Disqus - Latest Comments for MariposaRed

Re: In Colfax, Echoes of Another Conflict

MariposaRed — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 13:35:31 -0000

These photographs are stunning and the narrative accompanying them is insightful and informative. What caught my eye and prompted me to click on this visual essay was the town's name, Colfax, La. I listened to a novel Red River by Lalita Tademy, which took place in Colfax. Her earlier novel, Cane River, became an Oprah Book club pick. I didn't read Cane River and I didn't learn about Tademy through Oprah. I saw Red River on the library shelf and picked it up because of the description of post-Civil War life. The novel is all about the events leading up to and resulting in what the historical marker - the sign you took a picture of - called a "riot". The novel lays bare how it was a terrible massacre of Black people. It wasn't a riot. It was a terrorist attack on Black families protecting their property, school, their rights and the promise of Reconstruction. Tademy powerfully exposes how "carpetbag misrule" is a euphemism for the fact that after slavery ended, Black people started exerting rights and building free lives and communities, and Black men could vote and have political power. They were elected to office, something which the Southern white power structure never accepted. What the 1873 Colfax "Riot" marked was the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of KKK terror enforcing Black Codes and Jim Crow segregation. In the novel, the author describes in ways that a nonfiction, text book would not this crime. Tademy writes about the agonizing wait for federal troops to come and protect the black and white Republicans against the violence in such a way that it will forever be in my consciousness. Colfax Massacre is a historical and heartbreaking fact of the end of freedom's promise and beginning of rule through unrepentant racist terror. These photos show that - as William Faulkner once said - "The past is never dead. It's not even past." The power of journalism, art and this essay moves us to recognize that the past haunts, yet with positive action, truth, reconciliation and reparation, those ghosts can finally rest. Thank you.

Re: People's Weekly World - AFL-CIO blasts "corporate mobs" at recess town hall meetings

MariposaRed — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:30:00 -0000

Most of the commenters have proven this article's point. Calling unions "organized crime?" Unions are organized workers! You want organized crime look at the Bush administration or Wall Street banks...

Tea baggers are just ordinary Americans opposed to big government? Hmmm most Americans don't even use that term "big government." Right there you know it's an ideological agenda..."Big government" is used whenever government has programs that are helpful to the people and control corporate, profiteers.

"Take our country back?" sounds like a paranoid phrase rant trying to stoke racial and ethnic fears. Back from whom? the first black president? the people who elected him? when that phrase was use prior to nov. 8, 2008 it was take our country back from the extreme right wing who trampled the Constitution, lied and got us into the Iraq war, presided over the biggest wealth gap in history -- and largest deficit , attacked civil rights laws and helped Wall Street create the financial disaster today. Sounds like these tea baggers want to go back to those days.

Re: People's Weekly World - Immigrant rights leaders launch national campaign for reform

MariposaRed — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:09:25 -0000

What immigrants are those? Free medical? No income tax? What country is that? Maybe I should go there? Because there is no such thing here.

Re: Michelle Obama: a Remarkable Woman

MariposaRed — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:38:52 -0000

Tears welled up in my eyes during Michelle Obama's speech. I don't think there was one mother in America who didn't feel that kind of emotion. And I think a lot of fathers and non-parents felt similarly moved. She delivered the speech from the heart. It takes a lot of guts to show your story to millions of people. What courage. To see this beautiful and articulate Black woman on prime time was moving because of the historic nature of it all.

Re: People's Weekly World - ICE throws working moms in jail

MariposaRed — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:58:41 -0000

The anti-Mexican racism among you people is clear. Did you know racism is bad for your health? Chill out and ask yourself -- HONESTLY -- do you get so upset when you think of Irish or Polish immigrants coming here without documents -- which many are forced to do too???? How does this ICE raid help your life? It doesn't. Stop the hating and get a clue who that really benefits.