The Poisonous Racism Driving Violence in Ferguson and the Rest of America

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/poisonous-racism-driving-violence-ferguson-and-rest-america

The past week's unfolding tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, with its militarized and overwhelmingly white police force confronting angry and hopeless African-Americans, is not a story unique to that place or this moment. Many cities and towns in this country confront the same problems of poverty, alienation and inequality as metropolitan St. Louis -- or even worse.

But beneath the familiar narrative, there is a deeper history that reflects the unfinished agenda of race relations -- and the persistence of poisonous prejudice that has never been fully cleansed from the American mainstream.

For decades, Missouri has spawned or attracted many of the nation's most virulent racists, including neo-Nazis and the remnants of the once-powerful Ku Klux Klan. Associated with violent criminality and crackpot religious extremism, these fringe groups could never wield much influence in the post-civil rights era. Beyond those marginalized outfits, however, exists another white supremacist group whose leaders have long enjoyed the patronage of right-wing Republican politicians.

The Council of Conservative Citizens, headquartered in St. Louis, is a living legacy of Southern "white resistance" to desegregation, with historical roots in the so-called citizens councils that sprang up during the 1950s as a "respectable" adjunct to the Klan. Its website currently proclaims that the CCC is "the only serious nationwide activist group that sticks up for white rights!" What that means, more specifically, is promoting hatred of blacks, Jews, gays and lesbians, and Latino immigrants while extolling the virtues of the "Southern way of life," the Confederacy and even slavery.

[bonniebgood]

1. Don't leave out the republican crolled MSM. It's ok for media in Iraq but

not in MO. Main Street Media promotes these hatred groups. I read the list of
companies that we should boycott. MSM should be number one on the list. Thank God I
cut cable. I feel i have dumped an addiction. Paying cable is worst than being on drugs or smoking.

[certainot]

3. republican radio leads the way. it's KKK-lite radio. if it's okay to scream it all day

from 1200 of the loudest radio stations in the state and 25-40% of them get to put their state funded college and pro sports team logos on it, what's wrong with it?

all rw stations spend considerable time at excusing it and pushing that think tank generated social bullshit and i'll bet a shitload of cops listen to it while it worships their brutality and corruption (it does).

some those stations might be ideal places to picket

[ReRe]

5. ^^^^^^^

x 1000!

[fasttense]

2. There is an element of class-ism in this too that everyone is ignoring.

Do you think if these people were rich and wealthy that the courts and police would be treating them with such obvious hatred? You don't see too often the uber rich like Oprah, Rice, and Thomas being treated like this. The racists only get away with it because these people are middle class or poor.

See in America, you only get justice if you can afford it.

[ReRe]

4. K&R

Why is this thread not going anywhere? I knew there were racist orgs along the lines of the KKK (which the Southern Poverty Law Center keeps track of), but I hadn't heard of the CCC. This is very pertinent to what is going on in Ferguson, MO. If people will click on that link above, they will run across names such as John Ashcroft, Trent Lott, Rush Limbaugh and their relation to Missouri.
It's not a very long article, reads fast. Thanks for linking it, xchron.