Sunday, March 16, 2014

Reviving a Jim Crow strategy

The state of Alabama famously went after the NAACP in 1956 seeking to force it to turn over its membership list in Alabama. The NAACP refused, fearing that such an action would allow their opponents to go after their membership, destroying the organization. Eventually the Supreme Court agreed.

Today, the threats don't seem to be as physical back in the days of the civil rights movement. Threatening jobs, intimidation, and boycotts do seem to be on the table as the left brushes off this jim crow tactic for a new round of service. Social conservatives have had this tactic used against them in the Proposition 8 fight and the Koch brother are seeing it deployed against political organizations that they play a prominent role in supporting.

The number of physical incidents where people were beaten were orders of magnitude greater in the civil rights era so it's unjust to tag today's users of these tactics with the Bull Connor label. They're only 10% Bull Connor at this point. But it's nothing to be proud of.

No comments:

Post a Comment