"THIS COUNTRY WAS BUILT BY WHITE MEN WITH GUNS"

[kpete]

I saw it. But I couldn’t believe it.

There I was, in a fast food drive through, behind a man whose back window decal, in small white letters, sent me a message that sent a chill down my spine—just as he’d hoped it would, no doubt. It said:

THIS COUNTRY WAS BUILT BY WHITE MEN WITH GUNS

http://open.salon.com/blog/keka/2010/10/10/white_men_with_guns

Happy Columbus Day Everyone, kp

[HopeHoops]

1. Actually, it was doing just fine until white men with guns fucked it up.

[MellowDem]

53. Oh yeah, just fine...

it was a utopia all right! Noble savage and whatnot. Eden etc...

[HopeHoops]

60. Yeah, and they didn't give a shit about trivial shit like gold.

Sorry. I've got Native American blood. It usually doesn't surface, but when it does, it does it with attitude.

[MellowDem]

61. So do I...

Native Americans were/are no different from any other human. They did indeed give a shit about trivial things.

[HopeHoops]

71. Perhaps some were trivial, but tangible and sustainable was far more important.

As we have just had our "Columbus day" event, it is relevant. The myth of Columbus generally neglects to include the main purpose for his voyage - TO FIND GOLD.

[MellowDem]

76. I was under the impression that the main purpose...

was to find a direct trading route with India. It definitely wasn't just about the wonder of explorations and discovery.

[HopeHoops]

77. Yes, that is widely accepted.

The notion that he was a wandering fool really isn't accurate. The maps of the time were sufficiently accurate to discount the idea that he thought he was in India. Still, the expedition was expected to yield sufficient value (gold & such) to warrant the expenditure. He certainly wasn't the ONLY one to lead a mission to the new world in search of treasure.

[ThatsMyBarack]

82. +1...

For Native American blood.

They were here first and the white men with guns treated them like shit.

[Drale]

2. Well its kind of sort of true

in a sick sort of way. I guess.

[Warpy]

6. It was built by all the people they were pointing those guns at

while they reaped all the benefits.

[GrannyK]

7. That's the truth. n/t

[GodlessBiker]

20. Word.

[hfojvt]

22. you really think that is true?

Because my white ancestors cleared land, planted crops, harvested crops, built sawmills, cut down trees, sawed those trees into boards, built houses, all without pointing their guns at anybody. And then some of the others picked up their guns and marched off to war to demand that other white people "let those people go".

Then there's the point that the vast, vast majority of the country has been built after 1920. Much of the housing and commercial buildings. Highways. Water plants. Electric lines. Telephone lines. the automobiles, trains. planes and trucks. Etc., etc., etc. The cotton produced by slave labor before 1865 is fairly insignificant part of the total current wealth of this country.

[GodlessBiker]

27. I assume a few of the women in your family did some of those things which ...

contributed to the wealth of this country.

The idiotic statement quoted in the OP is wrong on many levels. The response in this sub-thread, while not entirely accurate, was a good comeback and provides a solid starting point to look at things how they really are.

[hfojvt]

54. probably not most of the things I mentioned

such was the general division of labor. Not that the work of women wasn't just as important.

I don't think the response is a good comeback. If somebody says "2 + 2 = 5" it is not a good comeback to fire back that "No, it is equal to 3" no matter how witty it may be phrased.

And just as some people really are adamant that it is equal to 5, others seem to be as adamant that it is equal to three. In the past another DUer got very upset with me when I disputed the idea that "this country was built by slave labor".

Just because I attack the idea that 2 + 2 = 3 does not mean I support the idea that 2 + 2 = 5. There are many other alternatives beside the OP and this subthread.

I might come from an alternate algebra where it's 22.

[spanone]

30. let's not forget the real native americans...

[jdlh8894]

46. Don't think they came into play until the settlers started moving West

[hfojvt]

52. Not really. There were Native Americans in Connecticut and New York

and Virginia, etc. See King Phillip's War and The Pequot War and the Beaver Wars.

[Jamastiene]

68. Have you never heard of Croatan?

OMG :wow:

[jdlh8894]

31. Wish I could elaborate. Nicely said!

[HuckleB]

38. How do you really know your white ancestors never used anyone for labor?

That is the kind of thing that we tried to keep hidden for a long, long time.

For example, thousands of Chinese and Japanese labored in the farms of California from around 1880 onward. And many more helped build the first railroads. See the underground China Towns around the west, and you'll see the history of horrific work conditions and racial injustice that this country dealt out at the time. (In fact, the Chinese faced the first attempt to keep "foreign nationals" out of the country, in 1882.)

Then there is the history of Mexican migrant workers who worked the farms, ranches, mines and other industries around the country starting shortly after the war with Mexico in 1848. Do you think they were treated as equals? And then there is the Bracero program, and on and on.

It's simply baseless to pretend that whites built this country all by themselves. There is just no way to get to that conclusion, IMO.

[hfojvt]

51. such things generally were not legal in Wisconsin, Indiana and New York

I didn't say the whites did it all by themselves. What I said was that in the north they did quite a bit of work without pointing guns and forcing others to do the work. Plus the work that was done after 1865 by paid labor.

Some branches of the Shuey family and the Hull family did move south and owned slaves, and other relatives of mine, the DeWolfs were slave traders. Most families in the 1870s and 1880s had farm hands and/or house servants who only got paid room and board, but that is paid labor, if poorly paid.

My point is not to say that whites built the country all by themselves, but to argue against the equally absurd notion that the country was built by slave labor.

[HuckleB]

55. How much do you think the legal system had to do with it anywhere?

And "paid labor" didn't mean much back then.

[Cal33]

62. But how did your ancestors get the land to plant crops and build on

to begin with? Didn't they get it by killing the Native Americans first?
In short, murder and robbery?

The Native Americans are among the few groups whose numbers declined almost
to the point of extinction. The survivors were put into reservations. Two
centuries ago the number of Native Americans in North America was estimated
at around 20 million. Today, they make up about 4 million, only one-fifth of
what they were two centuries ago. During this time the population of most of
the rest of the world had gone up by some 20 times.

Guns vs. bows and arrows! It was sheer slaughter! At one time, some local
governments were paying $25 for every "Injun" killed -- man, woman and child.
Since corpses were too heavy to carry around, they made it easier for
"Injun hunters" to bring in a scalp only as proof of having killed one.

I wonder who learned the lesson of scalping from whom. Of course, the "Injuns"
got the blame. And the early Hollywood movies helped to spread this blame.

This nation of ours was founded on violence. Any doubt about that? And is it
any wonder that there is so much violence here today? Just look at the stories
of bullying that's going on among school children recently. In one form or
another violence is still being practiced. The more primitive the mentalities,
the higher the numbers of violence. It seems to be built into our society.

Yes, the Brits did the same thing in Australia, New Zealand, etc... Long live
the British Empire!

[hfojvt]

67. no they didn't. Not generally.

They generally peacefully moved into Connecticut. When they settled places like Indiana and Wisconsin there were no Native Americans licing there for the most part. They had been killed or forced to re-locate by other people long before my ancestors moved in. Yes, the people doing the killing and re-locating were often white people, but not specifically my own ancesotors or relatives.

Guns vs. Bows and arrows? Except the Native Americans had guns too, often sold to them by the English.

A sheer slaughter? Not hardly. Here's a timeline of some events leading up to the Pequot massacre at Mystic, Ct in 1637

"1634
Captain John Stone killed by western Niantics, a tributary tribe of the Pequots. Circumstances of the attack unclear.

July 1636
Conference at Fort Saybrook of Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay officials with representatives of Western Niantics and Pequots. English colonists reassert demands of 1634 treaty. Sassious, Western Niantic sachem, pledges loyalty and submission to English. John Oldham and crew killed by Narragansetts or a subject tribe off Block Island. Narragansett sachems Canonchet and Miantonomo condemn the murder and offer reparations. Miantonomo leads party to Block Island to exact vengeance. Canonchet and Miantonomo promise not to ally selves with Pequots in any dispute between English and Pequots.

23 April 1637
Attack on settlers working in field near Wethersfield, in retribution for confiscation of land belonging to Sowheag, a sachem. Seven to nine settlers are killed and two girls are taken captive.

Late spring 1637
Colonists become increasingly alarmed. Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut colonies decide to fight Pequots together."

Here's a description of King Phillip's war

"By the 1670s the colonists, with 8,000 men under arms, felt strong enough to demand that the Pilgrims’ former dinner guests the Wampanoags disarm and submit to the authority of the Crown. After a series of settler provocations in 1675, the Wampanoag struck back, under the leadership of Chief Metacomet, son of Massasoit, called King Philip by the English. Metacomet/Philip, whose wife and son were captured and sold into West Indian slavery, wiped out 13 settlements and killed 600 adult white men before the tide of battle turned."

Of course, when white people kill Native Americans that makes them evil, but when Native Americans kill white people and wipe out settlements that just makes them great warriors. I guess being there first means never having to say you are sorry.

In writing about the Beaver Wars, the source on Wiki says this about Native American raids on French settlements.

"Although such raids were by no means constant, when they occurred they were terrifying to the inhabitants of New France, and the colonists initially felt helpless to prevent them."

Here's more on the Beaver wars

"Iroquois oral tradition, as recorded in the Jesuit Relations, speaks of a draining war between the Mohawk Iroquois and an alliance of the Susquehannocks and Algonquins sometime between 1580 and 1600. Thus, when the French reappeared on the scene in 1601, the St. Lawrence Valley had already witnessed generations of blood-feud-style warfare."

"By the 1630s, the Iroquois had become fully armed with European weaponry through their trade with the Dutch, and they began to use their growing expertise with the arquebus to good effect in their continuing wars with the Algonquins, Hurons, and other traditional enemies. The French, meanwhile, had outlawed the trading of firearms to their native allies, though arquebuses were occasionally given as gifts to individuals who converted to Christianity. Although the initial focus of the Iroquois attacks were their traditional enemies (the Algonquins, Mahicans, Montagnais, and Hurons), the alliance of these tribes with the French quickly brought the Iroquois into fierce and bloody conflict with the European colonists themselves."

If this nation was founded on violence, it is not clear to me that the English colonists were the only ones at fault. Their own violence seems to be the only way to survive in a hostile world. Here's wiki on Tecumseh

"In 1805, a religious revival led by Tenskwatawa (Tecumseh's little brother) emerged. Tenskwatawa urged natives to reject the ways of the whites, and to refrain from ceding any more lands to the United States. Opposing Tenskwatawa was the Shawnee leader Black Hoof, who was working to maintain a peaceful relationship with the United States."

"An impressive orator, Tecumseh began to travel widely, urging warriors to abandon accommodationist chiefs and to join him in resistance of the treaty. Tecumseh insisted that the Fort Wayne treaty was illegal; he asked Harrison to nullify it, and warned that Americans should not attempt to settle on the lands sold in the treaty."

Too many Native Americans decided to follow Tecumseh instead of Black Hoof, and with disastrous results. Often the war party would threaten those who did not support war. Here's what Big Eagle said about the sacking of New Ulm, Minnesota.

"The tale told by the young men created the greatest excitement. Everybody was waked up and heard it. Shakopee took the young men to Little Crow's house (two miles above the agency), and he sat up in bed and listened to their story. He said war was now declared. Blood had been shed, the payment would be stopped, and the whites would take a dreadful vengeance because women had been killed. Wabasha, Wacouta, myself and others still talked for peace, but nobody would listen to us, and soon the cry was "Kill the whites and kill all these cut-hairs who will not join us." A council was held and war was declared. Parties formed and dashed away in the darkness to kill settlers. The women began to run bullets and the men to clean their guns."

I think it was in this war that one Native American told a very sad tale. He said that when war was declared all the Native Americans ran to the town to try to save their white friends there and were often horrified to see their friends killed by other Native Americans. That says to me that often individual Native Americans and settlers were getting along quite well. Unfortunately the forces of war destroyed lives and friendships.

[Cal33]

70. Yes, there will always be individual cases of friendship between

Native Americans and Whites. Now, let's take the country as a whole, throughout the period of
Whites coming to the shores of America.

There were some 20 million American Indians in 1800 AD, today there are 4 million left,
and mostly in reservations. Did they all somehow simply disappear? The population
in America today is some 330 million.

And did the Native Americans all voluntarily go into reservations, or had they been forced?
And when they resisted, wasn't it natural for them to defend their own land?

There were some 400 treatises made between the US Gov't and the Indian tribes. All of them
were broken by the Whites. All for the sake of greed. Outside of the reservations (often
the poorest, most inhospitable regions) the Native American own no other land. The whole of
North America had been taken away from them -- with bloodshet, mostly Native American blood.

Are you saying that might is right? How kind and loving of you.

[hfojvt]

81. US population was about 4 million in 1800

including 757,000 slaves.

So why couldn't 24 million people live in this country in peace? The country now supports over 300 million fairly comfortably, so there should have been plenty of room for 24 million people to live in peace.

The problem was, besides racial/tribal, two different ways of life. The reservation policy, which you decry, was meant to be a solution to that. To create "Indian territories" where they could live their way without conflict from white settlers, and to keep white settlers free from Indian raids. In 1820, it was presumed that all land west of the Mississippi would be Indian territory. Except that the white population kept growing and they kept looking across the boundaries and seeing vacant land. Immigrants kept pouring in from Europe in the 1800s.

So here are settlers in Wisconsin without land of their own perhaps, or with no land for their sons, and they look across the river and see a fortune in timber and also seemingly vacant land available for farming. Sure, it is Indian land, but from the white perspective the Indians do not even seem to be using it. There are no farms or sawmills, and there is plenty of room for Indians and whites to live together in Minnesota.

As for whites violating all the treaties. That is a nice little line from Billy Jack, but I don't believe it is true. I have found at least two instances where the Native Americans violated the treaty. The treaty of Mendota for example.

Chronology:

July 1851 - Treaty of Traverse des Sioux ceded to the U.S. lands in southwestern portions of the Minnesota Territoryfor $1.665 million in cash and annuities.

August 1851 - Treaty of Mendota ceded to the U.S. additional lands in southeastern portions of the Minnesota Territory for $1.41 million in cash and annuitities.

August 1851 - 7,000 Dakota move into two reservations bordering the Minnesota River in southwestern Minnesota.

1858 - Dakota cede additional land on the north bank of the Minnesota River.

August 1862 - Annuity payments are late; Dakota demand future annuity payments be made directly to them, rather than through traders. Traders refuse to sell provisions on credit. Andrew Myrick, spokesman for the traders, says: "So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry, let them eat grass."

August 17 - Four Dakota kill five white settlers.

August 18 - Bands of Dakota kill 44 Americans in attacks on the Redwood Agency and on federal troops heading for the Agency.

August 19 - Minnesota Governor Ramsey names Col. Henry Sibley to command American volunteer forces. Sixteen settlers are killed around New Ulm. Settlers crowd into a small barricaded area of New Ulm.

August 23 - About 650 Dakota attack New Ulm. Town is burned; 34 die and 60 are wounded, but the barricaded area holds out.

August 25 - 2,000 New Ulm refugees head for Mankato, thirty miles away.

Note how the treaty ended "August 17 - Four Dakota kill five white settlers.

August 18 - Bands of Dakota kill 44 Americans in attacks on the Redwood Agency and on federal troops heading for the Agency."


Also, note that America did not just take land with their superior might. Instead, they paid for it. Although a couple of things happened there. First, any sum of money in America draws profiteers. Traders who probably scam many Indians out of their money and probably bribe the government agent to maintain their profitable scam. Second, by 1862, America was involved in a Civil war which created a shortage of funds. The other part was crop failure, after 10 years the Native Americans still were not self-sufficient as farmers. If they'd had a decent harvest in 1861 they wouldn't have had to rely on payments which were late.

Also, I might note that either the whites do not seem any worse nor the native Americans any better in regard to taking land.

"Using a strategy of stealth attacks similar to those that had such success against the Huron, the Iroquois launched an attack on the Neutral in 1650 and by the end of 1651 they had completely driven the tribe out of their territory, killing and assimilating thousands."

They completely drove that tribe off of their own land!! And killed thousands! And forced others to assimilate! Perhaps even made them learn a new language and adopt a new religion.

"South of the Kansas-Nebraska buffalo ranges were the Kiowas. Some of the older Kiowas could remember the Black Hills, but the tribe had been pushed southward before the combined power of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. By 1860 the Kiowas had made peace with the northern plains tribes and had become allies of the Comanches, whose southern plains they had entered." (Dee Brown pp 10-11)

So the Kiowas got pushed off of their own land! And then they invaded and took land from the Comanches!!

"wasn't it natural". Well, war may be understandable, but it is still a choice and a choice with disastrous consequences for both sides. There were Native American leaders urging peace, but they were shouted down.

You talk about numbers and land. Consider my ancestor Jeremiah. He was born in 1811 and he had no land. Maybe his father had 40 acres. In 1831, he walked from central Pennsylvania to Indiana and started working there. In 1838, he got married and in 1853 they moved to Wisconsin. Today, the number of his descendants that I know about, and including spouses is 2142. He started with nothing, and walked away from his family, maybe taking some wages he had saved up.

It seems to me that if Native Americans had chosen to assimilate instead of resist that they would have increased in numbers and prospered. An understandable tragedy, but not one with evil whites on one side and angelic Native Americans on the other.

'I have heard that a great many Indians want to fight. Very well, we are here, and are come prepared for war. If you are for peace, you know the conditions. If you are for war, look out for the consequences.' General Hancock 1866 (Dee Brown p 151)

[mstinamotorcity]

75. Before you go patting yourself

on the back, a lot of the inventions that you speak of have had influence on development by people of all cultures. We are proud that your family took the high road. But so many others did not. We need to stop singling out what it is our family did or did not do in previous years. What matters is what we do. When you learn better we are supposed to do better. Our ancestors made a lot of mistakes,and we pay for some of those things right now today. But as we grow in intelligence and wisdom with the spirit of humanity we are obligated to apply that to our daily lives.Your character is admirable.

[HuckleB]

29. Exactly!

[jdlh8894]

39. Are you "reaping" any benifits?

Oh,were you around 400 years ago?

[Bitwit1234]

28. AND those white men with guns took it away from the

Native Americans and have suppresses them ever since.

[ehrnst]

74. Slave labor also built this country

Slaves were inventors of things white men took credit for. There were slaves among the masons who built the White House and Capitol, for crissakes.

[spanone]

3. shame on the ignorant assholes....but, they know no shame.

[Jamastiene]

4. This country was built by the people that white men

pointed their guns at and ordered to build.

There, I fixed it.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. YOU get the "A" for accuracy. Excellent correction.

:thumbsup:

[jdlh8894]

12. The British??

[BrklynLiberal]

16. Is that who the Pilgrims saw when they landed at Plymouth Rock?

[jdlh8894]

23. Don't think they saw anybody.

Might be wrong. That's why they started a settlement there.

[Jamastiene]

32. Oh, yeah, the Native Americans back then were invisible.

I forgot. They had magical superpowers to just blend in and stay invisible.

[BrklynLiberal]

36. Ahaaaa! So that was the reason the illegal immigrants of the 1600s thought they could just

come in and take over. They never saw any of the inhabitants that had already lived there for centuries!!!!!!!!!

[JuniperLea]

48. My people met my people at Plymouth Rock...

We screwed ourselves, on many levels.

[Jamastiene]

33. Huh?

Make sense, would ya?

[Dead_Parrot]

5. So much for geology. nt

[spin]

8. Which is why gun control has racist roots. (n/t)

[safeinOhio]

19. Gun control is now battled by every racist group in America. N/T

[krispos42]

79. All squares are rectangles. Not all rectangles are squares.

If it was only racist groups that were fighting gun control, we'd have LOTS of gun control in this country.

[disillusioned73]

10. Replace the word built with pillaged...

and then we got something..

pil·lage   /ˈpɪlɪdʒ/
Show IPA
verb, -laged, -lag·ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to strip ruthlessly of money or goods by open violence, as in war; plunder: The barbarians pillaged every conquered city.
2. to take as booty.
–verb (used without object)
3. to rob with open violence; take booty: Soldiers roamed the countryside, pillaging and killing.
–noun
4. the act of plundering, esp. in war.
5. booty or spoil.

[Pirate Smile]

11. I read that this morning. Roger Ebert tweeted it and it was retweeted ??? I don't know - it only

goes up to 100+.

So sad, infuriating and disgusting all at the same time.

[leveymg]

13. Except for the parts built by Indians & Blacks in chains, Asians with hammers, and Immigrants

without papers.

The ones with the guns just stole the work of the rest.

Happy Native Americans Were Here First, the Rest of Us Are Just Illegal Day!

[BrklynLiberal]

15. +1000

[Jamastiene]

26. Bingo!

That is it, exactly.

The guns were used to force all the nonwhites to build it for the whites who stole this land.

[fasttense]

14. Stupid people say the dumbest things on their back windows.

Let's just hope he never has to park in a neighborhood of not so white men.

[hatrack]

17. And all of them are dead now . . .

:eyes:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. So was the Mafia.

[BrklynLiberal]

21. Whew! what a disturbing set of pics and stories. I totally understand why the poster is upset.

RW/repuke = hate, hate, hate....

[LeftinOH]

24. Could the statement on the sticker have been cynical? Just wondrin'.

[pepperbear]

35. you and I must have been the only two people that saw it that way.

the land itself was taken from the natives at the point of a gun, threrefore truer words were never written. this post is worthless without context. for example, what other bumper stickers were on the car?

[BrklynLiberal]

40. Maybe..if there had been a big fat "NOT" at the end of it.

Otherwise, what you saw, is what you got...

[DJ13]

25. "THIS COUNTRY WAS BUILT BY WHITE MEN WITH GUNS ORDERING SLAVES TO DO THE WORK"

[old mark]

34. It was made what it is today by white men with lots of money...and slaves...nt

[bluestateguy]

37. Slaves actually did a lot of the building

Although they were "supervised" by white men with guns and whips.

And of course the first ever gun control laws were the laws the prevented slaves and even free blacks from owning guns.

[KansasVoter]

41. Is that an NRA advertisement?

[Arkana]

42. Then I guess that makes me a filthy furriner

because my ancestors came in 1920 on the boat from the south of Italy.

[ThomThom]

43. my response would be it was stolen by white men with guns

it was built by immigrant labor Irish, Chinese, Mexican and slaves hijacked from their own country and still is

[JuniperLea]

47. +1

Indeed!!

[Swamp Rat]

44. And now America is ruled by a Magic Negro with nuclear weapons.

HAHA! Get used to it! :D

[Octafish]

59. Wutz wrong wit dis monitor?

I taught dat bonurman was ornzh?

[retread]

45. Yes! And they were:

"They were small, angry men with hairy faces and burning feet... We was running away from Poverty, Intolerance, the Army and the Law ... and the Army ...

And we took to them!

And they took to us!

And what do you think they took?

CHANTING CHORUS: Oil from Canada! Gold from Mexico! Geese from their neighbor's back yard! Boom, boom! Corn from the Indians! Tobacco from the Indians! Dakota from the Indians! New Jersey from the Indians! New Hampshire from the Indians! New England from the Indians! New Delhi from the Indians! ..."

From "How Can You be in Two Places at Once When You're not Anywhere at All?" The Firesign Theater

[Love Bug]

49. "...ON THE BACKS OF BLACK PEOPLE"

He left off half the decal!

[felix_numinous]

50. This country was stolen by white men with guns!

And they are still stealing it---and they think we're stupid as well as blind not to see that.

Happy Columbus Day --a day of remembrance.

[Radical Activist]

56. They were holding the guns while they watched slaves work.

[Octafish]

57. They still ''own'' it, too, by gum.

Heads-up, Obama!

[rucky]

58. This article is a MUST READ. The headline just scratches the surface.

[kpete]

63. you got that right!

peace to you rucky, kpete

[Canuckistanian]

66. It's chilling. And the graphics are... frightneing

It's not hard to get his point that some in America haven't progressed much beyond the 1950's south.

[rucky]

73. and since others have made so much progress...

our country is more split than ever.

[theophilus]

64. Huuuh! I thought they used hammers, saws, and adzes. n/t

[struggle4progress]

65. It's very important to stand up to this poison in public where others can see, not just online where

a small select group of people who already agree can read it again

We have to build the civilisation we want, by doing something every day

[kgnu_fan]

69. This country was stolen by white men with guns

[LanternWaste]

72. I imagine we focus on those bits of history

I imagine we focus on those bits of history which better validate our world-views, and rarely mention those bits which don't.

[krispos42]

78. Wow, those images are BAD.

I was a moderator during the general campaign in '08, and we removed some stuff that had the Admins contacting the Secret Service. It was of that type. :puke:

[krispos42]

80. So was the Third Reich. How'd that work out?

Besides, guns make horrible digging implements.

[political_Dem]

83. When you're a person of color you see and hear many things that defy one's imagination.

That phrase only scratches the surface. A lot of uglier things get said and done--especially to a person's face.

[Downtown Hound]

84. Actually it was built by slaves and exploited immigrants

being held hostage by white men with guns.

[jmondine]

85. Most people build things with tools

Methinks if a white guy tried hammering a nail with a .38, there'd be one less white guy.

[mcollins]

86. I would have to agree.

Look at the mess we have now.