• stanleytweedle@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

      • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s weird that the entire firefighting team is white then, other than that one guy. Unless I’m misreading.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • Fluba@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        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

    • NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “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.

      • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        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?!

    • Hegar@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • stanleytweedle@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • StarServal@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Oh it absolutely can be both, but in this case it’s pretty clear it’s about race and not because of outsider.

            • grue@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              That’s been clearly explained at least twice already. Why are you sealioning?

              • stanleytweedle@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                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.

                • grue@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  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.

                  • stanleytweedle@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Both the requirements to “be certain” and for it to be the “only factor” are attempts at moving the goalposts.

                    If you think that’s true where did you think the original ‘goalposts’ were?

                    Not sure how you’re missing this but I’ve been saying it’s not the only factor from the get-go. And if you are uncertain it’s soley racism why are you objecting to my statement that there are other factors?