Special Prom

[Sepia and Dust]

S&D..you had me near mesmerized in the first paragraph of post #826...

then competely lost me in the next few...

sorry...racism is racism...and it was not the same thing...similar, but the same...

and momma and deddy might not've liked bubba joe...but, whether in the north or the south...he'd'a been ded inna second if he wuz black...jus' sayin'

..and, having spent an inordinant amount of time growing up the south...it was not classism that drove the hatred i saw...it was the color of the skin...

i don't know of an economic class called n!@&ers...the rebel flag is not a source of economic pride, unless you count all the free labor (profit !!) you got when you flew it up on the plantation

just as today, it is not obamas economic 'class' that enflames the idiots who think they're in safe company with this ol' white boy when they spout off the stupid (but, apparently, honestly felt (for them)) things right in front of me; after all, last i looked...there are no monkeys in the white house house to even have a class distinction...

I see what you're saying, but I stand by my claim that nobody hates anybody because of the color of their skin. Skin color is a marker that (to some people) shows the world what kind of person you are--if you have black skin, then you're obviously poor, uneducated, lazy, immoral, violent, fatherless, drunk on the Bull, sneaky, and probably a gangsta to boot.

Racists are classists, at least at the roots--everybody has to fit into a neat little box, and nevermind if the fit is tight or loose or just right. The Texas rednecks at a diner who want to give a hippy a haircut and the New York executive who refers to his employees as "those people" are just cuts from the same cloth as the jerks mentioned in the OP.

That's my opinion, anyway, based on walking to and fro upon the earth, but I'm no sociologist.

[Sigmund]

And I am outta here!

Peace.

[GNTLGNT]

I was born in 1961 in Florida. So I guess I started elementary school around 1967. Even in my area of 1967 Florida, it was nothing like 2013 Wilcox County. There was no segregation of any kind that I remember from that period in Florida. I remember some racial issues with the adults, but for the most part, the kids got along just fine from what I remember. I can't wrap my head around the fact that in 2013, there are still places like Wilcox County.

...You and I are the same age, and from that time-frame...my mother taught 4th grade in the same elementary school I attended...I was very good friends with a young black girl-no big deal to me, but to one of my mom's "learned" colleagues it must have been, coz she ran up to my ma and said "Do you know Scott is hanging around with a negro girl?"..my mom, bless her-said-"Really, well isn't that nice?"...this same woman would probably piddle on the floor if she knew my friend grew up to be a lesbian park ranger...

[guido tkp]

see..s&p...the difference is...the texas rednecks who gave the hippie a haircut ?!?!

well that dude is still alive

but the texas rednecks who tied a black guy to the back of thier truck and dragged him so long and so far there was nothing left but parts and splotches on the road..???

white guy looks at whitye girl...maybe whistles...even calls out a rude comment: nothing...just a few years back, black guy seems to something like that: hung from a tree...true stories...all not that long ago, S&P

same mindthink..different outcome..every time...so what's the difference...'cause they assumed the black guy was..broke ??

...whether you're left hanging from a tree or spread across a country road...there is a big difference

and if you think white america stopped there...you haven't read your history very well

you are quite right..all the examples you give are horrendous in their own way...but only..only in the case of blacks did virtually the entire nation either join in or look the other way...for too, too long a time...

and it exactly this sort of...overthinking like that that gets us in a bind as to trying to figure out exactly how it is that this prom is only now...in 2013...being integrated...

y'see...i doubt seriously that they were stopping the catholics from entering that prom all these years...

[atomicinchworm]

I see what you are saying Sepia. The biggest problem is that if a random person was " poor, uneducated, lazy, immoral, violent, fatherless, drunk on the Bull, sneaky, and probably a gangsta to boot" and white, they don't hate that person. That person is "us", part of our "group". Even if the person is obviously white trash, they still don't hate.

Racists might hate other races because they assume all these things, but they also hate other races specifically because of the color of their skin.

[Sepia and Dust]

see..s&p...the difference is...the texas rednecks who gave the hippie a haircut ?!?!

well that dude is still alive

but the texas rednecks who tied a black guy to the back of thier truck and dragged him so long and so far there was nothing left but parts and splotches on the road..???

white guy looks at whitye girl...maybe whistles...even calls out a rude comment: nothing...just a few years back, black guy seems to something like that: hung from a tree...true stories...all not that long ago, S&P

same mindthink..different outcome..every time...so what's the difference...'cause they assumed the black guy was..broke ??

...whether you're left hanging from a tree or spread across a country road...there is a big difference

and if you think white america stopped there...you haven't read your history very well

you are quite right..all the examples you give are horrendous in their own way...but only..only in the case of blacks did virtually the entire nation either join in or look the other way...for too, too long a time...

and it exactly this sort of...overthinking like that that gets us in a bind as to trying to figure out exactly how it is that this prom is only now...in 2013...being integrated...

y'see...i doubt seriously that they were stopping the catholics from entering that prom all these years...

The longhaired guy at the truckstop has been beaten to death. The gay man at the festival has been murdered; the gay man at the club has been tortured, then tied to a fence and left to die in the cold. The largest lynching in US history was against a group of Italian-Americans, and that mass-murder was cheered by the sitting President. Catholics have been killed simply for being Catholic; the Klan burned their churches, too. When they weren't being gassed in Europe, I doubt that many Jews were invited to proms in the US.

But I think that you misunderstand me. Classism doesn't refer to money. Money is a component, certainly, but that is not the sum of it. Todash's example of the nouveau riche--the "new money" who were still considered low class, crude, and unrefined--speaks to that. They didn't mingle with the established high class "old money". The two groups, so similar in so many ways, actively despised each other.

[Sepia and Dust]

Racists might hate other races because they assume all these things, but they also hate other races specifically because of the color of their skin.

It's possible that you're right and that I'm naive, but I disagree. I think that the racists judge people by the color of their skin, but the hate comes from all the things that a particular skin color represents to them. The ignorance leads to the prejudice, and the prejudice leads to the hatred.

[guido tkp]

you win sepia...there is no racism...it never happened...

and with that...i follow sigmund out the door on this topic: me 'n brick walls don't get along

mama allus tol' me if i didn't have somethin' nice ta say...well, y'know...

and in the immortal words of robert smith...i think i've reached that point

congrats to all the students for getting by/over all that nonexistant racism...

[Sepia and Dust]

you win sepia...there is no racism...it never happened...

and with that...i follow sigmund out the door on this topic: me 'n brick walls don't get along

mama allus tol' me if i didn't have somethin' nice ta say...well, y'know...

and in the immortal words of robert smith...i think i've reached that point

congrats to all the students for getting by/over all that nonexistant racism...

Well, when you learn how to read, come on back.

[Walter Oobleck]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...tions/2128347/

Here's a twist...or something.