Alabama
The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma has made the news again:
“Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Director of the National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis today announced the designation of 13 new national historic landmarks, including the majestic Edmund Pettus Bridge, a 400-year-old historic district showcasing the influence of Spanish culture in Puerto Rico, the home of author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, and a historic stadium used by Negro league baseball teams in 20th-century segregated America.”
When I last visited Selma in 2011, I left with the sense that the Edmund Pettus Bridge had become something of a Medieval shrine for Northeastern DWL pilgrims in the religion of White guilt. Now at least it is official.
A few days ago, Vice President Joe Biden, the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Eric “My People” Holder parachuted into town for a photo op at the annual march across Selma’s Magic Bridge to commemorate America’s triumph over “the forces of evil” in Dallas County (AL):
“Biden said nothing shaped his consciousness more than watching TV footage of the beatings. “We saw in stark relief the rank hatred, discrimination and violence that still existed in large parts of the nation,” he said.
Biden said marchers “broke the back of the forces of evil,” but challenges to voting rights continue today with restrictions on early voting and voter registration drives and enactment of voter ID laws where no voter fraud has been shown.”
LBJ, Congress, and the Mainstream Media succeeded in breaking the back of “the forces of evil” with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While in Selma, Biden took the opportunity to remind us how that all came about:
“I think many in my generation who watched from another part of the country thought the right to vote had been secured,” said Biden. “But on that day 48 years ago we saw that it had not.
“My regret has been, ‘Why were we not there?’ I regret and I apologize it took me 48 years to get here. I should have been here. I should have been here,” repeated Biden.
He was there … for the day.
In Dallas County (AL), Valley Grande is the White flight parallel of Vestavia Hills. Chuck Thompson toured the area while writing Better Off Without ‘Em:
“Alarmed at the prospect of being swallowed up by predominantly black Selma, residents of a nearby and predominantly white, unincorporated community known as Summerfield hatched a plan in 2002 to keep themselves disconnected from the expanding city. By gathering enough local signatures, they would simply incorporate themselves into a new town, thereby separating their fortunes from their more undesirable black neighbors. Thus was founded in 2003 the town of Valley Grande – complete with the presumptuous é on the end revealing all the élan of a Florida condo development.
“What they did was typical – they just made a new city so that Selma couldn’t get its hands on the resources from this area,” a local African-American tells me.
Local whites, on the other hand, point to a decaying and downtrodden Selma and feel justified in their efforts to avoid being pulled into the obvious squalor. When I asked a longtime white Valley Grande resident why the town wouldn’t want to be associated with historic Selma, he said, “You been to Selma? You seen Selma? All the empty buildings? That’s the reason we didn’t want in there.”
Nearly fifty years later, there is a reason why the Mainstream Media doesn’t come to Selma in 2013 to showcase the nearly abandoned downtown business district, the failing public schools, the blighted and dilapidated housing stock, the syphilis billboards, the potholes, litter, and knee high grass, the ruined shopping centers and restaurants, the decaying antebellum mansions and other such indicators of the “progress” and “vibrancy” that Selma has made since it was redeemed for “democracy” by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement in 1965.
The reason why those civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge encountered such “entrenched hostility and prejudice” from local Whites … was because the “forces of evil” who had to live in that city (as opposed to cheering for black people on television in a distant state) had a vested interest in preventing the sort of social and economic collapse described above from happening.
In Selma and Birmingham and Tuskegee, the “forces of evil” were vanquished by self-righteous Yankees like Joe Biden … and so was commerce, the tax base, quality public schools, safe neighborhoods, high property value, streets without potholes, quality public services, and competence in government.
In the parlance of the Civil Rights Movement, those things were “overcome.”
I’ve done the records search the only person with your name in your state is a 17 year old boy living 22 miles outside of Detroit.
But I tell you what, come meet me at the Cape Fear hospital in Fayetteville NC. We’ll meet at the ER entrance so you can get tended to in a hurry
I have a degree in electrical engineering from UT. Fair certain my science cred is just fine. My maternal grandfather had a PHD in physics, and helped build the american nuclear arsenal. Fair certain his science cred is even better
There is overlap with anthropological, genetic and geological evidence.
A place very much like Eden existed in Southern Yemen and the Persian Gulf when humans first out run the chimps and crossed the Aden Straits. We come from about 200 intrepid individuals who got on rafts and populated the world. They moved from oasis to Oasis along the coast of Arabia and arrived in the fertile area that is now the Persian gulf, from there they fanned out all over the world. This process is preserved in the racial memory of mankind and written down in various just so stories like Genesis. It’s fairly simple.
Yeah, yeah, Stonelifter. And I still have the emails you sent me, trashing my house and my neighborhood, and saying how you’re going to bury me in the cemetery at the end of my block. So cut the crap, you chickenshit cocksucker. You know exactly where I live, and you acknowledged it. You’re just a coward, in spite of all your threats and boasts.
“Cape Fear hospital”, huh? Who’s gonna meet me there, your grandmother? LOL. What happened to “Kandahar”?
An electrical engineering education doesn’t lead directly to understanding evolutionary science, ancient middle eastern literature, etc. I know a brilliant (genius) computer engineer and mathematician, recipient of a coveted NON-needs-based full scholarship, in the doctoral program already at twenty years of age — who sincerely believes in seven-day Creationism and Millennialism!
See how long the creationism lasts.
What did happen in Kandahar? I did all but buy you a ticket and no show.
Now I am state side so come on down.
“Now I am state side so come on down.”
– If you’re state side, then what the hell are YOU waiting for, toughguy? YOU demanded MY address. YOU promised to come “bury me” in the cemetery by my house. YOU started all this shit with me in the first place with your silly threats, and when I called your bluff you try to publicly claim that I’m not who I say I am, or live where I live, even after stalking me and confirming my identity and residence in private. You are a PUNK and a JOKE, and I don’t even believe any of the shit you claim about yourself. But do feel free to come up here and (attempt, but fail) to prove me wrong you DICKLESS CHUMP. Show up or shut up.
Where is aDenise?
“Where is a Denise?”
Denises are hard to come by.
Yet another popular selection on the jukebox in the hoagie shop on Avalon Blvd. in the summer of ’63:
Rudel there’s a white comment on the Denise YouTube clip.
Lol.
Well if I am all those things it should be easy for you to come on down and teach me a lesson
Here’s a tip from the grown-up world. Adults are busy people and have things to do. I made the 14 hour trip, so beg permission and money from your mommy and come on down.
“Well if I am all those things it should be easy for you to come down and teach me a lesson.”
– You have no idea. But you’re the one who wanted to know where I live, so, I’m waiting.
“Here’s a tip from the grown-up world. Adults are busy people and have things to do.”
– Tell me about it. I’m out the door by 6:00 AM most days of the week. But do let me know if your steroid-shrunken balls ever grow back to a point where you feel brave enough to show up here, and I’ll happily make the 2 minutes of my time it would take for me to put you in a coma.
“I made the 14 hour trip,”
– Really? When?
“so beg permission and money from your mommy and come down.”
– What the fuck are you now, 12? Have fun moving your hillbilly clan to Eastern Europe. I hear the Jew-run brothels in Kiev need fresh stock, so at least you know your daughters will have work!
“See how long the creationism lasts.”
It’s been going on over 150 years now, almost as long as the premillennial heresy. I also expect it to run its course soon.
The point of my previous comment is that one can become an electrical engineer, or a computer mathematician, and still be a Creationist and avoid facing the issue of evolution, and appreciating the science — and one can also study engineering or math and avoid studying ancient middle eastern literature and languages, archaeology, etc. and avoid understanding how Genesis must be interpreted.
On the other hand, if you meant by “let’s see how long the creationism lasts” HOW LONG WILL IT LAST FOR THE INDIVIDUALS I referenced, well, it could last a lifetime for them — or for as long as the popular “trend” of creationism lasts in society (it will surely disappear some day) — since despite being intelligent (one a mathematical genius), in their fields and careers they CAN avoid the issues (scientific and hermeneutic) entirely.