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Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person’s home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.
I was going to say “I am shocked, shocked! Well, not that shocked.” until I read this. Jesus Christ, I’m legitimately shocked.
Jesus Christ, I’m legitimately shocked.
Why? This is genuinely pretty fucking tame for Mississippi.
Guess I live too far north. I thought living in a rural area meant I got the ‘privilege’ of seeing some terrible modern racism, but I guess I’m not even seeing the big leagues out here.
Aside from maybe Haiti, Mississippi is by far the most dangerous place in the western hemisphere to be a black person. Don’t look into it unless you want your whole week ruined.
I’m still not shocked. Saddened, absolutely heartbroken this is still where we are, but not shocked at all.
I travelled through Alabama in the mid-80s as a girl so white I’m nearly translucent and the xenophobia was so thick, I could have served it on plates.
I was told by my local companion to not open my mouth because my accent would be a problem, even though I’m white as driven snow, and when I forgot and uttered a sentence at a chicken restaurant, he literally had to talk them out of ‘giving me a lesson’.
I can’t imagine being black in places where even the wrong kind of white is a problem. No wonder they fuck their cousins. They’re so xenophobic, anyone outside their kin is bad, and other colours are demonic.
Sad but not surprising.
e: Alabama, not Mississippi
Jesus Christ.
I really hoped things had improved there in several decades, esp with the internet, but maybe not. :(
e: this happened in a very rural town, with no national stores or anything. It was near my friend’s home, and I’m not suggesting the whole state was like that. It was a very rural place. Still, it left a massive impression and I can’t help but associate it with what I see now in much of the US south.
Anyone thinking murderous racism is a thing of the past is dead wrong.
Someone needs to sue the shit out of that town and give the money to Braxton and the African Americans there.
Absolutely fucked.
This quote really is the icing on this turd of a story:
“He went through a total of five attorneys prior to me meeting them last year, and they pretty much took his money. We ran into some big law firms who were supposed to help and they kind of misled him,”
This country is a goddamn pyramid scheme, and everybody’s selling.
Here the PayPal donate link from the article. I threw them $20.
That’s pathetic. The town elected him as mayor. Let him do his job!
The town didn’t actually have an election.
No elections in the last 60 years. It’s just been old white men trading the office of mayor around to their children when they die or get tired of it.
And no one in the community actually knew who the mayor was, well, none of the black residents knew, because the mayor and city hall never let them vote.
So, Patrick Braxton got fed up with the situation and filed the paperwork to run for mayor, and since the previous mayor had never bothered with any paperwork, Braxton won by default. The only person in the last 60 years to actually run for mayor instead of being appointed by their father.
Braxton is also a volunteer firefighter, and the only member of the force who responds to fires at black people’s houses.
The article is a wild ride. The white population of the town just seem to be caricatures of racism and bigotry.
😡 that’s feudalism
Yes, it happened in the US.
I feel like the firefighters who refused to help with the fire or go to the heart attack victim’s house should be criminally prosecuted at the least and should definitely lose their jobs.
A lot of firefighters are volunteers. I have no idea about this case but maybe they would try to use that as a defense, if so.
Side note, it’s utterly baffling that such an essential function basically runs off of charity. What a joke.
On the other hand, internal motivation is often more powerful that monetary compensation for many individuals.
Isn’t there a reasonable obligation to try and save people if you can do so without harming yourself, even more so with police and firefighters? I guess this makes sense in the context of Uvadale.
Volunteer firefighters have no legal obligation to respond to a call. Even if it’s the house next door.
Neat thing I learned when researching this: Some states (like Oklahoma) have laws on the books that state that volunteer firefighters “who are called to fight fires are not required to use any accrued leave or make up any time due to the performance of their volunteer firefighter duties.”
Doesn’t mean they’ll continue to get paid while they’re working fires but at least they won’t have to make up hours or lose vacation over it 🤷
It’s insane to me as a non-American that a) one of the most critical jobs employ lots of people without paying them and b) that person has no responsibility to actually do that critical job.
What if surgeons decided they don’t want to operate on someone because they just don’t feel like it or like the person? Society is usually built on trust the in an emergency you can count on others.
Honestly it feels really scrummy that people who do firefighting might not be paid.
Want more rage? In my community in East Tennessee, I don’t have municipal fire service.
There’s a private for-profit fire department that “serves” me. I have to pay a yearly subscription fee to them. Granted, it’s not expensive, but it’s the principle - Why the fuck do I have to pay for something that, everywhere else, is covered by taxes?
Now… I can choose not to pay the subscription fee. And that’s fine. If I have a fire or need to be cut out of a car, they’ll still respond and still do whatever needs doing. But then they send a bill for $2000 per hour per apparatus that responds to the call, billed from the moment they leave the station to when they pull back in. So if I have a car wreck and the car catches fire, I can expect a bill for $2000/hour for each of a rescue truck, a pump truck, and a tank truck, assuming they don’t send two rescue trucks for some reason.
That’s $6000/hr, and they scene may be active for two or three hours. That’s $12,000 - $18,000 dollars BEFORE we even start talking about our garbage predatory healthcare system. Do I need an airlift to the trauma center? Whoa buddy… That’s a minimum of $20,000 before they even start the engine on the damned thing. Plus, the helicopter doesn’t take off from accident scene, so I’ll need ambulance transport to the aircraft LZ, so that’s another $2,000. But it’s okay, because the air evac company has a subscription plan too, and as long as I pay them my protection money every year, they won’t ruin my life if I have an accident.
I’m SOO FUCKING TIRED of this shithole profit-driven country.
I’m speechless. This feels like Idiocracy but in real life. What the fuck. It’s not even like the taxes in US are particularly low.
I mean… everything is like that here. I don’t even have municipal trash service. I have to a pay a dude in a converted pickup truck to come collect my trash and take it to the dump once a week, and that works out cheaper than taking it to the dump myself because I have to pay to use the dump. Nope, not included in taxes. It’s $25 for up to 500lbs for each visit, but the dude in the pickup truck gets that economy of scale, so paying him $22/mo works out much cheaper for me.
Our roads are covered in potholes, fire service isn’t included, the schools are garbage and the teachers have to buy most of their own supplies out of their own money, the homeless problem is out of control, the opioid epidemic is killing people left and right, the power goes out any time the wind blows too hard, our police don’t even bother to respond to anything but violent crime anymore and even then they usually just make the problem worse…
…but Randy fucking Boyd can build an unnecessary stadium downtown and get the taxpayers to foot the bill so he doesn’t have to pay for it, but he still gets to keep the profits off of it, and Marsha goddamned Blackburn can go on TV and bitch about Hunter Biden snorting cocaine off a porn-filled laptop or something.
I’m just so goddamned tired of it all. My wife and I have agreed that the instant she finishes school, we’re expatriating.
That sounds sad honestly. It looks like you can survive somehow until you can leave but I wonder how it will be for people below poverty line. It also makes me wonder how you can elect so many people who don’t care about their own community or people. Around here I’ve heard the excuse that people are uneducated (basic reading and writing) and therefore easily tricked or swayed but I don’t think that’s true in America.
Roughly 70% of the Firefighters in the US are volunteers.
Is it that the government doesn’t want to pay them to firefight? Or some other reason?
Let me start by saying the big city departments are 100% paid jobs. They have the money and the call volume to justify it. Rural departments and smaller cities don’t. It’s up to the local government ultimately. My rural fire department is staffed by one paid firefighter 24/7. The rest of us train and run calls when and if we’re available. Rural departments are the 70%
That makes a little more sense but it’s mind boggling to me as an outsider that that there richest country in the world with multi million or even billion dollar planes and ships cannot pay to keep volunteer firefighters.
Do you get paid when you run calls?
Sounds like you’re a great person for doing something for your community despite having no compensation :)
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What’s happened is the US judicial system has decided that if you make a fireman or policeman legally liable, then everyone has to be. Meaning if you see that your neighbor is in an emergency situation, it’s not enough to call 911, you have to respond and can be found liable, if emergency responders are.
It’s stupid.
That doesn’t make sense to me though because fireman/policemen have special training and equipment that an average person does not. What is their justification for this?
In Poland there are many volunteer firefighters. In small villages and towns. But they are paid. And if you don’t answer an alarm a few times, you will usually be “fired”.
Nice pun 🤣 It’s pretty much the same in India. Firefighters are well paid with benefits etc. like army or teachers.
Here’s what I don’t get… town is 85% black and only has 275 people.
That means a 234 to 41 split black to white. 5.7:1 ratio.
If those 41 people really are that racist and regressive, you haul them all out of their homes, tar and feather them, and ride them out of town on a rail.
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This is way too reductive, insulting, and patronizing to be a valid argument. Yes, there are hurdles, but hurdles can and should be overcome. The future of the nation depends on it. And you cannot seriously continue to intimidate everyone else to kowtowing to a bunch of bullying racists simply because they have weapons, which most Americans can easily procure.
If you’re not willing to respect anyone else, no one else should respect you.
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It’s a valid argument.
It’s not really, it’s pretty weak, and we can tell from the way he speaks of (people he views as) his opponents. If it was strong, he wouldn’t have to call names or insult those he’s seeking to convince, or try to bully them. I’ve seen that sort of thing many many times in my life. Honestly, people should treat his and the arguments of anyone who resorts to ad hom and abusive behavior as sus.
You don’t have to like his argument, but from his perspective, it is what he says. Rather than whine about it, try deconstructing his argument and countering it with facts.
Why do any of them want this? Why do they hate Black people? It’s not because someone told them they should or anything, other people don’t listen to that… ~Cherei
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Police are fundamentally built on racism and oppression. The idea of a standing police force very much goes back to the days of slave catching and union busting (arguably that specifically goes back to also putting down peasant uprisings under feudalism).
Why maintain those aspects though?
And a lot of that is the idea that, under any form of resource scarcity*, it is a zero sum game. If Fred has a loaf of bread, that means I have one less loaf of bread. So I should go cave Fred’s skull in and take my bread back. Obviously.
Not obviously, it’s pretty well known that we grow more than enough food to feed pretty much everyone at this point. And what resources are even being exhausted here?
What does work? What will help specifically? Why do some people choose this and others not? Why do some stop after doing it for a while and others not? Why do some start doing after a while of not doing it and others not? It’s not as if it’s some obscure, hard-to-find conclusion that this stuff never ever goes well… ~Cherri
Not obviously, it’s pretty well known that we grow more than enough food to feed pretty much everyone at this point. And what resources are even being exhausted here?
The idea is that the people who want those groups fighting will push that way of thinking. Also, resources in this context dont just mean necessities of survival. Go watch fox news. One of the main views they push there is that “illegal immigrants are there to steal your jobs”. They’ve gone as far as to say things like “democrats are stealing your money” or “those guys are satanists, they’re stealing your children!”
It isn’t the fact that resources really are greater than demand, it’s about stoking the thought that some group is less desirable by pushing the ideology that resources are finite and those groups are taking them.
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Why don’t they care until it’s them? Why do others care? And I know it’s not exclusive to white people, I’m just talking about the white people in that town because that’s what’s relevant here. Why prioritize getting and maintaining power over others over human lives? Why do others not? Why do people want notches above? I… I don’t get it. It just leads to more questions ~Cherri
Does it matter if Andy is carrying the bullet today when the police department is outnumbered 6:1?
How many police could a town this size have, anyway?
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This is not really relevant to the discussion at hand (and think your comments are spot on) but you keep using “WILDCATS” in reference to militias… unless there’s a different reference that I don’t know about, I think you mean the “WOLVERINES”. That was the name of the militia formed by kids in Red Dawn (it was their sports team name if I recall correctly)
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For sure, it just immediately reminded me of the Simpsons like you said:
“Who are we?” “THE WILDCATS!” “Who are we going to beat?” “THE WILDCATS!”
He’s trying to mock and insult people suggesting rebellion into submission. It’s an intimidation tactic. He really needs to be downvoted and reported to a mod for doing that, actually 🤔 It might violate the civility rules of the sub.
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Those 41 people are just asking for a Pumped-Up Kicks style resolution.
That’s what I’ve never understood about the US, there’s so many people with guns and so many shootings why hasn’t anyone just gone fuck it and started going after the elite?
Those 41 people are just asking for a Pumped-Up Kicks style resolution.
“systemic racism isn’t real” Counterpoint:
I think this might be regular old racism.
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They’ve sure got a racist system there, then. Even if it’s a little system.
But it’s the powers that be doing this. Not individuals being racist but the government.
Systemic refers to it being ingrained in the system. This is a town that refuses to accept that a black man won the election because they only handed it down among white folk.
If the system is 2 people, 1 in power and 1 without it can be regular racism and systemic racism.
Their representatio ratio is as systemically biased as apartheid south africa… So… yeah its systemic, but it really seems regular racist too.
This is so cartoonishly evil I have a hard time believing it’s real in 2023.
Believe it. The Civil Rights era was only about 58 years ago. People from that era are still alive to tell the tale.
I was in Selma recently, to see the Edmund Pettus Bridge where John Lewis and his foot soldiers began their march to Montgomery. Not only is the bridge named after a grand dragon of the KKK, but the town is boarded up, the museum & store at the park memorializing the event look abandoned (even though they’re not) and aren’t reliably open, and the park is falling apart and overgrown.
This is one of the most iconic events in civil rights history and that’s the state of its memorial. We saw carloads of black folks from all over the south roll up, try the doors, look at the memorial, and leave. They can barely experience their own history here, where such a powerful event happened.
Selma itself is much like the town in this article, overwhelming majority black, but no money in the black community, and a small, wealthy, powerful white population. The memorial has to be run by volunteers. The white folks won’t contribute. They’ll put up confederate monuments with private money if you ask them to.
Why do those white people choose to be like that? ~Cherri
Rewrite the tale
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If that’s not a case for him NEEDING to be Mayor I don’t know what is. This timeline is fucking horrifying.
The line about the officials claiming qualified immunity really makes me angry. Qualified immunity is such garbage. The actual law says they can be used, but the courts made up qualified immunity so they could ignore it.
For at least 60 years, there’s never been an election in the town. Instead, the mantle has been treated as a “hand me down” by the small percentage of white residents, according to several residents Capital B interviewed. After being the only one to submit qualifying paperwork and statement of economic interests, Braxton became the mayor.
That last part is kind of significant. I don’t doubt there’s a racial component here but I also think anyone that just assumed an office through paperwork would face resistance in a small town.
The town has a total of 30 white residents, the other 89% are People of Color.
And only one guy shows up to a fire?
I mean, you can’t really force people to volunteer. That’s why you make critical services into actual jobs.
That’s weird that the entire firefighting team is white then, other than that one guy. Unless I’m misreading.
Only racists could be so idiotic as to constantly antagonize the 89%, when they themselves are 11%. Considering it’s Bama, I don’t think many of the racists are exactly in shape. You’d think they’d be more mindful.
Then again, perhaps this is just natural selection at work, and these people exist only because we’ve agreed as a society that wanton killing is bad.
So I asked Wolfram alpha and that comes out to 272 non-white residents at the difference. I could be wrong though, I’ve drank biers
The number is actually 245 since the total population is 275. They wrote it in the article.
Damn! I was kinda close, but thanks for the correction.
“At one point, we didn’t even know who the mayor was,” Ballard recalls. “If you knew somebody and you was white, and your grandfather was in office when he died or got sick, he passed it on down to the grandson or son, and it’s been that way throughout the history of Newbern.”
Yeah that’s a monarchy. And those folks probably call themselves “patriots”. And they probably claim systematic racism doesn’t exist either while being the dictionary definition of it.
As a northerner from a top 50 MSA, I have to say that I thought these towns only existed in quirky lifetime movies and black sketch comedy shows depicting comically absurd stereotypes of racist backwards towns. I mean wtf! Really?!
True, but if no one is running thats just their own fault at that point.
For at least 60 years, there’s never been an election in the town
anyone that just assumed an office through paperwork would face resistance in a small town.
It sounds like there was no resistance to assuming office through paperwork for at least 60 years before this, when the assumees were all white.
Err… the first sentence that you quoted directly refutes what you said.
If there hasn’t been an election for 60+ years in the town, that means everyone has “assumed office through paperwork.” He’s the only one that’s faced resistance. This is entirely a result of racism. Don’t pretend otherwise.
I agreed there is racism involved, but you don’t think if you or I rolled into town and signed up as mayor we wouldn’t face resistance? Small town xenophobia includes racism but extends beyond it too.
Oh it absolutely can be both, but in this case it’s pretty clear it’s about race and not because of outsider.
What makes you so certain it’s just racism and not small-town xenophobia, which includes racism?
That’s been clearly explained at least twice already. Why are you sealioning?
It’s been assumed as true, but no one has bothered to even try to explain how they can be certain that racism is the only factor at play. Anyone that’s lived in a small town knows small town bigotry is never cut-and-dried.
But I know it feels more satisfying to go with the simplistic answer that it’s just plain racism and challenging that with nuance is never popular.
but no one has bothered to even try to explain how they can be certain that racism is the only factor at play.
Both the requirements to “be certain” and for it to be the “only factor” are attempts at moving the goalposts. Quit trolling.
Genuinely horrifying. The firefighters not responding - and actively preventing the fighting of fires near black peoples homes. Disgusting.
You mean a state run by Republicans that gerrymanders to make sure black people are underrepresented has a horrifyingly racist rural town?
This is the sort of thing conservatives conserve.
presumably they’re conserving their way of life. reconstruction should have been permanent, as it doesnt appear to have stuck around after them yankees left
Where were America’s Nuremberg style trials?
Fascists gonna fasc.
it’s actually not gerrymandering. it’s not having a mayoral election at all, and just treating “mayor” as a hereditary, monarchist-style title.
I didn’t say the mayoral feudalism was the result of gerrymandering. I was saying that both forms of undemocratic fuckery are driven by the same racism.
it’s actually not gerrymandering. it’s not having a mayoral election at all, and just treating “mayor” as a hereditary, monarchist-style title.
That was a fucking depressing article. How can they be this evil?
They been raised to.
Not everyone raised in such an environment maintains that though. And of course, that just raises the question of why those who raised them like that did so. Where, how, and why did it start and why is it maintained? But of course, any answer would just lead to more questions when thinking about it… ~Cherri
Look how old is the civic rights movements. Look how the states rewarded WWII black soldiers vs white soldiers. Now divide those by the length of a generations. Then you have the number of steps of people raised separating now and when racism was more systemic. Sure some changes, but that’s a minority. I guess those are separated in two big categories, those who moved abd seen some of the world, those who lived with people different that their skin colors.
It doesn’t really raise more question.
I’m confused. ~Cherri
Why do they think other people have to be like them to deserve basic dignity and respect though? ~Cherri
Probably biologically a safety thing so you don’t welcome in some neighbors that invade you or whatever.
More modernly, it’s mostly opportunists and charlatans ‘hacking’ this phenomenon to build power.
The old animal part of the brain is way stronger and more developed than the logical ‘civilization’ parts.
Safety? What kind of safety is in this? Where’s the invasion (not the fake evidence that they are knowingly lying about)? And why do others not react like this? And why maintain it when there’s clearly, in a way that is impossible to miss at this point, no threat? And why are the opportunists and charlatans doing this? Why prioritize money and power and control over human lives and a better society for everyone (they are part of everyone)??? ~Cherri
I dunno why can’t I stop eating sugar but other people can? I wasn’t being shitty or dog whistling just trying to give a real answer that doesn’t depend on others being inherently morally bankrupt, which I think is a form of othering that just leads to division and violence or worse historically. We’re all just people made up of almost entirely the same parts.
I think the problem goes like this:
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they enslaved black people.
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black people gained freedom. A lot of white people who were rich at their expense hated them for their freedom. They also saw them as inferior humans. This hate was passed through generations.
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the CIA started a drug abuse pandemic in black communities intentionally.
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black people were poor compared to white people. Being hated reduced their opportunities.
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poverty and drug trafficking leads to higher crime rates.
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a higher crime rate leads to more discrimination and less opportunities.
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go back to step 4. It becomes a cycle.
So these people either hate them because their cultural heritage (which seems likely for Alabama) or because the black community has a higher rate of violence, which is also the fault of white people.
Then it just leads to “why project that onto Black people who aren’t committing crimes?” and “Why keep doing all the stuff that’s very clearly making it worse?” ~Cherri
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This is so sad and infuriating.
USA is the land of the free, right?
some of us are freer than others…
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Since when?
