James Jacobson writes, in part:
>        I heard first hand that before the 1954 major civil rights
> activities, in Southern cities there was harmony between the whites and
> blacks, a lot of blacks had domestic work jobs with the whites, the blacks
> and whites circulated amongst each other and all went well, no crime
> problems, everyone got along.   Then after 1954, it became two
> armed camps,
> no more interaction and the whites suddenly all having big guard dogs.
>       It is interesting to read about Wall Streeter Bernard
> Baruch, when he
> bought 'Hobcow',  a large anti bellum Southern plantation -as vacation and
> hunting preserve, and it was populated still, by a few hundred black
> families.  Baruch kept everything as it was, he sort of governed
> the place,
> made it work well and handled matters of all kinds for the blacks
> and helped
> them -if they wanted- to transition to a northern city and have
> work there.
>      The story is pertinant as a lesson to Minneapolis, as if some of the
> activist crowd read of it they might gain a much less abrasive and more
> successful manner of dealing with whatever issues they have and the city
> would be a more easily governed community and lots more congenial
> place for
> everyone to live.
>      James Jacobsen // Whittier


You've got to be kidding.  This is a joke, right?
Where was the KKK while all this hip-happy, integrated lifstylin was taking
place.  Why did ML King and Malcolm X develop such followings; why are our
prisons disproportionately full of blacks and other minority prisoners, why
are today's cocaine laws so racist, why is black unemployment so high
relative to white unemployment...  what do we need a Southern Poverty Law
Center for in this day and age?  ah, yes, bring back the '50's, where we
could all join in a block party and dance to Elvis and Little Richard and
watch the Cleavers at night on b&w TV, when segregation and separate but
equal was the law, and inter racial marriage was illegal, and people were
strung up for crossing that line.  Why did N. Mpls burn in the '60's and
what are folks complaining about today on the N side?  I guess some folks
just don't get it!  Still! It's about equity... and domestic work jobs
didn't/don't cut it.  50% drop out rates don't cut it.  Equity is earned,
but it sure ain't given away.  'Less abrasive' sounds good, like apple pie
and ice cream!

Mike Hohmann
Linden Hills


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