I guess it is a stupid way to get your idea across... and it does tend to alienate people.

[MADem]

179. I'll have to tell James Meredith he's dead--I'm quite sure he'll be very shocked at the news.

James Meredith is alive and as well as he can be at his age, and living in Jackson, MS. He was shot but he was not killed.

Further, Rosa Parks sat her ass down on that bus in 1955. Meredith was shot in in 1966--eleven long years later. As I'm sure you're figuring out, he lived.

More to the point, Sidney Street burned his flag (which was shy a few stars--it had only forty eight, and thus was not appropriate for display) on a street corner in Brooklyn, NY. He was not part of an organized march, he wasn't facing down any cops or dogs or things of that nature, he was simply an understandably pissed off vet who had heard a news report eleven long years AFTER Rosa Parks stayed in her seat, and was personally questioning what the hell he fought for in WW2. His "demonstration" was one of personal disgust. He was arrested because a cop came along.

But thanks for making my point, albeit quite unintentionally.

I really can't fathom how you don't understand my statement, even after I provided a link in amplification, frankly. But see, that's part of the problem. You're going on about "class" and that's not the issue. Not in the SLIGHTEST. The Civil Rights movement, just so you know, was not a "class war"--it was a struggle for basic, "civil" rights. Black people way wealthier than most of the people posting on this board participated in those marches, along with people who made a middle class wage, and people who were working minimum wage jobs. They were joined by others who agreed that segregation on the basis of RACE (race, not class, not economic status) was wrong.

It wasn't about economic parity--that's not what Rosa or the lunch counter kids were all about. And it most certainly WAS about ethnicity--good grief, I still cannot believe you made that comment! The poorest white man could have a grilled cheese at that damn lunch counter. A drunken broke white woman with a dime could ride in the front of that bus. The wealthiest black woman couldn't get a glass of water at that counter, and a rich black man's dime bought him a seat at the back of the bus--IF the white people hadn't taken them first.

Again, it was ALL about "ethnicity." Those "human beings" you see were being discriminated against not for their "class," but for their race. And it was about very basic "civil" rights, things that way too many of us seem to have NOT been taught in school. It was about not having to hold in your piss because there was no "colored" restroom, it was about having to stay thirsty because, even though the "white" water fountain was working just fine, the "colored" one was broken, it was about being able to go buy a meal at a restaurant without having to "go around the back," it was about not having to climb the stairway to heaven to the balcony in the movie theater because there couldn't be any mixing, now. It was about segregation, the right to cast a vote without being threatened, bullied and intimidated, the right to equal access to public facilities--not "class."

I think I was very clear. White people have a disturbing tendency to use "The Black Experience" as a way to justify their conduct. You had to go from 1955 to 1966 to try (and fail) to make a point. This thread is just the latest iteration of that "Jannisarian" tendency of which I spoke in the link I provided (if you had read the link you would understand what I am saying).

I still would like to see photos of all these hoardes of black people you insist were burning flags. The way you have been talking at several points throughout this thread, this was a commonplace event at the forefront of most civil rights demonstrations and I certainly would like to see the evidence of this, because it's news to me.

And all you can come up with is one guy, inaccurate details, and (of course, since there was no massive "demonstration&quot no picture? How deep a google was that?

Sorry. I cannot buy your argument, because you aren't backing it up with any facts.