This was my thought exactly. This isn’t something new because of the whole “MAGA” movement.. this is something that’s always existed but it’s only just now become so blatantly obvious and out there that it can no longer be hidden or overlooked
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Heavens no, it's not new. It's always been there. But the MAGA are emboldening people who, prior to, would have thought it wasn't ok to say things like that. They find each other on the Internet, etc., and become a mindless pack. It's easier for them now, because they can associate with others of a similar mindset without being in public. And the more MAGA goes on, the more they feel that they are becoming the norm (because it's in the press again). And so they're not keeping it behind closed doors.
I grew up in the Jim Crow south, with the separate but equal. I used to watch people, and I remember it well. And the restrictions as to who could buy property/live in what parts of towns. Separate entrances. Back of the bus - I remember all that. I wasn't allowed to sit in the back of the bus because "bad people" sat there. Who I could and could not play with. Who would be hired for which jobs. (It was pretty much understood who'd get the supervisory/management ones and who'd be doing the sweating.) When "those damnyankee gummint people" forced my school to send my math teacher across town and bring an African-American teacher into my classroom to "integrate" us and the hell that broke out over that. Things burning on lawns. People getting beat up. My best friend's mother was a product of the deep South. She used to speak of "neegras" and what their place was, and how shiftless most were but one or two you'd occasionally find could be good domestic workers, etc., etc., etc. And then there was the "meskins". And "them damned Japs". Jews... that was a whole 'nuther layer. I was ok because I never mentioned I wasn't protestant Christian. (I did actually have some sense, back then, about keeping my mouth shut.
My unfortunate coloration was excused because the ancestor responsible for it came from "the North of Ireland" which was assumed to be NI. And they're all God-fearing Protestants, you know.... yeah, I remember it.) I remember many old people (they were old to me, at the time) and pretty much not-so-old people and how they spoke of anyone who wasn't white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant. We were red-headed Irish Catholics, off the boat for the most part. We didn't get spared even when I lived in NY. We didn't get Jim Crowed, but we took heat. Not allowed to join golf clubs, social clubs, go to certain universities, couldn't get hired for good jobs, de-facto segregated into specific neighborhoods....Then JFK was president - he was "our" president - and things really started to change. Of course, look what happened to him, and then his brother....
And then there was 1964-74 and so much seemed as if it really was changing. And, really, it was. Mainstream left all that crap, and there's no way to sugarcoat what it was/is, behind. It seemed like for a good thirty years (until recently) it just wasn't acceptable except in the lowest dregs to be trotting all that nastiness out. It may still have been there (and I'd have been surprised if it wasn't!) but it wasn't brought into the light of day. With this...stuff... going on now, it gives those dregs validation and they are definitely crawling out of their dark places. It's by no means mainstream. But it's so ugly and it's been so long since it's been on the sidewalk that it's a shock to see again. I have to wonder, what is so miserable in their lives that they'd turn to that?
When we were back in California I was in a shop to get some supplies for the Daughter's sewing machine. The lady there, when Brexit came up (and they all seemed to bring it up), started spewing hate about all those Eastern Europeans and Greeks just wanting handouts, and of course Brexit was justified because those leeches would otherwise destroy the country. I asked her if she'd ever visited in Europe and she'd never been out of California. Of course, her sister-in-law was German and filled her in on how they had to carry all those East-Germans who were used to "the commies" just giving them money and houses, once "the Wall" fell....
Ummmm. Wow. The longer she spoke, the angrier she became. And then it switched to "those people" sneaking across the USA border. She was actually waving her arms in the air.
I'd already paid and she was wrapping the stuff up or she would have lost a rather substantial sale.
![[smiley=puke.gif]](https://www.talk.uk-yankee.com/Smileys/classic/puke.gif "Puke")
I gotta say, though, that I've been able to look at it all popping back up everywhere in a more or less detatched way. Until we ran into the Orange parade.
You're a better person than I am, Aquila. I'd not have been able to keep my mouth shut if someone dumped that on me.
