100 Days of Trump Day 92: Eyes on the Prize
Welcome Back to 100 Days of Trump where we try to explain WTF happened in 100 Days and yeah....lets talk about race. Or specifically the Civil Rights movement, because in many ways, 2016 was first conceived during the civil rights movement. As a society we have a very fluffy understanding of the Civil Rights movement, most dramatically with the notion that racism ended in 1970 or thereabouts. But so much of the Civil Rights struggle of the time mirrors our civil rights struggles today (its almost as if it is the same continuous conflict and movement) most notably with the fact that so many of the fiercest opponents of the Civil Rights Movement are poor whites who would benefit greatly from unity with poor blacks. But most importantly, the same type of opposition you see to civil movements today was just as present then, the NAACP was seen by many as a communist militant and anti american organization, the police were cruel to protesters, and the movement was discredited using effectively the same methods we see today. For example, finding some black people who were like “oh look, segregation is great” as a way to discredit the NAACP. And of course, as bad as the southern whites were, the “moderate” whites outside of the south were trying to find any possible excuse to not deal with segregation, because they really didn’t want to deal with addressing systemic racism. And of course, the success of the Civil Rights Movement meant that the South became Republican for three generations. Eyes on the Prize is a really good documentary just summing up the events for you, I really recommend watching the whole documentary.