Hacker News Reader

>Are people surprised that the FBI of the 50s was treating black intellectuals as some sort of alien internal enemy?

No, what's surprising is that some people think this was then, and things now are different.

A lot of that "thinking" is either wishful, or sculpted by people who need post-racial apathy to commit their very racially motivated crimes.

This is the problem with allowing the government to have invasive surveillance powers - they use them not only to prevent legitimate threats but also to try to prevent the social changes that naturally should occur over time.

> Are people surprised that the FBI of the 50s was treating black intellectuals as some sort of alien internal enemy?

> It's not as if this has changed much. Compare the treatment of e.g. Black Lives Matter with white groups or individuals which are overtly pro-violence, e.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/neo-nazi-br....

I think the implication is not much has changed