One of the favorite things for wingnuts to do is to try the old “liberals are the real racist.” Sometimes they fail, as this editor of wingnut magazine the Ricochet demonstrates.
I'm black, genius https://t.co/BQdCudPrY6
— Adam Serwer (@AdamSerwer) April 28, 2015
The moron had to go back to December 2014 to find the Serwer quote to call him the real racist.
BTW- you should see some of the horrifying things that people are tweeting at Serwer, as he has retweeted a few of them. I knew black people have to deal with a lot of racism, but it wasn’t until Angry Black Lady started posting here and I would have to go through the spam filter and find the sheer volume of bile that she had to deal with every single day.
If I had to deal with that shit every day, I would have lost my shit a long, long time ago. And we wouldn’t be talking about minor stuff like an overturned police car.
Peale
Meh, for the most part, stop and frisk isn’t all that different from a curfew anyway. It just means that everyone is suspiciously in the wrong place, not just a few chosen ones.
Kryptik
The majority of the people simply have zero empathy for the minority experience in America and want to live in their happy comfortable cocoons of faux-meritocracy and faux-respectability, rather than confront that there’s still institutional hurdles and landmines that make life miserable for anyone not reasonably pale enough, or without the ‘non-ethnic’ name, forget the societal hurdles and landmines that support and build off the institutional ones in a self-feeding cycle.
It’s the Calvinistic, Alger-esque ‘if you’re not succeeding, you’re just a failure who doesn’t try hard enough’, ‘if you’re being harassed, you probably brought it on yourself’ ‘if you’re being arrested, you have to be guilty of something’ bullshit fantasy that acts as a footnote to the American Dream.
trollhattan
Considering you used to drive a tank, I believe you.
I have to believe, or at least hope, that everything that has occurred, going back to George shoot-em-up Zimmerman at the very least, has a good many people either seeing how things actually work for the first time or reappraising what they once thought true. That this is occurring simultaneously with SSM being argued at the Supreme Court handily demonstrates real change can occur once opinions and beliefs change. Ten years ago I would have never believed it possible.
Mandalay
Heh. I don’t have access to that spam filter, but I saw plenty of bile in her threads, including some from folks who still post here regularly.
I learned more from her posts about what it means to be black in America than anywhere else, TNC included.
Belafon
Yeah, but, if you were black, you’d have people telling you how it was wrong of you to riot and how it’s not helping you connect with whites.
Tree With Water
“And we wouldn’t be talking about minor stuff like an overturned police car”.
No, we’d be talking a dead white guy, whose unregistered and untraceable handgun was found next to his body by the officer involved in the shooting.
Aleta
About setting fires in one’s own neighborhood:
I once heard Thich Nhat Hanh explain a reason why some Buddhist monks, including a friend of his, set themselves on fire in Vietnam to protest their government’s actions. He said they had no way at that time of attracting international attention to the abuses of their corrupt government (kept in power by the US. and others). He said, at that time the monks spoke no English, had no way to travel outside Vietnam, and had absolutely no experience speaking with Westerners or Western media (who treated them like ridiculous primitive aliens anyway). Vietnamese soldiers were killing monks who protested the war or government (and he later mentioned that approaching US soldiers could get them shot). This self-destruction was a way to communicate with the outside world. This is how he explained it in this particular conversation; There have been other explanations as well.
Kryptik
@trollhattan:
I wish I could believe that. But for every person that seems to come to the side of reason, there’s at least one, if not more, that sees things and instead goes ‘you know what, maybe Black People really are all psychotic violent savages!’ or ‘You know what, maybe Feminism really is the worst fascistic cancer in the history of ever!’ and bullshit like that. I’ve seen god knows how many reasonably liberal people who’ve gone absolutely psychotic on women’s rights and feminism because of Gamergate and Anita Sarkeesian, and similarly so over the Baltimore Riots in regards to police issues and black communities’ grievances in general.
It honest to god feels like every time that something that should be an awakening happens, a majority instead get further seduced by the comfort of reactionary conservatism on said pet issues and we end up worse off than ever before, and god help me, I don’t know how to fix that. Seems like everything that should be done just sends most people screaming rightward all the harder and becoming completely unreachable on everything.
the Conster
I can’t decide whether it’s better that social media has allowed these idiots a way to say what they actually think, therefore outing themselves as the awful people they are, or whether it was better before when they didn’t have a forum except their own living rooms. I’m no spring chicken, but I feel like I’ve been really naive having had no idea that so many people are just huge gaping assholes, and it’s shocking. Not that they think that way, but that they’re so comfortable displaying it for all the world to see. The lack of shame and decency and manners really does shock me. Thanks twitter, I think.
Woodrowfan
today happened to be the today I covered the 1960s Civil Rights protests in my survey class: Selma, Birmingham, Philadelphia Mississippi, the Long Hot Summers, etc. While going through some of the things African_Americans went through one of my white students stood up, packed her backpack, and stormed out. Guess it was too much for her. One of my other students, a young white woman with republicans tickers on hep laptop, just sat, stoney-faced. Yeah, sorry sweetie, it was YOUR party’s candidate that ran AGAINST the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Facts are a bitch, aren’t they??
I wonder how many of my students thought about Baltimore when they saw the film of white cops beating people in Birmingham….
gvg
I still find twitter threads to be unclear who is talking to whom. I read the thread….and can’t tell exactly what is going on. Blogs are so much easier. I sort of almost follow but not clearly enough to comment in public because I suspect I would point at the wrong person.
I suppose that is a get off my lawn but I do know I am missing something. Is there a guide to how all the @[email protected] posts show who said something and who is retweeting to whom?
srv
@gvg:
1) Guy #1 says mayor use of “thug” is a poor choice of words.
2) White guy says he just called mayor a racist, linking to Guy #1’s tweet in 2014 that “you fool zero people when you say thug”
3) White guy is a fool because he didn’t know Guy #1 is black
Richard Bottoms
Believe me, white folks should thank the lord on their knees for Martin Luther King keeping the United Sates from becoming Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Chechnya, hell even Spain with ETA.
We had a deal.
White people can hate us as much as they want at home, call us nigger, monkey and who knows what else in private.
But in public you have to pretend you think we’re human beings.
Do that and we will put 400 years of slavery, the betrayal of Reconstruction, and a century of ISIS level terrorism known as Jim Crow behind us.
From time to time some clerk at Target will lose it and be unable to deal with the idiotic comments about her name or TANF.
Or maybe, I’ll be in Safeway give the finger to the cracker bitch who thinks out loud that a 60 year old gray haired old man in a neck brace is a threat to her purse.
But for the most part we just go about our lives without flipping the fuck out because millions of white people are terrified that we will exact revenge some day and act as evil, vindictive, and violent as their police forces do in their name.
Germy Shoemangler
“Ricochet” – what a great name for a wingnut magazine: “Right back atchya libruls!”
catclub
@srv: Clear as mud!
the Conster
@Germy Shoemangler:
“I Know You Are But What Am I” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
Howard Beale IV
BREAKING: Today’s White Sox-Orioles Game closed to the public.
Botsplainer
I’m going to reveal something that I haven’t mentioned to anyone, ever, but which colors my views on riots as a reaction.
Back when I was pretty young, probably sometime before 1970, I remember sitting at my maternal grandparents’ home. My grandfather (son of a poor white trash Central Kentucky sharecropper) was reading a paper, some article about a race protest. You have to understand, he wasn’t a personally nasty man, was used to working with and interacting with black folks, and was as comfortable with them as members of his own family. There was even an old man who’d been born a slave (not freed until he was 10) that my mother remembered who had lived down the road – my grandfather would pick him up election day, and they’d vote for opposite candidates, but he was old and that’s what granddaddy did. For him, any black man that he knew was fine, and different from the amorphous “them”, who received nothing but spiteful scorn.
Anyway, he’s reading about these protests, and then sneers, in as hateful, mocking and scornful a voice as I’ve ever heard, “poor niggers”. It was dismissive, insulting, and made me think a lot less of him, even though I parroted him in a lot of ways and worshipped him.
I think THAT attitude is the problem, and it passes down from generation to generation, dying way too slowly. It isn’t the klukker standing there in his robes that is the major problem, its the quieter voices harboring institutional resentments that they’re not brave enough to speak too loudly, lest they receive the condemnation that is their due. Riot is the only way to get their attention.
gogol's wife
@gvg:
My philosophy on this is, wait a few months and there’ll be some new fad and it won’t matter that I never understood Twitter.
Germy Shoemangler
@the Conster: It also implies bullets, which fits in with the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) intimidation tactics they employ,
Botsplainer
OT – Safari Grandpa had a lot going on:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/ap-report-tulsa-reserve-deputy-robert-bates-boasts-of-connections/article_6f65484e-0e4d-5ce8-b578-3023f9cfb776.html#user-comment-area
Interesting reading.
As I remarked on the Book of Faces, I’m guessing his Bahamas visit isn’t all pleasure. My theory is that already, some account has been established in his wife’s name with him as the nominal trustee via something like Barclay’s or HSBC. They used an overseas agent doing a trust in someplace like Anguilla or Isle of Man, and the family wealth has just routed its way into a Bahamas branch of the bank, courtesy of the court that approved the trip (they typically require at least one live appearance to open an account – and he’d be enough of a control freak to insist on being there). No muss, no fuss, and utterly, absolutely protected and untouchable by the family of the decedent via any team of lawyers either here or abroad. That’s how I’d do it, anyway, back when I was an overseas agent in Anguilla
Starfish
@gvg: If you click on any particular tweet of interest, it will expand the conversation around it. For example, I clicked on a DougJ tweet to see the witty TBogg reply.
Linnaeus
Yeah, it’s funny how white Americans, by and large, expect black Americans to exhibit superhuman levels of fortitude and patience that they would never expect of themselves.
Germy Shoemangler
@Richard Bottoms:
I’m convinced the person who invented the automatic car door lock was of that mindset. The THUMP sound they make is as dramatic as the door of a fortress being slammed shut.
bemused
@Linnaeus:
Win.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@the Conster: I have a bit of a different take on this: I think “social media” has been an absolute disaster, has empowered the bigots, psychos and assholes like nothing else because they’ve discovered that at least 47% of the population are solidly on their side.
We all would have been FAR better off if the audience for these fucktards was limited to the family members who have no other options than to sit at their dining room tables with them.
Neutron Flux
@Mandalay: I agree.
jl
@Botsplainer: Interesting. I had same experience with one of my grandfathers. I saw him treating blacks as equals in business, both in business and as employees, those who were friends he treated like white friends as far as I could tell. Never heard a word said about them behind their backs that indicated any bigotry or racism.
I heard that, before my time, he would shock people by saying that all this race stuff would disappear with time, since people would inter-marry and everyone would be same color, you wouldn’t be able to tell from a distance what the person’s history was, and hat would be a good thing. I never heard him say that because it was before my time, back in the 1950s, but I’ve been told he said things like that, which raised eyebrows.
I remember as a very young kid, he had good things to say about Martin Luther King. But when King moved into social justice issues across races, and after the 1968 race riots, he started using the N word, and worrying what we were going to do about ‘these people’ He got a little ‘Foxy’ on race issues, though I cannot imagine he would ever put up with Fox News for a minute, he was too skeptical about things. But I remember as a young kid, the change shocked me, even though from his behavior he was thinking about poor urban blacks, not the ‘good’ ones he worked with out in the countryside.
Botsplainer
@Linnaeus:
Hell, they went spastic at healthcare townhalls.
Kryptik
@Linnaeus:
They already seem to treat black Americans like superhumans. I swear I remember seeing a study about how American attitudes toward blacks presume that they simply don’t feel pain like normal people do, among other strangely superhuman attributes ascribed to them. Usually in a fashion that marks them more akin to comic Supervillains than anything.
Roger Moore
@Aleta:
I’d like to see some evidence that the people setting fires actually are from those neighborhoods. Even if they are, it only takes one arsonist to start a fire, and there are always a few people willing to take advantage of disorder as cover for their worst impulses. The implication that black people as a group are so deranged that they don’t care about their own neighborhoods is a vile canard.
Linnaeus
@Botsplainer:
That’s an American tradition, you know. Stamps on my land deed? Unconscionable! To the streets!
Linnaeus
@Kryptik:
Yeah, I remember hearing/reading something about that too. It’s in the same vein of white Americans regularly perceiving black children as being older than they actually are.
Germy Shoemangler
@Roger Moore:
There have been teams of volunteers sweeping up broken glass and clearing debris.
The press tends to lump everyone together: “Peaceful protesters turned violent” etc.
ThresherK
@the Conster: On the flipside, social media has allowed conservatives to instantly find out and respond to what other people think without sometimes knowing important things. That’s good for a lotta laffs if one is not cautious.
On the other hand, I want to point out that (per Oscar Levant*) I became a fan of Digby’s before she was a woman, and of Atrios’ berfore he was black. And I’ve somehow managed to not say anything embarrassing in their comments sections, because I don’t have some neocon axe to grind.
(*The waggish Levant was supposed to have said, when Doris Day’s career took off in the chaste romantic movies with Rock Hudson et al, “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin”)
jl
Rand Paul does some truly innovative GOP outreach. I bet you liberals have never thought of this!
Rand Paul: Baltimore Violence Is About ‘Lack Of Fathers’ And Morals (AUDIO)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rand-paul-freddie-gray-baltimore-morals
No, Rand, it’s about unequal application of the law across races and social classes. It is about police lawlessness that is habitually excused when the victims are black or brown or poor. And especially if the victim is black or brown AND poor. That is what it is about.
And, I sincerely hope things settle down in Baltimore. If the unrest we saw last couple of days is all there is, we got off lightly thins time.
Diana
Incidentally the word “thug” comes from an Imperial British campaign to rid British india of “bandits”…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee
I am sure people here will find a lot of meaning in the original concept of a “criminal caste.”
Botsplainer
@Linnaeus:
How dare them pay taxes in order to pay for the garrisons to man the frontier and chase out French trappers and traders, thus clearing way for Colonials to take their place and profit handsomely. To arms!
Linnaeus
@jl:
Yeah, it seems to me that a lot of white folks have retconned their memories (direct or received) of King. When he was distant, either due to geography or time, he was easier for people to admire. When he expanded his public critique of American society (oh, he’s talking about us now), he was a dangerous radical.
Belafon
@ThresherK: And the shooting video from SC would have never become publich without social media.
Hal
One thing about social media during incidents like this; it reminds me why I hadn’t bothered talking to people from high school until I started using Facebook. Now I get to see all the MLK quotes and constant fingering wagging from comfortably middle class white people who live in New Hampshire wondering what’s wrong with those thugs in Baltimore.
jl
@Linnaeus: I’ve mentioned before that many, maybe most, of the liberal wing in my family got very concerned and troubled when King started talking about social issues that crossed race boundaries. I was too young to understand much about what was going on with the union strikes that King got involved in. But the change in their tone and attitude was noticeable even for a grade school kid. The first really striking personal memory I have about the difficulties of white bigotry and racism in the U.S.
Edit: And, as I remember, in retrospect, though I was too young to really understand it at the time, there seemed to be concern about King not knowing his ‘place’. He was to stick to ‘his’ issue, which was to destroy that evil Southern racism, get blacks the vote, and be a wise and kindly man. I do not remember them using the word ‘uppity’, but I think that was the subtext.
Betty Cracker
@jl: I wonder how Rand Paul explains to himself his own son’s repeated brushes with the law for underage DUI, assault, etc. What a hypocritical, Tribble-wearing shitstain.
FlipYrWhig
@Hal: New Hampshire? Where the pumpkin thugs come from? That’s a hella scary place.
Botsplainer
Shall we talk about the benefits accorded white men via Western Expansion?
Fuck up your farm or your business fails, move further west, courtesy of the Army clearing out indigenous people. You sold your land to another white guy, and got more free land. Rinse, repeat, until all the land, the mining concessions, the timber concessions, the water rights and commercial licenses get divvied out to white guys.
Steal the labor from black folks, let them build your infrastructure and great piles of disposable wealth by producing a commodity that isn’t even essential, all while patting yourself on the back for being a freedom-loving, bootstrapping cultural superbeing.
Later, when black folks are finally freed but entitled to nothing (as it had all been given away to white guys), engage in a systematic exclusion of black voices from the political and economic activities of the communities in which they live for over a century by official policy. When the descendants of the victims of the looting and pillaging don’t live up to your standards, whine about the cultural insufficiency of black folks in a smug way.
Germy Shoemangler
@Botsplainer:
Holy shit… it makes sense now. I remember seeing the story on the network news and it sounded strange. In the middle of all this, he just wants to do some sightseeing in the Bahamas? What?
Like an SS commander at Nuremberg saying “Scuse me judge, wife and I want to do a tour of Argentina. See some of the old banks”
the Conster
@Belafon:
Agreed, and I think this is why I lean towards social media being a net good. Anything that challenges the media’s gatekeeping ability has to be considered good. Social media is why we can read TNC on Baltimore, instead of having to rely on Don Lemon or the idiots who comprise the Sofa of Stupid on Fox to help us work our way through this.
Linnaeus
@jl:
On the (kinda) flip side of that, I’m reminded of one of my beloved grandfathers who was quite racist but voted for liberal Democratic politicians till the end of his life because he said that the Republicans “would screw every worker if they could.”
Betty Cracker
@the Conster:
Ha! That should be the name of the show.
ThresherK
@Belafon: Yep, especially now that everyone has a video masheen in their pocket–even curmudgeonly me!–and don’t have to rush a videotape to the production room a la “Broadcast News”.
BTW, the first digital camera anyone in my family had took 3 1/2″ diskettes. One point forty four big megabytes per diskette, and you can imagine how good the fotos came out looking. Once you popped them into a laptop with a color screen.
Linnaeus
@Botsplainer:
Somewhat tangential, but Martin Luther King, Jr. had something to say about that.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Betty Cracker:
I second that!
Botsplainer
@Germy Shoemangler:
The purpose of offshore banking has always been slimy – mostly the avoidance of judgments. Those statutory schemes create an inviolable opacity, even with local counsel.
Zandar
To be fair, I’m a lot nicer than Cole.
Zandardad taught me a long time ago that displays of anger would quickly get me “in a cell, in a hospital, or in a coffin”.
Lee
@catclub: @gvg:
I’m of the same thought. I’m having a problem with #3.
rk
I think all non whites have to deal with that. It takes about two minutes for racism to come out if you’re in an altercation with a white person. I got into an incident in a parking lot last month. It was my fault because I did not see a woman pulling out of her spot and should have waited and given her way out of courtesy. By my god! It wasn’t an earth shattering mistake, there was no accident, no one got hurt, but, as I was getting out of my car she comes in her van and yells loudly at me, F-words left and right, calling me a F-ing bitch, and on and on. I yell out that I didn’t see her, and she should shut up. Well, that sets her off even more and next we get to the racist stuff. I’m called the stupid foreign bitch who should learn to drive. All this as she has 4 kids in the minivan.
I think some people really are not ashamed of showing their racism any more. Fox News and right wing media has made it O.K. to despise non whites.
A couple of months back I was with my son and a bunch of teens yelled out loudly to him “Hey where are the dunkin donuts, we want a dozen”. I had to explain to him why they said that (because of course all Asians own Dunkin Donut stores). He’s just a child, but my older kids understood it straight away.
I’m not saying that whites don’t face uncouth behavior or bullying, but not whites get the extra dose of racism.
Brachiator
@Botsplainer: It says a lot that this made an impression on you. And it says a lot that you have chosen to share it.
glory b
@Linnaeus: Yep, that’s why that (unindicted, and why??? C’mon Ohio!!) police officer thought Tamir Rice was in his 20’s , instead of 12.
Janelle
I have to confess that I honestly had no idea until just now that Adam Serwer is black. Looking at his pictures, he could definitely pass as white – he’s very light-skinned, with biracial and Jewish ethnicity (similar to Jay Smooth, who I did know was black).
Dave
@rk: That’s a good point. Internalized bigotry s not always obvious in day to day interactions until there is some friction. It should lead to soul searching on the part of the person doing so. Did I really just flip out or even want to flip out because a black/women/hispanic/homosexual etc challenged me in some way? Sadly the majority that probably don’t use as an opportunity to grow.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer: Funny isn’t it, how cynically suspicious legal minds think alike.
Patricia Kayden
@Botsplainer: “Riot is the only way to get their attention.”
Rioting gets their attention but to what end?
P.S. The story of your grandfather is probably very common. I assume many older Whites hold harsh views of Blacks given the Jim Crow era. Most older Whites probably hearken back to the “good old days” when Blacks knew their place (as Mammies and servants). It’s got to be shocking to them that a Black man is in the White House as the leader of the free world.
Patricia Kayden
@rk: That sounds like a scary encounter. Sad that she behaved like that in front of her impressionable children. Knock on wood that I haven’t been subjected to such abuse as yet.
Botsplainer
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
It’s absurdly easy to set up. I’m guessing that he’d have paid somebody 5-10K to do the formation. I know I used to charge 5K when I did them 15 years ago. Nowadays, there are overseas incorporating firms originating from China that have them established in the hundreds just in Anguilla – all nicely aged and hard to find. You can buy a 10 year old company off the rack, never used. The prices are somewhat more premium but still fairly cheap compared to what I charged way back when.
I got out when (never liked doing them – did a few, felt dirty) some guy from Hong Kong and asked me about my rate for establishing them in bulk. I got the serious creepy vibe, and set a price higher than they were willing to pay, but high enough for me to think I would never get indicted as a co-conspirator in something horrible. Three months later, they were calling and offering pre-established entities for bargain rates, which for me, took out the safety angle, so I folded up my tent and refused to do it anymore.
Botsplainer
@Patricia Kayden:
I was genuinely pleased to know that my maternal grandmother was alive, kicking and lucid for Barack Obama’s election and re-election. I know she was horrified beyond rational thought.
Violet
@Botsplainer: Completely agree re: the visit to the Bahamas. It’s a very good way for him to hide his money. I would be shocked the judge allowed him to go to the Bahamas but not much shocks me when it’s a white man getting special treatment.
PhoenixRising
@Zandar:
Hospital, cell or coffin…that’s almost exactly what the Baltimore mom who pulled her teen son out of the crowd, went upside his head & dragged him into his school by his ear was saying, AFAICT from the video.
My sister is a PhD researching the connection between this swallowed anger and certain health outcomes. Guess what? Genetically, ‘race’ is a non-starter; biologically, ‘race’ doesn’t seem to exist…yet ‘race’ determines how long you will live, how healthy your baby will be born and a host of other biological realities.
And what the science seems to be coming down to is, Repressed anger will kill you, but first it will make you sick.
It’s disturbing that more research is needed to prove that racism kills in more subtle ways, because it seems so obvious.
jl
@PhoenixRising:
” Hospital, cell or coffin…that’s almost exactly what the Baltimore mom who pulled her teen son out of the crowd, went upside his head & dragged him into his school by his ear was saying, AFAICT from the video. ”
That was an interesting video. Not sure when it was taken. But it was interesting insight into who a lot of these supposedly criminal thuggees (to go back to the origin of the term) in the crowds are: pissed off kids.
When they closed down the transit that kids used to get home from school, and many were left stranded on the streets with nothing to do, what did they expect to happen when many young people in the community were outraged and pissed off by recent police misconduct that has a long history.
What can explain the inability of our well paid corporate hack press to understand, other than unconscious (for most of them, but not all) racism and classism? I can’t think of anything.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
I think it’s also a matter of the judge thinking about the case as a criminal case rather than a civil one. That means the big worry was flight risk rather than him hiding his money. If you’re not thinking in the right domain, you won’t notice the right warning signs.
Violet
@Roger Moore: I doubt the judge wasn’t “thinking in the right domain.” I’d guess it was a wink and a nod to okay his trip to the Bahamas. Wouldn’t surprise me if the judge knew what was up.
samiam
As white as white can possibly be Cole,avid reader of Griftwald, and 2 time Bush voter is now going to lecture us about the black struggle. Please continue.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: disagree, African American voices were cut out of the mainstream and black media was largely religious based and dominated by frankly kind of older people. Social media allows me to connect with young activists, journalists, and pundits in real time and at any time, not just at conferences and then you go home.
And the racists were on web 1.0. Not as bad bc before corporate internet sysadmins could ban people for being vile. Although white ppl dominated and probably tolerated more racism than they should have. But then AOL happened.
Another Holocene Human
@samiam: You have problems reading for comprehension, don’t you?