People Power

August 10, 2008 8:45 AM

It was a mass protest held outside the halls of Washington. Led, or at least it was supposed to be, by Martin Luther King Jr. (before he was assassinated) it was going to show the world the glaring divide that existed between the Rich and the Poor of America. Black, White, Red, Yellow--they all gathered from all over the US, to stay together for six weeks, outside the Capitol, and inform the public about what life in America could sometimes mean, if you were not considered economically, socially or racially acceptable. Unfortunately, the problem still persists, even today.
posted by hadjiboy (8 comments total)

get a job!
posted by billybobtoo at 9:44 AM on August 10, 2008

billybobtoo--

do you know how many white people no longer have jobs or how many will be unable to get jobs in the immediate future? your quick and dumb remark reflects poorly on you..tell us about the wonderful job you have, about your life, your marriage, your future, and so on in what has become
a guestionable future for so many Americans.

Remember Pearl harbor and WWII? we fought Hitler's racism, right? well American armed serviecs were segregated when we did so. That was not very long ago as time goes.
posted by Postroad at 9:52 AM on August 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Unfortunately, the problem still persists, even is even worse today.
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:58 AM on August 10, 2008

Remember Pearl harbor and WWII? we fought Hitler's racism, right?

That is really not why anyone fought Hitler.
posted by atrazine at 10:37 AM on August 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

If one wants to be "technical," we fought Hitler simply because after Pearl harbor Hitler declared war on the US--we did not declare war on him. But we later did refer often to his racist ideology, much as, to update things, Bush and Gang refers lately to bring democracy to Iraq.
posted by Postroad at 11:01 AM on August 10, 2008

The destruction of the black family is systematic and institutional. All the more vexing is there is no way to prove you are being oppressed since there is no obvious origin to where the oppression comes from. Eveything is quietly understood only spoken in private. The black male is seen as a paraiah and his exclusion is a key part in stopping the proliferation of the black race and cultural prominence in America.

It is quietly understood that "we don't hire blacks here". The places where blacks are hired mostly prefer women since they are less of a threat to the patriarchal hiearchy. Brother mouzone joked , " I'm the most dangerous man in America". His assistant asked why, he answered, "I'm a nigga with a library card". An aphorism for one of the lynchpins of white supremacy. Fear of the black mind, fear of the black cock, fetishized rapists. No stability and no incentive.

An assertive black man is an aggressive black man constantly caught between his career and how he is perceived. Sometimes not knowing where one ends and the other begins. Racism is like, you know when you are the subject of a practical joke and everyone is in on it, and everything happens to your frustration and when you protest or say "something is going on here" , everyone says they don't know what you are talking about? Yeah it feels like that, except its life long.

All stemming from an uncanny hatred of all things black as inferior, a waste and wasteful. One woman said that she and a friend quickly sampled the "white only" water fountain just to see what was so good about it, maybe it had some kool-aide, nah, baby that was some fuckin' Haterade on those fountains.

oh and billybobtoo? Kindly eat a dick, Sir
posted by Student of Man at 12:19 PM on August 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

[Bizarreness removed. Try harder or stay out of the thread; lazy fight-starting isn't gonna cut it.]
posted by cortex at 3:35 PM on August 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

hadjiboy gave the OP the best possible subject line I can think of. For those not exposed to it, "people power" is a term in the nonviolence community taken from the eponymous revolution in the Philippines in the 80s which refers to the ability of a small, committed group of persons to bring about change in a more effective way than state power (namely, the violent power with which we're all familiar: military force, police power and threat power). People power is itself derived from "person power" (cf. Michael Nagler), which is a self-recognition of the tremendous influence one gains when one is able to reject the coercion of threat power by others. King and his supporters faced the dogs and the firehoses and the bombings because, in the Civil Rights Movement, they found a cause for which they were willing to die. Once they acknowledged that worst possible outcome, they were no longer afraid of it. Certainly it compelled King to go as far as he did in the face of his inevitable death and left us such an important legacy.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:09 PM on August 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]