General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen has BLACK protest EVER been deemed appropriate?
Id say
in America?
NEVER.
Jelani Cobb Wrote the following piece:
From Louis Armstrong to the N.F.L.: Ungrateful as the New Uppity
By Jelani Cobb
September 24, 2017
EXCERPT:
Sixty years ago, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, became a flash point in the nascent civil-rights movement when Governor Orval Faubus refused to abide by the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Faubus famously deployed the states National Guard to prevent nine African-American students from attending classes at the high school. In the midst of the crisis, a high-school journalist interviewing Louis Armstrong about an upcoming tour asked the musician about his thoughts on the situation, prompting Armstrong to refer to the Arkansas governor as several varieties of motherfucker. (In the interest of finding a printable quote, his label for Faubus was changed to ignorant plowboy.) Armstrong, who was scheduled to perform in the Soviet Union as a cultural ambassador on behalf of the State Department, cancelled the toura display of dissent that earned him the scorn and contempt of legions of whites, shocked by the trumpeters apparent lack of patriotism. As the historian Penny Von Eschen notes in Satchmo Blows Up the World, a history of the American usage of black culture as a tool of the Cold War, students at the University of Arkansas accused Armstrong of creating an issue where there was none, and joined the procession of groups cancelling Armstrongs scheduled concerts.
The free-range lunacy of Donald Trumps speech on Friday night in Alabama, where he referred to Colin Kaepernickand other N.F.L. players who silently protest police brutalityas a son of a bitch, and of the subsequent Twitter tantrums in which the President, like a truculent six-year-old, disinvited the Golden State Warriors from a White House visit, illustrates that the passage of six decades has not dimmed this dynamic confronted by Armstrong, or by any prominent black person tasked with the entertainment of millions of white ones. There again is the presence of outrage for events that should shock the conscience, and the reality of people who sincerely believe, or who have at least convincingly lied to themselves, that dissenters are creating an issue where there is none. Kaepernick began his silent, kneeling protest at the beginning of last season, not as an assault against the United States military or the flag but as a dissent against a system that has, with a great degree of consistency, failed to hold accountable police who kill unarmed citizens. Since he did this, forty-one unarmed individuals have been fatally shot by police in the United States, twelve of them African-American, according to a database maintained by the Washington Post. The city of St. Louis recently witnessed days of protests after the acquittal of Jason Stockley, the former officer who, while still working for the citys police force, fatally shot Anthony Smith, a twenty-four-year-old* African-American motorist who had led officers on a chase. Stockley emerged from his vehicle, having declared that he would kill the motherfucker, then proceeded to fire five rounds into the car. Later, a firearm was found on the seat of Smiths car, but the weapon bore only Stockleys DNA. The issue is not imaginary.
Yet the belief endures, from Armstrongs time and before, that visible, affluent African-American entertainers are obliged to adopt a pose of ceaseless gratitudeappreciation for the waiver that spared them the low status of so many others of their kind. Stevie Wonder began a performance in Central Park last night by taking a knee, prompting Congressman Joe Walsh to tweet that Wonder was another ungrateful black multi-millionaire. Ungrateful is the new uppity. Trumps supporters, by a twenty-four-point margin, agree with the idea that most Americans have not got as much as they deservethough they overwhelmingly withhold the right to that sentiment from African-Americans. Thus, the wonder is not the unhinged behavior of this weekend but rather that it took Trump so long to exploit a target as rich in potential racial resentment as wealthy black athletes who have the temerity to believe in the First Amendment.
Its impossible not to be struck by Trumps selective patriotism. It drives him to curse at black football players but leaves him struggling to create false equivalence between Nazis and anti-Fascists in Charlottesville. It inspires a barely containable contempt for Muslims and immigrants but leaves him mute in the face of Russian election intervention. He cannot tolerate the dissent against literal flag-waving but screams indignation at the thought of removing monuments to the Confederacy, which attempted to revoke the authority symbolized by that same flag. He is the vector of the racial id of the class of Americans who sent death threats to Louis Armstrong, the people who necessitated the presence of a newly federalized National Guard to defend black students seeking to integrate a public school. He contains multitudesall of them dangerously ignorant.''
Read More:https://3chicspolitico.com/2017/09/27/wednesday-open-thread-when-has-black-protest-ever-been-deemed-appropriate/
Gothmog
(144,890 posts)The deplorables truly believe that non-white citizens are not supposed to protest
Theses are the people we need to beg to vote for us in 2018/2020? I think not.
Our base
Women and especially black women. We are losing them while people want to cater to deplorables. No thanks
Democrats take them for granted: Black women call out party leaders on post-election strategy
In the letter, the authors say that black women have consistently supported the party, but have been ignored by Democratic leaders who seemed to be more focused on winning back white voters who rejected Hillary Clinton in November.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/06/01/black-women-and-the-dnc/?utm_term=.4c36f61053fd
Bettie
(16,058 posts)protests are only for white citizens who believe as they do.
But, there are definitely never black protests that are OK for these idiots.
Gothmog
(144,890 posts)Docreed2003
(16,847 posts)malaise
(268,668 posts)when there's a government to be overthrown
mythology
(9,527 posts)Once the rest of society caught up, the Civil Rights movement was a universal good, once the rest of society caught up, Harriet Tubman and the rest of those working to end slavery were deemed to be heroes.
Unfortunately our society (well white society - of which I am) has long been slow to accept the experience and the agency of minorities, be they minorities of color/race, gender, sexual orientation/identity etc. So we tend to view the protests of those groups as suspect until we come to grips with the actual point of them. It's largely outside the scope of our world view to understand that any given traffic stop might end up with being killed or beaten. That a woman might have cause to fear a seemingly "nice" guy or being cat-called. It's an inability to effectively put ourselves in somebody else's shoes.
Response to sheshe2 (Original post)
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Stinky The Clown
(67,757 posts)elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)HerbChestnut
(3,649 posts)I remember seeing a poll recently, taken during the Civil Rights era, where a majority of people viewed black protestors as harming their cause. I would post a link to it, but I can't remember who the pollster was.
Metatron
(1,258 posts)K&R