There was actually someone over at NewsBusters on this topic trying to defend what Dean said about the case being phony. The DUmmie seemed to be basing it's argument on the fact that "no voters who felt they'd been intimidated or disenfranchised had come forward to make a complaint".
Of course no one came forward...they were too damn scared to come forward.
I was in college in the early 70's, 50 miles outside of Chicago. We had a Black Panther organization on campus.
That was really my first experience with blacks that weren't school aquaintances. There weren't many in my high school, but they were jocks, cheerleaders, student council, good students and were being "raised" in very similar home environments to the white kids. My HS had well over 3000 kids in 3 grades in it....it was not a "small school".
The BP's on my campus could be scary when there were more than two in a group. I remember how they would walk down the sidewalks. Like most places, people going one direction usually walked on one side, the opposite on the other side...similar to road traffic. Not the BP's. They would walk so that they blocked the entire sidewalk in whichever direction they were going. I was not very big, and basically a non-confrontational chicken...I would just step off the sidewalk....it was easier. Even so, it was common, if you were a white girl...especially if alone... for them to make some obscene remark or gesture. I don't know if they would talk smack to white guys or not....probably not too many white guys would have admitted to it, if they had.
Even back then, they were treated with kid gloves. Illinois had that time, had what was called the CHANCE program for minority students - even if only 1/16th of a minority. Their tuition and fees, dorm room/board, books, and a monthly stipend of $45, was totally supplied by the state....as long as they maintained a "C" average. I was still living in the dorm in my junior year, and there were a bunch of the CHANCE students on my floor. Our dorms were coed and open visitation, and these kids partied half the night and slept during the day. They still managed to maintain their required "C" averages, because all the instructors were too afraid of the BP's to give a CHANCE student a bad grade.
No one who lives in an area where there are BP's are going to complain. Too many of them remember how the Black Panther organization was 40 years ago. I don't care what the "new" BP's are supposed to be like...they will always be what they always have been, as far as I'm concerned.
