cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17967345
I don’t understand what the image is depicting exactly, there’s one black person in the picture and she’s sitting there while that guy is about to drip something on the head of the woman next to her?
Is it a picture of white people bullying a group for having a black friend?
This is from the Woolworth’s sit-in, where people sat at the segregated lunch counter in protest.
Other people who did not like this verbally and physically abused them.
https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-anne-moody-20150211-story.html
Also, the white guy covered in dessert is presumably an ally there to show solidarity and, judging by the size of him, also physically protect them if necessary.
I hope that wasn’t their plan or they’d have found out very quickly that size is a great advantage 1 on 1 but a bigger advantage is being 2 on 1.
Lunch counters were segregated in the US. A fairly common protest was black folk sitting at lunch counters and trying to order lunch. This often causes uproar and unrest, riots. I believe the woman who’s about to have water poured on her head is black, it’s just that the picture makes her look white, or she’s fairly passing.
I think the woman with water poured on her is white and sitting with the black woman.
My understanding of the two sides were the white people attacking them and the white people sitting with a black person to protest segregation.
IMO that’s why it’s 3 sides.
The first side is the black people who want to be able to sit at the same counter as other people and order lunch.
The second side is the white people who want to keep the apartheid system in place.
The third side is the white people who were willing to take the abuse in order to be allies to the black people who were facing the discrimination.
To me, the allies are a different group. They are putting themselves in harm’s way for an abstract principle.
They’re having salt dumped on them too, for the grave offense of sitting at a Whites-only lunch counter.
If this mob of hick bullies wasn’t there to torment them, well, black people might eat lunch there. Obviously that would be the end of the world, and all would be lost.
