Now they're after the mountain itself! (Monroe, Stone Mountain: exemption, housing, ordinance)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I take every one of your points as valid. Definitely. I do not deny one single point.
But you assume that every white person that visits is looking at this as a part of history from only the white angle. That whites do not feel the shame and burden of slavery, whether their family were slave owners or not, just knowing that people were enslaved and treated on this turf as such is a painful, gut wrenching thought to comprehend. When I see memorials to the Civil War, for whatever reason the people that erected them did (and one cannot assume it was only for white supremacist ideals), I do imagine the life that millions suffered and lived under. I also think of my ancestors being born in such a time and that this way of life was the norm and how they reacted and thought of it all. It is sobering all the way around.
The park in their presentation and laser light show surely have made light of this reality... I mean it is a place to go for a getaway and relax and be entertained... how could they accurately depict the harsh reality of such a way of life? But even though they white wash it (no pun intended), the truth still percolates up to anyone with half a brain. How we deal with this legacy is going to differ from individual to individual certainly.... you have black friends that enjoy the park and don't feel the pain you do. I have white friends that visit and don't think about these issues like I do either.
And yes, we are in a worse place than before. I am old enough to have gone to elementary school in the late 60s when we still had separate schools. I can see the black maids in our neighborhood waiting for their rides just like was seen in the movie "The Help." I can remember the train tracks in my hometown of Hogansville being the clear delineation of where blacks lived and whites lived. The doctors clinic in Greenville to this day has two separate entrances. I can remember the N word being used casually by whites (never in my home mind you.... would get a mouth full of soap). My Baptist preacher grandfather was reviled by some because of his support of Civil Rights. I remember the young preacher we had in the early 70s preaching in the black church down the road and two families leaving the church.
Now that church has black members. Now AAs live on the east side of the tracks in Hogansville. The two entrances at the clinic are now for sick patients and well patients. At my high school reunions, the majority of my black classmates have achieved what their parents never dreamed of, college educations, professional careers. White and Black have intermarried and raised families and the world didn't end.
So, all this transition in just my lifetime. Is it finished, have we arrived, is MLKs dream a reality? No, by all means it hasn't happened fully. But it has happened and continues to become a reality in many, many lives.
Perhaps my feeling that feelings are worse is that I am now bombarded by anger from so many angles. I have tried to have conversations on Facebook with some friends on racial issues and I get hit with the "you are not black so you cannot know what it means" Played as if it is a trump card and anything I have to add to the conversation is therefore invalid. And if white people like me, Christian, conservative, but with a true heart for reconciliation are told they have no place at the table, where are we going as a country if the ideal is now to win the conversation at all costs? I have wanted to throw my hands in the air and forget it and not want to engage in the conversation when I get met with this mindset, but I am still drawn in. I still believe we can do better as a people.
Didn't mean to go on so... More than just the topic of this thread for sure. But with all the rhetoric from all sides dating back to.... I guess the Florida incident where the white (hispanic) dude killed the young black guy in the neighborhood.... I have seen a turn in the conversation. I understand the frustration AAs face... not to the point that they themselves understand it, I never will be able to. But I do want to say, hey, here is a white guy that really is on your side and you are pushing me away.
Wanted to state that I don't think that white persons thinks anything in particular when they go to the park. I only spoke of what I feel about it and its recent history as a symbol of white supremacy. I doubt most visitors even know that it is a relatively knew carving in the mountain and they probably think it is "historical" and has been there since the end of the Civil War. Most people aren't nerds about historical things.
I also am not upset about race matters in general and I feel many whites today think that most black people are when we are not. I do get upset when reading about particular things in my research, but like you mentioned, I do know it was a different time and a different place. And my anger is more on the line of sadness, that these people had to go through such difficult circumstances and even though they were poor and poverty stricken, poverty can be overcome with "hard work" but no matter how hard blacks worked or got educated, they just didn't have the opportunities afforded by even fresh off the boat European immigrants because even our government and law enforcement provided them no protections and actively prevented them from being full members of society.
And FWIW, I also don't think you know what it means because you aren't black and you do not and will never know what it is like to be black in America. It is a trump card that you cannot match and instead of getting taken aback by that fact, you should acknowledge that it is true. There is nothing wrong with it. You are not black and won't ever know. But you can have empathy.
I'll be honest and state most white people I know are VERY defensive about the past of our country. Anytime someone mentions a negative past against blacks (and in my case, many whites bring up these sorts of topics with me because they feel I am "safe" to talk to about it I guess, but most of the time they get upset at my responses lol), and especially slavery, people who I'm talking to IRL and online will bring up how their ancestor's suffered. Or they will say something about how far things have come and try to downplay whatever the black "incident" is. Many will also state, like the ignorant poster who won't be named, (not you Saintmarks) that it was "welfare" that caused the economic conditions of black America today. Rarely will a white conversationalist just speak about the issue at hand without trying to skew the conversation away from whatever topic is being mentioned. Many take it as some sort of personal stab to them when I especially speak of white supremacist ideology due to the fact that I don't ever believe it will go away in this country. I don't believe white people are bad people, I just know our society was set up to not value black people and that over the years it has gotten better but in general, our society still does not value black people like they do other Americans.
The funny thing to me about these sorts of conversations that I have in particular is that many white people think that any mention of current issues or past aggressions are about "slavery." As if that was the end of all the trials and tribulations of blacks in this country. That after 1865 the blacks did okay unless there was something personally wrong and deficient about them as a person or people. Not many people know the depths of which the lives of black Americans were controlled and when I speak of them when confronted with things like "welfare caused _______" they don't listen and won't hear it because they fully do believe that everything was fine and dandy for black people until the 1960s when blacks got " the welfare" lol.
And for me the mountain in the grand schemes of things is not important and it doesn't anger me, it's just that I will go to places that I can fully enjoy. Knowing what I know about that park, I will no longer go there at all because I don't like the aura of it. My personal view of it is not everyone else's and I don't expect it to be. But one of the things that sealed the deal in me never returning was actually a piece on DeKalb County on GPB one day where people were speaking of the changing demographics and the influx of Somalian refugees to the county. One old white guy mentioned growing up in either Clarkston or Conyers, I can't remember and he was a pretty unapologetic racist (fwiw, I like those types the best, at least you know their intentions) and he spoke of the "good old days" and of how he used to go to the mountain as a boy in the 1950s and 1960s with his dad and the KKK and set fires to cars and toss them over the mountain and how they had frequent KKK meetings there. It made me think some people were probably lynched in that park and made me wonder when I was there if where we were sitting was their meeting place. That sort of thing just freaks me out as I don't want to be around that energy. It is similar to how some people don't like to go to "haunted houses" or to cemeteries. They don't like the energy of those places. It is the same for me and Stone Mountain and the relief just seals the deal IMO and reminds me of that negativity.
And he was also under constant surveillance by the FBI. Again, that doesn't happen for somebody who tours the country just giving Sunday School lessons.
Andrew Young said those days were like living in a recording studio.
Wanted to state that I don't think that white persons thinks anything in particular when they go to the park. I only spoke of what I feel about it and its recent history as a symbol of white supremacy. I doubt most visitors even know that it is a relatively knew carving in the mountain and they probably think it is "historical" and has been there since the end of the Civil War. Most people aren't nerds about historical things.
I also am not upset about race matters in general and I feel many whites today think that most black people are when we are not. I do get upset when reading about particular things in my research, but like you mentioned, I do know it was a different time and a different place. And my anger is more on the line of sadness, that these people had to go through such difficult circumstances and even though they were poor and poverty stricken, poverty can be overcome with "hard work" but no matter how hard blacks worked or got educated, they just didn't have the opportunities afforded by even fresh off the boat European immigrants because even our government and law enforcement provided them no protections and actively prevented them from being full members of society.
And FWIW, I also don't think you know what it means because you aren't black and you do not and will never know what it is like to be black in America. It is a trump card that you cannot match and instead of getting taken aback by that fact, you should acknowledge that it is true. There is nothing wrong with it. You are not black and won't ever know. But you can have empathy.
I'll be honest and state most white people I know are VERY defensive about the past of our country. Anytime someone mentions a negative past against blacks (and in my case, many whites bring up these sorts of topics with me because they feel I am "safe" to talk to about it I guess, but most of the time they get upset at my responses lol), and especially slavery, people who I'm talking to IRL and online will bring up how their ancestor's suffered. Or they will say something about how far things have come and try to downplay whatever the black "incident" is. Many will also state, like the ignorant poster who won't be named, (not you Saintmarks) that it was "welfare" that caused the economic conditions of black America today. Rarely will a white conversationalist just speak about the issue at hand without trying to skew the conversation away from whatever topic is being mentioned. Many take it as some sort of personal stab to them when I especially speak of white supremacist ideology due to the fact that I don't ever believe it will go away in this country. I don't believe white people are bad people, I just know our society was set up to not value black people and that over the years it has gotten better but in general, our society still does not value black people like they do other Americans.
The funny thing to me about these sorts of conversations that I have in particular is that many white people think that any mention of current issues or past aggressions are about "slavery." As if that was the end of all the trials and tribulations of blacks in this country. That after 1865 the blacks did okay unless there was something personally wrong and deficient about them as a person or people. Not many people know the depths of which the lives of black Americans were controlled and when I speak of them when confronted with things like "welfare caused _______" they don't listen and won't hear it because they fully do believe that everything was fine and dandy for black people until the 1960s when blacks got " the welfare" lol.
And for me the mountain in the grand schemes of things is not important and it doesn't anger me, it's just that I will go to places that I can fully enjoy. Knowing what I know about that park, I will no longer go there at all because I don't like the aura of it. My personal view of it is not everyone else's and I don't expect it to be. But one of the things that sealed the deal in me never returning was actually a piece on DeKalb County on GPB one day where people were speaking of the changing demographics and the influx of Somalian refugees to the county. One old white guy mentioned growing up in either Clarkston or Conyers, I can't remember and he was a pretty unapologetic racist (fwiw, I like those types the best, at least you know their intentions) and he spoke of the "good old days" and of how he used to go to the mountain as a boy in the 1950s and 1960s with his dad and the KKK and set fires to cars and toss them over the mountain and how they had frequent KKK meetings there. It made me think some people were probably lynched in that park and made me wonder when I was there if where we were sitting was their meeting place. That sort of thing just freaks me out as I don't want to be around that energy. It is similar to how some people don't like to go to "haunted houses" or to cemeteries. They don't like the energy of those places. It is the same for me and Stone Mountain and the relief just seals the deal IMO and reminds me of that negativity.
I can totally dig this. My experience is not your experience at all, but bad juju is bad juju. I have never been to Stone Mountain, and I probably won't ever go - because of it's history.
And FWIW, I also don't think you know what it means because you aren't black and you do not and will never know what it is like to be black in America. It is a trump card that you cannot match and instead of getting taken aback by that fact, you should acknowledge that it is true. There is nothing wrong with it. You are not black and won't ever know. But you can have empathy.
Very true. And in my experience (I'm white), black folks typically only play that "trump card" when whites try to dismiss or downplay their experience. I don't know, so if I start talking about how racism is in the past, everyone has equal rights, discrimination isn't much of a problem anymore, racism isn't a primary cause of police impropriety and violence, etc., and we should all just get over it and move on...it would be perfectly appropriate for a black person to point out that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
It's perfectly okay for there to be conversations where your role is just to listen. Or to put it another way, not every conversation about every topic requires your opinion.
Wanted to state that I don't think that white persons thinks anything in particular when they go to the park. I only spoke of what I feel about it and its recent history as a symbol of white supremacy. I doubt most visitors even know that it is a relatively knew carving in the mountain and they probably think it is "historical" and has been there since the end of the Civil War. Most people aren't nerds about historical things.
I also am not upset about race matters in general and I feel many whites today think that most black people are when we are not. I do get upset when reading about particular things in my research, but like you mentioned, I do know it was a different time and a different place. And my anger is more on the line of sadness, that these people had to go through such difficult circumstances and even though they were poor and poverty stricken, poverty can be overcome with "hard work" but no matter how hard blacks worked or got educated, they just didn't have the opportunities afforded by even fresh off the boat European immigrants because even our government and law enforcement provided them no protections and actively prevented them from being full members of society.
And FWIW, I also don't think you know what it means because you aren't black and you do not and will never know what it is like to be black in America. It is a trump card that you cannot match and instead of getting taken aback by that fact, you should acknowledge that it is true. There is nothing wrong with it. You are not black and won't ever know. But you can have empathy.
I'll be honest and state most white people I know are VERY defensive about the past of our country. Anytime someone mentions a negative past against blacks (and in my case, many whites bring up these sorts of topics with me because they feel I am "safe" to talk to about it I guess, but most of the time they get upset at my responses lol), and especially slavery, people who I'm talking to IRL and online will bring up how their ancestor's suffered. Or they will say something about how far things have come and try to downplay whatever the black "incident" is. Many will also state, like the ignorant poster who won't be named, (not you Saintmarks) that it was "welfare" that caused the economic conditions of black America today. Rarely will a white conversationalist just speak about the issue at hand without trying to skew the conversation away from whatever topic is being mentioned. Many take it as some sort of personal stab to them when I especially speak of white supremacist ideology due to the fact that I don't ever believe it will go away in this country. I don't believe white people are bad people, I just know our society was set up to not value black people and that over the years it has gotten better but in general, our society still does not value black people like they do other Americans.
The funny thing to me about these sorts of conversations that I have in particular is that many white people think that any mention of current issues or past aggressions are about "slavery." As if that was the end of all the trials and tribulations of blacks in this country. That after 1865 the blacks did okay unless there was something personally wrong and deficient about them as a person or people. Not many people know the depths of which the lives of black Americans were controlled and when I speak of them when confronted with things like "welfare caused _______" they don't listen and won't hear it because they fully do believe that everything was fine and dandy for black people until the 1960s when blacks got " the welfare" lol.
And for me the mountain in the grand schemes of things is not important and it doesn't anger me, it's just that I will go to places that I can fully enjoy. Knowing what I know about that park, I will no longer go there at all because I don't like the aura of it. My personal view of it is not everyone else's and I don't expect it to be. But one of the things that sealed the deal in me never returning was actually a piece on DeKalb County on GPB one day where people were speaking of the changing demographics and the influx of Somalian refugees to the county. One old white guy mentioned growing up in either Clarkston or Conyers, I can't remember and he was a pretty unapologetic racist (fwiw, I like those types the best, at least you know their intentions) and he spoke of the "good old days" and of how he used to go to the mountain as a boy in the 1950s and 1960s with his dad and the KKK and set fires to cars and toss them over the mountain and how they had frequent KKK meetings there. It made me think some people were probably lynched in that park and made me wonder when I was there if where we were sitting was their meeting place. That sort of thing just freaks me out as I don't want to be around that energy. It is similar to how some people don't like to go to "haunted houses" or to cemeteries. They don't like the energy of those places. It is the same for me and Stone Mountain and the relief just seals the deal IMO and reminds me of that negativity.
Respectfully, I suspect you've got a reflexive reaction on some of this that triggers some of the defensive responses you get. I don't think anyone believes Blacks were suddenly on equal footing in 1865 or 1960.
Without defending the "welfare" argument, its not that Blacks were fine in 1960 and suffered with welfare. The argument is that the persistence of disproportionate levels of Black poverty is because welfare didn't encourage work and that Blacks would have otherwise made more progress in narrowing the income and education gaps. The very argument acknowledges that Blacks had to have been in a worse position on average before the anti-poverty programs were enacted.
Very true. And in my experience (I'm white), black folks typically only play that "trump card" when whites try to dismiss or downplay their experience. I don't know, so if I start talking about how racism is in the past, everyone has equal rights, discrimination isn't much of a problem anymore, racism isn't a primary cause of police impropriety and violence, etc., and we should all just get over it and move on...it would be perfectly appropriate for a black person to point out that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
It's perfectly okay for there to be conversations where your role is just to listen. Or to put it another way, not every conversation about every topic requires your opinion.
Respectfully, I suspect you've got a reflexive reaction on some of this that triggers some of the defensive responses you get. I don't think anyone believes Blacks were suddenly on equal footing in 1865 or 1960.
Without defending the "welfare" argument, its not that Blacks were fine in 1960 and suffered with welfare. The argument is that the persistence of disproportionate levels of Black poverty is because welfare didn't encourage work and that Blacks would have otherwise made more progress in narrowing the income and education gaps. The very argument acknowledges that Blacks had to have been in a worse position on average before the anti-poverty programs were enacted.
It's perfectly okay for there to be conversations where your role is just to listen. Or to put it another way, not every conversation about every topic requires your opinion.
We have a winner. Let's just cast this comment in bronze and end the conversation here, because this is what we should all keep in the front of our minds.
Very true. And in my experience (I'm white), black folks typically only play that "trump card" when whites try to dismiss or downplay their experience. I don't know, so if I start talking about how racism is in the past, everyone has equal rights, discrimination isn't much of a problem anymore, racism isn't a primary cause of police impropriety and violence, etc., and we should all just get over it and move on...it would be perfectly appropriate for a black person to point out that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
It's perfectly okay for there to be conversations where your role is just to listen. Or to put it another way, not every conversation about every topic requires your opinion.
Totally, Cameron, well said.
Sometimes it is better just to listen.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
