues. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna93318
Here’s what I don’t get… town is 85% black and only has 275 people.
That means a 234 to 41 split black to white. 5.7:1 ratio.
If those 41 people really are that racist and regressive, you haul them all out of their homes, tar and feather them, and ride them out of town on a rail.
This. Violence is not the answer.
Until it is. Violence sometimes only can be corrected with violence.
The minute, and I mean THE MINUTE, some racist asshat burns someones house down, as happened here, you deserve the right to stop being polite about it.
Violence is not THE answer, but it is AN answer.
You are wrong violence is never the answer.
Its a question and the answer is yes.
Our society needs to bring back public shaming, shunning and banishment.
Then in Alabama it would be used exclusively for black people.
Then start shaming and banishing the racist whites.
Seriously people, stop being afraid of them and combat them. It doesn’t even really matter how, what matters is not taking their bullshit lying down.
I suspect (based on nothing, really) that most white people in this country are not racist. It’s the tiny pockets of diarrhea like this town that are disproportionately racist, and have disproportionate representation in national politics.
I wonder if WFH could change this, as liberal white people from places like California start moving to different states, and begin to turn them blue. Or maybe I’m being too optimistic?
Racism/bigotry is not really a yes or no thing. It is a spectrum. Everyone is at least a little bigoted. Some people are pretty far up in that racism spectrum though.
The problem isn’t just small towns like this where the clock stopped 70 years ago, it’s huge portions of the South.
Gentrification from blue states isn’t happening because the services needed (high speed internet) aren’t available in small towns like this, and, because of other problems, nobody from the outside wants to live there.
Alabama ranks #44/50 on a “Best States” list:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings
40 Crime & Corrections
33 Economy
44 Education
20 Fiscal Stability
44 Health Care
36 Infrastructure
47 Natural Environment
32 OpportunityHaha, at first I read “country” as “county” and was like…wtf are you smoking, this is Dumbfuck, Alabama but on a country-wide level, I agree.
Idk about moving state to state but I noticed people’s definition of “reasonable commuting distance” got a little bigger durring covid. Like I’ll do a longer drive if I’m doing it 2x a week instead of 5x. People that’d otherwise be in town or a blue suburb pushed a little farther into the exurbs.
I think a lot of people are racist tho so idk if that’s helping
That’s just cruel. Someone shouldn’t be not allowed serve soley for the color of their skin. That’s not the point of the election – it’s meant to be for the citizens elected this person! They’re just being racist at this point and it’s obvious!
It’s honestly kind of sweet that you sound so surprised.
I agree with you, with the caveat that the article says that there wasn’t an election - it was a win by default as the only person to qualify / submit candidacy.
So he was running unopposed? That happens all the time.
Sorta.
From the article, they’re such a “good ol boy” community that the people in power just kinda picked the mayor, who served until he was ready to retire and pick another. He was the first person in town, basically ever, to properly fill out electoral paperwork. So they had a mayor picked out (not him) and they basically just pretended he didn’t do it the right way because it isn’t THERE way.
Until I say the next thing and just looking at that, you could kinda see the back-and-forth about how the town’s so messed up his situation was like a loophole, and no doubt if it were a white person winning the mayorship on those terms people might have taken issue and justified a repeat election…
But his reason for running for mayor puts the whole thing into much clearer contrast. When he was a volunteer firefighter, they’d take away the keys when he tried to respond to fires at black folk’s houses, and when he made it he’d be the ONLY firefighter there. They wanted to let those residences burn because of the color of the residents’ skin. As one of the town’s medics, he was specifically locked out of the station for racist reasons and it led to a patient dying.
It’s THAT good-ol-boy a community, and it’s such an overwhelmingly black-majority town (like 80%) that going all democratic just won’t work for them. So fuck em. If they win their defense on claims of qualified immunity of an office they don’t actually hold, immo go down there and declare myself governor.
EDIT: Yet on reading more carefully, it’s complicated. The “lame duck” city council voted on a re-election where he did not get the paperwork, and elected themselves back into office, all before he and the new council were sworn in. They may have managed to push the whole thing into a legal grey area in their favor depending on what the local and state laws are. But the problem is that quite literally everyone is telling him “you’re not the mayor” when he tries to execute ANY mayoral duties. The bank is refusing him financial access. The staff at public buildings is refusing him physical access.
It’s interesting because he’s tried to bring in several lawfirms, and they have mostly just taken his money and failed him. This is, at local scale, to too unlike the federal Constitutional crisis we almost had on 1/6/21. What do you do when a town says you’re not its mayor and the laws are unclear?
Sounds like a town so devoid of life that it would be more productive to just let it collapse.
There’s a bunch of tiny rural towns that have basically no jobs and no real reason to exist anymore.
Globalization was not kind to rural America. And people listen to snake oil salesmen like Trump because he’s the only one talking at them with a distorted compassion.
That vid does a good job of showing what some of the people that live in those towns are like. He doesn’t really ask them any pointed questions but you can get a better sense of the communities and why they might cling to someone like trump (even if it is bad for them)
Jesus, that article just kept getting worse the more I read. Thanks for posting this. I was able to send a donation their way.
And yet a bunch of people, mainly good ol boys, from the south say racism isn’t real. How messed up has the US become. It doesn’t matter what your skin color is, what matters is your integrity. This is why I am actively trying to get the hell out of Texas, I can’t stand racism no matter who it’s by.
One of those “racism isn’t real” is the Chief “Justice” of the USSC
It goes even deeper in congress, especially those that represent the south
Yep, Congress still can’t pass a Federal anti-lynching bill.
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TIL, thank you!
Like a lot of people in the US, congressional members are all about control and money. Not necessary in that order
I escaped Tennessee.
All I can say is: It gets better.
Get out as fast as you can, nobody deserves to have to live in the south.
Beautiful states with the absolutely most ugly people.
Facts. I transplanted here from Iowa in 2011. Everything was great until 2016 when the racist overtones really came to a head. My wife is a born Texan and she is liking the idea of moving to Colorado for more than the lack of of racism we see here.
I live in east Texas and the racism here is so prominent by all colors that it’s no longer appealing.
Highly recommend Colorado, it’s beautiful and the people are good too.
We just let the south stay the same after the civil war, that’s our mistake.
Lived there for a little while when I was younger loved it
It took my pacifistic ass years to see the truth of that.
When you take down a regime that bases itself on such anti-social behavior as chattel slavery, you really need to end it as completely as a termite infestation. Just one of them able to come into power again is all it takes to roll everything back.
Every single person involved should have faced federal prosecution, permanently lost their right to vote, and the states on a probationary “no vote” federal oversight where the government re-educated the idea of black property out of their fool heads before the they could be treated as states again.
you’ve got to consider that to a lot of these people racism “isn’t real” because their bar for what qualifies as racist is set incredibly high. “how could that be racist if it’s true?”
you can see a similar anti-trans sentiment in the people who defend jk rowling. “she’s just saying gender can’t mismatch assigned sex, how could the truth be transphobic?” nothing could ever be transphobic or racist or whatever to these people when they think very concept of being bigoted isn’t legitimate
True
My white former mother told my black wife both that A.) Racism is everywhere you go and also B.) Racism isn’t that bad and she must be doing something to deserve the racism that our entirely white town was giving her. And that’s why she’s my former mother.
Another sign of a racist, deny and deflect. Classic narcissistic attitude. I can’t be racist it must be something you did
Wow, anyone who feels like we just have the “casual racism” of some people being impolite to other races needs to read this article. Full of stuff like:
Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person’s home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.
It’s worse than the old cross-burning shit. Horrific. Not sure how to combat it when a whole town’s leadership and infrastructure is so overtly racist.
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Perhaps not just “let”. Look up the lady that’s been helping him. Her house recently burned down. I didn’t dig deep enough to know if anyone has tried to tie it to this particular town, but I’m gonna let them be guilty until proven innocent in this particular case.
what’s new? thats such disgusting behavior. can’t believe this shit still goes on in 2023
Alabama, so no surprise. Town needs to rise up and take over.
This could happen In almost any rural area of almost any state.
Sounds about right. When I joined the military I met people from Alabama, and even people from other Southern states had nasty things to say about that state. I didn’t believe it at first, but then I saw enough over time to realize, “I hate to say it, but maybe they’re right. At least about some of the smaller towns and more rural areas.”
I met a few nice people from Alabama, yes. I also met… a surprising number of not so nice types. I’m Asian by the way, not White. I’ll let people fill in the gaps.
Asian who had to live in the south before I managed to escape.
It’s probably worse than you’ve heard, I loved the midwest, but the south was just vile.
This is not a state specific thing, and it’s using a single state as a scapegoat because of this single news story. This kind of shit could happen in rural areas of almost any state. This is a ignorance and racism issue, not a geography issue.
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these people’s misplaced loyalty and abhorrent actions speak for themselves. there is no need to resort to slurs that demean others
That slur was very clearly directed at the orange removed, not anyone else. He’s demeaning the exact person he means to demean.
i understand, and that is the point. using a term for how some people simply “are” as an insult is demeaning to them regardless of who the insult is aimed at.
i only ask that you try to see it from a so-called “removed’s” point if view, the message being that trump is as stupid as they are. its not very considerate to be compared to trump, or to be considered the lowest bar for intelligence.
i only ask that you try to see it from a so-called “removed’s” point
WHOA dude you can’t actually call them that
If theres one thing that pisses me off about lemmy its the word filter. I have no idea what you said.
Then use an instance that doesn’t have the word filter?
On lemmy.world you can see it.
If I switch instances its gonna be to one I set up for myself. Just been putting it off
I do see it, “Rtrd” is probably the filter. But I agree - the filter is justified, but there should be a “redacted for [reason], view anyway” option.
I’d switch servers.
You’re removeding my conversation
You’re better off
