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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   21765 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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It's kinda connected. The particular regulation isn't, but the practice that ultimately developed that having and enforcing a policy of removing disruptive people who are minority members would result in painful legal action whereas just letting shit happen wouldn't, was.

The desegregated subway was safe for years. Progressives didn't like it, but it was safe despite equal policing.

The radical policy of putting criminals in jail without segregating the bus would have permitted Montgomery to have avoided the bus boycott entirely.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Seems like a remarkable coincidence, dontcha think? That the people being segregated just happened to have a murder rate that was 5-10 times higher than the majority population?

Saying 'they were segregationists' seems close to saying they were murderists.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Come to think of it, what was the point of separating blacks and whites? It's easy to think of Southern segregationists as moustache-twirling villains who wanted little beyond stigmatizing blacks and keeping them down, but perhaps there was an actual practical reason for this type of segregation?

My grandparents who remembered those days were very clear that the reason was to prevent blacks and whites from interbreeding. Nobody cared if black and white men mingled, although they usually didn't. Black and white women worked alongside each other regularly. But southern states briefly experimented with segregating their high schools by gender after brown v board. Racial vitriol was strongest for black men mixing with white women.

Might have been, but class consciousness has been part of the human experience for a long time, so it could have been just that with a racial class marker.

Well, and yet none of the other countries with more broad-based usage of public transport physically segregate minority riders. If you want to argue that the US is unique because segregated seating became a civil rights issue and this resulted in an overcorrection preventing more justified action against minorities on public transport, then it seems as fair to say that "Rosa Parks made public transport a last resort option" as it is to go one step up the causal chain and say "segregation made public transport a last resort option".

All of these countries are much poorer than the US and people who can afford to drive usually prefer that. There's precious few examples of places where driving is a realistic option and it isn't preferred to busses.

with more broad-based usage of public transport physically segregate minority riders

I'm pretty skeptical that the southern USA is the only society to segregate like that. Enough African states on functional Apartheid or superduper demographically-driven class systems in trains and whatnot.

Well, and yet none of the other countries with more broad-based usage of public transport physically segregate minority riders. If you want to argue that the US is unique because segregated seating became a civil rights issue and this resulted in an overcorrection preventing more justified action against minorities on public transport

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Though obviously it wasn't just segregated seating; it was segregated everything, voting rights, etc.

If you want to argue that the US is unique because segregated seating became a civil rights issue and this resulted in an overcorrection preventing more justified action against minorities on public transport, then it seems as fair to say that "Rosa Parks made public transport a last resort option" as it is to go one step up the causal chain and say "segregation made public transport a last resort option".

No, because that's attributing actions done by the civil rights activists (enshrining black people as a privileged group) to actions done by their opponents. It's basically the bully's "Look what you made me do".

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