80085 said:
Backyard Gator said:
OldArmy71 said:
I agree with you. It does not in any way excuse this horrible, senseless murder, but I do believe it partially explains what was going on with KA.
As someone who grew up in the segregated/Jim Crow South, I have brooded on this issue for many, many years.
White people, including me, like to think to ourselves that black people no longer have any grounds for racial grievance. Segregation and Jim Crow are illegal and long in the past.
The problem is that millions of black people live with relatives--grandparents, for instance--or know people in the community who are my age (77) and who grew up in the same segregated world I grew up in.
The world of segregation is a living memory for those folks, and they pass those memories--and fears and resentments and angers--on to their children and grandchildren.
Many black people are able to go on with their lives and not be trapped in that past, but there are millions for whom that past is vividly real and can control their lives if they let it.
I grow more despairing that our society is just stuck in the past with not much of a way forward.
The problem with people blaming Jim Crow/segregation for what is happening today is Anderson Bonner happened during Reconstruction. Look him up if you don't know who that is. Madam CJ Walker was born during Reconstruction and died during Jim Crow. Junior Bridgeman was born during Jim Crow and died in 2025. Robert F. Smith was born during Jim Crow. There are plenty of examples of people who not only overcame real systemic racism (which is what slavery and Jim Crow was), but thrived and reached the pinnacle of success despite forces working against them. Too many examples to buy the excuses peddled by people today.
You have too many people unhappy and resentful of others because they're not successful, racism is just the excuse they use to prevent anyone from holding them accountable.
As a kid I played at the now soccer fields where Bonner's land was, no idea who he was at the time. From what I remember reading about him he was really good at buying land from people on the cheap, despite not being able to read
He was a slave who worked hard after emancipation, saved his money, and bought some land. He built cabins on his land, rented them out to sharecroppers, and then used their rents to buy more land. He built more cabins, rents those out to more sharecroppers, and bought more land. Lather, rinse, repeat. He couldn't read, signed everything with an X, yet he understood real estate and how to build wealth. He owned over 2000 acres of the most valuable real estate in Dallas, Medical City Dallas resides on what was formerly his land.
He had 10 kids, and his inheritance was split up among them. I believe there is still an endowed scholarship at Prairie View A&M in his name.
