Sunday, June 5, 2016

Hamburg Massacre: Politics Then and Today

As the saying goes: live and learn. The picture is similar to one that a friend shared recently from his trip to South Carolina. After reading the caption on the sign, my natural curiosity took over and I wanted to learn more. I was shocked but not surprised at what I learned. When it comes to politics today, hate, fear and riots are still, apparently, used to win an election.

Maybe (?) American politicians don't actually set up a physical massacre but they don't object to utilizing the massacre of mind and soul to get elected and carry on their agenda. Yet, can we blame them without looking at ourselves too? After all, aren't we all part of that universal flow of thought and emotions? Aren't we all hypocrites when we point at their flaws that we have within us? Their lack of decency, hiding facts, shameful behavior, and being non-politically-correct can be attributed to the flow of energy in our world. Are we reaping what we sowed?

To continue, the Hamburg Massacre is a very interesting, but sad, story. Well worth the time to read about it. Sadly, the picture, that's on the Wikipedia link, is typical of that time period. I deplore the N word even when blacks say it to other blacks. As a child, I was corrected and scolded, by my mom, never to say it as it was a demeaning vulgarity that shouldn't be used. Today, some say a variation of it to downplay the word. I can understand their point but from my time period it still carries a deeper meaning that no amount of word-white-washing can erase ... and it shouldn't.

Excerpts: "It was the first of a series of civil disturbances, many of which Democrats planned in the majority-black/Republican Edgefield District, to disrupt Republican meetings and suppress black voting through actual and threatened violence. ~ The Democrats succeeded in "redeeming" the state government and electing Wade Hampton III as governor. During the remainder of the century, they passed laws to establish single-party white supremacist rule, impose legal segregation and "Jim Crow," and disenfranchise blacks by a new constitution in 1895. This exclusion of blacks from the political system was effectively maintained into the late 1960s."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_massacre

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