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Post by Amadan on Aug 18, 2017 13:22:57 GMT -5
Back to my question - how do we deal with these people? Large tech companies like Google and Paypal have decided to kick them off. Is that a good thing? Is it beneficial to force them underground where their plans and discussions are more hidden? And is there a slippery slope here? Where tech companies can censor speech they find morally repugnant? In general, I have no problem with companies exercising their right to refuse service. Yes, there is potentially a slippery slope, if say, Google and PayPal start refusing service to anyone who's not politically aligned with them, but I don't really think "Won't host Nazi websites" is going too far down that slope. I mean, if someone walked into a restaurant wearing KKK robes, and the restaurant manager said "GTFO," would you be worrying about slippery slopes?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2017 13:50:05 GMT -5
The Vice News clip NT posted was fascinating. The Nazis in it are repugnant, of course. But one thing that was very interesting is that even a professionally edited clip such as that did not show any of the white supremacists inciting violence, throwing the first punch, macing anyone. It showed THEM getting maced by the resistance, though. Here's the thing with videos of an incident like this, c.e. They can be edited to start at a particular point in the scuffle. Even if they aren't edited you are only getting what that particular person chose/was able to film and to share. Therefore, it can be a really iffy thing to say who started a scuffle and/or was more at fault. Slight derail to illustrate my point: I offer exhibit A, from an incident in my neighborhood (no, I did not witness or film it -- this is from a local online news source). The fight is cartoonishly ridiculous, by the way -- makes me think of Captain Kirk fighting an alien. Anyway, watch the video clip in this article: www.westsiderag.com/2017/07/19/video-two-men-fight-on-broadway-using-machete-trash-can-and-fistsThe video starts with the altercation in play -- the first thing you see is a Black man coming at an Asian man with a garbage can. When people first saw this video, most assumed the Black man was a vagrant who started the fight by hurling a garbage can, and that the Asian man with the car and the woman with him was defending himself with the machete. I'm quite sure racism factored into that assessment, as well as the fact that the video starts with the Black man doing something aggressive. To be fair, there's also the fact that there is a controversial homeless shelter nearby that contains about 90% black residents, many of whom, unfortunately, have substance abuse problems or mental illnesses, and throwing a garbage can seems like the kind of thing a homeless person on drugs might do. I can attest that unfortunately, some of these folks have been involved in a fair amount of petty crime and issues in the neighborhood -- e.g., someone threw a TV out of a window for no particular reason, narrowly missing pedestrians, and glass bottles filled with urine are fairly popular missiles. There are fights nearly every day, and a couple of them resulted in fatalities. So, yeah, unfortunately, many jumped to the conclusion that the Black man was one of the residents of the shelter. ( By the way, our neighborhood is actually extremely liberal, and the homeless shelter might not be so controversial except that it is incredibly ill-run and provides no assistance or treatment for these people. It just warehouses them in crappy tiny kitchenless bathroomless rooms at great taxpayer expense -- $3700/month per person, not including food. Surely, surely, we can do better for them and for the neighborhood than this. But that's another story. If you are interested, I can provide cites on all of these points -- I am not inventing them. I've been active in community meetings to push for improvements to the shelter, so I know of what I speak.) Anyway. It turns out that this is NOT what happened at all. The Black gentleman was texting on his phone as he crossed the street -- admittedly a dumb thing to do, but the Asian man, rather than shaking his head or perhaps issuing a calm "dude, you can get hurt doing that," went completely batshit. First he yelled at the guy and flashed a gun clip at him. He happened to keep a machete in his car. He grabbed it and went after the Black man. The Black man had no weapon; he grabbed a trash can. Here, I want some points. From the very first, I thought the Asian man was more likely to have been the instigator. Why? Because who the FUCK keeps a machete in their goddamn car? In freaking New York City yet. Yeah, no. That's weird. But I do get why people viewing the video assumed the Black man started it, given where the video begins. So. They were both violent. But is one of them more to blame? Hells to the yes. The Asian man threatened by flashing a gun clip and came after the Black man with a fucking machete. He could have killed him. I have no inclination to say this is a wash. Your mileage may differ, I suppose, but IMO when you come after someone with a machete, expect to get some violence in return. (Granted, there was a point or two there where the Black man could have walked away, and instead he upped the fight. So he's not a saint here. But I can see why he was pissed and didn't want to let the guy just drive away.) Anyway. I've heard several accounts from reporters saying the supremacists started the physical stuff. I've posted one or two of them above. But in any case, whether they did or not, they were certainly being inflammatory -- fighting words are a thing.
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Post by maxinquaye on Aug 18, 2017 13:55:00 GMT -5
Back to my question - how do we deal with these people? Large tech companies like Google and Paypal have decided to kick them off. Is that a good thing? Is it beneficial to force them underground where their plans and discussions are more hidden? And is there a slippery slope here? Where tech companies can censor speech they find morally repugnant? I've been told all my life that conservatism is the movement of personal responsibility. So, how about we demand they take some of that? If they dress up as Nazis, throw Roman Salutes, and wave a Swastika flag, we can hold them personally responsible for it, and both show and tell them what we think about that.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 18, 2017 18:13:26 GMT -5
Call them whatever you desire and if they self-identify as "Nazis," all the more reason to do so. But they're still not equivalent to the actual Nazis of WWII, which is my point. Okay. They do not drive Panzers. Duly noted. I think supposing that they're the same thing as German Nazis from WWII is giving them--these clowns--far too much credit, far too much supposed agency. These groups of white supremacists/neo-nazis are not a new thing; they've been around for a long time. Are there more members in some of these groups now than twenty years ago? Probably, but mostly because the population is bigger now. But they're still mostly the same sorts of people: ignorant blowhards who think the world owes them, who take out their frustrations on minorities and other marginalized groups because they can.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 18, 2017 18:19:19 GMT -5
Yeah, I would think that if they want to look like Nazis and act like Nazis, they need to be dealt with as though they're the real thing. Not as just-kidding Nazis, but as terrorists and enemies. They're not reenacting historical events; they're live. Oh, I agree that they should be treated like terrorists, like enemies, like traitors even. And right, they'e not reenacting anything, they're live in the now. But they no more represent a potential rise of "Nazism" as a political force in the USA than fringe nutters like the antifa represent a rise of communism or the like, than Islamic terrorists--like say that pair in San Bernadino--represent a rise of an actual Sharia state in the USA.
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Post by Vince524 on Aug 18, 2017 18:25:50 GMT -5
Back to my question - how do we deal with these people? Large tech companies like Google and Paypal have decided to kick them off. Is that a good thing? Is it beneficial to force them underground where their plans and discussions are more hidden? And is there a slippery slope here? Where tech companies can censor speech they find morally repugnant? I've been told all my life that conservatism is the movement of personal responsibility. So, how about we demand they take some of that? If they dress up as Nazis, throw Roman Salutes, and wave a Swastika flag, we can hold them personally responsible for it, and both show and tell them what we think about that. I've got no problem with holding anyone responsible. But most of my conservative friends find this repugnant.
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Post by Vince524 on Aug 18, 2017 18:27:54 GMT -5
For the record, my disdain does not extend to actors in revivals of The Sound of Music, one of the better Indiana Jones movies, or one particular episode of Star Trek the original series.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 18, 2017 18:41:07 GMT -5
Amadan and Max posted much of what I'd intended to post in reply to Rob. I'll add this: Sure, the Nazis in Germany ended by murdering millions of innocent people and our Nazis haven't done that yet. But the Nazis in Germany didn't start overnight gassing Jews, etc. They started with calls to nationalism. Rallying youth. Shouting and publishing slogans and racist, anti-Semitic crap. Harassing Jews and others they didn't like. They picked up on a line of underlying discontent, racism, and anti-Semitism in German society and used it to gain power. Sound familiar? Of course, they progressed to making Jews wear yellow stars, moving into ghettos, taking their property, and from there to death camps. And yeah, we're not there ... yet. So if that's what you mean, Rob, by "they're not real Nazis", I suppose I can give you that much. They haven't built gas chambers yet. Happy? And I'll give you this. If all you have is a couple of isolated ignorant jerks who mouth off on a street corner or mutter in some dark corner of the internet, there might be no real need for concern. There will always be some of those. As long as they're just isolated jerks, whatever. We can handle it. No need to panic just for that. But I submit you should start to worry well before it gets to death camps and yellow stars. A good place to start? When masses of them feel emboldened enough to arm up and march shouting Nazi slogans and waving Nazi flags. When they start punching counter-protesters and fucking mowing them down with a car. And when THE GODDAMN PRESIDENT winks and pats them on the back. Happy? No, I'm not happy. I hate it that there are people as ignorant and cruel in the USA, in the world, as these white supremacist clowns. But Christ, it's like people are just suddenly waking up and realizing these people are out there. These same sorts of wannabe Nazis won the right in court to march on Skokie in 1977. And they chose Skokie because they knew who lived in the area (lots of Holocaust survivors). They ended up holding a rally in Chicago, which turned violent, mostly with rocks and bottles being thrown, if I recall correctly, though there were hundreds of cops there to enforce the peace. And I'd note that there's also a very obvious--imo--lack of consistency from both ideological sides here. Is it horrible what this scumbag did? Absolutely. Should he and his ilk be condemned? Absolutely. Did Trump fail in this regard (initially, at the very least)? Again, absolutely. But much of the outrage train for all of this--imo--is made up with people who would bend over backwards to argue that attacks like the one in San Bernadino were committed by lone wolves, or the like, people who backed Obama when he refused to label the Fort Hood shooter a terrorist. And those who are now trying to make this guy in Charlottesville into a lone wolf---if not a victim, which is truly ridiculous--were singing the opposite song in the above cases. Do you disagree?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2017 19:01:30 GMT -5
I submit that the reason people are suddenly waking up to these extremists is because these extremists, after a lomg period of relative dormancy, are suddenly much more active and loud. I submit that they are much more active and loud because they feel confident the Trump administration is in their corner.
No lone wolf here -- there were a buttload of these suckers waving Nazi flags and shouting Nazi slogans. He was part of a violent mob. And while only one of the mob plowed a car through the protesters, his buddies cheered the action and insulted the dead woman afterward -- and they did their share of brutalizing as well while they were there.
The San Bernadino killers may have been inspired by terrorist groups, but those groups were not physically present,punching, shouting hate slogans, etc. Those groups didn't even direct the action. The killers acted on their own.
I don't see the cases the same way, and I think the white supremacists ultimately represent a bigger threat to our country and what it stands for (or is supposed to stand for).
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Post by Amadan on Aug 18, 2017 20:00:38 GMT -5
Happy? No, I'm not happy. I hate it that there are people as ignorant and cruel in the USA, in the world, as these white supremacist clowns. But Christ, it's like people are just suddenly waking up and realizing these people are out there. These same sorts of wannabe Nazis won the right in court to march on Skokie in 1977. And they chose Skokie because they knew who lived in the area (lots of Holocaust survivors). They ended up holding a rally in Chicago, which turned violent, mostly with rocks and bottles being thrown, if I recall correctly, though there were hundreds of cops there to enforce the peace. And I'd note that there's also a very obvious--imo--lack of consistency from both ideological sides here. Is it horrible what this scumbag did? Absolutely. Should he and his ilk be condemned? Absolutely. Did Trump fail in this regard (initially, at the very least)? Again, absolutely. But much of the outrage train for all of this--imo--is made up with people who would bend over backwards to argue that attacks like the one in San Bernadino were committed by lone wolves, or the like, people who backed Obama when he refused to label the Fort Hood shooter a terrorist. And those who are now trying to make this guy in Charlottesville into a lone wolf---if not a victim, which is truly ridiculous--were singing the opposite song in the above cases. Do you disagree? Of course these losers have always been around. But in the past, they were treated like fringe losers, especially by the political establishment. Even politicians who might have secretly had some sympathies for them would at least publicly disavow them, even with the weak tut-tutting noises you're making. Now, we have a President who can't even bother to do that. It's not that people are waking up to the fact that there are neo-Nazis out there. It's that people are waking up to the fact that there are neo-Nazis out there, and there are factions of the government, including the President, who are willing to ride that tiger. As for comparisons with the various jihadist terrorists we've had - I, for one, did think Obama was wrong not to clearly label them terrorists, though at least you could say his motives were benign. It certainly wasn't because he didn't want to offend supporters among fringe Islamic groups. But you're really reaching to find an equivalence here in leftist hypocrisy - yes, I agree a lot of leftists are too weak in their response to jihadists, but even so, jihadists aren't freaking people out because they aren't marching openly in the streets, calling for Jews to be killed, and having the President condemn "violence on both sides." Do I think we should be freaked out by the possible rise of a Brownshirts movement that could take over the U.S. government? It seems not much more likely than the rise of an active ISIS movement in the U.S. But one remains an extremist cell network being relentlessly pursued by the FBI and universally hated by everyone outside their group, while the other is coming out into the light of day and showing itself to comprise a surprising number of "disaffected" American voters, with enough covert sympathy to make the White House reluctant to flat-out condemn them. I still retain my hardcore free speech position - I think Nazis should be allowed to march, and illegal to punch. But damn you make it hard because you sound like a lot of mainstream Germans probably did in the 20s and 30s. "That Hitler and his brownshirts, such unpleasant fellows! Tsk tsk. But why are you so concerned with him when there are communists to worry about? And you can't say the liberals aren't being violent too. You'd be better off ignoring him than taking his nonsense about 'blood and soil' seriously." I'd also support the right of ISIS supporters to march in the streets and shout "Death to America," "Kill all the Jews," and "We want Shariah law." And I'd loathe them too, and be happy to see them named and shamed on social media. And be appalled if the White House response was to complain about Islamophobes contributing to the violence.
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Post by nighttimer on Aug 18, 2017 23:58:24 GMT -5
I submit that the reason people are suddenly waking up to these extremists is because these extremists, after a lomg period of relative dormancy, are suddenly much more active and loud. I submit that they are much more active and loud because they feel confident the Trump administration is in their corner. No lone wolf here -- there were a buttload of these suckers waving Nazi flags and shouting Nazi slogans. He was part of a violent mob. And while only one of the mob plowed a car through the protesters, his buddies cheered the action and insulted the dead woman afterward -- and they did their share of brutalizing as well while they were there. The San Bernadino killers may have been inspired by terrorist groups, but those groups were not physically present,punching, shouting hate slogans, etc. Those groups didn't even direct the action. The killers acted on their own. I don't see the cases the same way, and I think the white supremacists ultimately represent a bigger threat to our country and what it stands for (or is supposed to stand for). I don't pay attention to anyone who smugly asserts "everything is fine and this isn't serious." That's not a serious thought to be taken seriously. Not when it is much more difficult to conceal one's race than it is one's religion or sexual orientation. Being Black is all it takes to make me and mine a target and carelessly trivializing the threat posed by hate groups is a luxury of wishful thinking I can't afford. Hate groups are something a free society has to suffer with, but don't trivialize the danger they pose to the groups they are targeting and especially if you're not part of that group. Making tissue thin excuses for Trump's appalling behavior in the wake of Charlottesville is one thing, but trying to shift the blame to Obama was bullshit when Trump tried it last Saturday. It's bullshit this Saturday. It remain bullshit next Saturday and all the Saturdays to come. The ones who say there's nothing to worry about are not a part of those who need to be worried. The ones who say go back to sleep were never awoke in the first place. White Supremacy is evil and evil is not something you can wave away with casual disdain. Not when you're the focal point of their hatred.
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Post by Vince524 on Aug 19, 2017 8:50:48 GMT -5
I submit that the reason people are suddenly waking up to these extremists is because these extremists, after a lomg period of relative dormancy, are suddenly much more active and loud. I submit that they are much more active and loud because they feel confident the Trump administration is in their corner. No lone wolf here -- there were a buttload of these suckers waving Nazi flags and shouting Nazi slogans. He was part of a violent mob. And while only one of the mob plowed a car through the protesters, his buddies cheered the action and insulted the dead woman afterward -- and they did their share of brutalizing as well while they were there. The San Bernadino killers may have been inspired by terrorist groups, but those groups were not physically present,punching, shouting hate slogans, etc. Those groups didn't even direct the action. The killers acted on their own. I don't see the cases the same way, and I think the white supremacists ultimately represent a bigger threat to our country and what it stands for (or is supposed to stand for). I don't pay attention to anyone who smugly asserts "everything is fine and this isn't serious." That's not a serious thought to be taken seriously. Not when it is much more difficult to conceal one's race than it is one's religion or sexual orientation. Being Black is all it takes to make me and mine a target and carelessly trivializing the thread posed by hate groups is a luxury of wishful thinking I can't afford. Making tissue thin excuses for Trump's appalling behavior in the wake of Charlottesville is one thing, but trying to shift the blame to Obama was bullshit when Trump tried it last Saturday. It's bullshit this Saturday. It remain bullshit next Saturday and all the Saturdays to come. The ones who say there's nothing to worry about are not a part of those who need to be worried. The ones who say go back to sleep were never awoke in the first place. White Supremacy is evil and evil is not something you can wave away with casual disdain. Not when you're the focal point of their hatred. I'll disagree with you on one point. People who think that there's nothing to be worried about need to be worried. They might not be the first or obvious target of a modern day nazi, but rest assured, their time will come. If left unchecked or unchallenged, it'll hit us all. Do I think that this is the second coming of the Reich? Not likely, but only because I believe that most people are kind and decent human beings who will not allow it. But we don't need to be thrown into another Nazi war for good people to suffer. And if a Nazi is targeting someone because their black, because their gay, because their a jew, their targeting people I love and care about. This isn't a fight between two groups and those of us who aren't a part of either group have to stand to the side and just watch. This is an attack on all of us. Evil, left unanswered, will spread like cancer.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 20, 2017 14:52:43 GMT -5
I don't see the cases the same way, and I think the white supremacists ultimately represent a bigger threat to our country and what it stands for (or is supposed to stand for). I don't see them the same way, either. That's not the point. Regardless, again white supremacy didn't appear overnight. But there's no Robert Byrd in the Senate anymore. And David Duke got predictably creamed in the Louisiana 2016 Senate primary. So...a bigger threat than what, specifically? And how much of a threat are you supposing they actually represent? But allowing that there's a case to be made here, that white supremacists are a significant threat and are a bigger threat then radical Islam, do you think Trump is some sort of conduit in this regard? When Trump was seeking the nomination, he was bad news to many because he was another tool of corporate America, ready to do whatever it took to maximize profits to the detriment of the nation. Then, after he won, he became a puppet of Putin, whose admin was/is apparently rife with Russian agents and would eventually turn the US into a satellite state of the Kremlin. Now, he's apparently a secret Nazi, or he's getting duped by such folk in his admin, and may very well bring back the Jim Crow era. You know, if all of this stuff in Charlottesville had happened in 1981 or so, it would have been very bad. And no doubt, there would be some people looking to blame Reagan for it. It would have been reported on for the tragedy that it was, though, and people in the media, politicians, and the members of the general public would have rightly condemned the white supremacist crowd for being the hateful clowns that they are. But that would have been the end of it, mostly. Now however, social media and 24 hours news allow people to grind on and on about the event; it's great fodder, after all (again, imo many of the Trump critics grinding on this are using the victim, still). But the fact that there is more attention paid to something like this in one moment as opposed to another doesn't mean that the underlying issues are more significant, more extant in that moment. I personally can't see how white supremacists pose such a huge threat now, as opposed to the past. If there are more of them now (I don't think there are), the numbers as a function of population are probably still lower. Maybe some seem louder now because of the tools they have, I don't really know. My own experiences suggest that open racism is far less common today than it was when I was growing up. And I think that goes to a larger point: white supremacy isn't more mainstream now than in the past, it's adherents are just more desperate to make this seem like the case, because demographics are steadily changing to their detriment. And there's nothing anyone in DC can really do about that, at the end of the day.
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Post by nighttimer on Aug 20, 2017 23:22:39 GMT -5
I don't see the cases the same way, and I think the white supremacists ultimately represent a bigger threat to our country and what it stands for (or is supposed to stand for). I don't see them the same way, either. That's not the point. Regardless, again white supremacy didn't appear overnight. But there's no Robert Byrd in the Senate anymore. And David Duke got predictably creamed in the Louisiana 2016 Senate primary. So...a bigger threat than what, specifically? And how much of a threat are you supposing they actually represent? But allowing that there's a case to be made here, that white supremacists are a significant threat and are a bigger threat then radical Islam, do you think Trump is some sort of conduit in this regard? When Trump was seeking the nomination, he was bad news to many because he was another tool of corporate America, ready to do whatever it took to maximize profits to the detriment of the nation. Then, after he won, he became a puppet of Putin, whose admin was/is apparently rife with Russian agents and would eventually turn the US into a satellite state of the Kremlin. Now, he's apparently a secret Nazi, or he's getting duped by such folk in his admin, and may very well bring back the Jim Crow era. Apparently, you have the memory of a housefly. You seem to forget racism goes beyond being racist against Blacks. Trump's racism toward Latinos is off the charts. Trump's racism includes his full-page ads he took out against the Central Park Five. Trump's racism includes him refusing in 2016 to acknowledge the Central Park Five were found innocent. Trump's racism includes the lawsuit he had to settle with the feds for housing discrimination. Trump's racism has made him the wet dream come true of White supremacists like David Duke. Trump's racism includes being the leader of the Birthers. You forget Trump's racism is long and established. You seem to forget ALL of this, robeiae, but I have forgotten NONE of it and while I'm here I'm going to keep reminding you of what you have conveniently forgotten or never knew. What's your point? That's it's not so bad in 2017? Ah, yes. Morning in America. That shining city on the hill and all the rest of the Ronald Reagan feel-good b.s. You have no idea how Americans would have reacted to Charlottesville had it happened in 1981. No idea at all. Here's something racist as fuck that happened in 1981 and though the author of the comment worked as a political operative for Reagan, I won't blame Reagan for the remarks. But what I will blame Reagan for is putting the teeth and the truth behind George H.W. Bush strategist Lee Atwater's words. You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”I'm sure that was music to the ears of White supremacists in 1981 and 36 years later it still is. "Grind on?" "It's great fodder?" Are you for real? You're blaming social media and the 24-hr news cycle for the attention being paid to the death of Heather Heyer? As opposed to what? Congress isn't in session. There's no major political races to speculate on. Trump hasn't fired anybody today. What is it you think isn't being reported and discussed and debated because of the tragedy in Charlottesville. Or is it that you dislike Trump being criticized unless it's for something you think isn't "unfair?" For someone who is quick to say how much of a Trump fan you're not, you expend more effort and energy defending Trump than anybody else here. Fine. Have fun with that, but the "I'm critical of both sides" jive has worn thinner than tissue. Quelle surprise. And there you have it. In one breath it's " I don't really know" (and haven't bothered to find out) and in the next " My own experiences suggest that open racism is far less common than it was when I was growing up." Anecdotal evidence is the best evidence because the one telling the story is the one who gets to claim it's the 100% Real Deal. Your own experiences are far too small and limited a sample size to mean a thing about the current state of racism in America in general and the numbers, strength, and threat presented by White supremacists specifically. You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, there is someone in D.C. who can't do much about the changing demographics of race, but really can do something about the mainstreaming of White supremacy and his initials are D.J.T. Not since Woodrow Wilson enthusiastically endorsed D.W. Griffith's The Birth of A Nation during a special White House screening have White racists had such a good friend in the Oval Office. But that's what Trump is and the more you carp about "Trump critics" playing this up and not allowing it to be as dead as Heather Heyer. Racism is a cancer and same as you can't ignore a tumor and hope it goes away if you act like its not there, unchecked racism will only spread and claim more innocent victims. Victims like Heather Heyer ( You can say her name. It's okay) whom you may be sick of hearing about, but others such as myself aren't quite ready to let what she stood for and died for, be so quickly forgotten so we all can go back to debating important stuff like if Taylor Swift has an ass to grab. Keeping Heather's name alive keeps her fight alive and some of us---particularly those of us whom are targeted by White supremacists---consider it a fight worth waging.
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Post by nighttimer on Aug 21, 2017 15:01:42 GMT -5
“Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundation.”
“The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world's most direct and virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that; it can almost be said, in fact, that they know about white Americans what parents—or, anyway, mothers—know about their children, and that they very often regard white Americans that way. And perhaps this attitude, held in spite of what they know and have endured, helps to explain why Negroes, on the whole, and until lately, have allowed themselves to feel so little hatred. The tendency has really been, insofar as this was possible, to dismiss white people as the slightly mad victims of their own brainwashing.”
“The glorification of one race and the consequent debasement of another—or others—always has been and always will be a recipe for murder. There is no way around this. If one is permitted to treat any group of people with special disfavor because of their race or the color of their skin, there is no limit to what one will force them to endure, and, since the entire race has been mysteriously indicted, no reason not to attempt to destroy it root and branch.”
“If we- and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others- do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
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