• Cyburbia is a friendly big tent, where we share our experiences and thoughts about urban planning practice, the built environment, planning adjacent topics, and anything else that comes to mind. No ads, no spam, and it's free. It's easy to join!

NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Political Discussion Thread

AG74683 said:
Holy crap, the Tulsa Race Massacre made CNN's front page. Yesterday was the 99 year anniversary. I had no idea this even happened until I watched HBO's "Watchmen", and even after I watched that episode, I had no clue it wasn't just some fictional event in an alternate US history. It was never taught in school, and no one even mentions it.

en.wikipedia.org

Tulsa race massacre - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

White supremacists literally used airplanes to bomb African American owned businesses. Tulsa was home to the wealthiest African American community in the United States at the time, it was commonly referred to as "Black Wall Street". It's the single largest act of racial violence in United States history, and it's largely been swept under the rug.
Click to expand...

I heard about it in this book. It's the only case of a domestic aerial bombing in American History, yet so few know about it. The fact that this has been downplayed for almost a century is reprehensible. I'm willing to bet it was kept out of the local school curriculum for all of the 20th Century.
 

Attachments

  • Sundown Towns.jpg
    Sundown Towns.jpg
    71.3 KB · Views: 88
Last edited:
michaelskis said:
I have been resisting posting, but I am going to anyways... and I am going to post here because it is only a mater of time before someone blames Trump or the Republicans.

What happened in MN where the police killed George Floyd is both horrific and inexcusable. The officers involved should without question be charged with a minimum of involuntary manslaughter and potentially a hate crime.

But what I don't get is the riots and looting that is now going on. I don't get it. The video of people looking a Target in Minneapolis does absolutely nothing to help Floyd. And it is not just African-Americans that are looting. The video shows a white woman running out of the store with several living room lamps. In LA, they are attacking police and this is likely going to continue regardless of what happens. I have no issue with people protesting, but when those demonstrations turn violent, that is not acceptable.
Click to expand...

Remember back to September 11, 2001 and what you felt, mskis. I remember what I felt -- a desire to lash out violently at someone/something which was and is totally out of character for me. I didn't know anybody who died in 9/11, and living at the opposite side of the state, the impact personally on me was minimal, but still I felt so much for those people -- those people whose only connection to me was that they were fellow Americans -- that I wanted to hurt someone/break something.

Not being black, I can't speak for black people, but I can certainly image and understand what they are feeling about the Floyd murder, which is one of a long line of deaths of blacks at the hands of police because I felt it, too, once in my adult life. While there may have been some individuals bent on creating anarchy or violence or committing crimes, I think that many of the people who participated in the rioting were so angry and frustrated that they gave into that primal urge to lash out at any nearby target.
 
Linda_D said:
Remember back to September 11, 2001 and what you felt, mskis. I remember what I felt -- a desire to lash out violently at someone/something which was and is totally out of character for me. I didn't know anybody who died in 9/11, and living at the opposite side of the state, the impact personally on me was minimal, but still I felt so much for those people -- those people whose only connection to me was that they were fellow Americans -- that I wanted to hurt someone/break something.

Not being black, I can't speak for black people, but I can certainly image and understand what they are feeling about the Floyd murder, which is one of a long line of deaths of blacks at the hands of police because I felt it, too, once in my adult life. While there may have been some individuals bent on creating anarchy or violence or committing crimes, I think that many of the people who participated in the rioting were so angry and frustrated that they gave into that primal urge to lash out at any nearby target.
Click to expand...

I remember 9/11 quite well... and I remember in detail what I felt... But let me ask you, did you punch anyone. Did you get into a fight?

My feelings and emotions on that day were much different than yours. My first thought was to help people who were scared. It was not to lash out and become violent. It was my final year of college and as part of the student government at the time, I moderated a Town Hall meeting in one of the dorm halls to help people talk about what they were feeling, their thoughts and concerns of the situation, and work with the local therapists on how to best control our feelings and what we can do to show support for those in NYC, DC, and across America. I do know someone who died in 9/11, but I did not learn the news until weeks later. I did not want to go up and punch a Canadian because they didn't have anything to do with it.

On Sunday I had a conversation with my brother-in-law who is black. He was furious with what happened and he participated in a protest on Saturday afternoon, but when it started to turn violent he started trying to stop people he knew and stood in font of the restaurant that we worked at to prevent people from looting that. However he realized that there was just too much hate on the street so he left because he didn't want anything to do with that. He pointed out that it is now to the point that the discussion of the riots are so loud, no one is talking about what needs to be done to change how police departments deal with minorities.
 
MacheteJames said:
I'm wound up as hell over all of this. Sick to my stomach over it. I'm a black planner, one of the very few - I wouldn't be surprised if there were only high hundreds to low thousands of us in the whole profession in the US, even fewer in management roles. I'm also the dad of a toddler, and the weight of recent events have hit me like a ten ton anvil - fearing for him and his little life, now and in the years to come.

I feel like I should be doing more as both a a man of color and an AICP planner to try to make things right. I've had it good, I've lived a charmed life, and I stand on the backs of others who got firehoses and dogs turned on them so that I can be here.

I haven't figured out how to make any of what I'm feeling actionable just yet.
Click to expand...

I'm a white lady but I've been thinking about how I've been using my "government employee" and "neutral planner" status as an excuse to not speak up about things or support local organizations as much as I should. I'm going to stop using that as an excuse. Yes, I need to be sensitive of my planner ethics and my responsibilities as a government employee, but there are a lot of things I can do that won't conflict. I don't live in the jurisdiction that I work for, so I have even fewer excuses.
 
Back when this tuba player first trolled the nazi march, I was proud ... so much that I used my google-fu to find his name and send a friend request.
Today he shared this redub of his original march. It's just great. "Who did this!?? Someone put my audio behind trump’s latest propaganda. I ain’t mad..."

 
Mass civil unrest in the US. Coronavirus panic. Economy in shambles.

Somewhere....deep underground....Donald Trump - "Look how f****** healthy I am!!!!"
 
My city councilors attend the rallies in the city where I work so I will feel more comfortable attending the rally this weekend in my town - like them, I will only stay for the peaceful parts, the speeches, etc. and then leave when the marching or anger starts
 
I doubt we get much results from all the protesting here. Although they might actually fund the civilian review board they created last year. I guess that's something.

If tRump is 240 pounds then I'm 200 pounds easy. For those who have seen me I'm 6' and 235 and nowhere near the size of tRump.
 
DVD said:
If tRump is 240 pounds then I'm 200 pounds easy. For those who have seen me I'm 6' and 235 and nowhere near the size of tRump.
Click to expand...
Yep. If I'm 6'-1", 235 lbs, then Trump is not 240 lbs as he's 6'-3".
 
Let his quote stick in your mind:

During Thursday’s news conference, Barr said it was a coincidence that law enforcement cleared the area later used for the President's walk to the nearby St. John's Episcopal Church, where he posed for a photo.

Just a coincidence...riiiiiight
 
WTH

Texas leaders demand resignation of Bexar County GOP chairwoman who spread George Floyd conspiracy theory
Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. John Cornyn, other prominent Republicans denounce Cynthia Brehm for suggesting Floyd’s death was staged to damage President Donald Trump with black
www.dallasnews.com

Texas GOP leaders try to distance themselves from Facebook posts Democrats denounce as ‘racist’

AUSTIN — In recent days, five Republican county chairmen in Texas have taken to Facebook to spread a conspiracy theory that George Floyd’s death was staged to...
www.dallasnews.com
 
So I wonder how Republicans are ever going to hold the Presidency if they lose Texas. The electoral college just doesn't work for R's without Texas. I mean I would argue that they can't win without Florida, but they may lose both this year.

Also, I think as we continue to move towards more digital or mail-in options, the R's are going to have a harder time keeping people away from voting, which has pretty clearly been a goal for a while. Yet there is no reason that we shouldn't want EVERYONE to vote. I have yet to hear one good reason for mail-in voting being a good thing. FRAUD! But there really isn't fraud.

"The Heritage Foundation, which tracks election fraud in an online database, reports that of 250 million ballots cast in the last 20 years there were only 204 cases of the fraudulent use of absentee ballots."
www.realclearpolitics.com

No Matter What Trump Says, the GOP Needs Vote-by-Mail | RealClearPolitics

No, were not going to have a nationalized vote-by-mail election this fall. You can ignore the hysterical tweets. But yes, many states will be expanding the use of mail-in ballots and Republicans...
www.realclearpolitics.com www.realclearpolitics.com

The arguments are really just about voter suppression, not the safety of our voting system.

I wonder what voter turn out will be this year with the very strong activism that is occurring right now. Hopefully that translates into a very large number of people voting.
 
Veloise said:
JT is 6'2" :canada:


4D1080C300000578-5827019-The_image_share_from_the_G7_summit_shows_a_shoulder_to_shoulder_-m-2_1528647117853.jpg
Click to expand...
But DT is clearly doing his 'forward lean' stand to disguise his girth, so....distorted.

Regardless, DT is not 240 lbs or less...unless he's hiding an inflated balloon in his shirt and/or pants.
 
We had rumors of antifa rioting at our lifestyle center yesterday. Someone who had a friend, who had a friend, who was married to a police officer was on facebook saying they heard there would be hordes coming from Atlanta or something. Police said multiple times it was baseless and not credible. Didn't matter much a few stores closed early. Even though I wasn't worried about boogiemen driving 1.5 hours to hold a protest in a place that has no significance to them, I told my daughter not to hang out over there because I was worried there might be a makeshift militia trying to find antifa.

In other news, the other end of the county had some burning crosses next to the interstate. Nobody seems to worried about that. :(
 
MacheteJames said:
I'm wound up as hell over all of this. Sick to my stomach over it. I'm a black planner, one of the very few - I wouldn't be surprised if there were only high hundreds to low thousands of us in the whole profession in the US, even fewer in management roles. I'm also the dad of a toddler, and the weight of recent events have hit me like a ten ton anvil - fearing for him and his little life, now and in the years to come.

I feel like I should be doing more as both a a man of color and an AICP planner to try to make things right. I've had it good, I've lived a charmed life, and I stand on the backs of others who got firehoses and dogs turned on them so that I can be here.

I haven't figured out how to make any of what I'm feeling actionable just yet.
Click to expand...

I read somewhere that as a white person, I shouldn't put black people on the spot to explain things which I totally get - like how is one person a spokesman for everyone but I do appreciate your insights as there are many good-meaning-but-clueless-white-middle-aged-ladies like me that want to do the right thing

I went to my fair, and I mean fair, town's BLM event last night on the village green and I was happy to see that they did have black students from our high school and one from our local college as speakers - one of my son's friend was the speaker and he talked about how casually kids on his football team here joke with him about being black and even using the n-word with him - it was an eye opening event and I love that the kids are coming out for it and leading the charge with the events and not us boomer folks

Super Amputee Cat said:
I heard about it in this book. It's the only case of a domestic aerial bombing in American History, yet so few know about it. The fact that this has been downplayed for almost a century is reprehensible. I'm willing to bet it was kept out of the local school curriculum for all of the 20th Century.
Click to expand...

My daughter lived in Gainesville and said it was a sundown town and culturally still is, especially the towns surrounding it - scary stuff
 
Defunding and disbanding police departments seems like a good idea. I mean hey, what could go wrong? :r:

And people thought gun sales were through the roof before?
 
MD Planner said:
Defunding and disbanding police departments seems like a good idea. I mean hey, what could go wrong? :r:

And people thought gun sales were through the roof before?
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm not entirely sure what the plan is there? I mean how about you just start by firing people with more than 3 serious viable complaints? Perhaps not wait until the dude accrues years of serious violent complaints on top of discharging his service weapon multiple times. Oh, and he was also in that pesky unsanctioned car chase that killed 3 people. But what do I know....
 
There were protests in a couple of the suburbs on this side of the Detroit 'burbs over the past week, including in our fair city. Here they marched through our downtown and then congregated at a park to listen to speakers. The spot that they picked to have the speakers at the park was at the intersection of George and Floyd Streets.
 
Planit said:
I'm a Gator fan & also agree with this.

The UF campus is great and a small part of DT G'ville. The rest is just bad.
Click to expand...

Yes I loved her neighborhood and the downtown was nice but seriously, driving a few blocks out of town and I was all in that yankee-wow-mode
 
Planit said:
I started to put this in the Beer Thread, but thought it was better here.

I'd like to think this was just a REALLY bad decision...but not sure I could accept that given the climate...regardless, I don't believe I'll be drinking their beer anytime soon....

https://www.smokymountainnews.com/news/item/29206-beer-branded-with-white-nationalist-lingo-imagery-draws-outrage
Click to expand...

Good grief. They made an honest mistake. I've never heard of that word being associated with any type of hate groups. But hey, outrage is what it's all about these days, real or imagined. We have real honest to God issues in this country. The fact that we continually get caught up in the cosmetic ones is mind-boggling to me.
 
luckless pedestrian said:
I read somewhere that as a white person, I shouldn't put black people on the spot to explain things which I totally get - like how is one person a spokesman for everyone but I do appreciate your insights as there are many good-meaning-but-clueless-white-middle-aged-ladies like me that want to do the right thing

I went to my fair, and I mean fair, town's BLM event last night on the village green and I was happy to see that they did have black students from our high school and one from our local college as speakers - one of my son's friend was the speaker and he talked about how casually kids on his football team here joke with him about being black and even using the n-word with him - it was an eye opening event and I love that the kids are coming out for it and leading the charge with the events and not us boomer folks



My daughter lived in Gainesville and said it was a sundown town and culturally still is, especially the towns surrounding it - scary stuff
Click to expand...

Sounds like not much has changed since I was growing up as a sheltered kid in the 90s in that regard, which saddens me immensely as I had once (incredibly naively) imagined that the world would be expunged of both casual and systemic racism by the time I had a kid of my own. I remember hearing that stuff not infrequently. On a few occasions in middle school, a group of kids would chase me through the halls of the school making ape noises - you never forget that shit. Recent events have dredged up a lot of stuff that I had tried not to think about for many years.

As for sundown towns, there are places in rural, inland New England where I'm still not comfortable to go. My "I'm going to get myself stared at/mistreated/potentially killed if I do the wrong thing" radar goes off in certain areas - usually correlated with a local prevalence of lifted, diesel-bro pickup trucks blowing black smoke. Back in college during the early 00s, I remember stopping at a mom and pop convenience store in one of the Western Mass hill towns for a snack on the drive home from camping with friends, and getting an absolute death stare from the guy at the counter. There is a storied history of Klan activity in rural New England that flies under the cultural radar.
 
MacheteJames said:
Sounds like not much has changed since I was growing up as a sheltered kid in the 90s in that regard, which saddens me immensely as I had once (incredibly naively) imagined that the world would be expunged of both casual and systemic racism by the time I had a kid of my own. I remember hearing that stuff not infrequently. On a few occasions in middle school, a group of kids would chase me through the halls of the school making ape noises - you never forget that shit. Recent events have dredged up a lot of stuff that I had tried not to think about for many years.

As for sundown towns, there are places in rural, inland New England where I'm still not comfortable to go. My "I'm going to get myself stared at/mistreated/potentially killed if I do the wrong thing" radar goes off in certain areas - usually correlated with a local prevalence of lifted, diesel-bro pickup trucks blowing black smoke. Back in college during the early 00s, I remember stopping at a mom and pop convenience store in one of the Western Mass hill towns for a snack on the drive home from camping with friends, and getting an absolute death stare from the guy at the counter. There is a storied history of Klan activity in rural New England that flies under the cultural radar.
Click to expand...

Yes Portland, Maine had a massive KKK following with rallies and the like - it's overwhelming but I am happy to see the new citizens of Portland taking a stand

When I first moved to Maine, I said that I felt safer on the orange line in Boston that I did jogging on a rural road as a female so yeah, rural New England can be nasty

I have been doing some reading which is helping for certain but I do like the sign that says something to the effect that I don't know but I will use my voice to stand behind you as that's how I am feeling - I am lucky to work in a city that is encouraging us staff to participate along with the elected officials.

I have heard mixed reviews of the site called Medium but I have read some helpful things like this: Insulting Things that White People Do

In terms of planning, there's obvious things in zoning and social justice we should be better about - but little things like not using the term "grandfathering" is also important.
 
The defund police thing is just badly stated. The desire, from what I understand, is to take the funding used by police for social services and create a social services department. In other words, let the police do the policing and not have to do social service work. It's a nice idea, but the police are wear the rubber hits the road and they need to know how to do it and then transfer the problem to the new and improved social services division.
 
DVD said:
The defund police thing is just badly stated. The desire, from what I understand, is to take the funding used by police for social services and create a social services department. In other words, let the police do the policing and not have to do social service work. It's a nice idea, but the police are wear the rubber hits the road and they need to know how to do it and then transfer the problem to the new and improved social services division.
Click to expand...

Even when police are required to do social service type work, they half ass it and pencil whip it to death. They don't generally think it's their job to do, so they do it begrudgingly if at all. I don't think they're wrong there though, it shouldn't be their duty anyway. I understand the concept. Get officers to know and understand their community. See the people they're protecting, learn their stories. Very rarely do they have any interest in that. Knocking some dude out with a mag light though, hell yeah! Community in policing only seems to work in small jurisdictions, and the difference is mostly negligible.

The problem isn't with money being funneled into police departments, and "defunding" them just exacerbates the issues. The problem is that the whole thing is a giant fraternity of tightly knit jerks. Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of good police officers out there, but they rarely get anywhere beyond beat cops because the administrative parts of policing aren't interested in people who have morals. They can't change the system because the system doesn't want to be changed. The good ones won't say or do anything against the bad ones because they end up being ostracized and punished by higher ups for making a problem. The good ones get chewed up and beat down until they become compliant or quit. You all have seen it, cops do some egregious thing, get "fired" from their current job, and somehow end up as a police officer next door. The fraternity protects their own, so long as the one they are protecting plays by their rules. The movies are wrong, police don't drink because of things they've seen on the streets, it's because of the things they've DONE.

IAB really doesn't do any good, because their investigations are stonewalled by the same administrative bullshit that keeps bad cops on the street. Even if their investigations come up with something, the offending cop just bows out and moves to a different jurisdiction. At the end of the day, IAB is made up of police officers, so their investigations are biased anyway. Police need an impartial third party that reviews complaints and decides the fate of these trash cops like Chauvin BEFORE they kill people. Otherwise they'll continue to run amok and perpetuate this violence. This isn't new, cops have had this sort if immunity for decades, they're just getting caught now with the advent of social media. How you get to that impartial third party review board is beyond me though, but this method of the police reviewing complaints against other police is not working.

Edit* perfect freaking example of what I'm saying. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/us/brevard-county-florida-police-union-misconduct-trnd/index.html
 
Last edited:
And so the conservatives are turning on Trump... and rightfully so. Over the weekend General Colin Powell declared that he will vote for Joe Biden because Trump is just that bad... This is just another in long line who see Trump for who he is, regardless of the letter behind the name.

www.forbes.com

Colin Powell Endorses Biden, Joins Growing List Of GOP, Military Leaders Denouncing Trump

“I cannot in any way support President Trump this year,” Powell told CNN Sunday.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
 
michaelskis said:
And so the conservatives are turning on Trump... and rightfully so. Over the weekend General Colin Powell declared that he will vote for Joe Biden because Trump is just that bad... This is just another in long line who see Trump for who he is, regardless of the letter behind the name.

www.forbes.com

Colin Powell Endorses Biden, Joins Growing List Of GOP, Military Leaders Denouncing Trump

“I cannot in any way support President Trump this year,” Powell told CNN Sunday.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
Click to expand...
I would imagine we are going to see the never-Trump Republicans start to come out of the woodwork. Say whatever you want about Biden and his abilities, but Trump has burned a lot of bridges. This will be the first chance most Republicans who feel disenfranchised by Trump get to show him how they feel. They have had 4 years to stew....
 
It will be interesting to see if any sitting Republican Senators who are up for re-election this year will come out against Trump because they see him as a drag on their chances for winning in November. If we see even just one endorse Biden (or at the least, publicly say they cannot vote for Trump) then I think that will be a lot more meaningful than a retired figure like Powell or Mattis.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
It will be interesting to see if any sitting Republican Senators who are up for re-election this year will come out against Trump because they see him as a drag on their chances for winning in November. If we see even just one endorse Biden (or at the least, publicly say they cannot vote for Trump) then I think that will be a lot more meaningful than a retired figure like Powell or Mattis.
Click to expand...
I agree. I think the first wave is from those who can't be "hurt" by Trump. Obviously his scorn can really put the pain on a candidate, and with 90%+ approval ratings within the republican party, we can assume his opinion still has sway.

My guess though is that the second wave will be House members or other Bush-like Republicans, whom are more establishment, will come out against Trump. I think it is well-known how much a portion of the Republican party dislikes Trump, but just doesn't want the Democrats to win, and are holding their tongue. Without any clear alternative, what advantage do they have to speak out against Trump though? They would just be hurting themselves politically. The only real reason is because they just want to get a parting shot at Trump on the way out. I don't see Senators willing to do that, but House members may.
 
Back
Top