it led to no positive change, it did help accomplish the white supremacist’s goals of keeping Black people from building generational wealth. The terrorism of the KKK and non state sanctioned attacks against native Americans played a crucial war in building all the inequities of America. The injustice wasn’t inevitable or even based on legal discrimination alone, but bolstered and reinforced by extrajudicial actions they knew the state wouldn’t stop.
I agree with 100% of what you said here. It is an absolute travesty that this occurred at all, but then was hidden from mainstream recorded history for decades.
Does this mean the left can do anything close to the same thing as the KKK? Fuck no, we’ll pay extra in jail time and executions. The state allowed an encouraged that evil. It does make the moralizing bullshit about illegality being the only way to change things even more hollow.
I wasn’t defending the “illegality” argument. I was pointing out that the supposition of the thread post ascribes riots as the primary driver of liberal democracy. I’m pointing out that that is only true if you pick out specific riots and ignore dozens of others that don’t support the thesis. Even riots whose outcome could have shaped liberal ideas but didn’t like Blair Mountain have to be ignored for the thread post to be true.
I also reject that riots were the only shaping device of liberal democracy in the USA. I would argue FDRs New Deal was a bigger driver of modern liberal democracy than any riot. While the New Deal was certainly influenced by protest from the Bonus Army, but there was no riot from that. Further, the Race Riot of 1943 had occurred in Detroit under FDR’s watch, but FDR stayed silent on it and I’m not aware of any changes in policy that occurred because of it though I admit I only know of the riots occurrence and not much more.
I agree with 100% of what you said here. It is an absolute travesty that this occurred at all, but then was hidden from mainstream recorded history for decades.
I wasn’t defending the “illegality” argument. I was pointing out that the supposition of the thread post ascribes riots as the primary driver of liberal democracy. I’m pointing out that that is only true if you pick out specific riots and ignore dozens of others that don’t support the thesis. Even riots whose outcome could have shaped liberal ideas but didn’t like Blair Mountain have to be ignored for the thread post to be true.
I also reject that riots were the only shaping device of liberal democracy in the USA. I would argue FDRs New Deal was a bigger driver of modern liberal democracy than any riot. While the New Deal was certainly influenced by protest from the Bonus Army, but there was no riot from that. Further, the Race Riot of 1943 had occurred in Detroit under FDR’s watch, but FDR stayed silent on it and I’m not aware of any changes in policy that occurred because of it though I admit I only know of the riots occurrence and not much more.