That's a beautiful story. There's something really powerful about standing up for people who you'd be totally justified to let rot. I think we'd be in a much better place as a species if this kind of reaction was more commonplace, especially in this time of hyper-overreaction. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
Commendable even without the neo-nazi angle. Jumping into an angry mob to save the victim of their aggression is incredibly dangerous. You risk the mob turning on you as well.
I'm not trying to diminish the greatness of her gesture, but she really was shielded from the "You risk the mob turning on you as well" part by two very simple facts: her skin color and being a young woman... kind of hard to imagine a young afro-american woman as being pro-KKK and to mob linch her too :)
That may or may not be the case (I'm not sure mob mentality makes those distinctions), I can't imagine anyone making those judgements in the heat of the moment.
Living in Ann Arbor, it is rather odd to hear about a protest getting violent in an otherwise open minded community that is as liberal and far left as San Francisco. Mob mentality.
Also in Ann Arbor, can confirm that this is definitely very odd. The blanket hate on GMOs stemming from Monsanto is disappointing, though, given their importance in reducing famine in many areas (among other uses). This does explain the "Stop Monsanto" scribbled on a stop sign near where I live, though.
I grew up in Ann Arbor and remember when this rally happened. I wasn't at the event but I remember a lot of people being really angry that the Klan was speaking. I also remember there was a group of people that took non-violence training and attended the rally with the intention of preventing violence. If I'm remembering right my parents took my and my brothers to a counter-protest about a mile from the main protest downtown.
At the time the Klan was mostly a historical organization that you learned about along with the civil rights era in school -- they weren't an especially powerful organization in 1996. But that was 19 years ago, and so the history was 19 years more recent than it is today. And there were rumors of KKK activity happening in nearby Howell, so the protest wasn't purely symbolic -- it felt closer to home than that.
Ann Arbor has a habit of taking to the streets. When we went to war with Iraq in 2003 almost my entire high school skipped class to protest downtown. When I visited over Thanksgiving I caught this one going down the street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2MN6G0m8is
[1]"New Report Debunks 'Myth' That GMOs are Key to Feeding the World - Study upholds value of traditional methods 'shown to actually increase food supplies and reduce the environmental impact of production'"
Being liberal and 'open minded' does not mean one is more intelligent, or less violent or whatever. It just means that they are 'liberal and open minded' in some context.
> it is rather odd to hear about a protest getting violent in an otherwise open minded community that is as liberal and far left as San Francisco.
Far left has been nothing but equally bad or worse than "far right"[0].
[0]: Why Nazis (short hand for National s o s i a l i s m or something) is described as far right is beyond me. Yes, I'm very well aware that people name things in interesting ways but the Nazis are more known for their collective efforts than their focus on personal liberties and free markets.
Edit: added quote. And while I don't mind your voting (-2 at the moment) I'd be interested to know if I am wrong/disrespectful/etc or if you just don't like my comment :-)
I have noticed that Reddit's TIL subreddit (reddit.com/r/todayilearned) is becoming a source of lot of non tech articles on Hacker News including this one.
It may not be well known outside the state but the small town of Howell which is less than thirty miles from Ann Arbor was a Northern center for Klan activity. Robert E. Miles was a grand dragon in the Klan and I remember he regularly held events at a farm along with ritualistically burning crosses which frequently made the news.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 43.8 ms ] threadI don't know if I'd have the guts to do it.
It's a truly commendable act.
Not the same context as the article, but as an example the protests can get rather fervent and loud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3orPtIGyUw
At the time the Klan was mostly a historical organization that you learned about along with the civil rights era in school -- they weren't an especially powerful organization in 1996. But that was 19 years ago, and so the history was 19 years more recent than it is today. And there were rumors of KKK activity happening in nearby Howell, so the protest wasn't purely symbolic -- it felt closer to home than that.
Ann Arbor has a habit of taking to the streets. When we went to war with Iraq in 2003 almost my entire high school skipped class to protest downtown. When I visited over Thanksgiving I caught this one going down the street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2MN6G0m8is
Turns out to be a myth:
[1]"New Report Debunks 'Myth' That GMOs are Key to Feeding the World - Study upholds value of traditional methods 'shown to actually increase food supplies and reduce the environmental impact of production'"
[1] http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/01/new-report-debun...
Far left has been nothing but equally bad or worse than "far right"[0].
[0]: Why Nazis (short hand for National s o s i a l i s m or something) is described as far right is beyond me. Yes, I'm very well aware that people name things in interesting ways but the Nazis are more known for their collective efforts than their focus on personal liberties and free markets.
Edit: added quote. And while I don't mind your voting (-2 at the moment) I'd be interested to know if I am wrong/disrespectful/etc or if you just don't like my comment :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Miles
Most of the original followers of Miles have passed away but Howell still is unable to shake its Klan past.
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/03/a_tale...