Thanks for your posts, A.B. This is exactly where I had thought to post the above story after seeing tonight's show.
For me, watching yet ANOTHER REVEAL on that history THEY (who seek to obscure it) don't want us knowing about, immediately brought to mind all the online bigots who showed (and show) up in online forums trying to demean and discredit Black people for what we haven't accomplished in spite of all the historic and PRESENT day shit minorities deal with on a DAILY basis...
and how quick they are to discount and even DENY the long standing SYSTEMIC racism that did and does exist, and the generational, LONG lasting, devastating, RIPPLE EFFECT such discrimination has had across various societal strata.
An excerpt from the segment about the Bruce family (for those who can't be bothered to watch):
In Manhattan Beach, California a house on the sand can cost up to twenty million dollars and Anthony Bruce's family used to own two oceanfront lots. More than one hundred years ago, his great great grandparents Willa and Charles Bruce bought the land for about 1200 dollars. They built a resort called Bruce's lodge. The Ku Klux Klan was involved in harassing them, they burned a cross on the property, and when that didn't drive the Bruces away, the city government decided to take the property under the guise of eminent domain.
Said Oliver, "Wow. so when the cross burning didn't drive the Bruces out of town the city called in a lawyer to finish the job. And that tells you a lot about how racism in America works. Sure, the vigilante racists are spooky, but you've really got to worry when the motherfuckers with advanced degrees show up."
episode summary from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14940934/?ref_=ttrel_rel_tt:
This week John Oliver talks about housing discrimination - an insidious and widespread form of wealth appropriation which include policies like racial covenants, red-lining, refusal of loans to black veterans under the GI Bill, zoning regulations and practices like realtors steering buyers away from racially integrated neighborhoods. These policies and practices led to devastating effects on black communities, significantly expanding and locking in segregation, as well as leading to massive wealth gap between black and white communities and wide ranging consequences to quality of life such as access to better schools and teachers, cleaner streets, cleaner air and water. John strongly suggests that the solution to this issue is reparations, which is necessary, practical and the right thing to do.
So again, thanks A.B. (and keep those contributions coming... don't want all those little hedgehogs stacking up now, do we? )
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