Comments on: Perpetrators of Hate Crime Made to Pay Dearly

By: You Know Me

You Know Me — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:19:36 +0000

Morris Dees is indeed one of my heroes. He has used civil suits to bankrupt KKK groups and other purveyors of hate and to gain justice for those whom were denied such by the criminal justice system.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s web site is a great resource for information of hate groups of all stripes.

By: Ross

Ross — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 15:52:45 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before, I studied American Social History focussing on immigration and affects of industrialization and mass media on racist movements etc… And let me tell you, I was nicely surprised to stumble across the Southern Poverty Law Center in Atlanta. What a wonderful response to Jim Crow. I was left feeling that the South suddenly became so much ahead of the game… When I started studying American Social History I was searching for the lie behind all the American idealism… Something kept screaming at me that the U.S. wasn’t “the land of the free” and that most Americans really didn’t give a damn about constitutional rights for others… Growing up in the Northeast, there was this crazy sense that racism only existed in the south and that “we” fought the Civil War against the terrible racists of the South, just as there was a belief that during WWII we were fighting a war against evil represented as the Nazis. But, with a little bit of observation, you realize that that just wasn’t true… The Civil War wasn’t about rights for slaves but about competition for control over Congress and the House (# of seats) and fear of labor competition in the North if more slaves escaped to freedom… If you do a study of lynchings through 1921, you’ll find a hell of a lot of them occurring in the northern midwest, exactly where Martin Luther King’s aging movement began struggling before he was assassinated. Friends of mine of African descent who grew up in New Jersey or New York and later studied in the deep south often said that they prefered the South, because at least there you know who is your friend and who is not. But in the Northeast, everyone wants to believe that they are better and that they don’t harbour racism, so they smile at you friendily, but don’t invite you to their house, etc. That’s not to say that one side is more or less racist than the other side, but that one side maybe is just a bit more honest… Honesty wastes less times and burns less energy.

Not a bad hero to have. And, yes, the word for today (or this week for that matter) in my household, is “integrity”. Cudos to Chris.

By: Life Long Harborite

Life Long Harborite — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 02:32:02 +0000

Morris Dees is not only “You know me’s” hero, but integrity at its best!

By: Ross

Ross — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 15:34:18 +0000

Thank God for civil suits, although that doesn’t change the original verdict… Americans like to believe that the U.S. is so far away from the racist reality before the civil rights movement, but I don’t believe it’s so true. There are so many vestiges of the past living healthfully in the present. What I learned studying American Social History is that all social movements are just periods of change over time and that just as a positive movement is born, it’s adverse can be born also, especially as a response. Progress is neither positive nor negative. For some, progress is being made when we return to the past and remove what was gained by the feminist and civil rights movements…