Fifty-eight years ago today, on Saturday, June 20, 1964, twenty-year-old Andrew Goodman arrived in Meridian, Mississippi, to work with Michael Schwerner, a 24-year-old former New York social worker, and James Chaney, a 21-year-old Black man, to register Black voters. “Dear Mom and Dad,” he wrote on a postcard home. “I have arrived safely in Meridian Mississippi. This is a wonderful town and the weather is fine. I wish you were here. The people in this city are wonderful and our reception was very good. All my love, Andy.”
In the recent interview by HCR of President Biden, he made a comment directly apropos to what is reported here tonight. It is that hate never disappears, but it can be suppressed until conditions are such that it crawls out into the open to be spotted and recognized as such. Our last president fanned the flames of a radical fringe whose ideology is founded on hate. They have been enabled and encouraged to crawl out from under whatever rocks they were hiding under and show themselves for what they are. Since they are a part of human nature, however repugnant, they can't be eradicated, but can possibly be chased back under those rocks with sufficient effort. There can't be a place for their rhetoric in the public discourse. Others must call them out and make it clear that they don't have a place at the table when it comes to participation in our political process. They skirt the margins of criminality; the reason to pay any attention to them at all is to catch them across the line and then prosecute them when they are actually committing crimes.
I will never forget that event. When a sophomore in college in Wisconsin, I wanted to go to Mississippi to register voters. My parents said no. I was sickened by the horror of those murders. Thank you for making sure we do not forget. And now we have RINO hunting.
Dana Milbank, a columnist for the Washington Post wrote an Opinion titled Texas Republicans want to secede? Good riddance. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/20/texas-gop-platform-secession-theocracy/ Most of the commenters on the article basically repeated the Good Riddance or Let's build a wall and have Texas pay for it, etc. Here is what I replied to them:
Texas is rapidly becoming a purple/swing state. Whites are now in the minority. Yes, Texas is under minority rule at the moment. That could all change with the Nov 2022 election. There is always someone proposing secession. It isn't taken seriously by Texans. Supposedly the Civil War settled the notion that a state could secede. However, what you should know is that Texas is the only state that became a state by treaty. Included in the treaty is the option for Texas to divide itself in as many as five states! Think of Texas with ten senators! So be careful what you ask for. The far far right Republicans who participated in the Texas Republican Convention don't represent the majority of Texans nor even the majority of Republicans who are moderates. I've been a resident of Texas for over twenty years. My parents, grandparents and great grandparents are buried in the cemetery in Austin a mile from the Capitol building. Please do not judge Texas by its current governing minority. Remember it was Texan LBJ who gave us the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act! The minority rule is about to come to an end this year. The Trump Republicans are scared to death and so are giving their pliable mostly ignorant base all they want but that will not get them reelected! Mr. Milbank knows nothing about Texas, its politics and its people in my opinion. Like any state in the United States, there are things you like about a state and things you don't. I like living here. I'm an Independent and I along with the very decent fine people that make up the majority of Texans are going to make sure Governor Abbott along with his cronies are voted out of office in November. After all, Governor Abbott has not met his promise of eliminating rape in Texas as his response to the "heartless" cruelty of the no exceptions anti-abortion law. No Republican as candidates for local, state or federal office will ever get my vote.
The resurgence of violent threats, language, intimidation against those who disagree chills my blood. Rep. Kinzinger forecasts more violence. I dread to think he is right.
The similarities are so disturbing. Thank you Heather for tying all of this together. We must stay vigilant and call these fascists out. After the Texas state Republican convention and the ignorance and hate that spewed out of it, I am livid.
It pained me to click like tonight. Of course, the column is brilliant and worth reading. But the vileness of our human beings is too apparent for my stomach.
Nice juxtaposition, dear Heather. MAGA and the KKK. One is just the latest version of the other. And like the rats in an overcrowded box, the MAGA-ts are eating each other. Racism and sexism is attacking itself. No wonder. It can’t survive anyway. It’s an abomination.
The Missouri incident is very troubling. Thanks for laying it out. Beau of the Fifth Column has an interesting discussion of it, too. Did I say troubling. No, horrifying.. And yes, I remember the three who disappeared inMississippi in 1964, the year I began college.
The ad is disturbing, to say the least. I initially thought it was satire, but apparently it isn’t. Implicit in this edition of your letter is the idea that the much feared extralegal KKK has been resurrected in places like Missouri. How did we get here?
At 79 I wonder if it is good that I am old as this country is clearly wobbling on it’s axis. How sad that the stupidity of racism is still with us and prying us apart. How can a sane person believe they can own another person. If your sacred book says it is OK, then it is not sacred but baloney.
Few people remember the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. At its height it claimed over 5 million members and was a ‘religious organization’ including perhaps 10,000-20,000 ministers. It had a brief, major political impact, especially in the mid-West. In Orient, a small village in Long Island, the KKK would meet regularly in Poquatuck Hall.
This KKK was anti-Black, anti-Eastern European immigrants, anti-Catholic, and anti-Jew. It had major annual marches in Washington and elsewhere. It was instrumental in electing a number of governors, senators, and thousands of local officials.
In the late 1920s it suffered a precipitous collapse because of scandal, internal dissension, fund-raising outrages, and a gruesome murder by one of its most prominent leaders.
As an historian and an American, I am greatly disturbed that aspects of this KKK are evident in today’s “Christian white nationalism.’
This pseudo-religious foundation is writ large in evangelical churches. Now the focus is on ‘white Christians,’ with a virulent campaign to restrict the ability to vote for those who do not share their zeal.
The initial KKK was comprised of ‘decent towns people’ who put on robes and threatened and lynched countless thousands of Blacks and some Jews. In the 1920s a renewed KKK zeal swept through major portions of the North. I see that we are experiencing a similar ‘religious-based’ plague today. I find this frightening.
Reagan dog whistled GOP embrace of violent racism against Black people, Trump shouted it loud and proud.
In between, Republican officials supported right wing domestic terrorists -from the Klan to militias to violent anti abortionists to armed take overs of federal lands and facilities - culminating in Sarah Palin's 'locked and loaded' ads.
Do our country a solid and report Greitens campaign violence ad on YouTube for promoting violence, terrorism, intimidation, and hate. It is a shame that a known abuser of women and children and morally corrupt as could be, could run for the US Senate. Click the drop down icon top right. It only takes a moment, and you will have contributed to a more just and compassionate society.
The very light sentences of these individuals back in 1964 is very disturbing. Now we have hate crime legislation at least. Others can comment on how well that is working out.
In the recent interview by HCR of President Biden, he made a comment directly apropos to what is reported here tonight. It is that hate never disappears, but it can be suppressed until conditions are such that it crawls out into the open to be spotted and recognized as such. Our last president fanned the flames of a radical fringe whose ideology is founded on hate. They have been enabled and encouraged to crawl out from under whatever rocks they were hiding under and show themselves for what they are. Since they are a part of human nature, however repugnant, they can't be eradicated, but can possibly be chased back under those rocks with sufficient effort. There can't be a place for their rhetoric in the public discourse. Others must call them out and make it clear that they don't have a place at the table when it comes to participation in our political process. They skirt the margins of criminality; the reason to pay any attention to them at all is to catch them across the line and then prosecute them when they are actually committing crimes.
I will never forget that event. When a sophomore in college in Wisconsin, I wanted to go to Mississippi to register voters. My parents said no. I was sickened by the horror of those murders. Thank you for making sure we do not forget. And now we have RINO hunting.
Dana Milbank, a columnist for the Washington Post wrote an Opinion titled Texas Republicans want to secede? Good riddance. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/20/texas-gop-platform-secession-theocracy/ Most of the commenters on the article basically repeated the Good Riddance or Let's build a wall and have Texas pay for it, etc. Here is what I replied to them:
Texas is rapidly becoming a purple/swing state. Whites are now in the minority. Yes, Texas is under minority rule at the moment. That could all change with the Nov 2022 election. There is always someone proposing secession. It isn't taken seriously by Texans. Supposedly the Civil War settled the notion that a state could secede. However, what you should know is that Texas is the only state that became a state by treaty. Included in the treaty is the option for Texas to divide itself in as many as five states! Think of Texas with ten senators! So be careful what you ask for. The far far right Republicans who participated in the Texas Republican Convention don't represent the majority of Texans nor even the majority of Republicans who are moderates. I've been a resident of Texas for over twenty years. My parents, grandparents and great grandparents are buried in the cemetery in Austin a mile from the Capitol building. Please do not judge Texas by its current governing minority. Remember it was Texan LBJ who gave us the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act! The minority rule is about to come to an end this year. The Trump Republicans are scared to death and so are giving their pliable mostly ignorant base all they want but that will not get them reelected! Mr. Milbank knows nothing about Texas, its politics and its people in my opinion. Like any state in the United States, there are things you like about a state and things you don't. I like living here. I'm an Independent and I along with the very decent fine people that make up the majority of Texans are going to make sure Governor Abbott along with his cronies are voted out of office in November. After all, Governor Abbott has not met his promise of eliminating rape in Texas as his response to the "heartless" cruelty of the no exceptions anti-abortion law. No Republican as candidates for local, state or federal office will ever get my vote.
The resurgence of violent threats, language, intimidation against those who disagree chills my blood. Rep. Kinzinger forecasts more violence. I dread to think he is right.
The similarities are so disturbing. Thank you Heather for tying all of this together. We must stay vigilant and call these fascists out. After the Texas state Republican convention and the ignorance and hate that spewed out of it, I am livid.
It pained me to click like tonight. Of course, the column is brilliant and worth reading. But the vileness of our human beings is too apparent for my stomach.
James Baldwin
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed
until it is faced"
___No Name in the Street
Nice juxtaposition, dear Heather. MAGA and the KKK. One is just the latest version of the other. And like the rats in an overcrowded box, the MAGA-ts are eating each other. Racism and sexism is attacking itself. No wonder. It can’t survive anyway. It’s an abomination.
The Missouri incident is very troubling. Thanks for laying it out. Beau of the Fifth Column has an interesting discussion of it, too. Did I say troubling. No, horrifying.. And yes, I remember the three who disappeared inMississippi in 1964, the year I began college.
The ad is disturbing, to say the least. I initially thought it was satire, but apparently it isn’t. Implicit in this edition of your letter is the idea that the much feared extralegal KKK has been resurrected in places like Missouri. How did we get here?
At 79 I wonder if it is good that I am old as this country is clearly wobbling on it’s axis. How sad that the stupidity of racism is still with us and prying us apart. How can a sane person believe they can own another person. If your sacred book says it is OK, then it is not sacred but baloney.
Few people remember the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. At its height it claimed over 5 million members and was a ‘religious organization’ including perhaps 10,000-20,000 ministers. It had a brief, major political impact, especially in the mid-West. In Orient, a small village in Long Island, the KKK would meet regularly in Poquatuck Hall.
This KKK was anti-Black, anti-Eastern European immigrants, anti-Catholic, and anti-Jew. It had major annual marches in Washington and elsewhere. It was instrumental in electing a number of governors, senators, and thousands of local officials.
In the late 1920s it suffered a precipitous collapse because of scandal, internal dissension, fund-raising outrages, and a gruesome murder by one of its most prominent leaders.
As an historian and an American, I am greatly disturbed that aspects of this KKK are evident in today’s “Christian white nationalism.’
This pseudo-religious foundation is writ large in evangelical churches. Now the focus is on ‘white Christians,’ with a virulent campaign to restrict the ability to vote for those who do not share their zeal.
The initial KKK was comprised of ‘decent towns people’ who put on robes and threatened and lynched countless thousands of Blacks and some Jews. In the 1920s a renewed KKK zeal swept through major portions of the North. I see that we are experiencing a similar ‘religious-based’ plague today. I find this frightening.
Red Hats are the new White Sheets.
Reagan dog whistled GOP embrace of violent racism against Black people, Trump shouted it loud and proud.
In between, Republican officials supported right wing domestic terrorists -from the Klan to militias to violent anti abortionists to armed take overs of federal lands and facilities - culminating in Sarah Palin's 'locked and loaded' ads.
“Blue by day
White by night.
Some of those who work forces,
Are the same that burn crosses”
Do our country a solid and report Greitens campaign violence ad on YouTube for promoting violence, terrorism, intimidation, and hate. It is a shame that a known abuser of women and children and morally corrupt as could be, could run for the US Senate. Click the drop down icon top right. It only takes a moment, and you will have contributed to a more just and compassionate society.
https://youtu.be/r156NzlHmJ4
The very light sentences of these individuals back in 1964 is very disturbing. Now we have hate crime legislation at least. Others can comment on how well that is working out.
I'm no expert, but how is that sort of "ad campaign" legal?