RedEye's "Back to the future" Rundown

The Freedom Riders Then and Now

As a survivor of the domestic terrorism of the Civil Rights Movement, EYE think America is going back to the future.  EYE don't know if the election of the first president who is black 
bought out the worst in some (not to be confused with all) white people, but if this is the result EYE fear Barack Hussein Obama will be the first and last president who is black of these United States of America.

 Today, a large part of the population remains willfully racist, [TEA PARTY] and by extension, a great number of people have also become unconsciously so, buying implicitly into stereotypes about Black Americans as dependent and lazy [MITT ROMNEY]; and thus determined to stop social programs [CRUZ] and limit the federal government’s influence [PAUL] — even if it is not to their own benefit. In a sense, much of the middle class population has been HOODWINKED into voting for the interests of the top one percent GOP because of their own unconscious prejudices.

FBI warning of of white supremacist infiltrating law enforcement nearly forgotten.   EYE wonder why?  Snark

In near prophetic fashion, after the FBI’s warning, white supremacy extremism in the U.S. increased, exponentially. From 2008 to 2014, the number of white supremacist groups, reportedly, grew from 149 to nearly a thousand, with no apparent abatement in their infiltration of law enforcement.

From the files of SWB (Shopping While Black) in Sweet Home Alabama. 

Real Housewives of Atlanta star Claudia Jordan recently had a run-in with a mall security guard in Opelika, Ala., and is claiming she was racially profiled. On Friday, Jordan was in Opelika to see Ginuwine perform, but both Jordan and Ginuwine were thrown out of the Auburn Mall because she wouldn’t remove her sunglasses, she says.

Meanwhile, there is some Strange Fruit in Georgia.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I hear stories like the recent one about Roosevelt Champion, I get a little nervous.   
"A black man who'd recently been questioned in connection with the death of a white woman was found dead hanging from a tree Monday morning in rural Greensboro, Georgia, police said. Local and state investigators said there was nothing to immediately suggest foul play.

Adventures in double standards #Baltimore edition,  Because black folks.....

Riots led by largely white participants over largely innocuous things (your favorite sports team lost, your favorite sports team won, your favorite event just ended, you're drunk, others are drunk so let's tear sh*t up) are never treated with the racial disdain that the highly uncommon riots that occur in black communities receive.
There's no condemnation of white Americans as a whole, nor are there any calls for the Caucasian community to restrain itself and seek non-violent means of expressing itself. They're not denigrated as "thugs," accused of being "out of control" or used as fodder for unreconstructed fantasies of putting them back in their rightful place. Even the language becomes different - these are "disturbances," not "riots."  They're not "thugs," but "young party goers" and "revelers" who just happen to be "over-exuberant."

So much for HOPE for CHANGE we can believe in.

RedEye

"I'm marching to save my own life, and the lives of millions of other Black people who will not be able to attend this march"

Memorializing the Freedom Riders

Joseph Postiglione, Freedom Riders' bus after attack in Anniston, Alabama, 1961. Courtesy of Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. - See more at: http://www.southernspaces.org/2009/memorializing-freedom-riders#sthash.CUJdcdJM.dpuf

Joseph Postiglione, Freedom Riders' bus after attack in Anniston, Alabama, 1961. Courtesy of Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. - See more at: http://www.southernspaces.org/2009/memorializing-freedom-riders#sthash.CUJdcdJM.dpuf

 Joseph Postiglione, Freedom Riders' bus after attack in Anniston, Alabama, 1961. Courtesy of Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Why I Will Not Be Marching to Commemorate the 1963 March on Washington

I am still emotionally reeling from the death of Trayvon Martin and devaluation of Black life in our society. I am outraged at Black unemployment rates hovering above 12% and hundreds of thousands of hard-working Black Americans who live in poverty while working at poverty-wage paying jobs. I am tired of the constant attacks on our rights and policies put forward by radical right-wing legislators that codify inequality and put our lives in danger. I am marching to demand an end to injustices that are having a very real impact on my life today. In a sense, I am marching to save my own life and the lives of millions other Black people who will not be able to attend this march.

Hide your children and your wife.....George Zimmerman is on the prowl for a new gun

Let us March on until Victory is Won!

See you Monday.

Edit~So, I went to see "The Butler" last night, and it made me mad

 H/T This is Your Conscience

For those of you who haven't seen the movie I won't give too much away,  but historical events in  Sweet Home Alabama  play a prominent role.  Why am I mad after seeing The Butler you ask?  Because the more things change in America....

The  

More

They 

Don't.

Favorite line from the movie: "If the federal government doesn't enforce Brown v. Board who will"?

Who indeed?

- This movie reeks of white supremacy and black submission to white supremacy
– This movie is literally being marketed as a slap in the face to black pride, african heritage, and as a portrayal that somehow turning the other cheek in the face of oppression is some kind of strong character trait [the author is referencing Oprah slapping her son in the trailer]
– BOYCOTT “THE BUTLER” and let america know that black men arent buck dancing, subservient, weak minded servants of whites or any other race/culture. This depiction is not a part of black history, it is proof of how bigotry and racism interrupted black history - See more at: http://www.thisisyourconscience.com/2013/08/from-slaves-to-servants-do-black-films-like-the-butler-deserve-to-be-boycotted/#sthash.XFWbsn2j.dpuf

- This movie reeks of white supremacy and black submission to white supremacy
– This movie is literally being marketed as a slap in the face to black pride, african heritage, and as a portrayal that somehow turning the other cheek in the face of oppression is some kind of strong character trait [the author is referencing Oprah slapping her son in the trailer]
– BOYCOTT “THE BUTLER” and let america know that black men arent buck dancing, subservient, weak minded servants of whites or any other race/culture. This depiction is not a part of black history, it is proof of how bigotry and racism interrupted black history - See more at: http://www.thisisyourconscience.com/2013/08/from-slaves-to-servants-do-black-films-like-the-butler-deserve-to-be-boycotted/#sthash.XFWbsn2j.dpuf

Saturday Night Special Links I Like

 Michael D'Antuono:  A Tale of Two Hoodies

 If you never read another thing I post you must read this thought provoking and factual timeline describing American racism against blacks,  found on the wonderful blog Abagond.  Be sure and read the comments.

This is what Attorney General Eric Holder tried to talk about.
This is what Reverend Jeremiah Wright was talking about.
This is what General Colin Powell is talking about.

This is what  ALL Americans need to talk about if we want our country to make progress, and not go back to before.

"Well, there's a certain mean spiritness that's out there, not only in Alabama but it's in America.  And that makes this election extremely important." Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders (D. Selma)

None Dare Call it Racism

Let's face it, Sweet Home Alabama is well-known for its racial history. It is the home of former Governor George C. Wallace known for his infamous stand in the school house door.

It is the home of the Scottsboro Boys, 9 black boys falsely accused of raping two white women.

It is the home of the 16th Street Baptist Church where 4 little black girls were murdered when a bomb exploded during Sunday school.

Alabama was the home of Jimmy Lee Jackson a young civil rights protester who was shot and killed by Alabama State Troopers.

It is the home of Bloody Sunday where civil rights marchers were attacked by Alabama State Troopers in Selma.

Alabama is the home of the Freedom Riders who were the victims of police sanctioned mob violence.

Yes, Alabama is the Heart of Dixie where the Confederate Flag still flies on the grounds of the birth place of the Confederacy.

The city of Huntsville, Alabama is not mentioned in any of the above incidents due to the "perception" it is a progressive oasis in the reddest of the red states. Huntsville's "image" wasn't marred by bombings, Bull Conner, cross burnings, boycotts, dogs, and fire hoses like it's sister cities and towns. Many believed the city was immune from the ignorance of racism when schools and public facilities integrated without fanfare (except for the public swimming pool) due to Huntsville's educated and diverse populace.

Republican honcho Hugh McIinnish dispelled this myth with the stroke of keyboard in a letter to the United States Department of Justice claiming racial disparities in the school system were due to *ahem* life's unfairness, but none dare call his point of view racist racism. This is what they believe

The term “racism” has become just a magical incantation used to make other people shut up. I see no evidence that it has any substantive meaning anymore.

Oh really? Slavery, Jim Crow and Bull Conner were life's unfairness? Racism doesn't have meaning anymore? Well, let me provide evidence of not only the meaning of racism, but it's reality. Let's start with the definition of racism;

The belief that some races are inherently superior (physically, intellectually, or culturally) to others and therefore have a right to dominate them. In the United States, racism, particularly by whites against blacks, has created profound racial tension and conflict in virtually all aspects of American society. Until the breakthroughs achieved by the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, white domination over blacks was institutionalized and supported in all branches and levels of government, by denying blacks their civil rights and opportunities to participate in political, economic, and social communities.

Now let's define a racist:

A person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others

The final word we need to define is prejudice:

A hostile opinion about some person or class of persons. Prejudice is socially learned and is usually grounded in misconception, misunderstanding, and inflexible generalizations. In particular, African-Americans have been victims of prejudice on a variety of social, economic, and political levels.

Let's move on to Hugh McIinnish's *cough cough* point of view;

"Blacks misbehave on average more frequently than whites do," McInnish said. "(Brown) hasn't shown any evidence to the contrary."

McInnish went so far as to include in his letter a chart that purports to show the "black crime rate as (a) multiple of (the) white crime rate." The chart indicates that black people commit more than six times the violent crime of white people overall; it has them committing about eight times as many murders as white people and more than 14 times as many robberies.

The data he uses, however, comes from New Century Foundation, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center cites as playing a leading role in the world of "academic racism."

The center describes New Century Foundation as a "self-styled think tank that promotes pseudo-scientific studies and research that purport to show the inferiority of blacks to whites - although in highfalutin language that avoids open racial slurs and attempts to portray itself as serious scholarship."

Hugh McInnish is from back in the day of standing in the school house door against "colored" children attending those lily white schools. In his mind, them there darkies are not entitled to a decent education. If that's not racism, what is it? Thanks to Hugh McInnish for tellling us how they really feel.

Huntsville righty's are whining that it is being unfairly singled out because the DoJ told them don't even think about being released from the 41 year old federal court order to desegregate the school system. Not content to accept the DoJ findings gracefully, the righty's, enabled by the media strike back by attacking the President of of the Huntsville Branch of the NAACP and the DoJ.

I repeat; It's the Stoopid Racism. In order to overcome racial prejudice we need to understand and respect each others differences and experiences. When love and understanding move into our hearts it has the power to remove all forms of hatred. It's time for us to become part of the solution and not be the problem.

As long as the quality of public education in Huntsville is based on parental income and property values there is no hope for the Huntsville City Schools.

As long as those in positions of power believe it’s a silly, unrealistic, line that every school should be as good as Grissom, there is no hope for Huntsville City Schools.

As long as those in positions of power believe them uppity coloreds and sneaky Mexicans would receive an education only white, god-fearing, clean, and law-abiding children deserve, there is no hope for the Huntsville City Schools.

As long as black parents aren't politically involved to the same extent as white parents there is no hope for the Huntsville City Schools.

I don't care how many Superintendents, clueless consultants and school boards are hired and fired, there is no hope for the Huntsville City Schools as long as elected officials with racist beliefs like McInnish have the power to exercise racism.

Is it going to take another 41 years before Huntsville City Schools are fully integrated?