The Rude Pundit: Alabama Goddam

[babylonsister]

http://rudepundit.blogspot.ca/2017/12/alabama-goddam.html
The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
12/11/2017
Alabama Goddam


In Birmingham, Alabama, Kelly Ingram Park is filled with statues. It's quite a stunning place, if you've never been. Along with large statues of Martin Luther King and other civil rights icons, there's one of four girls, representing the four who were killed in the 1963 bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church, which is right there at the northwest corner of the park.

Other statues are even more moving. A water cannon is pointed at two cowering teenagers, as a reminder of how the police and authorities, under the leadership of Bull Connor, had no problem hurting kids. And there's this one:


Obviously, it represents the dogs that were used to intimidate and attack civil rights protesters. You can walk between them, and it's an eerie feeling, even in stillness, to do so.

Alabama's legacy is one of abject hatred of non-white people. And, despite the public displays that recognize that legacy, the hatred continues to this day. We can see it in the repugnant poverty that many African Americans are forced to live in all over Alabama, poverty that has led to third-world conditions and diseases. We see it in voter i.d. laws that are targeting black and Hispanic Alabamians who have less access to such i.d.'s or the transportation and funds needed to get one.

Unless some small miracle happens, Alabama, a mostly white, mostly Republican state, will elect Roy Moore, a man who, disgusting, disqualifying, and illegal sexual proclivities aside, believes that life was more civilized during the time of slavery, a man who believes that the country would be better off if the amendments to the Constitution ended at the Bill of Rights, thus leaving out the end of slavery, as well as women's right to vote and, ironically, the election of senators by popular vote. He attacks LGBT people with regularity, calling for homosexuality to be illegal and to reverse same sex marriage and rules allowing gays to serve in the military. Hell, his positions on his campaign website are barely as complex as a bumper sticker on some jerk's car. And he has broken his oath of office multiple times already.

Alabama believes, like many states in the South before it, that it has gotten past its horrific heritage, from slavery to lynchings and Jim Crow. But it hasn't. It's just come up with quieter ways to decimate and hinder the non-white population. Even though there are lots of good people there of all races, of all economic classes, Alabama's organizing principle is still oppression of those who would challenge a straight, white, male power structure. It is more important to Alabamians to uphold that than it is to elect an accused child molester. Electing Doug Jones, the Democrat, would be a way of saying that Alabama is ready to move beyond the past. But it most definitely is not.

I'd say that Alabama needs to reflect. I'd say that Alabama needs to evolve. But it won't until demographic changes wreck that white hegemony. Until then, Alabama is a lost state, a Flying Dutchman of our racist past, damned to remind us again and again of who we really are as a country, demanding all of us to do better than Alabama.

[smirkymonkey]

1. K&R

I still can't believe this. I can't believe that Roy Moore still has this much support after everything. What a sick, sick state.

[BamaRefugee]

2. As a born and bred Son of Birmingham I disagree with the abject hatred of non-white people

Sure, there’s a hard core baseline of the kind of folks who love Trump who also love hating people who are different than them. Abject hatred indeed, although I believe it’s to cover fear that they may not actually be superior to others.
But there’s an upper echelon of folks who really are fair minded and compassionate, who really don’t hate anyone. Trust me, they’re out there, and it’s all the more meaningful because they maintain that attitude in a place where they’re considered to be threatening oddballs for it.
Then there’s that vast middle group, 60% I’d say, who day to day don’t actively radiate hate, who just go along in a drowsy daze of “knowing what’s right” UNLESS SOMEONE DOESN’T KNOW THEIR PLACE. GETS UPPITY. DOESNT DO THE VERY SUBTLE BUT STILL EXPECTED *BOWED HEAD* and *SHUFFLIN’ ALONG*. LETS LOOSE WITH THE EBONICS...then they get as riled up as the Trump lovers..for a while..but they much prefer their drowsy genteel haze.
The thing that makes the vast majority all draw together is when someone puts them under the microscope or forces them to look at themselves in the mirror. Then that centuries old Alabama pride and stubbornness and hard headed world view comes out full force and they throw George Wallace or Bull Connor or ROY MOORE against the world.
Alabama is a wonderful place. To be FROM.
And as long as you’re white, with a good paying job, and no real feelings about the wellbeing of others, you can live like a King down there.
Don’t nobody need no *evolve* tomfoolery.

[ffr]

3. I the short term a really great idea would be to create Disneyland bastions and welcome in haters

from all over the nation. Get them to establish residency there and actually make communities that are wonderful places for them to live, tailored in with activities that would make it a mecca for others like them to come see.

With the haters all concentrated in one region, they'd have a supermajority in their state and everything for them would be seemingly great. Only in overall federal elections, with all of them concentrated in one state, with little electoral significance, America's policies wouldn't be dragged down with them every 4 years.

[BamaRefugee]

4. Great idea. And we'd have control over all of the roads, railways and ships...

going in and out of their state. Sometimes, just for giggles, we could put them on a starvation diet, just to keep them "keen". like my Granddaddy used to do with his huntin' dawgs before a day out for some quail and pheasant

[ffr]

5. Err, I don't know about that. Keep them happy. A happy hater is one that has something to lose

And a happy hater tells all the haters he knows in other states where Liberals live how wonderful he/she has it in the hater's bastion.

More would move their to raise their families in complete harmony. What could be better!

[RainCaster]

6. What a fine place to go if you are from Idaho

Mmmmmnmmnnmnnmnn mmmmmnmmnnmnnmnn mmmmmnmmnnmnnmnn.

[struggle4progress]

7. Nina Simone