Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams faced vehement opposition when he travelled to a small Wisconsin town to try to convince residents to accept the construction of a data center on Saturday, new reporting reveals. New York’s Hell Gate reported that Adams gave a talk in the town of Wisconsin Rapids, situated in the central part of the state, as part of his new job as a “pitchman” for real…
From Truthout via This RSS Feed.
Did it mean something different or was it just a sign that the person didn’t want you there at a time and place where they were empowered to enforce that with however much violence they wanted?
it signified a few things, but the top level summary is that it was a way for Klan supportive white men to say “i do not think you are fully human, and while you occupy the same space as me you are under threat of violence”
if you’ve seen the movie Sinners, that’s why the man who sells Smoke and Stack the sawmill they turn into a juke joint is constantly spitting in front of them and why they’re so apparently displeased by it. Ryan Coogler was communicating to us the audience that this was a hateful dude. it’s also important that that was present in a 2020s movie because it communicates that this is a signifier that people still know and understand.
in my “hey, can you not do that” i framed it as something of the Jim Crow era, however i personally am aware of it from growing up in the south. it’s something i’ve seen, and understand to be a dogwhistle still in use, even if its apparently fallen out of favor in the midwest. it’s just something you never do, like calling a person of collor “boy” or touching a Black person’s hair without express consent. i accept that it’s something people not from here might not be knowing, however the proximity to “carpetbagger” a term that was commonly used by the Indiana Klan in the 1920s and 30s to signify Black transitory laborers seeking work during The Great Migration, it hits VERY wrong