this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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Former President Donald Trump is facing backlash for holding rallies in places described as "sundown towns."

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[–] [email protected] 176 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

For the uninitiated:

"A sundown town is one that forbade Blacks, by ordinance or otherwise, to live in it. Many of these places, including Cullman, posted signs to the effect of 'Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark,' sometimes with far less sanitized language."

[–] [email protected] 79 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

As a non American, thank you. The headline made zero sense without that context.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If it is American and does not make sense, it is probably racism.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Depressingly true, but largely because our popular culture is so pervasive that anything weird that you'd talk about openly is already pretty commonly known.

Like, the Netherlands don't have a particularly pervasive culture, so anything you learn about them that's not "everywhere" won't make sense at first. It dilutes the whole "wait, what the fuck is 'black pete'?" thing.

All that to say, not all of our nonsense is racist, just the unfamiliar nonsense we don't talk about anymore.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

what the fuck is ‘black pete’?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Bizarre Dutch Santa Claus helper. Like an elf, except canonically a black person with curly hair, silly mannerisms, bright clothing, big red lips and played by a white person wearing blackface.

It's almost over the top how racist it is, and there's controversy around if they should keep doing it.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/12/4/the-netherlands-black-pete

Turns out if you have a history selling slaves, you'll pick up some stuff.

Point being less about pivoting this to the Dutch, and more that not hearing much about a culture also means you don't hear as much about their awful stuff, and when you hear a lot about a culture you tend to mostly hear about the parts that people want to share in public.

No one's gonna make a movie that just casually drops the wide variety of ethnic slurs for the Italians or Irish that have existed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

OMG.

I can understand an elf covered in soot.

But full on black-face caricature?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Almost like institutional racism is a thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

No no no, didn't you read the statement from the spokesperson for the far right xenophobic organization in the article?

Wagensveld does not believe there is systemic racism.

“Eighty to 90 percent of the Dutch population see Zwarte Piet as non-racist,” he claimed. “When I dress up as Zwarte Piet most people like it … Black Pete is absolutely not racist.”

It's not systemic racism if the people not impacted by it don't think it's racist, obviously.

🤦

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

As an American, I had no clue what a "sundown town" was, but I do know how far American media will go to obfuscate Führer Drumpf's outright racism and bigotry.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Dude it’s a SUPER old term. Like, Civil War old. They’re using the term because it’s highly associated with slavery-flavored racism.

Edit: I’m not saying it’s an archaic or disused term. I’m saying the term was coined well over a century ago.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

As an American, I had no clue what a “sundown town” was

Same... I figured it was one of those retirement communities where people go to die. TIL.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

You are by no means the only one who thought that before reading the comments…

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

Obfuscate? Just because you don't know what something means doesn't mean it's a malicious attempt to hide anything. Sundown towns are widely known as racist ordinances.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

I was reading Erik Larsen's The Demon of Unrest and one of the things he pointed out was that, in areas of the South, blacks had to be off the streets by a given time. If they weren't, they were subject to arrest overnight (during which they might be beaten or even killed), and then "returned" to their owners the next day (where they'd likely face additional punishment).

I knew of the definition of "sundown towns" as you described them, but it seems like they're post-Civil War attempt at some kind of pseudo-slavery, combined with expanded sharecropping, "separate but equal" facilities, red-lining, voting literacy laws, etc.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Many of these towns still have those laws, they never removed them and refuse to to this day.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Waiting for SCOTUS to make it legal again. (And Trump's presence is effectively an endorsement of that.)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

A lot of these small towns around me don't even have their own police force or only have a few people on staff and have to use the sheriff for backup. They're going to have a bad time if people decide they're not going to put up with it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, but it's probably one of those sherrif departments that's managed to get a couple APCs and tanks with tax payer funds.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

County by me has 13k people in it across 500 sq miles. Not sure how they're going to catch anybody in an APC (which they didn't have) after they zoop out of the area on one of the many country roads.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

"Let the states decide!"

[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

“No OnE HaS DonE MoRe fOr BLAK pEoPlE thAN mEeEeEEEe”

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

"If I get elected, no black person will be without a job. Whether they like it or not."

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But they get the black jobs

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Took yur durr!

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 weeks ago

Just to clarify what “great again” implies

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 weeks ago

Faces backlash from who? From anyone that he cares about?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

he has to do something to make sure he doesn't lose the 4th grade dropout vote along with everyone else

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago

Ha! You literally just described my aunt. Worst person i know, dropped out after fourth grade, one kid dead from drunk driving, another guilty of insurance fraud, the third one molested a child and the fourth was forced to give birth to a rape baby at 14.

She'll vote Republican till the day she dies, and she'll think she's right the whole time...

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 weeks ago

The best part about Harris replacing Biden is that she has the time and energy to actually campaign, which forces Donald Fuck to get up off his toilet and open his mouth. And in public, he keeps showing everyone who he really is!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

The best place to have your rallies is at places where people have nothing better to do than vote anyway because they're all old and decrepit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Is he getting more orange?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I figured it was because its the only places he won't get boo'd at. He needs some good footage to lie about his campaign success.