A New Civil Rights Movement in the South? (generations, Mexican, controversial)

[Blink101]

Recently I met with some old high school friends and was startled by some of their comments on race. Though all of us grew up in the South, most of my friends are from upper-middle class white families and were sheltered from real competition or had limited interaction with other races aside from Asians, so most had little to no interest in even acknowledging various races existed. I suppose time out in the real world has changed that because everyone kept making subtle comments and pushing the envelope as if trying to provoke a conversation or testing to see how safe it was to discuss. This caused two very striking moments.

1. While we were at the park someone anxiously noted that a piñata across the lake looked like a little person was hanging from the tree. Everyone became agitated and there was definitely a great deal of tension. Some even mumbled about how "That family needed to hurry up and finish then take that thing down." When one well-meaning friend from New Mexico asked why we were upset someone finally blurted it out: "It looks like a little black man." What was most striking to me was how every Southerner present continued to look over their back at that tree and just stare at it until finally the piñata was taken down. Then no one looked that way again. Even so, this was what actually started the strange mumbles about race throughout the rest of the picnic.

2. I finally decided to bite and blurted out my own opinions on race by saying this: "I don't think we're any less racist than previous generations. It's merely the mode of racism that has changed. Nowadays we uphold racial hierarchies by pretending they don't exist through color-blindness. It enables us to distance ourselves from the problem and pushes it onto some perceived "racist other" which we label as the problem. Y'all didn't think it was a coincidence there were virtually no black or Hispanic kids in your AP classes, did you? The truth is that it isn't those rednecks that have any realistic power to maintain racial oppression. It's the educated, upper-middle class sectors of society which have the power to control the flow of token integration and limit true racial equality. In other words... WE are the real problem and the beneficiaries of racial hierarchies." Since all that was pretty controversial and I had basically defied all of their previous comments, I expected an extreme backlash, but instead my friends questioned me as if I suddenly explained to them how the world worked.

That was when I realized that our generation is the post Civil Rights movement generation, and I think many of us have wanted to believe that all the battles which needed to be fought for racial equality had been won. However, as we're coming of age and looking around expecting a better world, I think many of us are becoming increasingly aware of the failures of the Civil Rights movement. I wonder if this growing dissatisfaction is an isolated instance among me and my friends struggling to explain the inequalities we see or if this might be the beginning of a new resurgence of the Civil Rights movement. Has anyone else noticed a growing sense of "something isn't right but I don't know what or how to fix it" among young people (particularly in the South?

[Packard fan]

Uh; 1 thing people don't always know is there's NO "Hispanic" race. 1 of Bull Connor's pals back in the day'd be a "Hispanic" in 2013, Leander Perez tho he was def "white".

Too: many "brown" Hispanics, even "Black" ones also have the rep of being racist against American Black people.

Civil Rights: Blacks HAVE crossed that last bridge; he's the POTUS.

[Huckleberry3911948]

did u really walk down a southern street and have this conversation with a group of local wasps?
i know the south. that is a hard one to believe my friend. also the mexican people i know in mississippi would kindly ask u to mind your own business.
i am having a hard time placing your story in northern mississippi friend at least not sardis dam area.

[MetalLord]

So is this the New South we're always hearing about? I tell you, no other region of the U.S. perplexes me more. It makes all the vagaries and contradictions of Italian culture (where I live now) seem simple and straightforward.

[thanatos331]

Originally Posted by MetalLord

So is this the New South we're always hearing about? I tell you, no other region of the U.S. perplexes me more. It makes all the vagaries and contradictions of Italian culture (where I live now) seem simple and straightforward.

Not by a long shot...the OP is living in the twilight zone or something.

[shiftymh]

What civil rights would they be fighting for? Or is it just going to be stealing money from white people?

[carterstamp]

Wow, the BS is so deep I need hipwaders. So, you "blurted out" an entire parataph, did you?

I call shenanigans.

And the stormfronters appear in 3...2...1...

[carterstamp]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

did u really walk down a southern street and have this conversation with a group of local wasps?
i know the south. that is a hard one to believe my friend. also the mexican people i know in mississippi would kindly ask u to mind your own business.
i am having a hard time placing your story in northern mississippi friend at least not sardis dam area.

I didn't happen, just like the buying lobster on food stamps, 17 tvs and your on welfare, etc. BS.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by shiftymh

What civil rights would they be fighting for? Or is it just going to be stealing money from white people?

Race baiting, huh.

[steven_h]

Another in an endless line of race and hate baiting threads!