"In 2000, Cal Expo drew a community backlash after mounted police officers pushed their way through throngs of fairgoers to disperse crowds near the main gate on the last Saturday of the fair. Lawn sprinklers in front of the entrance were also turned on to discourage people from gathering. No one was injured.

Mark Harris, the NAACP's attorney, said turning water on people and the use of horses was similar to the mistreatment of African Americans in Selma, Ala., in 1963."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Turning on sprinklers = using high pressure water hoses?! WTF? How insulting this must be to those that actually had to edure the awfull treatment in Selma in the 60's. Back in high school they would run the sprinklers out in the fields after school to keep us from lingering to long then... where was the NAACP for me? Oh, that's right, I'm white, so it must have been ok. Crazy.

-Chris

 

Man, and those plastic wristbands they make you wear? Thats just like the shackles the white man put on slaves.

 

I can see the NAACP's point a little...but I think they're overreacting a bit. I wonder if they would be angry if the fair closed early on the Mexican-American history day or Asian-American history day too. (I'm pretty sure the X-American history days ended after 02, so this isn't the first year they weren't there) How is closing early an attack on African-Americans in particular? Because more African-Americans would be there that day even though it's no longer African-American history day? Pretty weak argument...but in the NAACP's defence, out society IS still racist as f*** so I guess they have to fight every battle they can...

 

Sadly i think we will always be racist. Distinguising characteristics like race make us lump people into categories - to save brainspace - and not only do we lump people into categories naturally, but we lump behavior into those categories as well. Stereotypes are a natural mechanism. I think we should just all accept that we are all racist to some degree or another, and that most of the stereotypes are based in truth somewhere - if we could all just be cool with that then we wouldnt be so sensitive and most likeley the entire subject would be forgotten. However, this aint gonna happen. Ah well.

 

lols