Lest we forget why Southern racism is so heinous...Strange Fruit

[Lionessa]

Run time: 03:32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktsU01lfzLU   Posted on YouTube: May 28, 2007 By YouTube Member: lpjfrance Views on YouTube: 76824   Posted on DU: October 04, 2011 By DU Member: Lionessa Views on DU: 4411

 
Odd thing just happened. My daughter, raised in whitey tighty Idaho, 26 yo and getting her masters in Social Work at BSU, called to get clarity on something before she opened her mouth since she knows I was raised in the South. They had a discussion today regarding the Rick Perry issue as well as an issue across the street from BSU.

At a bar across from campus, they hung a noose late last week to say, "hang the Georgia team" who they played over the weekend. Though it was bothersome to start with, it is now an issue because the owner intends on leaving it up.

My daughter couldn't understand all the fuss about either issue.

I asked her to watch this video and then tell me if she still thought a noose was okay and that Southern racism was something that should be emulated anywhere and whether she really thought that it was a non-issue.

What do you think? Did I choose well enough, will she get it?

[Lionessa]

1. Yep, she gets it. Now she can't stop crying.

[MADem]

2. You can find racism from Alaska to Maine, and points beyond and between

The south takes the heat, because they own the history, but that shit can pop up anywhere and everywhere.

In my own state, years ago, some fucking white idiot tried to stab a black guy (and not just any black guy, this guy had a resume a mile long, unlike his attacker) with whom he disagreed on the Beantown city hall steps...with an AMERICAN FLAG. The victim was wounded as a consequence of an attack by a bunch of numbnuts, but survived. The idiot with the flag? He MISSED.

How humiliating for the rest of us, to see this kind of ugliness. But it does crop up everywhere.



The issue? Busing. Backstory here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Landsmark

[Lionessa]

5. I'm sorry but what you're discussing is nothing compared to the constant, and regular, and

publicly prideful horrors that were put upon Southern blacks. Yes, bigotry, racism, and violence therein can happen anywhere. But no, it does not in anyway change the fact that the South has the longest and bloodiest and most heinous of racial reputations for a reason.

Did you watch the video? I think not.

[MADem]

13. Ah, so racism that is "not as bad" is "not as important?"

Come on. It's not a matter of degree. No one is suggesting that the history of the south is anything but brutal and ugly when it came to slavery and racism. You'd have to be raised under a rock to think otherwise.

That said, if you think that this racism business was confined to JUST the south, think again. It's everywhere. You should have lived through the ugly days of busing in Boston. It was HORRIBLE. Louise Day (fucking) Hicks, hate-monger. She'd make your skin crawl. In the latter half of the 20th Century she fomented hate, AFTER we had a working Civil Rights Act.

I did watch the video. Nina Simone is talented, but that song BELONGS to Billie Holliday and no one else. Yes, the images are disturbing. What do you want me to say? I know my history.

The south has a history of racism, but racism happens everywhere when people don't speak up and say "Cut that shit out."

I rather doubt that the migration of many northern blacks back to the southern "homeland" in this new century is the consequence of an expectation that they'll be treated poorly. Morgan Freeman lives in Mississippi and loves it. You need to rethink the old paradigms. Start by reading this article, it's INSTRUCTIVE: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/02/in_a_reversal_more_blacks_movi.html

[Lionessa]

15. Or raised in Idaho apparently. The South owns our country's vilest racism, period.

The song referenced is specifically southern. I'm glad you're offended. If you live in the South, I hope you'll be a loud voice against the current racist elements rather than trying to convince this southern gal to ignore the uniquely heinous history of her childhood region.

[MADem]

16. Well, I have to say that your comment is both discriminatory ... and terribly RACIST.

They aren't hanging people in Dixie anymore. You also don't have a clear history of slavery in this nation, apparently. A lot of the people who did the selling and made the obscene profits on human suffering came from across the pond.

You obviously haven't been home in a while. You also didn't read the article at the link.

The song referenced belongs to Billie Holliday. Do you even know who she is?

I give up. You're on a Hate Whitey trip, for some reason.

:eyes:

[Lionessa]

17. I'll agree it's region-ist, but it isn't racist. I feel fine being honest about my childhood region

[MADem]

18. You aren't familiar with the south of today, even if you lived there as a child.

Try reading that article.

[Lionessa]

19. This entire thread including the video is about history.

[MADem]

20. Well, then why are you crabbing about the present-day south?

Like I said....I give up.

[Lionessa]

21. I haven't and I didn't. You just exaggerated what I said to fit what you wanted to argue about.

[MADem]

22. No, I haven't. nt

[baldguy]

25. Lynchings with black victims 1882 to 1968

http://theomahaproject.org/module_display.php?mod_id=78&review=yes

[Lionessa]

29. Exactly. Thank you for making my point so colorfully. The south deserves its rep and judging

by the seemingly most vocal teabaggers, it hasn't shed it rep as early or as completely as some might wish to pretend.

[MADem]

36. Wow, what hate you hold, for people who had nothing to do with these crimes! mt

[MADem]

35. Gee, look at TX, which is not part of "Dixie."

Seems like the further WEST you go, the worse it gets, until it suddenly gets better.

But the bottom line is this--one is one too many.

It is childish and counterproductive to live in the past. It is important to know history, but to lay blame upon a region, and by inference the people in it--people who never threw a noose over a tree limb-- for the behaviors of people who lived in the same region a century before is just illogical thinking--to put it as kindly as I can manage.

Do we blame a baby born in Germany this year for the actions of Hitler? How about if that baby is born at Ramstein Military Medical Facility?

The whole construct is absurd.

[provis99]

3. I wish I could get these Hoosiers to quit flying the Confederate flag.

I find the flag just as revolting as hanging a noose. I grew up in Mississippi, and I knew damn well it wasn't about "heritage" or "culture", it was about white supremacy. I'm fed up with these people in Indiana flying the damn thing all over the place. Maybe if I could get a video pointing out how many of their Hoosier ancestors were killed in war by people flying that damned flag, they'd think twice about flying it.

That bar owner is an obvious racist; he deserves negative attention.

[Jamastiene]

4. I got news for you.

It's not "southern" racism if some asshole in the north is doing it. How is it that the south gets blamed even when someone up north is committing the racist act? That's bullshit. :thumbsdown:

Yes, the noose is plain flat out wrong, but what happens in Idaho is NOT "southern" racism.

[Lionessa]

7. Well that entirely inane. If it weren't for the heinous acts of primarily the South

nooses would not be connected to lynchings now would they? DUH!

[Jamastiene]

9. I still don't see how you can blame the south for what happened up north.

It's nonsense.

[Lionessa]

12. I didn't blame, the current Southern reference is toward Perry's shooting ranch,

both that insensitivity and the cause for the racial connection to the noose are rooted in Southern racism which has been dramatically more heinous than racism elsewhere in the USA.

[MADem]

14. My point, exactly. NT

[The Second Stone]

6. I hope she gets the youtube on a laptop and plays it

in front of that bar until they take the noose down and issue an apology.

[Lionessa]

8. Good point, I'll recommend it.

[Lionessa]

I furthered your idea by suggesting an entire group do your suggestion

Run time: 03:32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktsU01lfzLU   Posted on YouTube: May 28, 2007 By YouTube Member: lpjfrance Views on YouTube: 76824   Posted on DU: October 04, 2011 By DU Member: Lionessa Views on DU: 4411

 
simultaneously and continuously as loud as they can.

[NOLALady]

10. Whenever I see those pictures,

I can't help but feel so sorry for the spectators. Especially the ones who took their children to witness the atrocities committed on their fellow human beings.

[Lionessa]

11. I know, I've never understood the idea of spectating horrors like lynchings, hangings or guillotines

[DrDan]

23. Southern racism - didn't know their were different types based on region

a hearty UNREC

[Lionessa]

32. South's reputation/history of regular and public and disgusting lynchings and burnings

is based fully in fact and not found elsewhere in the US to anywhere near the same degree. See this map provided by a poster above.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=621505&mesg_id=621575

[MADem]

Why are the worst lynchings outside of "Dixie" then?

Run time: 03:32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktsU01lfzLU   Posted on YouTube: May 28, 2007 By YouTube Member: lpjfrance Views on YouTube: 76824   Posted on DU: October 06, 2011 By DU Member: MADem Views on DU: 4411

 
Kinda fucks your argument.

[MADem]

38. Why are the worst lynchings outside of "Dixie" then?

Kinda fucks your argument.

[intaglio]

24. Tears are needed, it is good,

Good that your daughter let them come and a shame that people awareness need the words and images you granted her

[TNDemo]

26. I'm reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

and how in the 1950s in Baltimore she had to be in a colored section of the hospital (Johns Hopkins), her blood samples had to be labeled colored, anything that might touch her had to be labeled colored so the white people would not get contaminated, etc. And I remember around this time in Los Angeles how vilified Nat King Cole was for buying a house in a white neighborhood and how painful that was. Not to mention a couple of decades ago a black guy in NYC got a broom handle run up his butt simply because he was black. Or all the busing riots in NYC, Detroit, Boston, etc. Racism is everywhere. People always want a region or a section of the population to point at as inferior to them.

[Lionessa]

31. Oh, pulleeeze! Check out the post above with the map.

Here's a direct link http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=621505&mesg_id=621575

Sorry but the south deserves what I've typed, it was the MOST heinous for the longest time. Not individual incidents and segregation, but socially accepted slaughter of individuals simply because of the skin color. Lynchings didn't happen any where near to the same degree anywhere else in the US.

[TNDemo]

33. Thank you SO much for deeming us worthy to speak to.

We know we in this geographic region (who weren't even alive when this stuff was happening and never happened anywhere near us) are so inferior to you.

Also thank you for making my point. I'm not taking blame for lynchings because me or my family never had anything to do with any of it and I was always raised that racism was wrong.

You have also demonstrated that bigotry is alive and well today. Definition of a bigot: "A person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially one who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance." I suppose you would condone lynching southern people?

[MADem]

37. By the OP's logic, ELTON JOHN should be held responsible for lynchings in Georgia!!

After all, he owns a luxury penthouse in Hotlanta!!!

Line up all those Cubans who boated in from Havana to Miami, too--they're "responsible" for the lynchings in Florida!

I have a ton of Jamaican friends who live in Houston TX....oooooh, they're in trouble! Never mind that they emigrated in the seventies, they're on the hook for the murder and mayhem in Texas!

Bigotry, and a lack of logical thought, are truly alive and well. It's mind-boggling!

[NOLALady]

27. Strange Fruit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit



"Barney Josephson recognized the power of the song and insisted that Holiday close all her shows with it. When she was ready to begin it, waiters stopped serving, the lights in the club were turned off, and a single pin spotlight illuminated Holiday on stage. During the musical introduction, Holiday would stand with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer. Numerous other singers have performed the work. In October 1939, Samuel Grafton of The New York Post described "Strange Fruit": "If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its 'Marseillaise'."

[Lionessa]

30. I can't listen to it or even really think about the song without tears.

Billy Holiday's was by far the best, but I chose the Nina Simone video because of the video itself as well as the song. I thought that those images would help my daughter understand these were not isolated, hidden incidents.

[NOLALady]

34. Both versions are great.

Nina is awesome!!!

You are definitely teaching your daughter well!!!

My daughter was still in high school during the Jena, LA. protests. When she told her History teacher that she was going to accompany me to Jena, he gave her an assignment to document the event. That was a hands on teaching moment.

[Welibs]

28. THAT IS NINA SIMONE, I'M SURE OF IT.

Check out this recording of Nina singing Wild is the Wind, my all time favourite song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2gD9GQ5-ww