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
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.
They would arrest and convict the majority, and move on. With state support, 275 people is just not enough. A few surrounding communities? Their police forces would join in.
The small-town South Sucks if your skin isn't white.
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.
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.
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.
And by "concerted focused effort" does that mean we beat them within an inch of their lives until they promise never to do it again? Because that's what it's gonna take.
From the looks of it it takes another civil war, where the less barbaric people remove the more barbaric people from power. Unfortunately i am afraid that nothing short of that will work, as the system is so unstanle that things like this can happen.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I suspect (based on nothing, really) that most white people in this country are not racist. It's the tiny pockets of diarrhea like this town that are disproportionately racist, and have disproportionate representation in national politics.
I wonder if WFH could change this, as liberal white people from places like California start moving to different states, and begin to turn them blue. Or maybe I'm being too optimistic?
Racism/bigotry is not really a yes or no thing. It is a spectrum. Everyone is at least a little bigoted. Some people are pretty far up in that racism spectrum though.
The problem isn't just small towns like this where the clock stopped 70 years ago, it's huge portions of the South.
Gentrification from blue states isn't happening because the services needed (high speed internet) aren't available in small towns like this, and, because of other problems, nobody from the outside wants to live there.
Idk about moving state to state but I noticed people's definition of "reasonable commuting distance" got a little bigger durring covid. Like I'll do a longer drive if I'm doing it 2x a week instead of 5x. People that'd otherwise be in town or a blue suburb pushed a little farther into the exurbs.
I think a lot of people are racist tho so idk if that's helping
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!
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.
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.
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.
Facts. I transplanted here from Iowa in 2011. Everything was great until 2016 when the racist overtones really came to a head. My wife is a born Texan and she is liking the idea of moving to Colorado for more than the lack of of racism we see here.
I live in east Texas and the racism here is so prominent by all colors that it’s no longer appealing.
you've got to consider that to a lot of these people racism "isn't real" because their bar for what qualifies as racist is set incredibly high. "how could that be racist if it's true?"
you can see a similar anti-trans sentiment in the people who defend jk rowling. "she's just saying gender can't mismatch assigned sex, how could the truth be transphobic?" nothing could ever be transphobic or racist or whatever to these people when they think very concept of being bigoted isn't legitimate
My white former mother told my black wife both that A.) Racism is everywhere you go and also B.) Racism isn't that bad and she must be doing something to deserve the racism that our entirely white town was giving her. And that's why she's my former mother.
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.
This is not a state specific thing, and it's using a single state as a scapegoat because of this single news story. This kind of shit could happen in rural areas of almost any state. This is a ignorance and racism issue, not a geography issue.
The previous administration is still running the town, so how is Braxton going to arrest them when they control the police force?
He became mayor because he was the only one to qualify for election in 2020, because the incumbent declined to submit paperwork (because they weren't planning to actually hold an election; the last proper mayoral election was at least 60 years ago, according to the article). The city council responded by holding an unannounced (and probably illegal) special election to re-elect the previous mayor, which no one knew about so Braxton couldn't apply for it. So the previous mayor has simply continued doing the job, with the backing of the council and all his officials. That's why Braxton is bringing a lawsuit against them.
This dude sounds like a pretty weak mayor. He is literally the mayor, he can unilaterally appoint a new sheriff and arrest all 30 of the "white town leaders" for interfering with the official duties of the mayor. He has 100% of all official power that a local government has and I'd say at least 60% of the unofficial power, and yet he can't stop <30 people from running amuck?
He is either a collaborator, or so clueless that he should have never been mayor to begin with. Similar to Obama honestly.
I have zero power or soft power in that town. But if your projection of me can stop the elected mayor of a town from doing anything beneficial, it sounds like you are just looking for an excuse to support the status quo, like you and your kind always do.
arrest all 30 of the “white town leaders” for interfering with the official duties of the mayor
This is America, negroes can't arrest whites, that's how it's always been. If he tries anything like that he's going to jail and never coming back out.
There is no racism law in America, does that sound crazy? It is.