Those white fucking kkk should be run out of town. It fucked up to have a town that as no elections.
Especially a town that is 89% black. They should come together and take their town back.
And qualified immunity should not keep you away from breaking civil rights act. Fuck racist states.
Small towns are rough man. People will run as both the dem and republican candidate in my town and you can't vote in town meetings if you aren't a property owner
Small towns need to be made a bit smaller, so they stop being cesspits.
Oh it’s happening quite fast. My very small rural home town was already dwindling when I graduated 15 years ago. Now sports teams in the area are having to consolidate with neighboring towns and consolidating entire districts is in talks.
Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person’s home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.
There ain't that many one solid protest from the surrounding communities would wreck the towns racists
Spoken by someone who has clearly never lived in the south.
Brown people in the south are afraid for good reason, you can't imagine the kind of terror those fat fucks will inflict because they know nobody can stop them.
if all kkk members were run out of all rural town; there would be no rural american anymore except for the new places they created
This rural town is 89 percent black. 59 percent of the black population in the US lives in the south in mostly rural places. Rural towns would still exist, they'd just be more pleasant and less racist. I'd even argue that rural America would thrive, because the majority of the population down there would be able to live their lives and do whatever they want, free of discrimination and prejudice.
If all of the KKK were to leave their current towns and start their own, it would be relatively small. According to estimates from 2016 there are about 5,000 - 8,000 KKK members in the US.
So, after brown v board desegregated parts of the south the response of the white community of Memphis was simple:
They all picked up, moved 15 miles east through some wheat fields to set up a new city called Germantown.
I'm Indian, I've never seen that level of weapons-grade racism, usually it's just poor people, this was everybody.
Town of 275 people, 89% black? Total of 30 white people? They should just individually name the problem people in the article
Horrific article to read, old mate had to go to fires by himself and respond to emergencies from black people while all the white people hid. Terrible
Not just that, but they locked and restricted his access to medical equipment so he had to make a detour to get a different one, and that time cost the person he was trying to save her life.
Complete scum.
Not just hid but tried to prevent him from responding at all.
Undeniably racist and absolutely disgusting.
Hopefully their houses catch on fire and no one helps them.
I feel like we need to have a more concerted focused effort against the racist bigoted trash people, wherever they are. Because they are the ones that don't belong in this country.
But I was assured racism was over because Obama was President!
Here's what I don't get... town is 85% black and only has 275 people.
That means a 234 to 41 split black to white. 5.7:1 ratio.
If those 41 people really are that racist and regressive, you haul them all out of their homes, tar and feather them, and ride them out of town on a rail.
This. Violence is not the answer.
Until it is. Violence sometimes only can be corrected with violence.
The minute, and I mean THE MINUTE, some racist asshat burns someones house down, as happened here, you deserve the right to stop being polite about it.
Violence is not THE answer, but it is AN answer.
You are wrong violence is never the answer.
Its a question and the answer is yes.
I think this is the same guy who was arrested by his own police force not long ago for “trespassing”. The guy walked down the driveway of a house he thought was abandoned, the homeowner saw him, grabbed his gun and held him at knife point until the police arrived and arrested him. I’ll see if I can’t find a link.
Edit: I was thinking of another (acting) black mayor of a southern state who’s being stymied by his racist colleagues. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna93318
That's just cruel. Someone shouldn't be not allowed serve soley for the color of their skin. That's not the point of the election – it's meant to be for the citizens elected this person! They're just being racist at this point and it's obvious!
It's honestly kind of sweet that you sound so surprised.
I agree with you, with the caveat that the article says that there wasn't an election - it was a win by default as the only person to qualify / submit candidacy.
So he was running unopposed? That happens all the time.
Sorta.
From the article, they're such a "good ol boy" community that the people in power just kinda picked the mayor, who served until he was ready to retire and pick another. He was the first person in town, basically ever, to properly fill out electoral paperwork. So they had a mayor picked out (not him) and they basically just pretended he didn't do it the right way because it isn't THERE way.
Until I say the next thing and just looking at that, you could kinda see the back-and-forth about how the town's so messed up his situation was like a loophole, and no doubt if it were a white person winning the mayorship on those terms people might have taken issue and justified a repeat election....
But his reason for running for mayor puts the whole thing into much clearer contrast. When he was a volunteer firefighter, they'd take away the keys when he tried to respond to fires at black folk's houses, and when he made it he'd be the ONLY firefighter there. They wanted to let those residences burn because of the color of the residents' skin. As one of the town's medics, he was specifically locked out of the station for racist reasons and it led to a patient dying.
It's THAT good-ol-boy a community, and it's such an overwhelmingly black-majority town (like 80%) that going all democratic just won't work for them. So fuck em. If they win their defense on claims of qualified immunity of an office they don't actually hold, immo go down there and declare myself governor.
EDIT: Yet on reading more carefully, it's complicated. The "lame duck" city council voted on a re-election where he did not get the paperwork, and elected themselves back into office, all before he and the new council were sworn in. They may have managed to push the whole thing into a legal grey area in their favor depending on what the local and state laws are. But the problem is that quite literally everyone is telling him "you're not the mayor" when he tries to execute ANY mayoral duties. The bank is refusing him financial access. The staff at public buildings is refusing him physical access.
It's interesting because he's tried to bring in several lawfirms, and they have mostly just taken his money and failed him. This is, at local scale, to too unlike the federal Constitutional crisis we almost had on 1/6/21. What do you do when a town says you're not its mayor and the laws are unclear?
Sounds like a town so devoid of life that it would be more productive to just let it collapse.
There's a bunch of tiny rural towns that have basically no jobs and no real reason to exist anymore.
Globalization was not kind to rural America. And people listen to snake oil salesmen like Trump because he's the only one talking at them with a distorted compassion.
Jesus, that article just kept getting worse the more I read. Thanks for posting this. I was able to send a donation their way.
Wow, anyone who feels like we just have the "casual racism" of some people being impolite to other races needs to read this article. Full of stuff like:
Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person’s home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.
It's worse than the old cross-burning shit. Horrific. Not sure how to combat it when a whole town's leadership and infrastructure is so overtly racist.
With bricks through the windows of all their homes. Fuck these racist fucks. They're willing to let black peoples houses burn down for no reason? Yeah fuck them.
And yet a bunch of people, mainly good ol boys, from the south say racism isn’t real. How messed up has the US become. It doesn’t matter what your skin color is, what matters is your integrity. This is why I am actively trying to get the hell out of Texas, I can’t stand racism no matter who it’s by.
One of those "racism isn't real" is the Chief "Justice" of the USSC
It goes even deeper in congress, especially those that represent the south
I escaped Tennessee.
All I can say is: It gets better.
Get out as fast as you can, nobody deserves to have to live in the south.
Beautiful states with the absolutely most ugly people.
what's new? thats such disgusting behavior. can't believe this shit still goes on in 2023
Sounds about right. When I joined the military I met people from Alabama, and even people from other Southern states had nasty things to say about that state. I didn't believe it at first, but then I saw enough over time to realize, "I hate to say it, but maybe they're right. At least about some of the smaller towns and more rural areas."
I met a few nice people from Alabama, yes. I also met... a surprising number of not so nice types. I'm Asian by the way, not White. I'll let people fill in the gaps.
Noah, get the boat.