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Florida Gators Putting an End to the 'Gator Bait' Cheer/Band Performance


Vic Mackey

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8 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

I don't believe Tom Petty has a racist bone in his body and doubt it occurred to him (or you) back then.  But thank goodness he lived long enough to explain/take it back/apologize.  Had he died before doing that, folks might distance from him the same way they distance from Dukes.  

People are much easier to solve, for lack of a better term, when it comes to racism. People can grow, show contrition, condemn past comments and behavior, etc. A chant, song, term, symbol, can’t. Society is going to judge it one way or the other and like you pointed out with the nazi symbol, or the stars and bars, they rarely get to be reclaimed once they are tainted. 
 

I mean, this shits already been thoroughly discussed. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Im still tripping on the fact that people used to use real live human babies as bait for fucking alligators.  What in the entire fuck was going on down there in Florida!?!?!? God damn!! That's just about the most evil shit I've ever heard of. 

It is.  That's why I'm pretty sure its just bad jokes and you have to be pretty gullible to believe its real.

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11 minutes ago, bullet said:

It is.  That's why I'm pretty sure its just bad jokes and you have to be pretty gullible to believe its real.

Im a reading a book about black migration out of the south from 1915 to 1970 entitled "the Warmth of Other Suns" and one of my surprising take always is Florida is severely underrated on the most racist states charts. They somehow escaped the reputation of Mississippi and Alabama, but they belong right there alongside of them. 

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https://theundefeated.com/features/the-gut-wrenching-history-of-black-babies-and-alligators/

"In 1923, Time magazine reported that “colored babies were being used for alligator bait” in Chipley, Florida. “The infants are allowed to play in the shallow water while expert riflemen watch from concealment nearby. When a saurian approaches this prey, he is shot by the riflemen.”

This tactic was more humane than the one described in a Miami New Times article. Alligator hunters would sit crying black babies who were too young to walk at the water’s edge. With rope around their necks and waists, the babies would splash and cry until a crocodile snapped on one of them. The hunters would kill the alligator only after the baby was in its jaws, trading one child’s life for one alligator’s skin. They made postcards, pictures and trinkets to commemorate the practice.

In October 1919, The Richmond Times Dispatch printed what appears to have been a joke titled, “Game Protection.” It reads, “We understand the Florida authorities are going to prohibit the use of live pickaninnies as alligator bait. They say they’ve got to do something to check the rapid disappearance of the alligator through indigestion.”

A Minnesota paper, The New Ulm Review, printed an article in January 1922 previewing the attractions at the Brown County Fair. In the section about fireworks, the article boasted that “there will also be a big colored alligator pursuing a fleeing pickaninny, and many other beautiful designs.”

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2 minutes ago, Fondren & Main said:

Don’t get butthurt because you couldn’t interpret my post as dripping with sarcasm.  

In fairness to me, you did know I was in the middle of a zoom meeting.  I should get some points for multitasking.  

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26 minutes ago, bullet said:

It is.  That's why I'm pretty sure its just bad jokes and you have to be pretty gullible to believe its real.

https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2017/junejuly.htm

Quote

I think it important to remember that we cannot project today’s values and morals onto the past. For example, when people read about real babies being used as alligator bait, many times their first inclination is to find a way to dismiss the claim as folklore or myth, but at the same time, no one would dismiss that dogs or other animals were used as alligator bait. The practice of using a dog to bait alligators today would almost universally be condemned, but that does not mean that it never happened. I believe the same is true for using babies of color as alligator bait, especially since peoples of color were considered “savages” and less than human. Again, I do not think it was a widespread practice and that everyone was aware of it happening. Some people believed it was just a legend while others believed it to be true. There is compelling evidence to confirm that the practice occurred. There is also compelling evidence that many whites and peoples of color believed the practice to be very real and very true and that belief shaped and formed narratives, attitudes and actions.

 

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43 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Im still tripping on the fact that people used to use real live human babies as bait for fucking alligators.  What in the entire fuck was going on down there in Florida!?!?!? God damn!! That's just about the most evil shit I've ever heard of. 

Right. Still shaking my head wondering if I dreamed that crap up.

38 minutes ago, bullet said:

It is.  That's why I'm pretty sure its just bad jokes and you have to be pretty gullible to believe its real.

When I first saw it referred to here I was just glancing through different posts and threads while at work.  My first thought was "some dumbass needs have their ass kicked for joking around like that, it's not a damned bit funny.  Then when I went back to read posts in their entirety, I had to read it more than once because I was in a state of disbelief. Truly some of the most evil shit I've ever heard of.

 

 

 

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47 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Im a reading a book about black migration out of the south from 1915 to 1970 entitled "the Warmth of Other Suns" and one of my surprising take always is Florida is severely underrated on the most racist states charts. They somehow escaped the reputation of Mississippi and Alabama, but they belong right there alongside of them. 

Excellent book. Highly recommended. 

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49 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Im a reading a book about black migration out of the south from 1915 to 1970 entitled "the Warmth of Other Suns" and one of my surprising take always is Florida is severely underrated on the most racist states charts. They somehow escaped the reputation of Mississippi and Alabama, but they belong right there alongside of them. 

I would agree.  I think some of it got watered down with the influx of snow birds, but the natives are on par with the redneck pieces of shit I came across in places like Dothan, Alabama.  We cut off all contact with the bulk of my dad's side of the family.  Just completely lost causes.  

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I would agree.  I think some of it got watered down with the influx of snow birds, but the natives are on par with the redneck pieces of shit I came across in places like Dothan, Alabama.  We cut off all contact with the bulk of my dad's side of the family.  Just completely lost causes.  
Yep here's an excerpt about Florida.
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3 hours ago, Fondren & Main said:

Omg, you thought my post was serious about removing the alligator?  I was being sarcastic to point out how utterly absurd your comments were.  That fact that it completely went over your head shouldn’t shock me. 

You're clearly the only sensible and centered person on this thread.  

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4 hours ago, SHOOTER12 said:

Right. Still shaking my head wondering if I dreamed that crap up.

When I first saw it referred to here I was just glancing through different posts and threads while at work.  My first thought was "some dumbass needs have their ass kicked for joking around like that, it's not a damned bit funny.  Then when I went back to read posts in their entirety, I had to read it more than once because I was in a state of disbelief. Truly some of the most evil shit I've ever heard of.

 

 

 

The "undefeated" is not exactly a major source of information.  The act is incredibly evil.  If it was actually done, I would think a bunch of those hunters would have ended up mysteriously dead.

And there's a lot of stuff people believe.  Look at how many people believe the moon landing was a hoax.  Even more people believe anything they read on twitter.  Some people believe National Enquirer.  And some people even believe CNN!

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24 minutes ago, bullet said:

The "undefeated" is not exactly a major source of information.  The act is incredibly evil.  If it was actually done, I would think a bunch of those hunters would have ended up mysteriously dead.

And there's a lot of stuff people believe.  Look at how many people believe the moon landing was a hoax.  Even more people believe anything they read on twitter.  Some people believe National Enquirer.  And some people even believe CNN!

The Undefeated article quoted from a number of contemporaneous articles discussing the practice.  

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11 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Im a reading a book about black migration out of the south from 1915 to 1970 entitled "the Warmth of Other Suns" and one of my surprising take always is Florida is severely underrated on the most racist states charts. They somehow escaped the reputation of Mississippi and Alabama, but they belong right there alongside of them. 

Now that you mention it, Texas plantations must have been cakewalk compared to other states. I never thought about how bad some states abused people more than others.

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This is like an intensive case study in antifoundationalist philosophy. The whole idea of "localization of a priori moral assumptions" really does get made much easier to see when dealing with something as obvious as tribal affiliations. Wright is black, and he's also a Florida alum. Which localized focus of moral assumptions takes precedence? It entirely comes down to which tribe's moral lense he uses when viewing the question of whether or not the chomp is a good thing or a bad thing.

Critics of antifoundationalism accuse it of intrinsic amoralilty because it is the very definition of "moral relativism" -- but this misses the point. There really are "objectively" moral and immoral positions on the question of whether the Chomp is good or bad -- but which is which is dependent upon frame of reference. If you look at it from the tribal reference of Gator football from the '90s, it's an objectively good thing. If you look at it from the tribal reference of descendants of the African Diaspora, it is an objectively bad thing.

The other major criticism of antifoundationalism is that it never applies its external standards to itself -- I'm sure there's an element of that idea here to be evaluated, as well, but I haven't had enough caffeine yet to flesh out that thought.

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Im a reading a book about black migration out of the south from 1915 to 1970 entitled "the Warmth of Other Suns" and one of my surprising take always is Florida is severely underrated on the most racist states charts. They somehow escaped the reputation of Mississippi and Alabama, but they belong right there alongside of them. 

Never thought about it but you make a good point. Most people probably think of Florida as Miami, Orlando and golf. Hell the movie Rosewood is based a real massacre.
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