Comment by jfengel
4 hours ago
Folks forget or underestimate how bitter the opposition to the Civil Rights Movement is.
White folks, that is. Black Americans are acutely aware of it.
Civil Rights legislation is being rolled back, to enthusiastic cheers. A lot of people never got over the Civil War, and are still trying to prove that somehow they were right all along.
Gotta also remember that all these devoted segregationists didn't get removed from positions of power or influence, nor did they change their minds about the value of segregation.
You had a generation of people making legal, hiring, sentencing, admission, loan decisions that smoothly transitioned from enforcing the law to being very concerned about standards or however they personally decided was the best way to publicly approach it within their little political sphere.
Then they selected and trained the next generation of administrators, bureaucrats, and enforcers about the "right" way to do this work. A lot of things have changed but at no point did this process end in any meaningful way.
There's that infamous Lee Atwater quote (former RNC chariman who helped Bush I and Reagan win on their 'no taxes, cut social services' rhetoric) that I won't quote here but is foundational to modern conservative dogwhistle politics: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwa...
We live downstream of that where people often parrot the same dogwhistles uncritically 40 years later without understanding how deeply racist they are.
But both sides are the same and 'it doesn't matter' if these sorts come in to power and restack the FBI/courts with people with this mindset.
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I don’t think the issue with Civil Rights legislation was the Civil War, I think the issue was equality.
As President Lyndon Johnson said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket.”
Racism isn’t about race at its core, it’s redirected anger from being exploited and abused by people in power. There is a reason people in power always blame “the immigrants” or “the Jews”; it’s redirection.
This doesn't just apply to race. The whole "trans people in women's bathrooms/sports" panic was another example of people being told that a tiny minority of people are a huge threat that we all need to focus on, while we were being screwed over by a kleptocracy. Same with "Antifa."
And it worked. Politicians do this because it works.
True, the right used this against the left because this issue, and particularly the aspect of males in female sport, highlights a set of absurd beliefs that are unfortunately quite common on the left. Political parties pushing ridiculous views tends to be a vote loser, even if the impact of these views when translated into policy is relatively small. It's like how a flat-earther politician would put a lot of people off.
This seems like an oversimplification and one of your own examples shows it. Aren’t “the Jews” today in power or in very close proximity, not just locally but on the world stage? Are they redirecting the anger to themselves? Or is there more to the reasons people would direct their hate or dislike towards an entire group of people?
Not saying that you’re wrong, but there’s more to it. Even when not directed by those in power, some people need an external reason for their own failures. They need a target for their anger that is not themselves.
Honest question as I'm not American and may be missing context but what Civil Rights are black Americans having rolled back on them?
The Voting Rights Act has been gutted, allowing southern states to gerrymander and reduce the voting power of minorities. Not even hypothetically, Texas did so moments after the Supreme Court gutted the VRA.
States are aggressively attacking minority voting rights through several angles - reducing sites you can vote and hours you can vote at them, especially in minority areas, ID requirements that hurt people who don't own cars and thus don't need Drivers' Licenses (and are essentially a form of poll tax), and many other nefarious tactics.
And mainstream conservative justification, including the US Supreme Court, is that because this is not overtly racist in its design, but just coincidentally racist in its impact, it has plausible deniability. Basically an extension of the “racism is over” school of thought.
And an extension of the progressive / conservative disagreement between how a system is designed vs. the impacts of a system determines its fairness and justness.
Edit: funny, I pre-sniped the sibling responses to your comment.
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I'm asking something that specifically targets black Americans as a group - the VRA doesn't target them (at least as my understanding goes) but rather as you said is allowing gerrymandering which more divides down political lines than racial ones unless you are suggesting that every person of a racial group thinks and votes the same.
I guess to put it more directly if we took a hypothetical black male named Steven and a hypothetical white female named Sally who have the same job, live in the same neighborhood, etc - what rights has been rolled back on Steven that were not on Sally.
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>ID requirements that hurt people who don't own cars and thus don't need Drivers' Licenses (and are essentially a form of poll tax)
The majority of non-US democracies require ID to vote, and it's considered normal and un-controversial. Here in the US, there is a tempest in a teakettle because this has been deemed a "civil rights issue". It really illustrates the role that "civil rights" plays in modern US political discourse.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_v._Callais
Narrator: it was not an honest question.
You’re being downvoted, but it’s a fair criticism given they seemed to have a response locked and loaded to immediately give after they were given the most obvious response to their question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions
I am much more circumspect on the civil rights movement and the top-down legislative results over the decades. There was good and bad. And the FBI telling MLK to kill yourself was heinous, just the same as to today as the FBI coercing Brian J. Cole Jr. (jan. 6 bomber suspect).
I was watching video the other day, compellingly showing Cole in a location that would completely exonerate him from the charges if verified. Not getting adequate attention.
Are you talking about Title VII in Universities?
My first guess would be this year's Supreme Court decision about the Voting Rights Act.
Almost immediately after the ruling, a number of Republican states immediately put forth redrawn maps breaking up majority black districts.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/14/southern-sta...
Another candidate would be the DOJ ending attempts at school desegregation:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/us/politics/justice-depar...
There's a reason why the Right was up in arms about Critical Race Theory. They're currently doing everything possible to erase the past and frame the future as a White Christian country. And these people are the ones in power today.
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The turn from your initial comment to this was about as abrupt as Hulk Hogan's in 1996.
Your experience is sadly very parochial, and simply anecdata.
Meaningful systemic racism is far more problematic than your experience with a few rural black males.
And yet we are so quick to dismiss their own livd experience and/or not believe them. Frankly "this happens almost never, but it happened once to me" is far more real to pretty much every human on this planet. I was routinely beat up by a certain racial group of people growing up. I still cannot feel threatened by their presence, from what I know of the brain it's literally encoded in my body.
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Ranting about “Black people cant be racist” is a great way to get most people to ignore everything you say after.
Everyone can be racist. No one wants to debate pedantic redefined terms that liberal arts professors came up with so they could sell books.
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>racist [noun]
>A person who believes a particular race is superior to others. A person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others.
No where does it mention this new-age "prejudice + power" redefinition.
The word is race + -ism, IE literally "doctrine/practice based on race". The word has nothing to do with power. A black dude in America who chooses to beat up a white dude for his race is racist, even under the assumption he is a systematically oppressed minority.
Just stop seeing skin color - We've lost so much progress since Fresh Prince and Family Matters. Race baiters are ruining this country.
I believe you're conflating systematic racism with racism more broadly. Anyone can be racist.
Racism is believing that people can be divided into races (spoiler alert: races don't exist, ask a scientist) and, not only that, but also than some of those made up races are better than others.
> Black people cant be racist
You are clearly misinformed.
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