“Is It Possible To Ignore The Future?”
by digby
Here are a great couple of posts by Rick Perlstein from a couple of years ago in which he shared some letters he’d run across in his research from some Chicago residents to their Senator on the new laws against housing discrimination. I urge you to read all of them, but these capture the very essence of right wing backlash argumentation both then and now, I think:
1)Last night there was a show of appreciation for all that has been done to help the colored people. Even those that have been moved from the slums into high rise apartments have seen fit to shoot and wound our policemen. Don’t you think it’s time to have Dr Martin Luther King and other negro leaders start preaching that they should go to work the same as white folks do, if they wish to improve their lot, instead of continuing to promise them more and more in all their talks.
How much longer are we doing to be the suckers, giving away tax payer’s money and in return see what it has got us. Shooting, looting, and additional cost to community in the way of police protection, hospital expenses, replacement of burned and smashed automobiles, etc.
2)I do not understand the Negro riots in our big cities. These negroes have civil rights. They do not suffer from discrimination. Many are supported by our taxes.
3)Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation”–did they have the national Guard fight the Indians for them? No, they had to work hard for their niche in life. Today we have many groups of settlements in America–did they demonstrate for rights as the negro is doing today? No, they made their own way and are greatly respected for so doing….
Am I living in Germany under Hitler’s rule or in America? As I recall the past, it comes to mind that Hitler sent troops to march in te streets of Germany. This display of power frightened the people and they ran to their homes to hide. Isn’t this what we are being told to do today? When Hitler, pardon me, I mean Martin Luther King, decides he and his troops want to harass an area, he calls a march of power and our politicians send the storm troops, correction, Police and National Guard, to help frighten the people of that area. Our churches are doing their bit, by telling us to be: “good, stay in your homes, ignore these racists and maybe they will go away.” Is it possible to ignore the future? When greedy Mr Hitler started taking over other countries, people at first thought ‘give him a little more, then he will be satisfied.’ Give greedy Mr King a little more freedom then he will stop. Isn’t this what we are being told today? …Wake up America! Stop being an ostrich, start realizing that during that period of apathy, after World War II and until today, we have permitted a handful of people to write laws that are putting us in the same deplorable state that the German people were in thirty years ago.
Plus ca change
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