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Sundown Town


debrand

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I find it so hard to believe in this modern age that folks to think like this. I know they do but why would they hold onto something so filled with hate? It happens here too and it always makes me ill to see it, hear it or have it happen. We also have have the Mexican hate here and that goes on a 2 way street. Some towns here have been Mexican since the dawn of time and they will do/say raciest things towards whites/blacks/asians.

I say Mexican as the hispanics I have talked to prefer to be called mexican if they are from Mexico and not spainsh or hispanic unless it is refering to the the race and not the country. Just like not all white people are from England or English. My one set of nephews will tell you they are half mexican and another nephew will tell you his wife is hispanic, so 6 of one and a half dozen of the other.

I really can't wait until we all get over ourselves and stop being raciest to one another. Meaning everyone becomes color blind, not that anyone here is raciest.

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I'm not so surprised at the kids. Kids can be assholes to anyone who is "different" whether it because of race or something else. But I am surprised at the school's lax attitude. They should not have allowed this to go on, especially when that young woman was in such distress. They could have used this to incident to teach about diversity and respect and instead they did nothing. There seems to be a very hands off approach to bullying in schools when it comes to adults intervening.

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They could have started by just sending all the "Wiggers" home - they relax the dress code (which I bet has something about gangwear - they usually do) for specific theme days. Stuff that doesn't follow the theme or the dress code - send the little assholes home. Then it wouldn't have come down to a student having to take a stand.

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There are pockets of California that are known for racism, and I live in one. We've had a few sundown towns here too.

One of the things that I think is under-taught in California schools is the forcible expulsion of the Chinese from many towns. Virtually every town of any size had a Chinatown--HAD being the operative word.

We also rounded up Japanese and slaughtered Indians in many parts of the state that are now known for being very liberal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Wiyot_Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka,_Ca ... _expulsion

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I must have spent my life living under a rock. I've never heard of sundown towns. I have to admit, I'd kind of like to crawl back under that rock.

I never heard of them either! I know there is a trailer an hour or so from me in PA.where the KKK leader/ member supposebly lives(because of the big dixie flag you can see from the highway everyone says that),but I think teenagers would actually defile his property when they can do it without his pitbulls catching them.I think rural PA., by the W.VA border may have KKK activity, but I don't know anyone who would know where.It is seriously redneck,hicksville down there, I wouldn't go there without a reason.

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To this day, the most appalling, blatant racism I've ever witnessed has been from people from the Midwest - and I grew up in the South. When I asked my mother about it, she explained that the South had government-forced integration, and the urban east coast cities had integration out of necessity; but everywhere else, attitudes and prejudices were free to run unchecked.

When I was a kid in the 90s I was still being bussed 20 min across town to go to school as part of a desegregation program, by the way. Most people don't realize desegregation still actively goes on.

My dad (see above for his experience with sundown towns) found Chicago to be shockingly more racist than the South. I remember telling him that I'd seen an African-American woman when I went to the beauty salon in Schaumberg with my mom and he couldn't hardly believe it.

On a funnier note: my mom went crazy trying to find garbanzo beans for a three-bean salad after they moved to Illinois. She asked a clerk at the Jewel and he just looked at her and said, "Chick peas? We feed those to cattle! *snif*" My mom found her beans at a little store that sold ethnic food. That was in the mid-80s. I'm thinking that's not the case now.

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I grew up on the east coast and not to say there wasn't racism - there was plenty, but it would have been considered wrong to be blatant about it.

I didn't realize until I moved to the midwest how racist this part of the country is. I would highly recommend Cynthia Carr's book, Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, A Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America. Very eye-opening.

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The problem with his hypothesis is there is historical evidence that some towns forcefully drove minorities out.

That's exactly what she's saying. "that way on purpose."

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It wasn't just the South - doesn't that author think it was actually worst in border states (Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio) but there were Sundown Towns everywhere - Edina, the nice SW suburb of Minneapolis, was one. There were Sundown towns in New York and New Jersey.

That book changed my life - I had grown up thinking Black people didn't live in those little towns just because NOBODY wanted to live in the little towns I'd grown up in. But it's just not true. The whiteness of so many small towns in the West and Midwest was artificial and enforced with violence for at least a century.

Don't forget about Pennsylvania. Lots and lots of racists live in the middle of Pennsylvania. I believe they have more KKK members than any other state. I think that is one of the reasons why James Carville has a saying about PA. "It's Philadelphia is the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama is the middle."

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I'm from a small town in the Bible Belt that's split about 50/50 racially. I moved up north when I went to college and I was really surprised at the pretty much self-imposed segregation up here where people mainly hang out with their own nationality (it goes beyond race where I live--more to communities built solely based on heritage). But then again, my town in the south is building a new public school in the richer and whiter part of town and just shut down a largely black trailer park so it's not zoned for it. It's such a sad and screwed up subject.

On an even more personal note, my best friend in middle and high school was black and dated a white boy. All of her closest friends were white. She lived in a predominantly black neighborhood and we were never allowed to go over to her house. Not because our families had any problems with her race but because my best friend's mother was scared the neighbors would burn her house down for inviting us in. This didn't happen in the 1950's but just a few years ago. I remember one time we went to the mall and some older black woman walked up to her and yelled at her for holding hands with a white boy because it was a disgrace to their race.

I think any and all racism is disgusting and sad. I hate that my best friend went through all that and I was really shocked to hear about the sundown towns. To quote from Mean Girls, "I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school. I wish that I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles and and we'd all eat and be happy."

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I didn't know there was a name for towns like that until recently. Near where I now live is a town infamous for it's racism. I remember someone told me they used to have a sign that said "No colored after sundown" or something to that affect. They finally took it down in the early 1970's. I find it astounding that a whole town could get away with such bigotry in such an open area until the 70's! It was only later I found out there were so many towns like this that it had it's own special name.

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