southern man

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/19/southern_poverty_pimps/?source=newsletter

I wish you all to read the contents of this link.

It is a good rant, it is a fair rant, it is a just rant.

When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

http://movies.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70157152&trkid=8519700&t=The+West+Wing#MovieId=70157152&EpisodeMovieId=70262139

At 28?

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I have thought about this racial issue for some time. Maybe 50 years.

I was just curious in the 70's after becoming a licensed attorney.

Where did Richfield, Minnesota come from?

After enrolling in 7 or 8 schools before the fourth grade, I found myself in the Richfield school system.

The school buildings were all new. Something different from my stays in Minneapolis.

The floors were all clean, the streets were all safe (as long as you could avoid the bullies), the streets were all clean (no garbage sitting idle for days at a time),

Well, all you had to do was to walk down to the local Country Registrar and discover that there were restrictive covenants in the deeds to the homes owned by Richfieldians.

And you would find, as I did, that if you wished to purchase a home in the suburb of Richfield you could not be of the Negro or Jewish race!

All the deeds contained these covenants.

ALL OF THEM.

Now I wish to discuss an attendant practice.

In the Twin Cities, the Jewish component simply said:

FUCK YOU!

And the Jewish component invented the St. Louis Park 'suburb' of Minneapolis.

The State of Minnesota did not intervene.

So St. Louis Park got rid of all of the restrictive covenants.

If you were Black or White or Brown or whatever, there were not to be any restrictive covenants to prevent your ability to purchase land.

THIS WAS A WONDROUS DEVELOPMENT!

No kidding.

THE RESULT

Thomas Friedman and Al Franken resided in St. Louis Park during their education.

Both of these people were of the 'Jewish persuasion' as they say.

And both went on to bigger and greater things, as they say.

But you know what, there is nothing contained in the deeds to their respective father's homes (and this is sexist but we lived in a sexist society at the time) that indicated a restrictive covenant!

I do not know exactly how to define the term 'Jewish'!

Because no one can define the term 'Jewish'!

And if you do not believe me simply watch half if not all of the Kenneth Branagh movie entitled:

CONSPIRACY.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film)

LIFE IS NOT FAIR!

I recall my alcoholic father telling me this fact of life and I have always understood it.

But Damn!

You look at history and THE JEWS (whoever they might be according to some definition) decided that in America, you could sell your property to anyone you damned pleased!

I am just discussing our situation in the Twin Cities of Minnesota for Chrissakes, but there were no restrictions nor restrictive covenants contained in their deeds!

Isn't 'deed' a neat term? You can find the word 'deed' going back to ancient places to the east of us.

Now my point is that there is an intersection between the concepts of 'freedom' and 'freedom to transfer property' and 'freedom of association' in this discussion.

We have changed as a nation because of the actions of the few.

And I, who has lost his religious predilections a long time ago, honor the actions of those folks who call themselves 'Jews'.

All I am writing about concerns a small conclave of this nation. But this I am sure of. St. Louis Park, Minnesota really reflects an ethos, a world view that departed from the national ethos.

AND CHANGE HAPPENED!

And the Supreme Court of the United States hit this issue, the issue of restrictive covenants in the late fifties and changed America! In 1945, but changes in law take time!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_v._Kraemer

And those groups that acted like the folks who invented places like St. Louis Park, Minnesota were more than just some component, some part or parcel of the greater whole.

Without those who established St. Louis Park as a model, we never would have reached the land mark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1945!

I do not personally like Friedman but I love Al Franken!

And neither one of these individuals represent a change in the values of my country, and yet they do! In a very important way.

MEDIA

I have discussed the power of media with regard to Civil Rights many times. But movies began this change in propaganda that proved so important to the change in this nation's attitude toward race.

We began with an Oscar nomination for the household slave in Gone With the Wind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind_(film)

And to go back and attack those folks who gave her the award is stupid.

Oh the house slave won it all!

BULLSHITE!

Our change in attitudes really were changed with one simple award in my humble opinion.

And to this day, people will criticize some sitcom or drama that includes a Black character!

Oh he/she is only there for PC.

FUCK YOU!

We need this! We need to include!

I would cite Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays, I would cite James Brown, I would cite Tiger for heavens sakes. And I am pissed that professional athletes receive the monies they receive for a number of reasons, but damn! These great athletes are put on the tellie and the web and we see different races represented in so many different realms.

Lately there have been Indians (East Indians) and Blacks and Muslims and Hispanics (or Latins) and Asians and many different racial representatives presented in sitcoms and movies and MSNBC for chrissakes!

This is a different world from what I have witnessed over the last half century!

This is a big deal to me, anyway.

And I wish to underline that America is not the only country that has been plagued by racism!

I wish to go back to my first link, a link underlined by Emma in an Orion blog.

MY FIRST LINK

Michael Lind, as Emma points out in the Orion blog, really looks into an issue that has bugged me forever.

I cannot find it but there was a Life fictional article entitled

If the South Had Won the Civil War.

And Lind discusses the issues concerning the fact that a portion (no all for chrissakes) of the South that really contends that the South never lost the Civil War!

I think we are headed for a change!

I think that Texas and many other 'confederate' states will have to face the new demographics.

How can you or anyone turn on the cable tv and not see that we are a nation with many and several tribes of different origins?

How might you ignore the facts that the Simpsons demonstrate every week for decades?

How might one ignore the many different names of individual citizens let alone their origins that we now recognize in these United States of America?

We are no longer the country of dicks and davids and kevins and roberts!

Anyway, as a result of Orion's blog, I must contend that in the long run (how long is a run anyway?) that homogeneity is not the basic value of America?

The battle is not over, the war is not over, the end of all this slaughter will not end when the fat woman sings!

But Lind underlines what I have witnessed over the last half century and Lind underlines the political aspects of all of this in a rather short rant.

I am mad at the South.

I admit it!

But the North has its own sins and there are plenty of them.

Still, one of my favorite songs, regardless of Skynyrd's complaints: