Proud to have been a member of the 15%.

After all, blacks were/are about 13% of the population. If 85% of whites had opposed equality in that era, Obama's success would have been teaching in a black college or working as an attorney on the black side of town. Or maybe he'd be a leader in continued efforts to integrate workplaces.

You claim that the poll is somehow misleading, it doesn't ask whites the question are you opposed to equality? It asks does protesting help or hurt to advance their cause.


If you have some question about the polls integrity, why don't you try basing your question on what is presented, not some theory you pull out of what, thin air? The only thing I see misleading here is your argument?

The guy appears to have made a mistake, why not correct him without getting all dickish about it?

We are all Dems here, no need to treat the guy like a Neo-Con.

We are all on the same side here!

Also, if hippies are acting all uptight these days, what does that mean for 'Murica?

and there are all types of people here, not just hippies. Some DUers are uptight and might feel happier with some yoga or legalized weed.

but the OP's name is actually neohippie, so my hippie comment was really meant only for him. I recognize that not all DUers are hippies (I am not).

I didn't mistreat anyone, unlike you who attacked me for pointing this out.

"If you have some question about the polls integrity, why don't you try basing your question on what is presented, not some theory you pull out of what, thin air? "

This is a dick answer, sorry. Especially for someone who claims to be a hippie.

And wondering if it was honest or bent to produce certain results is not "assuming." Please read more carefully. Words matter. And restating them to mean something else, which the right-wing sleaze machines use as a major tactic, is not just dishonest but ultimately is a form of self- Kool-Aiding.

And, btw, poll methods also matter. To put it mildly. Everyone who experienced 2016 and the blizzard of trash polls that covered America should wonder about the integrity of every poll.

I only "know" by looking at what was posted, the question, the result, with a cited source.

What am I supposed to "read more carefully?"

Who is the person here changing the words "restating them to mean something else? I don't believe that was me, I think you were attempting to do that, which was the reason for my comment

Literacy, bad.

His comment was a dickish comment, that is clear. It is not a personal attack to call out someone's tone.

i don't really know what your name means, but suppose I said, "you're very boring for someone who claims to be excited", or "for a biker, you act like a pussy", or "for a 66 year old your comment lacks wisdom". If you take a defining characteristic of what a person identifies as and shove it in their face, I would call that a personal attack.


Secondly, I think there is room for disagreement over the dickishness of the comment.

It is a bit of a stretch to get bent out of shape over calling a supposed hippie "unchill", but I suppose I should apologize. I am sorry if I offended anyone!

There is certainly room for disagreement over the dickishness of the comment. I made my opinion known, and that was that. If neohippie feels like I was being too insulting for using the bland phrase "unchill", I suppose he can report it.

Not personally, at least. They "saw" them, but their kids didn't play with them, they didn't socialize with them...
Their neighborhoods and schools were segregated. I was born in 1959, I lived in both rural towns and larger cities as my parents travelled a lot, and I remember the black areas of town and the genteel racism of "independent" White families at the time. I remember my "sweet and liberal" Grandmother and Great Grand-parents trying to shame my parents for listening to Motown and "that" music in front of us kids because it might give us crazy ideas about how to act with people who weren't like us, because that's why we grew up with different ..."traits", as my G-grandfather put it.
Those protests for Civil Rights were not something the average White working class families could wrap their heads around, because "the law was fair, right?" Even in Union families, protests were only supposed to be used as a last resort, and these minorities had their own communities they could run, so what was the problem?

It took people getting beat up on TV while peacefully protesting - it took bringing the Civil Rights activity right to people's living rooms, it took the Beaver Cleavers of this country asking their parents "What's a Nigg***"? And getting their mouths washed out with soap - before a majority of the country began to think there might be something wrong with the way minorities were treated just because of the color of their skin or shape of their noses.

In the 60's and 70's, even if they supported civil rights on principal, it was still difficult for many whites to look past their own experiences to realize the USA as a whole was not their little neighborhood or town, where there were few if any minorities around and they were typically "help" that went back to their own land after work.

So, from what I remember, that poll is pretty accurate for the time. As a side, you should look at some of the polling of "independent whites" in the aftermath of Truman's desegregation of the military...

Haele

I'm old & white and remember the protests in St. Augustine from when I was a pre-teen. The marchers were roundly and thoroughly despised around here and the jailing of MLK and other marchers was widely cheered. I went to an all white school and lived in an all white neighborhood. There was no integration until I was a senior in high school. That's why I moved to CA as soon as I graduated, I couldn't stand the redneck hater culture.

Yep sure remember my parents and brothers saying some discouraging words back in the day.
And Oh! my church!

As a teenager, I still remember the racist comment I made when I first heard the news of the MLK assassination. And I also remember how I paused at that very moment and realized what a stupid moron I was for parroting what I grew up with, but knew better. I remember that turning point precisely.

Peer pressure is unrelenting and powerful, but it can't overcome the force of being allied with what's righteous and good. We are all responsible for making our own right decisions.

when America turned on their TVs and saw Chicago's finest savagely beating the shit out of young white liberals.

People who benefit from stepping on the throats of others will always say it benefits the oppressed people if they would just learn their place and stop being so damn uppity. Let it go. Don't rock the boat. Why do you hate America? Don't do this during war time, etc.

In the 1910's they said the same thing about women's suffrage, Those uppity women were just ugly, unhappy, and unpatriotic and that protesting would hurt their cause. They would get all their womanly rights much faster if they got back in the kitchen and made a sandwich with bread that wasn't even pre-sliced back then.

And I deal with similar things now when I get blocked out from jobs because some asshole thinks US citizens come in only one flavor. People tell me to just shut up and learn my place and stop being so uppity or go back where I didn't come from. It's amazing how even liberal DUers think there is a special type of H1B visa for people born in America.

A little white child living in suburbia because my dad did not want me to be bussed. In my state, we didn't have the apartheid 'colored only' signs that the south did, but blacks lived in certain parts of town and whites in other parts of town.

I can remember the dinner talk - my parents both generally supported civil rights for black people, but they did not want to be inconvenienced. I believe they felt that the move to suburbia put a welcome distance between our family and any 'trouble.'

There was fear among the solidly white people in my neighborhood. I can remember a couple times when the rumor was that the blacks were going to riot. One time there was even talk of building barricades to keep the rioters from coming in.

They never did, though.

The key here is that people who are privileged don't want to be 'inconvenienced,' and they are afraid that that demonstrations will do just that to them, so at the local level, the white leaders will try and stall the blacks with some innocuous concessions - ones that cause little inconvenience.

Problem is, unless they demonstrate, in fact unless they engage in massive civil disobedience like King and the early civil rights movement did, unless they cause a damned lot of inconvenience, nothing really ever happens.

Fact is, civil rights movements aren't nearly as inconvenient for the majority population as the dog whistlers would have it. On the ground, it doesn't look much different. You don't really lose anything, and more black people have opportunity. It is generally the rich who experience the most fear, and the rich who own the politicians that refuse to concede anything until forced.

This nation is quite ready for another powerful civil rights movement. Those nazi thugs marching down our streets in Charlottesville are evidence of that. These people need to be opposed, not merely by people of color, but by every single decent American.

My mom was from France and did not come with the prejudice towards african americans that many adults back then had.
She hated the 'n' word and we were taught to never use it. To this day I cannot bring myself to even say it when reading it.
Anyway, I remember that the protests did not bother her but, the riots frightened her.
My dad never said much about them.
I think, back then, alot of whites were scared by the protests.
This was the first time african americans rose up and pushed back and whites did not know african americans. They were not around them and so, there was alot of fear behind it.

Today, I alot of the feeling from whites towards african american protests is anger.

That is the difference.

There were blacks at the time that didn't think the protests were the right way to fight for civil rights and perhaps some of these 85% we're not actually against black civil rights.

This is before the I had a dream speech and many other events. Bythe time MLK was killed society had moved at a slow pace. It would be interesting to see if this was polled, using the same language, over the next few years.

Part of my initial shock at those numbers, might be that the babyboomers were different than their parents and grandparents. I remember classroom discussions and the norm was horror at people like Bull Connor and respect and sympathy for the marchers led by preachers. Our classes were tracked and I was surrounded by the students who for the most part would go on to college. Our teachers, influential TV news anchors, and most of the news media I read supported the civil rights movement. Not to mention many pop culture influences - whether the Beatles, motown, Mohammed Ali, etc were actually very good advocates. We may be the generation where change occured --and this poll would not reflect us.

I know how racist society was then in the white suburbs of Gary and East Chicago. I remember a neighbor I knew well coming to get my mom to sign a "letter" to a black couple who were in the process of buying a home in the town. My mom told her the letter, which referenced that we had a volunteer fire department and that they would feel more comfortable in Gary and East Chicago was despicable. The woman tried to get my mom's support by then suggesting that the couple's kids would bring down the level of the school system - ignoring they were both doctors. My very polite mom then surprised me when she said nothing when my 8 or 9 year old sister said if the worst kid brings down the class, her son was bringing down theirs. ( The family opted to buy their other option in a nearby, more affluent town.)

Another factor could have been that policies were changing and more blacks were being hired by the Gary/East Chicago steel mills which had provided jobs for many of my neighbors. In a college labor economics class, the professor used our county as an example to explain how it was often the lower middle class and middle class communities who resented the competition who were more racist than the more affluent people not as directly impacted.

Thinking back to my neighbors, it is entirely possible that my parents might well have been in a minority of 15%. That I was surprised shows that for the most part in this mostly white town - with a few Asians and Hispanic families - these issues rarely came up - other than in discussions on Gary and elsewhere in school.

By Isabel Wilkerson - absolutely wonderful read about the Great Migration. How utterly horrible things were in the South and how in many ways things weren't that much better (in a different way) up north. As a little white kid in a white community back then I didn't know any of this stuff.

fountains, restrooms, eat in separate parts of restaurants and sit in segregated parts of school classrooms. We've improved since that time and hopefully will continue to do so. I wonder what the percentages would be if the exact same poll took place today?

Old white broads can do a lot, and we try.

Not enough - but significantly.

Probably closer to zero.