Yeah, it’s kind of funny since I’m sure everyone in that vehicle was in favor of those laws when they thought it was just for dealing with black people.
I kind of want to send Tim in a big van to some random bank now, have him wait around as everyone starts loading the van with bags of money and then get caught, so I can hear him explain to the authorities about his lack of awareness of the entire situation.I’m sure that will make article an article somewhere worth reading.
Also, that parade of trucks and roaming around like that is probably more gang-like than a couple of young black men talking on a street corner the community was freaking out about.
13 years served may fairly be called an over-reaction.
He’s got 3 kids of his own, so fuck them and their white privilege, amirite?
Other than brandishing a gun, yelling the n-word, and terrorizing children at a birthday party, I’m sure he was a great role model for his kids.
Look, if you go around with a gun, waving a confederate flag, and yell at a child’s birthday party that you are going to kill their kind, and then verbally harass them. That is some serious stuff.
That is terroristic threats as a street gang with a deadly weapon.
And that is serious. Their kids are likely much better off with grandparents or other relatives, tbh. And that is something they should have thought of before they decided to scar a fellow community member’s child for life.
Send them to Guantanamo. That’s where terrorists go, right?
No, fuck them and their overt racism and terrorist acts.
Don’t feed the obvious troll, everyone. Let it die of starvation.
Since someone brought up the Dukes of Hazzard I can’t help but reminisce a bit - but all my memories have taken on this ugly tinge. I mean, a car with the confederate flag painted all over it? Driven by two good ol’ boys who share a surname with a grand wizard of the KKK? (All right, not their fault, but still). I have a picture of myself and my cousins taken with Boss Hogg from back around 1980 maybe, I remember how stoked we were. Hard to believe a show like that got the green light.
But Hee Haw, that one’s still ok right? “Doom, despair and agony on me.” God my grandfather loved that show.
Hey, the Duke boys were fine. I’m pretty sure they actually fought AGAINST racists a few times.
Well I know they were against “the man”, and I don’t remember any overt racism but then it was just light entertainment I guess. Hell I don’t remember any black people on the show at all. I remember Bo and Luke shooting dynamite arrows at things though, I lived for that stuff.
It was pretty big in Texas growing up but I can’t remember ever thinking anything of it except it was a cool show for us kids. I imagine a lot of people didn’t care for the flag on the car though.
Wiki says there was a black recurring sheriff but that’s it. Everything was pretty clearly geared towards a young white male audience!
This atlantic piece talks about how the Confederate flag at the time had kind of transformed into a generic symbol of rebelion:
Now, that was back in the 70’s and 80’s though. Since then, it kind of fell out of favor with mainstream culture, and those who continued to cling to it generally were the folks who embraced its racist roots.
But still, I think it’s silly to try and paint the Dukes of Hazard as racists… I mean, sure, there weren’t tons of black folks on the show… but there weren’t tons of black folks on MOST shows back then, if I recall.
Yeah, I don’t think the show was racist - it is what it is. Definitely a product of its time.
I guess that’s a reply to me. I don’t know that Dukes of Hazzard was racist, as I said I don’t recall any overt racism. It’s just sort of been retroactively affected by its iconography, I guess, to throw out an unnecessary 50 cent word. It would be hard to rewatch for me.
It helped that the black sheriff character, Chickasaw County’s Sheriff Little, was the most honest and competent law officer on the show. Of course, even he couldn’t catch the Duke boys, but Sheriff Little was presented as a credible threat whereas all the police in Hazzard county were either idiots or hamstrung by Boss Hogg’s rule.
Ya, this is probably true, although it’s because it’s difficult for most folks to really put aside their contemporary views and view things with appropriate historical context.
Honestly, my core memory of the Dukes was that it was the best matchbox car, that everyone wanted to “be” when playing with the cars. And it’s probably mainly because it just had cool colors.
I don’t think kids at the time had any notion, whatsoever, that the flag was once linked to the confederates.
I don’t think Confederates was a correct association in Dukes per se but clearly the Confederate Flag was associated with the South, and the Dukes were the good guys with the supposedly-attractive belle from the south riding around with it in their car.
(Disclosure: I’ve actually never seen the Dukes of Hazard.)
I watched it a fair amount as a kid… it was utter fluff, but harmless.
Whenever African American (“Black” back then) people were shown on the show they were by and large portrayed as well or better than the white folk. Sheriff Little was a good example - he was fair, tough, competent and represented The Law. Bo and Luke couldn’t leave the country due to their parole, and Sheriff Little was the major reason why they rarely tried. The few Hazard County black folk that ever showed up were always decent, hard-working people… albeit occasionally shown as victims of Boss Hogg’s little-e evil or outsiders’ racism.
Certainly the Duke Boys were always upstanding, integrated Southerners without a racist bone in their bodies.