If you believe a lone racist gunman killed 3 people in Jacksonville, it's probably because you only learned a whitewashed version of history. But there is a reason why a white supremacist chose this specific location:
The shooting happened in the New Town section of Jacksonville, Fla.
Wait... Why is the black section called "New Town?"
You've probably heard about the Great Chicago Fire & the San Francisco Fire. Well, the 3rd largest urban fire in American history was in Jacksonville, Fla
On May 3, 1901, a fire at a factory burned 146 blocks, destroying 2,368 buildings. It left 10,000 people homeless.
The fire department decided to save the white homes and let the Black neighborhoods burn to the ground, including two historically Black colleges.
The man who wrote that 1st quote was a choir director at a school started by a woman who moved to Jville bc white people kept shooting at her for teaching Black ppl to read. They did a decent job good job, producing students like Zora Neal Hurston
But Jacksonville was racist AF
Oh, the choir director was a lawyer, too.
A year before the fire, he had a concert to celebrate Lincoln's bday. But instead of singing about Lincoln, the choir director took a poem he wrote about the surviving the racial terror of Reconstruction & set it to his brother's music
The song slapped, too.
But when he lost his home in the fire, the choir director said: "F**k this racist town," moved to NY, helped start a little arts movement called the Harlem Renaissance & became field director for the NAACP traveling to investigate lynchings.
During the lynching epidemic of 1919, the old choir director would go places and hear ppl singing his song throughout the South. That summer, the NAACP made it the Black National Anthem.
And that's how James Weldon Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing" survived a racist fire.
The other Black school that burned was Edward Waters College, started by the AME church to educate Freedmen after the Civil War, it was Florida's first HBCU.
After the racist fire, EWC bought land in the burned Black neighborhood, reopened and helped build the "New Town."
But that's not why the gunman went there.
See, after the Great Depression, the New Deal gave white people government handouts to start businesses and guaranteed low-interest mortgages to build new homes. There was 1 catch:
You couldn't build in Black communities.
Now, remember, the South was segregated, so Black people COULDN'T live in the white part of town. So even Black WW2 veterans who had the GI bill couldn't use the mortgages to build homes. They couldn't even use the money to start businesses in Black areas
And to make sure...
The US government created maps of towns for banks to show where they couldn't guarantee loans. Even dumb racist understood the maps because they were color-coded, shading the Black sections of town in red.
They called it redlining.
Let's look at Jacksonville's redlining map.
Now, you might be saying: Maybe that section of town is marked "hazardous for another reason."
You might be right. Who knows? Maybe they weren't racist. Luckily, the gov't EXPLAINED why the neighborhoods were marked in red.
the BEST Black neighborhoods are better than the poorest white neighborhoods even in the poor sections. What's even crazier, is that they explicitly say Why it is that way.
You're probably thinking: "This is racist AF but what does it have to do with a shooting?"
Well, the shooter went to Florida schools so he probably doesn't know a lot of Black history. But there is a reason he went to the Dollar Tree after he was turned away from Edward Waters
See, this thread isn't really about Black history or racist shooters.
Like many Black neighborhoods, New Town is in a "food desert." Ppl in these neighborhoods who don't have transportation or time to go to white neigborhoods, must shop at dollar stores
Basically they stock smaller sizes and lower quality merchandise for premium prices.
So why don't grocery stores open in Black communities?
Well, that's the thing. Unless it's a high-end store like Whole Foods or Publix, new grocery stores don't really come to ANY community
But these neighborhoods are not poor and hungry JUST because because of 150 years of INTENTIONAL economic inequality. Its not even because of fires or redlining or hate.
The racist shooter unknowingly chose his target based on the measurable economic effects of white privilege
That is the "systemic" part of systemic racism
Instead of about what they did TO BLACK PEOPLE, we should be talking about what they do FOR WHITE PEOPLE
THIS is white privilege.
WHITE people got their fires put out which gave them real estate and land boosted by government handouts which gave them MORE equity in their homes schools which gave them MORE resources which gave them economic security.
But here's the important part:
BLACK PEOPLE PAID FOR WHITE PEOPLE'S STUFF. They paid taxes for fire departments and GI bills and federal subsidies and a good public education system and WHITE PEOPLE GOT IT.
No one cares about how white people FEEL about Black people. We want our STUFF
If we just had our stuff, there would be no Black neighborhoods, so there'd be no redlining, which means there would be no food deserts, which means it wouldn't cost MORE to be Black
Oh, there would still be racist white supremacist domestic terrorists
Trust me, we know.
But I bet we'd do something about it if it kept happening at Publix
For more great food tips, pre-order a signed copy of Black AF History: The Un-whitewashed Story of America,
Last year, Spike Lee interviewed me for his upcoming doc on @Kaepernick7.
He was so nice & even gave me a tour of the studios. I'm a Spike Lee stan. So when he said he loved my writing and wanted to meet me, I was too flustered to tell him that we'd met before.
In college, I was on the board of the Black Student Union.
I don't want to make it sound like I was so militant because the school was only about 4% Black, so BSU was basically our weekly get-together.
The only other time we saw each other was at the Free Movie.
Auburn had a weekly movie for students. As long as you had a student ID, you could get in. For years, BSU complained to the University Program Council about the lack of Black films.
Of course, the UPC said: "We just choose the most popular movies that fit our budget."
A lot of outlets have been telling the story of Tony Bennett marching with MLK.
But have you ever heard the story about how “wokeness,” DEI, Jesus, an actual anti-racist, 2 church choirs & 1 of the greatest dance moves of all time got Tony Bennett into show biz?
A thread
The story begins when Black soldiers returned from WWI & white folks went wild & just started killing Black veterans. The Klan’s numbers surged, sparking the “Red Summer of 1919”
This 2nd wake Klan “America First” movement wasn’t just anti-Black, tho. It was anti-Catholic & anti… well, anything but white people. And this wasn’t just a Southern movement.
And if you’re wondering, about the white Catholics, well…
First of all, here are the lyrics to Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town”
The first question we must ask is “what, specifically, is the ‘that’ that Aldean is requesting we try?”
“Sucker punch[ing] somebody on a sidewalk” appears to reference the “Knockout Game,” a group activity where rabid negroes randomly clock white ppl upside the head
1. The Home homeownership thing? It’s the biggest determinant of wealth in America. 3 out of every 4 white households own their home. It has never been above 50%. Black people are charged higher mortgage rates than whites with the same credit.
Source: census.gov/housing/hvs/fi…
The DOJ has settled lawsuits against every single 1 of the 5 biggest banks in America for discriminating against nonwhite borrowers. A home in a Black neighborhood is undervalued by $48k vs a home in a white hood with same crime, rate, resources etc
This is Whitekanda, an area was created by a race war, white fear, the prospect of an all-Black state, stealing land from indigenous people & one of the greatest real estate scams of all time.
First, American exceptionalism makes us believe that the British colonized the place we call America but that’s not really true. Before America was born, France technically had more property in North America than the British.
But everyone was down with slavery
In 1791, enslaved Black people in French-controlled Haiti jumped off the large successful slave revolt in the history of the planet.
Long story short: they won
Not only did France leave, they said “Fuck this New World shit,” had a fire sale & left the ENTIRE HEMISPHERE
First of all, let’s get this out of the way. Almost every form of popular music & art created by Black Americans.
But it wasn’t just art, it was part of a cultural tradition.
Gospel music wasn’t just Black people singing songs about Jesus, it was a form of communication
It was literally how they learned to speak the language and preserve their history. It was instructions for escaping slavery and the first Google Calendar
How do you plan a revolt or spread the word of resistance or worship when your god is outlawed?