'They're bringing Jim Crow from DC to all across the country... The bet is that people will be numb or will be afraid.'

[bigtree]

Senior opinion writer and columnist for the Boston Globe,Kim Atkins on Deadline White House today:


Kim, you're in DC as you alluded to. Just tell us what that's like. How has it changed? What can you see?

"Well, I was felt quite safe in the city before all of this. But again, crime is not the point. Whether there or not there was crime in DC, it was dropping precipitously. Uh so that's one thing.

But I find it heartbreaking that I walk and see Humvees and armed guardsmen on the streets of Washington DC when I'm going about my errands and trying to live uh daytoday seeing children going back to school while this is happening.

It is gut-wrenching to see videos of mostly black and brown people being detained on the street in broad daylight by masked agents and taken away to who knows where as bystanders videotape it and ask these people what their names are because otherwise their families might not even know where they are.

And that's a big part of this too that we cannot ignore. Donald Trump is attacking cities with large black and brown populations, with a lot of immigrants, and with black mayors, all three, DC, Chicago, and Los Angeles. I do not think that that is by accident.

That has been part of his entire political message that these cities are out of control. They're overrun... he got rid of the dog whistle a long time ago and is just proudly stating that outright, especially be and this force being all but led by ICE who is led by someone who keeps putting white nationalists uh imagery on the on their social media sites tells you exactly what this is.

So, as a black woman living in DC right now, a place that I've been almost 19 years, uh, and that I've grown to love, it is absolutely heartbreaking and it is something that should shock every American who witnesses it.

...

We cannot believe, listen, we we do a lot of evaluations and and comparisons to other places, right? places where autocracy has marched in sort of slowly and away, places like Turkey, but we don't talk enough about what history right here in the United States of America has shown us.

What I am seeing happening in DC right now is Jim Crow.

It is the force the force implementation of the kind of segregation attack, xenophobia, that we are seeing against black and brown bodies who dared to live freely in a city, let alone a city that is the nation's capital to live, to be to be free, to have drum circles happening and and to have a genuine diverse place.

And the president did not like walking here in the time that he was actually living here and not in Bedminster or Mara Lago. He did not like seeing that. He did not like the Black Lives Matter Plaza. So, what's the first thing he did? He bullied Mayor Bowser into removing it.

He did not like that right at his front door. The same way that he left New York City because he couldn't stand the fact that uh you know things like the exonerated five being exonerated actually happened there. He has been this way from the beginning.

So don't think that that is not part of the purpose of this. It's the autocracy too, but the cities that he's targeting, he's doing it on purpose. And either he believes that there's enough of his base who are clamoring for that or it's just something that he genuinely believes.

But this is a roll back. This is like reconstruction or or the the destruction of reconstruction all over again. This is Jim Crow happening. And it's reminding me that uh DC is not uh above the Mason Dixon line. It is a part of the South, but they're bringing Jim Crow all across the country and Chicago's next apparently. The bet is that people are numb or will be numb or will be afraid.

Yeah, look, the tyrants govern through fear. They govern by assuming that people will not stand up for each other because they would rather not call attention to themselves. Dictators take their power from the acquiescence of not the bad people but the good people. The people who know that what is happening is wrong but yet don't speak out.

And so it is the obligation of all of us as citizens, whether we fear for ourselves or we fear for our neighbors or we fear for our communities. It's our all of our obligations to take a step back, not a step uh take a step forward, not a step back.

When the big law firms refuse to do the right thing, it's the job of all lawyers to say we will we will we will double down and do more. When when when large institutions crumble in fear out of Donald Trump, the the out of the ash of that, we all need to stand up and do more.

I do want to add one thing though that JB Pritsker in the first clip you showed at the top of this hour got it 100% right. Donald Trump is sending the military to these blue cities because he wants to undermine free and fair elections in 2026.

He is normalizing the idea that there will be members of the military on the streets in blue cities exactly as was said cities where there are large numbers of black voters. And he is doing it because he believes that his way forward is to prevent those folks from voting.

And what was once literacy tests, what was once guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar, what then became more respectable is uh various laws that made it harder to register to vote, made it harder for people to find their polling place, for black voters to have to wait in hours long lines. to say that he the counting and the tabulation of voters voting and to deploy the military in the cities that he thinks will make the difference between Democratic and Republican victory.

[Lovie777]

1. Nope..........

[intheflow]

4. What do you see as wrong with the OP?

[electric_blue68]

2. Worried about my fellow Black & Brown NYC'rs if the NG arrives here....

I live in a Hispanic nabe.

I've read about the old Jim/Jane Crow tactics. Then modern day revoking a major oversight portion of the VRA. Plus tactics you've cited

And for every Dem, Dem-leaning Independents of any color, sex, gender (including the married name monkey wrench,) etc...
I hope independent organizations with *White Hat computer whizs might be able to follow tabular flips, etc this Nov!

*they are former Black Hat [yeah, I know] computer hackers who serious skills have now been used for good.

[FirstLight]

3. I agree about people not taking action...

Usually that would be true... But here's my take:

The tanking economy/oligarchy has weakened the workforce, and cuts to programs on top on inflation and tarrifs are driving people into desperation - That's never been a good thing for kings & dictators.

I keep thinking of the French Revolution..historians love to remind us people were freaking out ofer bread of all things geez! *clutches pearls*

If everyone is losing their job or on shaky ground...what's gonna keep them from walking out of that job and into the street?
If people are losing their hmes and desperate for food, they will get pretty rowdy.

There's a big *something* that is gonna push us to the brink and it's not far away. People ith nothing left to lose will fight like you've never seen before.
Unfortunately, it will take more damage for the majority of folks to get shook enough to unplug from the matrix and join the rebellion. But I think there's a reason this behemoth of government/oligarchy/corporate machine needs to get broken even more - because we have ti dismantle a LOT before we can put it back together better.

So, I'm bracing for a bad turn and some rough times... but I also think we as a whole will finally get it right.
Huge collective devastation tends to bring people together... I am hoping to see more of that than the other probability of civil war (though we might have a bit of that too, if you look at the polarization of beliefs)

Sorry to ramble off when this was also about Jim Crow etc... I just wanted to address the apathy issue...