R.B.G. is D.O.A.

[Historian]

8 hours ago, tous said:

Thinking back on Rosa Parks and the students in the Woolworth's lunch counter, I still say, Good for them.

 

It took guts, didn't it?

i can't imagine telling someone they can't sit at a lunch counter because the don't look the same as me.

[Historian]

6 hours ago, railfancwb said:

Now, 50 years later, some vocal black people want their own dorms and student centers and national anthem. I suppose next will be separate water fountains and movie theaters...

Yeah, i really don't think that's going to help much.

 

 

[gwalchmai]

10 hours ago, tous said:

Thinking back on Rosa Parks and the students in the Woolworth's lunch counter, I still say, Good for them.

 

I'm cool with most of that, but I still think that no one has the right to tell a business whom they can serve. If I don't like your choices I can go somewhere else. Nothing I've read in that little book has convinced me otherwise. Some folks say that's not "fair". Maybe they're right, but the rules for "fair" are in another book.

[tous]

11 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

I'm cool with most of that, but I still think that no one has the right to tell a business whom they can serve. If I don't like your choices I can go somewhere else. Nothing I've read in that little book has convinced me otherwise. Some folks say that's not "fair". Maybe they're right, but the rules for "fair" are in another book.

I agree with you, amigo.

If I invest my money and resources in a business with no public assistance, then I choose who I do business with.  If the business fails, I did not appeal to enough customers, no?

The very last thing i desire is a bunch of jack leg lawyers crawling all over me and screaming in my ear that I'm not doing it right.

It is when other galoots, lawyers and politicians, tell me who I can and cannot serve that I object to.

Rosa Parks and the lunch counter lads were not about a business being selective, but sharp reminders of a bad system encoded in law.

Edited September 26, 2020 by tous

[gwalchmai]

1 hour ago, tous said:

Rosa Parks and the lunch counter lads were not about a business being selective, but sharp reminders of a bad system encoded in law.

The Montgomery bus line's policies were based on Jim Crow laws, but Woolworth's lunch counter segregation was a company policy. I think the boycott was the proper way to handle it. Woolworth eventually changed the policy due to the economic impact of the boycott. Ike stated that Negros were guaranteed a right to eat at the lunch counters by the Constitution, and I don't think that's so. In fact, I think the protestors should have been arrested for trespassing when they refused to leave. If anything, that would have brought more sympathy for their cause. Woolworth should have done the same to the counter-protestors and the local cops should have enforced the tresspasing laws to both sides. Instead we have what we have and BIGGOV becomes the arbiter of all disagreements of not only who gets to eat where, but how they are allowed to behave while there.

[janice6]

15 hours ago, Historian said:

It took guts, didn't it?

i can't imagine telling someone they can't sit at a lunch counter because the don't look the same as me.

In 1958 I took a bus to Charleston, SC.  I was 18 and this was a first for me being from Minnesota.  My home town had a few Black, some Jews, and many Catholics and Protestants.  I was assigned to a Mine Sweeper out of Charleston, SC.  I had never gone to boot camp, so this was all new to me.

At home, no one was different from anyone else.  We got along fine with every kid.  We even used to go to each others churches for a change of pace on Sunday. 

I found religions I didn't believe taught the Bible precisely, so I read the bible one Summer to make sure. 

I found that each church taught that all the others were wrong and they were the only "right" ones.  This was enlightening to me.

As my bus crossed the Mason Dixon line, it stopped at the side of the road and I was ordered to get to the front of the bus or get out.  I had been laying down across the back seats sleeping.

When we pulled into the first bus station in Charleston, it was a crap hole.  The sign on the building as the bus pulled in, was "Colored Only".  We passed right through that terminal and into a sparkling clean terminal labeled "Whites Only".

This was my first experience with Segregation.  Later my wife-to-be joined me, and we rented an apartment on the Battery.  The landlady knocked after we were there about an hour, and said she wanted us to meet "her ******".  I was astounded at the difference from Minnesota.  I actually waited a second for him to "cold cock" her.  Nothing happened and he didn't raise his eyes to look at us.

My new ship had many crew from, Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina.  They would sit around and badmouth Blacks, all the time.  I asked one of the White guys why he joined the Navy and he said, "To get shoes".

It was quite a culture shock that I never really got over.

[Historian]

43 minutes ago, janice6 said:

This was my first experience with Segregation

 

This time period, to some extent, escaped me by the time i was the age you were on that mine sweeper.   I just turned 48.

To me such concepts are alien.  My experience in uniform is...what matters is the quality of the person you are with...when you have nothing between you and death.

And when it gets down to that point.  Nothing matters. You could be serving with a Jew, a Muslim, whatever.

There is no more equal place than that field.

I was not a Marine.  But i admire the way they can take anything...and make it something exceptional.   And when they are done, they might notice differences, but a Marine is a Marine.

My experience in law enforcement was in many ways the same.  I was first sworn on March 28th, 1998.

When you are on a bad traffic stop.  Things are not going well.  You don't give a royal crap who your back up is.  You just care he's good.  And when you had 15 to 40 minutes between now and when they arrived.

You just cared they were good.

That has been my experience.

Just...be good. Damn good.

[railfancwb]

On 9/25/2020 at 7:46 AM, gwalchmai said:

I'm cool with most of that, but I still think that no one has the right to tell a business whom they can serve. If I don't like your choices I can go somewhere else. Nothing I've read in that little book has convinced me otherwise. Some folks say that's not "fair". Maybe they're right, but the rules for "fair" are in another book.

Must bake cake for same sex wedding in spite of your religious beliefs. Government agencies and courts say so. 

[gwalchmai]

4 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Must bake cake for same sex wedding in spite of your religious beliefs. Government agencies and courts say so. 

Malum prohibitum, and not mentioned in the Constitution. Hopefully to be corrected soon with changes to SCOTUS.

[railfancwb]

On 9/26/2020 at 9:30 AM, railfancwb said:

Must bake cake for same sex wedding in spite of your religious beliefs. Government agencies and courts say so. 

Personally, I would not want even a bite of a cake baked under court order. 

[janice6]

On 9/25/2020 at 10:12 PM, Historian said:

This time period, to some extent, escaped me by the time i was the age you were on that mine sweeper.   I just turned 48.

To me such concepts are alien.  My experience in uniform is...what matters is the quality of the person you are with...when you have nothing between you and death.

And when it gets down to that point.  Nothing matters. You could be serving with a Jew, a Muslim, whatever.

There is no more equal place than that field.

I was not a Marine.  But i admire the way they can take anything...and make it something exceptional.   And when they are done, they might notice differences, but a Marine is a Marine.

My experience in law enforcement was in many ways the same.  I was first sworn on March 28th, 1998.

When you are on a bad traffic stop.  Things are not going well.  You don't give a royal crap who your back up is.  You just care he's good.  And when you had 15 to 40 minutes between now and when they arrived.

You just cared they were good.

That has been my experience.

Just...be good. Damn good.

When I got mid watch for the Quarter Deck (I was a new guy) I used to go below decks and chat with the Black guy that always got Mid Watch in the Engine Room.

I asked him what he was going to be after he got out of the Navy.  He said he wanted to be a Mortician!  I asked why the hell would you want to be that!

He said that at that time in the South, there was no higher prestige in the Black Community that the Mortician.  Very few other choices were available for Blacks, and non held the Black community esteem and respect, as a Mortician.

I heard about a culture that was totally foreign to me in that area, and at that point in time!

[Historian]

37 minutes ago, janice6 said:

I heard about a culture that was totally foreign to me in that area, and at that point in time!

Sometimes our differences are what make things most interesting.

[holyjohnson]

On 9/26/2020 at 9:30 AM, railfancwb said:

Must bake cake for same sex wedding in spite of your religious beliefs. Government agencies and courts say so. 

Worse still, a Cake Design your Bakery doesn't even Offer.