200 Years Later, A Life Worth Celebrating

[WoundedKnee]

This spring inaugurated a year-long national celebration commemorating the bicentennial of the birth of the iconic American Frederick Douglass. Born to an enslaved black woman on a Maryland plantation in 1818, Douglass escaped bondage and became a force for justice on the strength of his reasoned moral clarity and impassioned eloquence.

Two centuries later, elected officials and community leaders are coming together to celebrate his enduring relevance. By a rare unanimous vote, Congress established the Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Commission to plan and carry out educational events to honor his life and legacy. A rising portrait artist has interpreted the iconic activist. And a major motion picture is in the works. Last week, The Heritage Foundation hosted scholars and activists who discussed the varied aspects of Frederick Douglass and what his ideas mean today.

...

Where Douglass was enslaved, many local white families had less to eat than he did. “Douglass would bring bread with him when he went to run errands,” continued Matousek. “Getting to know young white boys, he would challenge them: I’ll bet I can read better than you. He would bring bread and trade it for reading lessons. They helped each other and there was mutual respect.”

...

“Douglass focused on unity and the ideals of America — while admitting, too often, the nation falls short or baldly contradicts those ideals,” said Colin Hanna, hard at work on the Douglass feature film. “The ideals were right, while their implementation in American society was wrong.”

“Rather than us being separated along lines such as ethnicity or party, this message can bring America together.”

Why cannot we unite?

http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/25...-acquainted-american-hero-frederick-douglass/

 

[bellisarius]

The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. Gen. Banks was distressed with solicitude as to what he should do with the Negro. Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, “What shall we do with the Negro?” I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot- box, let him alone, don’t disturb him! [Applause.] If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone,–your interference is doing him a positive injury.

- Fredrick Douglas from "What the Black Man Wants."

 

[WoundedKnee]

As Sowell and Williams point out, the thing that destroyed their communities was the war on poverty.

 

[nowisthetime]

As Sowell and Williams point out, the thing that destroyed their communities was the war on poverty.

And what destroyed your NATIVE community and left them in worse shape? You're too busy worrying about what blacks do and don't do. Oh I must have forgotten, YOU'RE ONLY A HALFIE, perhaps mama must have fed that white savior garbage to your cabeza.

Worry about yourself and your 'wounded knee'.

Contrary to popular belief of REICHwingers, most blacks in America aren't living in poverty. So get your little brain out of the 60s.

 

[WoundedKnee]

My DNA has nothing at all to do with who I am.
That is your big mistake in life.
A fatal one.

 

[Que]

And what destroyed your NATIVE community and left them in worse shape?

Same thing. Paternalism and deendency.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Why cannot we unite?

Oh, we're doing this shit again, huh? Guess I'll do this again, too:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--HYA0pYLM--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/h24fynli6ftrqv3ecis2.jpg

https://blackthen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bws-newspaper.jpg

https://thewriterfred.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/black-wall-street-had.jpg

The Other Black Wall Streets

Michael Harriot

2/15/18 10:00am

On June 1, 1921, white rioters looted and burned the all-black Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Okla., known as Black Wall Street. Angry at the economic success of blacks in the area (which became known as “Black Wall Street” because of the number of successful businesses and wealthy black inhabitants), white Tulsans accused a black man of raping a girl and attacked the area.

While white citizens used dynamite and planes to bomb the city, leaving more than 8,000 people homeless, eyewitness accounts charge that the vast majority of the people killed (estimates range from 80 to 300) died because the city’s law enforcement officers deputized every able-bodied white man and handed out weapons from the city’s armory.

There is no official death toll, but most historians agree that the count was around 250, because many African Americans were buried in mass graves, while others fled the city.

No one was ever convicted of a single crime.

Tulsa’s Black Wall Street is often pointed to as the singular example of black economic empowerment and how black communities can create their own opportunity and wealth. But it is important to know that Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood is not the only historical example of the power and importance of African-American economic self-determination; it might not even be the most significant.

Between the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction, there were many black communities that thrived economically solely based on the black dollar. Here are a few.

https://www.theroot.com/the-other-black-wall-streets-1823010812

There's yer answer. Barely a century ago. All your privilege, all your racism, all your legacy, all your everything America, all encapsulated into nano-sized pills that ain't leaving its precious bloodstream until the people that created the structure of racism and keep it enabled finally decide to take a laxative. I mean, this shit was happening this past Saturday:

https://imagesvc.timeincapp.com/v3/mm/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftimedotcom.files.wordpress.com%2F2018%2F04%2Fneo-nazi-rally-georgia.jpg&w=800&q=85

So much for that "leaving us alone" bullshit. Y'all motherfuckers keep me stitches with your faux concern over black people in this country outside of whatever article you can cut and paste in here whenever you're bored, conversation traffic is slow and you need to smell like you're being profound.

 

[nowisthetime]

Your "War on Poverty" jazz is, frankly, poppycock. And honestly, I really think you created this thread to thumb your noses at black folk, like your fellow reichwingers, you really don't care.

And I couldn't care less of what the bigot trolls in here think of my post. I expect ignorance from them.

Anyway, black and white wage gaps are much larger today than in 1979--LONG AFTER THE WAR ON POVERTY. The wealth disparity is due to plain old discrimination that has happened since the first blacks were brought over to America by force. It's common sense! The last recession further caused a dip in income as well.

African American income gap
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-african-american-income-20170915-story.html

This article below goes a step further and compares and contrasts the income growth in various cities. If you look deeper, the income diversity of African-Americans is regional.

"African-Americans appear to be doing well and gaining on the East Coast and in the larger Southern metros in Texas, as well as Atlanta and Nashville. African-Americans seem to be earning high incomes on the West Coast but are consistently losing ground relative to overall income figures. The Rust Belt and the largest metros in Florida and the Mississippi Valley are areas where African-American median incomes are consistently lower, with a mixed bag of metros gaining or losing ground."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petesaunders1/2017/12/08/where-african-american-incomes-are-rising-and-where-theyre-not/#3e2ef7a829ac

Please proceed.

 

[Que]

Says the racist that just made an anti-miscegenation comment.

 

[bellisarius]

Hey Zumi, when you going throw aside those ancient crutches and stand on your own two feet?

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Hey Zumi, when you going throw aside those ancient crutches and stand on your own two feet?

Ha! There we go! That dog-eared card hidden in the cuffs never gets old!

Never forget 9/11, remember the troops and all that jibjab, but when it comes to reminding you about the verity of this country's blatant ugly against its own citizens...

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tv/image/1457/73/1457738906686.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/Kd6OvCvOpyJhK/giphy.gif

Sorry for ruining the moment of your just-add-water Freddy D. quote there, though!

Hey, you might wanna tell your ace boon homeslice AJ that DNA has a whooooole lot to do with what he is. I mean, you did make an entire thread about it correlating to one's intelligence, sooooooo...

https://media0.giphy.com/media/l3vR6eSZ9bvU6CxkQ/giphy.gif

 

[schism666]

Hey Zumi, when you going throw aside those ancient crutches and stand on your own two feet?

ancient? assuming zumi's black, "ancient" means "white jesus", the ark and the cro-mags, who were morally less bankrupt and by far more intelligent than most here including yourself. you're better off trying to look smart and misquoting our generals, asshole.

 

[WoundedKnee]

I guess Mr. Douglass is just not a hero with Progressives.
Do they see him as "uppity?"

 

[bellisarius]

I guess Mr. Douglass is just not a hero with Progressives.
Do they see him as "uppity?"

Just not politically correct. Marx is the new hero.

 

[WoundedKnee]

Conservative black men seem to be a threat to the narrative of white privilege.

 

[bellisarius]

Conservative black men seem to be a threat to the narrative of white privilege.

Why worship a successful black man when you can worship a failed white Jew?

 

[WoundedKnee]

I'm not about to kneel at the alter of busybody.

 

[bellisarius]

I'm not about to kneel at the alter of busybody.

LMAO

 

[WoundedKnee]

I try to get in my shots.

 

[Libsam]

Contrary to popular belief of REICHwingers, most blacks in America aren't living in poverty. So get your little brain out of the 60s.

I'm confused, I thought the socioeconomic divide between white and blacks in America was the problem... you know, white privilege and all that.

 

[Libsam]

Conservative black men seem to be a threat to the narrative of white privilege.

Don't forget the conservative black women, like Candace Owens.

 

[WoundedKnee]

And the way Condi was treated. Et tu Kayne?