Those of us familiar with the dog whistles, the coded messages, and all the rest, were quite adept at reading between the lines.

(And that signature on the bottom of my posts has been around for almost as long. I'm guessing it's only now dawning upon some what it meant.)

Thy crawled out when Obama won

Racists got permission once they heard politicians and talk show hosts say out loud what used to be limited to the dinner table.

because most of the uncounted Florida 2000 votes are the votes of women voters of color. Everything we're seeing today is pile on from that unconstitutional decision as in the attacks on women's rights and African American rights and the list goes on.

Dick Army and his cabal!


There were vids, I think, too.

"bad" as that was for the racists; they could chalk it up as a "fluke".

But he won twice!! I think that really aggravated them.

And he "gave permission" to racists w various comments once in office.

Btw...since I'm only on the phone; what is is your signature line [they don't show on mine; at least].

Last edited Thu May 7, 2026, 10:44 PM - Edit history (1)

I've been in Alabama all my life. I'm white so I've been privy to the things white people say when they assume they are surrounded by similar prejudices.

None of this is surprising. None. That's why those like me have told people beyond the region they had no clue how deep the Lost Cause mythology and resentment ran.

Indeed

Alabama was always Alabama but now our neighbors feel comfortable saying the quiet things out loud.

Then they quieted down a little bit in the 1990s and stopped saying it in mixed company. Now it is back in the wide open again.

And I’m in the bluest part of the state. It is unsettling. Now we are going to have to”Coach” as our governor. It’s going to get worse.

It was MLK day and he said loud enough to try to start something "this is the last day we'll be getting off for Martin Luther Coon day."

Been in the south to know that was said, was surprised that it was said that loud in what shouldn't be a safe space for that.

Last edited Thu May 7, 2026, 10:45 PM - Edit history (1)

Mobilians have long deluded themselves that Mobile was a racial nirvana because it didn’t get the negative press that Birmingham did. Yet Jim Crow still ruled. Civil rights leaders had their home fire-bombed. Klan marches took place downtown in the late 1970s. People were lynched, including one killed in 1981. There were “whites only” establishments into the 1990s and just beyond.

One of them, Callaghan's Irish Social Club, was established in 1947. It changed hands in 2002 and the new owners dispensed of the racial barrier but the longtime patrons initially didn't like it. "If the Blacks start coming in, they'll take over," I heard a neighbor of the bar say one afternoon in 2002.

Another 2002 afternoon, I heard a regular customer stand up while watching the news on TV and shout, "Damn! That Condi Rice is so fine she'd even make ME a n!@@#r f#cker!" None of the other patrons around him, including those with children even gave him a second look.

Callaghan's is now renowned for its live music and juicy hamburgers.

Two of the other race-restricted establishments were near an area prep school with the strongest historic connection to Mobile's ruling class. One was Pat & D.D.'s Old Shell Inn. It closed in the mid 2000s.

Another was the White Way Social Club just down the street. The name says it all. It closed in the 1990s, I believe.

The bigotry was just the way things were and I didn’t question it until my senior year in high school. There was black girl in my calculus class who was sharp as a tack and very funny. She just blew me away. I was fortunate to get to know Nettie before going to the University of Florida in 1969. I can’t imagine carrying those racist views to college. Nettie opened my mind and 57 years later, I am still grateful.

Peace ☮️

Rec

Decatur/Athens.

In one of his letters wrote about (we were mid-late teens) an old black man calling him, "Sir". He was a bit ? confused, unsettled... not sure, but sonething. If he was racist; this might have been the first chink in his armor.

by Heather Cox Richardson is a good read on that wretched Lost Cause.

I'm thinking (will double check) besides the KKK (which we know exists to various degrees in all The States) - The League of The South?
Bbs
.OK, I was correct ..

from Wikipedia: my underline

The Southern Nationalist League, formerly known as League of the South (LS),[6] is an American white nationalist, neo-Confederate, white supremacist organization[7][8][9][10][11] that says its goal is "a free and independent Southern republic".[12]

Obviously thinking I'd agree.

I’m shocked that people think it ever went away. People love the fact they can say it all out loud again. I’m gay and same goes for glbt hate. I think the only reason that the “pig” has any support at all is because of his allowance for bigotry.

Has now become white people talking openly in public. But these people never stopped talking like this...

...evidence that our country was finally evolving.

How wrong I was.

The racists couldn't wait to seize power and turn back the clock the whole time Obama was president

Trump tapped into that sense of outrage and encouraged it.

Plus those whom kept it amongst themselves "got permission" to be out loud by drimpfh.

There had been studies in the mid ?'00s that each generation more white kids were becoming non, and anti-racist

day. I just didn't imagine it would look like this. That it would be this bad. And it is bad. I was far from fooled about Obama being elected means we're past it. White folk have always hired black folk to clean up a mess. Obama might as well have been a janitor mopping the floor. I took note that police were shooting black men in the head and in the back when he was president. I felt bad for Obama because I think he knew it was because of him. Too bad there's so many people who don't believe the laws of physics. When a white mates with a non-white, another non-white is produced. They will never be able to make America, all white. But they believe they can. And if they can't, they want to stay in charge as a minority.

I think of European and especially Scandinavian countries as exemplars. But on reflection, I know that many/most of them are also torn by racial/ethic/language/religious divisions.

Common, people - let's all live together!

The RW parties in Europe make bank on hatred and demonizing of "migrants," which has at root a racist basis. In lesser-developed countries, the racism and "ethnic cleansing" is more overt, but no less pervasive. A somewhat exception is Brazil, but they have their problems, too.

Hatred of the other is one of the most persistent characteristics of humanity.

-- Mal

I Know. I sound stupid. But it’s always been so stupid. Why would anyone think there is an advantage to white supremacy when there are so many obviously stupid white people? Why do they want to be in league with such morons? I’m white and I know a whole lot of white people that are dumb as a bucket of rocks. I know stupidity can come in all colors, so where is the advantage to choosing white supremacy over some other color or ANY color? It’s never made sense to me.

No one gets to choose what color they are born. Therefore, how can one be more/better/smarter, etc. than another? No one controls their birth.

Yes, I know. I sound stupid, too.

It’s that effin simple. Opportunity and the quest for knowledge make the difference

But idk if I agree with your "janitor" analogy; though I get the point.

who are now speaking out. What a disgrace. The reasons for racism are rooted in fear of having to compete, and ignorance. The most vocal racists are not living in multi-racial communities but white ones. They believe the media stereotypes and biased news coverage describes anyone other than whites.
I consider racists to be ignorant hayseeds.

I'm 81, born 1944 in deep SW Mississippi . . little crossroads cotton picking town; county was 75% Black, as best I can tell from this vantage point, about 15 - 20 Blacks were registered to vote. I left at age 18 and never looked back. However, in those 18 years, three Black men were murdered, all of them for trying to register to vote or to form an NAACP chapter. Murders never solved -- what a surprise.

I have a dozen Mississippi and Louisiana cousins as well as my wife's Alabama cousins, in-laws, nephew.

Of these MS, AL, and LA kin, three families are Democrats. They take a lot of shit from their communities. The rest of our MS, LS, AL kin are MAGAts and white supremacists.

Their children and grandchildren all attend lily-white segregation academies -- Indianola Academy, Wilkinson County Christian Academy, Centreville Christian Academy, Bayou Academy (Cleveland MS). Read about them here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy

They do not use the word "Black" or the term "African-American." They use as a normal part of their vocabulary the word "n####r" and "n####rs." They use these words as easily as the rest of us say "Hello" or "Goodbye."

They tell me Donald Trump was sent by God. They all -- except for a couple of families who are Methodists -- are Southern Baptists who are in church every time the doors are open and who tell me the Bible is literal -- flood, prophecy, resurrection -- it all happened.

I posted on my Facebook account a condemnation of the Supreme Court after last weeks decision gutting the Voting Rights Act. All Hell rained down on my Facebook, email, text messages, and phone calls from my beloved cousins who are delighted with the decision.

Not a fucking thing has changed in the Old South from the days of Southern Redemption following the end of Reconstruction in 1876. The six "justices" who overturned the VRA should swap their judicial robes for Klan robes and hoods.

Later, I'll post a comment telling everyone how I really feel.

Let us know when you have more, please.

Is a small portion of how revolting it is to live in it.

Now I am in shock

People keep saying if we have the right message we can reach them. You have explained what I have been trying to tell folks, they are happy where they are and they are unreachable. They would rather rule in hell and their wishes will come true.

One nice thing about being rural is there is no one other than the locals there to see just how racist some people are.

And, when most of the town of 500 agrees with them...

(You may have guessed that even Warp Factor 20 could not get me away from there fast enough, once I was able to do so.)



The sad fact is that racism is just as alive and well as it was at the turn of the last century. It was not able to be as overt after the eighties, but it was still there and no one dared to question it, unless they had another place to live before they asked.

And, the unfortunate truth is that once I did start traveling around, I leaned that it was still just as pervasive as it always was. Some places were much less so, but it was still everywhere.

Back during his first term I recall posting here a time or two that the Chief Birther would probably try to make some moves back toward slavery or at least Jim Crow. The only thing I noticed was something regarding prison labor/slavery.

I suspect quite a few who voted for him in 2024 did so to continue normalizing his legacy of racism and they now whitewash it by claiming they voted for his promises of no wars, lower cost of living, etc.

Seems they have never understood the simple realities like "Don't judge a book by the cover" and all that.
Sad part (Like MAGA) is fairly easy to mold them.
"You know..that man was so clean, nice perfect haircut..wonderful suit and Sooo nice...
..I just cant understand why he jostled my bank account and somehow emptied my savings"

When Republicans judge..it's RIGHT NOW....
No wonder they grab the so-call obvious. Black man?...."mmm don't know...
The poor bastards never see the inside soul of a person....Oh Me.
My parents taught me so young...Look deep

There is deep, deep discontent throughout this nation. Trump is doing Putin's bidding to take this country down.

... the intolerable conduct and agendas that has been "normalized" as "political difference" in the era of Trump.

Our federal and state governments have been co-opted and infiltrated by people who have NO PLACE in a legitimate American government.

These people are defined by one or more of the following characteristics:

Does the bidding of Trump, no matter how corrupt, criminal, cruel, or destructive to our freedoms, our families, and our futures.

Abuses power to line their own pockets, the pockets of others in their gang, and the pockets of their billionaire backers.

Advances a racist agenda that seeks to reverse decades of social progress and seeks to purge African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and other people of color from our history, our civil service, and our elected offices.

Advances a Christian Nationalist agenda. That is, they are committed to passing laws that impose their PERSONAL religious beliefs on Americans who DO NOT SHARE those beliefs. Seeking to pass such laws is both deeply Un-Christian and Un-American.

Is determined to deport as many people of color who have come to this nation from elsewhere as possible, regardless of whether they are naturalized citizens, documented, or undocumented.

The Republican party has been fighting against and impeding progress for my entire life.
From the McCarthy attacks on suspected communists in the 1950's through their opposition to every single progressive movement throughout the 1960's, they have promoted oppression and the status quo and opposed justice.
The problem with the Republican party is that it's full of Republicans. Their party platform is a dead giveaway because it's full of their regressive and hateful unjust policies. Trumppublicans are just the latest iteration of a party that promotes a hateful and cruel agenda.
Otherwise, I agree with you. Vote them all out! Every last one.

If we can't say who is responsible for the mess that we are in, then it's unlikely that anything will change.
The fact that a problem exists has to be acknowledged before any steps can be figured out on how to solve it.
Furthermore, I am not saying that Republicans can't exist at all (which they seem to be saying about any of us "Libruls" ). I'm just saying that we have had really rotten results from letting them get into our government.
Electing people who hate and fear government, who agreed with Ronald Reagan when he said that the most frightening words you could hear were, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you ", how does that work? From what I have observed in my seven decades of life, is that electing members of a party whose only mission is to 'prove' that government doesn't work is...to break it after they get into office. I have never voted for a Republican, ever, because they have never had anything to offer to either women or minorities.
If we can't call them out on this, then how can we fix it?
And, for the record, my Dad was a lifelong republican, and my state had one good republican governor, Tom McCall. I loved my dad, and Governor McCall was a great governor.
However, I think that in order to solve our current problems, we need to vote all of the Republicans out. They're complicit in the oppression, violence and corruption that are proceeding at full blast.

If you live here.

not a shock, but yes, hard to process when I interact with people here.

Where I live it is about 55% MAGA and 45% Democrat.

Nice neighborhood where we all get along. Help each other out during hurricanes.

Come election time you see the different yard signs but in 40 years of living here I have never heard of any conflict over politics.

The only thing is that 40 years ago it was probably 70% Conservative and now it is only a little bit over 50%.

'The Dark' is the one thing Trump can gladly provide.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the white thugs in the Tennessee legislature started carrying ax handles.

This video is sickening to watch.

Link to tweet

Rec

Disgusting racists.

While he didn’t say, “DEI,” JFK put our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion into action -- promoting Abraham Bolden personally to the White House Secret Service detail.

Former U.S. Secret Service Agent Abraham BOLDEN was the first African American Secret Service agent to serve in the White House, personally appointed and literally hand-picked by President John F. Kennedy to the White House detail. Agent Abraham Bolden reported overt racism by his fellow agents and outright hostility toward the "n------loving president," quoting fellow Secret Service agents on the JFK detail.

In addition to enduring all manner of personal indignities, he was concerned at the lack of professionalism in those assigned to protect the president and reported his concerns. He was told, "OK. Thanks" by his superiors. When the problems weren't addressed, Bolden requested transfer back to the Secret Service office in Chicago.



President Biden recently pardoned Abraham Bolden



The story of a man who told the truth:

Rec

a few yrs ago. Whether you or someone else first posted.

But Holy Crackers(!) in all the yrs of casually looking at JFK etc assassination conspiracy theories as they'd float up online (a little before that - it wasn't something I really actively sought out, an occasional glance) I've never heard of Joseph Adam's Milteer! Woah!

I was 10 in '63. So decades later and it was possibly someone posting here about his American University speech. I think that really riled some people up.

I suppose there might be people whom, having never personally seen or practiced much racism, thought it was extinct or nearly so. Those of us who are a bit long in the tooth had no such illusions.

-- Mal

The cockroach came down the escalator and imprinted on the puss. Nothing can get between the two.

What I heard in the nineties:

"Racism does not exist any more."

"Why do you keep defending them? You're white."

"You're not really Hispanic."

You don't have to be Black to be disappointed, but I'm damned sure it helps.

I remember self-appointed pundits asking "is America ready for a Black President ?", each evidently feeling this was a product of insightful deliberation peculiar to themselves, and forming my response as "The rest of the world is ready for America to have a Black President; If America isn't ready that's our problem."

Well. It turns out America had/has a much bigger problem than I realized. A painful learning experience for me, and much of the country, I'm guessing.

In the Fifties (and before), it was popular on the Right to say "America, love it or leave it". Much later, I remember a country music star adding "and if you do love it, stay here and try to fix the sonofabitch". I have to say I admired that addition, and felt like Democrats weren't the ones wanting to destroy the country (that was the oligarchs, as always), but rather had a moral obligation to be the ones who did the fixing, and I always wanted to be on the side of that effort. I'm not so sure about that anymore. I've pretty much lost any chance of having a normal life and career because of the way things are tilted towards the rich and connected, and I don't see much chance of that changing within my remaining lifetime, and I'm assuming 20-25 years to go is not unreasonable. If I were offered an academic position in a foreign country, with the kind of benefits those Socialist Yerpeens all enjoy, I'd move if I could afford it. And I'm not sure how much it matters what country, or what the native language is. (Well, almost. Hungary is still iffy for a while, and not because of the language.) My expectations for improvement in this country are that low. It will happen, I suppose, but not soon enough to help me live any but a marginal existence as a "consumer", maybe even a "voter". "Citizen" in a meaningful sense is out of reach for many Americans now. Maybe even me.

I used to think of America's future as always getting better and better. Now, I think the longer the country lasts, the more its fundamental flaws emerge (legalized slavery being a flaw that's now gone, at least in name); if these aren't reckoned with, I think we could end up going the way of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918), weakened by internal ethnic conflicts until broken apart by crises of internal or external origin. Austria-Hungary was once a major industrialized state and economic power in Europe, but fell apart when the accumulated stresses became too great, and the Russians attacked in alliance with Serbia. I'm not convinced a similar thing for America (1776-20??) is out of the question.

When President Obama was elected then reelected, I naively thought the country was progressing away from this stain of hatred.

Then Trump came along and poured gasoline on the hidden embers of hatred. The resulting bonfire has exposed the evil that has been hiding beneath the surface all along.

This is pathetic, disgusting and hopeless.

By not facing and reconciling with it, the hatred continues to bubble and metastasize under the surface.

Trump has only given it a green light. It has always been there.

Worthless dipshit rednecks won't get up off their lazy asses and put in an honest day's work. That explains the pickups up on blocks out in front of the trailers.

They want a free workforce to do everything for them instead.

Those with broken trucks and leaking double-wides weren't the ones who owned slaves. They couldn't have afforded them.

Instead they were exploited by the same oligarchs who preserved the existing order and owned most of the land in the county. Slavery kept poor whites in metaphorical chains, as well.

So much has been made of the fact that the bulk of the fighting the Confederacy did during the Civil War was by poor, uneducated dirt farmers. The "Lost Cause" bullshitters always say they were fighting for states rights, not slavery. And it's, well, bullshit. Poor non-enslavers wanted slavery as much as the wealthy plantation owners. Only in their case, it wasn't wealth, but some kind of greasy, odious self-respect they were looking for. "At least I'm not a slave"; that kind of thing.

They wanted the right to own slaves, partially because of what you stated. In the same way that so many poor Americans choose to see themselves as temporarily disadvantaged millionaires, many poor Southern whites choose to view themselves as temporarily disadvantaged slave owners.

I've watched it for 50 years. From backrooms to the mainstream in media, society & policy. Personally, I never thought it was hidden, or not very well. Now, it's just in your face overt. Because America elected a black POTUS twice and tried to elect women.

That brought the racism & misogyny backlash front & center.

Now, were back to 100 years ago.

So many times someone writes what needs ro be done to win elections. The first thing is eliminate identity politics, right wing framing. It is distracting us from what is important. They don’t see a problem with amplifying racists or minimizing their destruction but I find there is little pushback from most people on this forum. The racism is insidious but it’s here. We need to pull it out by its roots everywhere including our representatives in the Democratic Party. Stop giving a pass to anyone who normalizes this garbage.

the hard-core, in your face Jim Crow-type racism in some places where people freely use "n****r" and openly rejoice in the legal deprivation of the voting power of Black people. That's not to say there are no racists here; there are. But it's more subtle, which actually can make it harder to eradicate because people don't like to admit it exists here. Nevertheless, saying "n*****r" in most places would definitely result in blowback - we can't even spell it, let alone say it - and most racists in these parts are at least a bit circumspect about their racism.

Rec

It was an old Gold Rush town with place names like 'Negro Hill', 'Negro Hollow' and "Negro Bar', named after the Black miners who arrived in the 1850's. Over the years the Black residents were forced out, moving to San Francisco and LA. Growing up everyone used the other 'N-word' in describing the places I mentioned. Only as I sought answers did I learn of 'restrictive covenants', 'red-lining' and other measures designed to prevent Blacks from residing in my very white town. Black folk passed through, headed toward Lake Tahoe and beyond. The local police, sheriffs and highway patrol encouraged them not to linger. The town is still a dark red bastion of MAGA nonsense. I escaped long ago. There are many towns like this, not all in the deep south.

What a planet

I'd expect it to intensify in some proportion relative to how divided and inequitable we are as a country. That's what history says about us, anyway. Plenty out there feeding it as anything can be monetized or leveraged these days.

maybe what I thought we were was fiction, or a pipe dream

but, what we have become breaks my brain and my heart

Trump made them loud and proud of their racism

Trump's hacks on the SC have validated it all.

we still outnumber them but they currently hold all the cards

these cockroaches need to be CRUSHED in November

but I AM shocked at just how many racists, misogynists', and people who hate anything and everything just to feel that rush of adrenalin that we actually have in the US. "United States" my butt. We need to break into two countries and let those racists go their way, while we go ours and try to rebuild the country we and the Founders wanted. Even the Founders saw way back when we weren't perfect... they were tilted towards landed white men and couldn't even come to count POC as whole people. Women, meanwhile, weren't even afforded a 1/5's count towards a person. This is why they saw the constitution as a living document... something this RW "originalists" deny and cannot abide.

The fact that SO many people hate is the only thing that shocks me. I thought we, as a whole, were better than that. trump has brought at the worst in all of us. Even *I* have learned to hate -- tho it's the RW I hate, which I feel completely justified in feeling. But RW's say the same thing. trump and his nazi brood of an administration have elevated Hate to the highest compliment of being an American. I hope we can change this at some point, but many people... like me... are going to have to a lot of therapy to change.

Nope. It's not. Not even in the slightest.

is the outright viciousness that is now so easily spewed [again, I know, it's there]...It's the casualness bc of drumphf's "permission". Known, of course, he's racist.

I hope that makes sense.

... let itself be ignored.

I think racism is born out of religion.

People are taught since birth that they are "chosen," that they belong to an elite group that God considers better than everyone else. And once you decide the group you belong to is superior, than simple logic dictates others are inferior. And once you see other people as inferior, it becomes okay to treat them that way.

It's the great lie of "Us and them" all over again, really. Ultimately, there's no such thing as them. There never was. From the start it's always been just us. But there's benefit to the few to keep the many at one another's throats.

It's okay to be different. Different people are not a threat to you; they're a threat to those who control you. Never forget that.