I'm down with that; it has happened before....And since my AIDS posting, I have received more hate mail than at any other time. It is not surprising that when I research where the hate is coming from I find it originates in Searcy, AR, Little Rock, AR, and Northeast and Northwest/NorthCentral Arkansas
After all, the KKK website originates from the Arkansas Section of the Bible Belt. Big Surprise.
Disclaimer: My inlaws espouse hate. I do not. They encourage hate speech such as when Samuel Christian Flanagin called me a Nigger, and violently attacked me and my wife in our home. His father, Patrick Henry Flanagin former State Representative, embraces his sons behavior. Ironically, their home state of Arkansas hosts the Ku Klux Klan in Harrison AR, according to the Klans' website: KU KLUX KLAN.
Welcome to the Bible Belt and Pat Flanagins' home state.
Get out while you can; come back when the good ole boys are shut down for ever.
Peace
Showing posts with label bible belt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bible belt. Show all posts
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
LIFE IN THE BIBLE BELT: WOULD JESUS ABUSE IMMIGRANTS?
By Arthur BriceCNN
(CNN) -- Low-income Latinos are routinely discriminated against in the South, a new report says, but the study's author and others say the problem exists nationwide, with millions of Spanish-speaking immigrants living "beyond the protection of the law."
The report, released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, documents the experiences of 500 immigrants in the South, finding that Latinos routinely are cheated out of wages, are denied basic health protection and fall victim to racial profiling.
"Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South" details stories such as that of a Tennessee woman who says she was jailed at a cheese factory for asking for pay, a bean picker in Alabama who says his life savings were taken by police at a traffic stop, and a rapist in Georgia who was not arrested because the suspect's victim was an undocumented immigrant.
Forty-one percent of the people surveyed said they had experienced theft of their wages by employers. Forty-seven percent said they know someone who was treated unfairly by police. Seventy-seven percent of women surveyed said they have been sexually harassed by bosses, many saying that bosses used their immigration status as leverage.
"This report documents the human toll of failed policies that relegate millions of people to an underground economy, where they are beyond the protection of the law," said Mary Bauer, author of the report. "Workplace abuses and racial profiling are rampant in the South."
Does it really surprise you?
Until people stand against the abuse of the poor, the minority, the "non-conformist," things will never get better. An era of enlightenment needs to sweep the South and bring people into the 21st century. Clearly, the fault lies at the feet of the leadership in the South, people like Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, J.R. Rogers of Walnut Ridge, Roy Ockert of Jonesboro...the list goes on. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, as I said, the list goes on. Schools are falling down, poverty is out of control, jobs are gone, but their churches sure look good!
When did Jesus say it was okay to hate and abuse people?
It is not surprising that more and more people are rejecting American Christianity, and Southern-style Evangelical churchiness. After all, that's the style of religion Sarah Palin subscribes to: Bible in one hand and gun in the other.
Precisely the reason I have utterly rejected right wing, evangelical, pentecostal, bapticostal religion. It is all full of crap.
What would Jesus do? Ensure people were treated fairly, paid properly, taken care of medically, had a place to live, made to feel as though they were human and worth something, cause they are. Sounds like Jesus was a socialist *gasp.*
Well he certainly was not a capitalist. He told the capitalists to give it all away, and he cleared the temple of profiteers. Much like what needs to transpire in the American Church today.
Doesn't the bible discuss the poor coming to claim what is rightfully theirs eventually? Yes. The right wing likes to pick and choose verses that enable their hate, but conveniently disregard others such as the above reference.
Maybe I'll add the scripture verse later, I remember Kenneth Copeland et al harping on the poor reclaiming their stolen wealth, never realizing that he is one of the ones they're are coming for...
Peace, we need systemic change in the South...
(CNN) -- Low-income Latinos are routinely discriminated against in the South, a new report says, but the study's author and others say the problem exists nationwide, with millions of Spanish-speaking immigrants living "beyond the protection of the law."
The report, released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, documents the experiences of 500 immigrants in the South, finding that Latinos routinely are cheated out of wages, are denied basic health protection and fall victim to racial profiling.
"Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South" details stories such as that of a Tennessee woman who says she was jailed at a cheese factory for asking for pay, a bean picker in Alabama who says his life savings were taken by police at a traffic stop, and a rapist in Georgia who was not arrested because the suspect's victim was an undocumented immigrant.
Forty-one percent of the people surveyed said they had experienced theft of their wages by employers. Forty-seven percent said they know someone who was treated unfairly by police. Seventy-seven percent of women surveyed said they have been sexually harassed by bosses, many saying that bosses used their immigration status as leverage.
"This report documents the human toll of failed policies that relegate millions of people to an underground economy, where they are beyond the protection of the law," said Mary Bauer, author of the report. "Workplace abuses and racial profiling are rampant in the South."
Does it really surprise you?
Until people stand against the abuse of the poor, the minority, the "non-conformist," things will never get better. An era of enlightenment needs to sweep the South and bring people into the 21st century. Clearly, the fault lies at the feet of the leadership in the South, people like Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, J.R. Rogers of Walnut Ridge, Roy Ockert of Jonesboro...the list goes on. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, as I said, the list goes on. Schools are falling down, poverty is out of control, jobs are gone, but their churches sure look good!
When did Jesus say it was okay to hate and abuse people?
It is not surprising that more and more people are rejecting American Christianity, and Southern-style Evangelical churchiness. After all, that's the style of religion Sarah Palin subscribes to: Bible in one hand and gun in the other.
Precisely the reason I have utterly rejected right wing, evangelical, pentecostal, bapticostal religion. It is all full of crap.
What would Jesus do? Ensure people were treated fairly, paid properly, taken care of medically, had a place to live, made to feel as though they were human and worth something, cause they are. Sounds like Jesus was a socialist *gasp.*
Well he certainly was not a capitalist. He told the capitalists to give it all away, and he cleared the temple of profiteers. Much like what needs to transpire in the American Church today.
Doesn't the bible discuss the poor coming to claim what is rightfully theirs eventually? Yes. The right wing likes to pick and choose verses that enable their hate, but conveniently disregard others such as the above reference.
Maybe I'll add the scripture verse later, I remember Kenneth Copeland et al harping on the poor reclaiming their stolen wealth, never realizing that he is one of the ones they're are coming for...
Peace, we need systemic change in the South...
Thursday, February 19, 2009
"A NATION OF COWARDS"
Eric Holder the new Attorney General of the US throws down the glove when it comes to race. Check it out courtesy of CNN:
It is time to recognize our diversity and strength. Embracing the cultures that make up the United States, and acknowledging the atrocious behavior by the United States Government toward the people of African decent, people from Latin America, Native Americans, is a first step, but only a first step toward healing this country and laying to rest the ghosts of the past that continue to haunt the United States.
I can further tie this "cowardly race issue" in to the past election, and the way the electoral map shifted in the United States. What used to be the bible belt can clearly be seen for what it is and what is has always been: The Racist Belt. Check out this link for the map, click on the Voting Shift link if it doesn't take you right to it. It shows the way the country voted, either more democrat or more republican than in 2004. It is very telling. Here is the map:
"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnicRegarding the melting pot myth: There is no such thing and there never has been. We are not a pot of fondue, we are human beings, different,unique, beautiful. For far too long the United States has forced people of color and especially the Natives to conform or be left behind, or worse, imprisoned or killed.
melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we -- I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards," Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month. He said that Americans are afraid to talk about race, adding that"certain subjects are off-limits and that to explore them risks at best embarrassment and at worst the questioning of one's character."
It is time to recognize our diversity and strength. Embracing the cultures that make up the United States, and acknowledging the atrocious behavior by the United States Government toward the people of African decent, people from Latin America, Native Americans, is a first step, but only a first step toward healing this country and laying to rest the ghosts of the past that continue to haunt the United States.
I can further tie this "cowardly race issue" in to the past election, and the way the electoral map shifted in the United States. What used to be the bible belt can clearly be seen for what it is and what is has always been: The Racist Belt. Check out this link for the map, click on the Voting Shift link if it doesn't take you right to it. It shows the way the country voted, either more democrat or more republican than in 2004. It is very telling. Here is the map:
You will notice, Arkansas and the bible belt voted MORE republican that in 2004, clearly disrespecting Obama, and embracing the embarrassingly ridiculous Republican party ticket of McCain/Palin. Even after the fucking nightmare of George W. Bush. They voted more republican, completely against their own interests. Once upon a time I was like that in Arkansas. Then I finally pulled myself out of the bowl that Arkansas is. You know? You get stuck in a bowl so long without being able to see above the rim, and you think the rest of the world is like this bowl, also. Fortunately it is not true. You can get out and have a better life.
Something else. When I lived in Arkansas, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day rolled around, white people greeted each other by saying, "Happy Nigger Day." With a big grin and a smile. Don't tell me about the New South, and the Gem that Arkansas is, it simply is not true. The potential is there, but the leadership is not.
We have much work to do in the US. Things have begun, let us work to fully marginalize the right wing to a strictly yapping small regional party relegated to the South, and then let's push them right off the East and Gulf Coasts right into the sea where they belong. Stay strong Searchers, keep the heat on the right wing...and Mr. Holder, you're completely correct. Peace-
Onward.
map courtesy of New York Times, photobucket
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