Today's Lesson

A million years ago when I was in school, we weren't taught any of this. There was a vague (in retrospect, maybe deliberately nonspecific) sense of "black people used to be treated pretty bad way back in the day, but that amazing Mr Lincoln fixed it and blah blah blah."

Nobody ever told us about Columbia or Rosewood or Tulsa, or any of the others. And there was a lot of 'em.

I'm a little pissed off about that - I can imagine people with brown skin have to be thoroughly fed up with that shit.

I think I'm in love with Carol Anderson though.

She makes the case that the standard trope about how "Hillary was just a really bad candidate" is and always was a bullshit cover for voter suppression (and other fuckery as well, but yeah).

And what could more "conservative" than to blame the victim?

"I dunno if he raped her, but look at how she was dressed...how much she drank...how she was dancing...where she was walking after dark...is she stupid?" etc etc etc

Anyway - we've got some big fuckin' problems up in this joint and while we don't solve those problems just by voting, we sure as fuck don't solve one goddamned thing without voting - not in a democracy we don't.

Meanwhile - maybe you'd like to look into some of this. And notice the recurring themes, as noted by Prof Anderson:

Civil War Period: 1861–1865[edit]

Main article: Mass racial violence in the United States § Civil War period 1861–1865

Reconstruction Period: 1865–1877[edit]

Main article: Mass racial violence in the United States § Post–Civil War and Reconstruction period: 1865–1877

Jim Crow Period: 1878–1914[edit]

See also: List of riots and civil unrest in Omaha, Nebraska

• 1885: Anti-Chinese riot in Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory
• 1886: Seattle riot of 1886^[16]
• 1898: Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, white Democrats overthrew elected government and attacked blacks^[17]
• 1898: Lake City, South Carolina
• 1898: Greenwood County, South Carolina
• 1900: Robert Charles Riots
• 1900: New York City
• 1904: Springfield, Ohio Race Riot^[18]
• 1906: Springfield, Ohio Race Riot^[18]
• 1906: Atlanta Race Riot, whites against African Americans^[19]
• 1906: Brownsville, Texas
• 1907: Onancock, Virginia
• 1907: Pacific Coast Race Riots of 1907
• 1908: Springfield Race Riot of 1908^[20]
• 1909: Omaha, Nebraska anti-Greek riot
• 1910: Nationwide riots following the heavyweight championship fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries in Reno, Nevada on July 4
• 1910: Slocum, Texas

War and inter-war period: 1914–1945[edit]

• 1917: East St. Louis Riot^[21]
• 1917: 1917 Chester race riot
• 1917: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 1917: Houston Riot
• Red Summer of 1919
  • 1919: Washington, D.C.
  • 1919: Chicago Race Riot of 1919^[22]
  • 1919: Omaha Race Riot of 1919
  • 1919: Charleston riot of 1919
  • 1919: Longview race riot
  • 1919: Knoxville Riot of 1919
  • 1919: Elaine Race Riot
• 1920: Ocoee Massacre
• 1921: Tulsa race massacre (Tulsa, Oklahoma)^[23]
• 1921: Springfield, Ohio Race Riot^[18]
• 1923: Rosewood massacre (Rosewood, Florida)^[24]
• 1927: Yakima Valley Anti-Filipino Riot^[25]
• 1928: Wenatchee Valley Anti-Filipino Riot^[25]
• 1929: Exeter Anti-Filipino Riot^[26]
• 1930: Watsonville Riots, Anti-Filipino riot which inspired race riots in San Francisco, Salinas and San Jose and attacks elsewhere.^[26]
• 1935: Harlem Riot of 1935
• 1943: Detroit Race Riot^[27]
• 1943: Beaumont Race Riot of 1943
• 1943: Harlem Riot of 1943
• 1943: Zoot Suit Riots
• 1944: Agana race riot

Postwar era: 1946–1954[edit]

• 1946: Columbia, Tennessee Riot
• 1949: Peekskill Riots
• 1951: Cicero Race Riot in Illinois

Civil Rights and Black Power Movement's Period: 1955–1977[edit]

• 1958: Battle of Hayes Pond (Maxton, North Carolina)
• 1962: Ole Miss riot, Oxford, Mississippi
• 1963: Birmingham Riot of 1963, Birmingham, Alabama
• 1963: Cambridge riot of 1963 (Cambridge, Maryland)
• 1963: Lexington Riot, Lexington, North Carolina^[28]
• 1964: Harlem Riot of 1964 (Harlem neighborhood, Manhattan, New York City)
• 1964: Rochester riot (Rochester, New York)
• 1964: Philadelphia 1964 race riot (North Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• 1965: Watts Riots (Watts neighborhood, Los Angeles, California)
• 1966: Division Street Riots (Humboldt Park neighborhood, Chicago, Illinois)
• 1966: Hough Riots (Hough community, Cleveland, Ohio)
• 1966: North Omaha, Nebraska (North Omaha community, Omaha, Nebraska)
• Long Hot Summer of 1967
  • 1967: Roxbury riots (Boston, Massachusetts)^[29]
  • 1967: Tampa riots (Tampa, Florida)
  • 1967: Texas Southern University Riot (Houston, Texas)
  • 1967: 1967 Detroit riot (Detroit, Michigan)
  • 1967: Buffalo riot (Buffalo, New York)
  • 1967: Milwaukee Riot (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
  • 1967: Minneapolis North Side Riots (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
  • 1967: 1967 Newark riots (Newark, New Jersey)
  • 1967: Plainfield riots (Plainfield, New Jersey)
  • 1967: Cincinnati riots (Cincinnati, Ohio)
• Protests of 1968
  • 1968: Orangeburg massacre (Orangeburg, South Carolina)
• 1968: King assassination riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
  • 1968: Baltimore riot of 1968 (Baltimore, Maryland)
  • 1968: Chicago West Side riots (Chicago, Illinois)
  • 1968: Louisville riots of 1968 (Louisville, Kentucky)
  • 1968: 1968 Washington, D.C. riots (Washington, D.C.)
  • 1968: 1968 Wilmington riots (Wilmington, Delaware)
• 1968: Glenville shootout and riot (Cleveland, Ohio)
• 1969: 1969 York Race Riot (York, Pennsylvania)
• 1969: Stonewall Riot (New York, NY)
• 1970: May 11 Race Riot (Augusta, Georgia)
• 1970: Jackson State killings (Jackson, Mississippi)
• 1971: Camden riots (Camden, New Jersey)
• 1972–1977: Escambia High School riots (Pensacola, Florida)
• 1972: USS Kitty Hawk Riot (Coast of North Vietnam); October 12–13
• 1975: Chaffey High School Race Riot enhanced by local sniper (Ontario, California)

1978 to today[edit]

• 1978: Houston's Moody Park on the first anniversary of Joe Campos Torres death.
• 1979: Great Brook Valley Projects Riots Worcester, Massachusetts, Puerto Ricans rioted
• 1980: Miami riots (Miami, Florida): Reactions following the acquittal of four Miami-Dade Police officers in the death of Arthur McDuffie.
• 1980: Chattanooga Riot (Chattanooga, Tennessee)
• 1984: Lawrence, Massachusetts Race Riot: A small scale riot centered at the intersection of Haverhill and railroad streets between working class whites and Hispanics; several buildings were destroyed by Molotov cocktails; August 8, 1984.^[30]
• 1989: Overtown Riot (Miami, FL) After a black motorcyclist was shot by a Hispanic police officer in the predominantly black community of Overtown, residents rioted for two nights. The officer was later convicted of manslaughter.
• 1990: Wynwood riot (Miami, FL) Puerto Ricans rioted after a jury acquitted six officers accused of beating a Puerto Rican drug dealer to death
• 1991: Crown Heights riot (Crown Heights neighborhood, Brooklyn, New York City), black anti-Jewish mob killed 2, injured 190.
• 1992: Los Angeles riots (Los Angeles, California): In reaction to the acquittal of all four LAPD officers involved in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, in addition to the Korean involved in the murder of Latasha Harlins; riots broke out mainly involving black and Latino youths in the black neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles and Korean-American neighborhood of Koreatown before spreading to the rest of the city
• 1996: St. Petersburg riots (St. Petersburg, Florida): After Officer Jim Knight stopped 18 yr. old Tyron Lewis for speeding, he claimed to accidentally fire his weapon, fatally wounding the black teenager. Riots broke out, lasting 2 days.^{[citation needed]}
• 2001: Cincinnati riots (Cincinnati, Ohio): In a reaction to the fatal shooting of an unarmed young black male, Timothy Thomas by Cincinnati police officer Steven Roach, riots broke out over the span of a few days.
• 2003: Benton Harbor riots (Benton Harbor, Michigan)
• 2005: 2005 Toledo riot (Toledo, Ohio): A race riot that broke out after a planned Neo-Nazi protest march through a black neighborhood.
• 2006: Fontana High School riot (Fontana, California): Riot involving about 500 Latino and black students^[31]
• 2006: Prison Race Riots (California): A war between Latino and black prison gangs set off a series of riots across California^[32][33]
• 2008: Locke High School riot^[34] (Los Angeles, California)
• 2009: 2009 Oakland riots (Oakland, California): Peaceful protests turned into rioting after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man, Oscar Grant, by a BART transit policeman.
• 2014–2015: The Ferguson unrest, a series of riots break out in Ferguson, Missouri over the shooting of Michael Brown.
  • August 2014: riots for two weeks after the initial shooting of Michael Brown.
  • Late November and early December 2014: riots for one week after the police officer who shot Michael Brown was not indicted.
  • August 2015: riots for two days during the anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown.
• 2015: The Death of Freddie Gray was an incident in which a suspect died in police custody and later protests turned into riots in Baltimore.
• 2016: The Shooting of Abdullahi Omar Mohamed sparked riots on the night of the shooting.
• 2020: The Death of George Floyd caused days of rioting in the Minneapolis-St Paul, MN metro area. This has further spread to the cities of NYC, LA, San Jose, San Francisco, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, Washington DC, Charlottesville, Charlotte, Baltimore, Portland, Dallas, Denver, St Louis, Oakland, Cincinnati, Bakersfield, Seattle, Boston, Memphis, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Columbus, Kansas City, Sacramento, Omaha, Louisville, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Fort Worth, Richmond, Philadelphia, Visalia, Nashville, Rochester, Orlando, Tampa, San Diego, San Antonio, Seattle, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Salt Lake City, Miami, Norfolk, Reno, Madison, Charleston, Santa Monica, Houston, Paducah and many other major cities within the US.

More GOP Fuckery

The latest in a lengthening parade of Republicans admitting to their attempts to suppress the vote.

Brad Reed, Raw Story:

Calls to expand mail-in voting have grown as the COVID-19 pandemic has made waiting in long lines at polling places a potential health hazard.

Many Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have rejected the idea because they fear making it easier for people to vote will harm the GOP.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Georgia State House Speaker David Ralston became the latest GOP official to warn about the perils that vote-by-mail initiatives would have on his party.

“This will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia,” he said. “Every registered voter is going to get one of these. … This will certainly drive up turnout.”

Trump earlier this week similarly told “Fox & Friends” that Democrats were pushing for initiatives that would generate “levels of voting that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

Remember this the next time some Republican starts to crow about how "the GOP is the party lookin' out for minority rights": They are actually, because they intend to rule as a minority, and to use us as fodder to protect their rights at the expense of ours.

I ❤️ Virginia

WaPo:

Virginians showed up in record numbers for Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary, leading a national wave of strong voter turnout that analysts said is all about defeating President Trump.

Roughly 1.3 million Virginia voters cast ballots, about 21 percent of the electorate, according to unofficial results. That’s up from the previous record of about 986,000 votes and 18 percent of the electorate in 2008, when Barack Obama was challenging Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination.

Back then, voters sensed history in Obama potentially becoming the first African American nominated by a major party. Tuesday’s turnout was different.

Exit polling showed that most voters were seeking a candidate — any candidate — to defeat Trump. Virginia, which has undergone a dramatic blue shift since Trump’s win in 2016, responded more eagerly than any other state. Its turnout represented a 69 percent increase over the 2016 primary, compared to an average jump of 33 percent across nine Super Tuesday states in which the vote count is complete or has been projected by Edison Media Research.

The second-biggest increase was 60 percent in Texas.

“The interest . . . in defeating Donald Trump is so intense that it’s almost unprecedented,” Richmond political scientist Bob Holsworth said.

The Big Four

Biden:
Obama redux, and a bigger heaping-er helping of "Repubs will come around if we just give 'em everything they want..."

This time for sure

Bernie:

"It's gonna take a revolution!"

Pete:

"We need new blood in Washington"

Warren:

"I'll put political pressure on McConnell, but I'll use executive action if necessary."

I don't know what will work. I don't know who will win it.

But it has to be very clear that every one of 'em would make a better POTUS than what we've got now, even if they took it as a part-time gig on weekends and holidays.

And I know that every one of the Dems can beat 45* like a dirty rug if we THE VOTERS don't get stoopid.

If we show up, we win. We've proved that 3 years in a row now. We win when we show up.

SO SHOW UP OR SHUT UP

Today's GIF

A good reminder to start the new year.

It says, "We the people" not "We the acreage".

DIRT DON'T VOTE

Today's Tweet

A workable analogy.

‘Voting. It isn’t marriage. You’re not waiting for #TheOne who’s absolutely perfect.

Voting is like public transport—You take that bus.
And if there isn’t one going Exactly to your destination—you don’t stay home.

You take the bus to the closest where you want to be’#VoteBlue pic.twitter.com/ouEn0Du6Uc

— Trinity Resists (@TrinityResists) December 3, 2019

Today's GIF

It says, "We the people", dummy.

Dirt don't vote.

Dirt Don't Vote

Here's the link to that map (it's "unsecured" so it doesn't embed properly)

Carto-Maps

Infographics

It says, "We the people".

It doesn't say, "We the acreage".

So this is not the map that matters:

This is the map that matters:

Happy to clear that up for ya.

A Lesson In Perception

An awful lot of what we see and hear, is what we're taught to see and hear.

We usually don't even know it's happening - we don't know we're being programmed to think a certain way.

This is not representative of the way we vote:

This is what is actually looks like:

Because it says "We the people", not "we the acreage".

The Dems' wins in the 2018 midterms should go a long way in fixing the gerrymandering problem on the House side. But we still have a very long haul to figure out what to do about the ratfuckery that can (and does) happen because of the way we do the Senate and the Electoral College.