This, IMO, is the kind of brilliant back-and-forth Twitter was invented for…
some of y’all don’t understand this tweet because you don’t know how you sound when you accommodate racism.
FTR: I’m for tipping > 20% https://t.co/O4htbExh73
— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) July 31, 2018
we will never get anywhere being smug about restaurantally-tinged divisiveness. https://t.co/h1n3qpJI1a
— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) July 31, 2018
“Did you know that some waitstaff are people of color?” @jdesmondharris, in the mocking voice of a dullard making a prediction while reading my mentions.
Just keep the same energy, you dummies.
— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) July 31, 2018
they haven’t because they refuse to step outside their bubble. https://t.co/ZnefLjnG3d
— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) July 31, 2018
i knew it was going to happen before i tweeted it but i still had to let it fly, fam. lol
— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) July 31, 2018
When it comes to tipping, there are very fine people on both sides. https://t.co/2r8ky3vvrM
— gina uriarte (@GinaUriarte) July 31, 2018
There was a time in this country when we didn’t tip well enough, which was wrong I guess, but there was this waiter who got promoted to manager in 2008 so our entire non-tipping legacy is redeemed and now you’re just whining and I’ve beaten this into the ground now and I’ll stop.
— Cory (@coryiniowa) July 31, 2018
the nyt picked this up yet?
— end racism (@paul_t_miller) July 31, 2018
Who do you suppose published the inspiration for this snark in the first place?
To start a real conversation about racism ignore the harm done to people of color especially Black people & make it all about preserving the feelings of white people…y'all. I need us to just write the Times off for good & move it along okay? Okay. pic.twitter.com/WzI68ClanI
— ?Mikki Kendall? (@Karnythia) July 30, 2018
Remember: The advice to liberals is always "Be nice to the racists;" it's never "Hey, racists, be nice to the rest of us." https://t.co/eUmOrpwyya
— The Rude Pundit (@rudepundit) July 30, 2018
schrodingers_cat
All these articles are written for white people by white people. What about asking those at the receiving end of the hate? Has NYT thought about that? Or this blog for that matter.
oatler.
Chuck Todd religiously retweets GOP shit, his only original tweets seem to be sports related. Way to stick it to The Man.
Frankensteinbeck
@schrodingers_cat:
We did, and I will never forgive the racist assholes who drove ABL away. Cole said that as much shit as she got in the comments sections, the moderation filters were catching a thousand times as much venom that we never saw. Absent her, I have tried to listen to the PoC here when they express their opinions on issues that have anything to do with race. It has been eye opening.
kindness
About a month ago I got a Sunday NY Times delivered instead of the SF Chronicle I subscribe to. I called and asked for a Chronicle and the guy came and said they ran out.
It was nice to read and I thought about getting a Sunday only subscription but could not bring myself to give that paper one dime of my money. Nope. It isn’t worth my honor to help them sell their dirty propaganda.
Miss Bianca
Copied over from previous thread, because Open Thread!
Colorado jackals, I will be interviewing Democratic candidate for state Attorney General, Phil Weiser, tomorrow after his meet and greet in Salida. Any questions/issues/topics of special interest to you? Lay ’em on me!
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@Frankensteinbeck:
I knew that she left, but I didn’t know why.
Whether I agreed or disagreed with her, she always made me think about the issue at hand.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: True in the past but right now we have no one. In the era of T we need other POVs. I am glad that we have more women than we did in the past. BC, AL, CR and Tamara.
dnfree
White liberals are always doing it wrong when it comes to racists. I agree with the rude pundit. I have a relative (in his early 40s) who consistently rejects evidence that Trump has a racist bone in his body. So of course none of his supporters do either. Today I posted something on Facebook about how Trump enables Alex Jones of Infowars and his conspiracy theories, and my youthful relative told me that’s no different than the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory. It’s difficult to know how to counter that attitude because it’s so impervious.
trollhattan
@kindness:
Does it still weigh seventeen pounds?
Saw my first copy of the Sunday NYT at a friend’s house where his ‘rents subscribed. Gobsmacked I was at the size, heft and ambition. His folks–a teacher and a librarian–would take a week reading the entire thing. As rituals go it beat teevee.
trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
I demand a “sadder but Weiser” joke.
Good luck, sounds like a great opportunity.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
This. During her time here, ABL took more garbage from asshole bigots and the front pagers had to wade through more shit than we’ll ever know. It still makes me sad that we don’t still have her gracing the front page. And I agree about taking the comments of the jackals of color here to heart and really contemplating what they say. I think it’s changed me for the better, gotten me out the white bubble that living in an 8% minority county puts me in. I’m well known for not tolerating any sort of racism (and other -isms) and always have been. But regular interactions with people of color here have shown me that I still have blind spots and things I don’t and may never know and I’m working on that.
Roger Moore
Just remember: there are plenty of non-tippers at the NY Times, so it’s vital that everyone be very careful not to treat failure to tip as a terrible social faux pas.
A Ghost To Most
@Miss Bianca:
Self interest wants me to have you ask him if he will protect our MJ industry from Foghorn Leghorn and Yosemite Sam.
dnfree
I started reading Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic way back when few people had heard of him (maybe 2008). He opened my eyes about a lot of things, and is still doing so. Here’s an example from last October. He’s so incisive and to the point. I understand he has left The Atlantic now.
http://ew.com/books/2017/10/31/ta-nehisi-coates-john-kelly-civil-war-history/
Enzymer
@Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman): I follow her on Twitter. She still has a biting wit
Schlemazel
@Frankensteinbeck:
It may have been schrodinger’s cat but someone posted about Oliver WIllis
http://oliverwillis.com/
I have read him on & off for some time now but he really deserves more attention for his take on events. There is not one “black” take on events but Olivers is a good read
geg6
@dnfree:
Yes, he opened mine a lot, too. A tragic loss for The Atlantic.
Mary G
@geg6: Yeah, Black Twitter has pointed out a lot of flaws in myself that I was blind to. It’s that “fish doesn’t know it’s swimming in water” thing. I have a horde of deplorable relatives I cut out of my life 30 years ago, but they got it from the same ancestors I came from.
Humdog
There have been millions of MAGAt safari stories. There have been many news reports of people getting hassled or police called on them for being black. Have there been articles about the life experiences of people of color in the US since we turned the hate up to 18? Have there been articles about the majority of voters who no longer recognize their country? What about articles about people who orphaned themselves after losing their families to Faux and how they are misunderstood by their MAGAt families?
Why do we only get the same stories over and over? I am looking further afield for stories but still it is so lopsided. Doesn’t any writer want their stuff to stand out? You don’t get prizes for the 1000th story about the same Cletus and Lady Deplorables.
schrodingers_cat
@Humdog: For NYT we don’t exist unless we vote R.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
I seem to recall there being a suggestion that lamh, ruemera, or rikyrah consider becoming a FPer, but none of them seemed very enthusiastic due to time constraints.
Schlemazel
@kindness:
when living in
hellFlorida (early 90s) I used to get a weekly summary of opinion pieces from the Washington WHores Post. It was a great read at the time & then they started carrying Rush Lambrain (seriously?!?! That asshole?!) and the like. It was not worth the price to read their shit.hitchhiker
At some point all this finger-pointy bullshit will just fade away, right? There will come a day when we all finally, finally understand that the whole culture and everybody in it suffers from racism, some as victims and some as cruel spectators and some as deliberate ignorer/enablers and some as perpetrators?
The original sin concept in Catholicism is that we start out with a mark on our souls, and must spend our days in vigilance lest the evil in our DNA overwhelms us. It’s useful to citizens of this country to remember that racism in its ugliest, purest form arrived in 1619 with the first African slaves, and that it was a big factor in getting the colonies & later the USA to thrive.
For some damn white person to quack out this noise in 2018 — 400 years later! — about how people need to be approached gently on the subject ought to make us all vomit simultaneously.
Gah, I’ve so had it.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
And MisterMix and Dennis G. I think ABL had it worse because she was also female, but all of our minority front pagers have had awful racists blogstalkers.
ruemara
@dnfree: I have an idea. Say, you’re absolutely incorrect. He’s racist & he’s a traitor. And if they want to fight, say I won’t fight you because I’m right, nothing you say is. Thanks, bye.
Silence makes them feel they’re right. Telling them they’re wrong means they understand you will not agree with them. Stop being silent.
@Humdog: The payoff of serious person status and white appreciation is worth a heck of a lot more than a silly old Pulitzer.
@debbie: I don’t think even heard of that. My skill in posting cat pics is paying off!
Schlemazel
@dnfree:
TNC is a national treasure. When I don’t agree with him I always check my assumptions. He makes me a better person
Major Major Major Major
Heh, I saw these tweets playing out live. It was fun for a minute, until I remembered that the necessity was just sad and angry-making.
Also, yes, let’s get some POC on the front page again!
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
“Merely honoring his ancestors by driving a car with the Confederate flag on it”
Oh fuck this shit. His ancestors were traitors to America if they fought for the Confederate side. End of story. And that’s taking him at face value. Lots of white racists fly the CSA battle flag because of what it represents: white supremacy.
eponymous
@Miss Bianca: That’s really terrific, congratulations. He’s a good guy, so I expect his stances are all good, but maybe ask him about his intentions or actions concerning child jails/ICE – along those lines. I just want that issue constantly in the news. Let us know what you thought of him!
Humdog
@schrodingers_cat: I know of one woman who lives in Ohio and was born in the Philippines. She is getting enough abuse for looking foreign she no longer will go to the grocery store, even with her white husband. She was accosted while taking a walk in the neighborhood she has lived in for 12years, and was hurt physically. She refused to go to the police because she feared they would pile on the abuse or that the incident would be publicized and her biz owning husband could lose business.
What sort of life does this woman have now? How did November 2016 end her former life and what hope can she have now? Her daughter, while mixed race, planned on having kids and starting a day care. Now she will do neither, because of fear.
I think we would all appreciate learning more about such people and I am certain they have a lot to say. I can see such a write up as a sure award like a Pulitzer if done well. I suppose I can dust off any skill I used to have in writing, but the whole country needs to hear it.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost To Most: Oh, yeah, I’ll make sure to ask about that one! I know a lot of our readers will want to know where he stands on that issue!
@eponymous: Thanks, great question! I’ll post a link to the interview in the comments somewhere after it’s written up!
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Roger Moore:
MM was a Berniebro, so no loss there. I remember the whole “Zack” episode.
Also, don’t forget Zandar. He had to deal with a stalker.
Gex
I’m going to need Ms. Renki to do it first. Show us how she can convert an unmitigated racist into a non-racist with just sweetness and light.
Because what I see is a racist who seems to have assumed that black people never ever even considered asking nicely to not be treated the way they are.
Or maybe, more apropos for the times, she strikes me as someone who sells a get rich with real estate program because she knows that shit doesn’t work and can only make money selling the program, not using the program.
FTFNYT
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
Adam Silverman ain’t of the non-pasty persuasion? Who knew?
:)
Humdog
@ruemara: I keep forgetting the social pay off of being considered a serious person by the Village ‘cause it’d mean shit to me.
A Ghost To Most
@Schlemazel:
Eugene Robinson alone has kept me coming back to WaPo. Once I quit because of Jen Rubin; I came back after she started her long walk back from Jenghazi..
WaPo reporters are digging deep into the orange shitpile. They are as vital now as they were during Watergate.
FTFNYT, and FLBJ.
ruemara
@Humdog: That is awful. I feel horrible for her. I wish I had some good suggestions, but I also now refuse to travel too far away from Sac because, I’m sorry, I just don’t trust people anymore and I am less trustful of cops out in the northern hinterlands.
dnfree
@ruemara: Oh, I am absolutely not “silent”. I respond all the time, but it gets discouraging. I am not one to block people on social media, and I am glad to have the “window” into how other people look at things, but I wish I could make even a small dent in the armor. I think liberals who have blocked their right-wing relatives may not realize how bad things have gotten.
A Ghost To Most
@Miss Bianca:
Tell him I thought his first commercial was great. Serious and humorous at the same time.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Miss Bianca: Awesome! Ghost and eponymous already hit two of mine. Not sure how to phrase it, but I’d want to know how he will keep Obamacare in Colorado intact (well, more or less).
Steeplejack
ruemara
@dnfree: I think blocking & hiding these people is often just to allow a certain amount of blindness so you can retain the relationship.
Humdog
@ruemara: The reports of racists inCalifornia are so discouraging. It’s not that I didn’t think we had them here, but we have so many people of color I figured the racists have gotten used to it, or resigned to it if that is their attitude. Or even that they would fear popping off because whites don’t have the numbers on their side. But nope.
I am very sorry to hear you have circumscribed your travels for fear of your safety from people who look like me. I would gladly be your white chaperone if you get the urge to see redwoods or to cool off not that far from you. My last 4 encounters with police have not been great, but I do stand up better for other people than for myself.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I didn’t know MM was a POC. That said, I do not miss his shit-stirring.
A Ghost To Most
@dnfree:
Why do you think we have cut them out of our lives?
randy khan
I have mixed feelings about these kinds of articles. On the one hand, they anger me because I’m not the one who’s spewing racist (or sexist, or homophobic) garbage, and not the one who is hating people based on physical characteristics, so I really shouldn’t have to adapt. (And that goes double for PoC, women, and LGBT people, who are the targets of that hatred.) Not to mention that being nice to those people (a) likely won’t have much effect; and (b) will raise my blood pressure.
On the other hand, the good feeling you get from telling them they’re racist or acting homophobic, etc. really doesn’t do much for anyone. It doesn’t make them less racist, and for ones letting their racist flags fly, doesn’t make them less likely to act out. It’s possible you might shame some people into shutting up about their racism (which is not to be dismissed – making it socially unacceptable to be a racist is a step towards a society where people think they shouldn’t be racist), but that won’t happen too often. So it might make sense to think about ways you can be more subtle, particularly when you’re dealing with people who may not realize what they’re doing. (For some reason, I’m reminded here of the story from the ’08 campaign about the canvasser who went to a house where two old white people lived, and was told by one of them that they were “voting for the n_____.” Apparently it wasn’t a one-off, either.) Maybe only a few people can be moved off what they feel now, but any bit of progress is good.
(And, relatedly, I find myself thinking of the baseball players who recently have been outed for tweets with homophobic language in them. Some of them may really be homophobic, but there also historically has been something of a culture in sports where you make fun of your teammates in ways you wouldn’t, say, make fun of a colleague in an office, and occasionally it leaks out. They shouldn’t have written those things, and they should suffer appropriate consequences, but in at least one case it was when the player was a lot younger, and you hope there’s some capacity for growth and maturation.) (I should add that, personally, I think one of the consequences should be sitting down with a willing group of gay fans – if such a group can be found – to hear how those kinds of things hurt them personally. It needs to be less abstract.)
A Ghost To Most
@Major Major Major Major: I didn’t know either.
Miss Bianca
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: Oh, yeah, GREAT question. CO jackals coming thru’! : )
ruemara
@Humdog: HA! I’ll keep that open. I don’t like the trapped feeling America has been giving me since 2000 and it’s worse now. But I want to go see things. I hope to try some gold panning or hobby gem digging. I rarely have any interactions with cops at all beyond hello, I am lost can you direct me. I just want to retain a sense of humans largely doing the good thing.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Same one’s I gave you for the other guy.
Ladyraxterinok
@schrodingers_cat: There are several POC who comment here. I used to think asking 1 of them to be a front pager would be a good idea. The I read all the comments about how POC being visible here and on other blogs are subject to relentless attacks. Who could ask someone to subject themselves to that??
Baud
@randy khan:
We can debate best strateg in good faith, but the tone of this article is condescending to people like us.
Roger Moore
@Humdog:
California is a big enough place that there’s still plenty of space for white flight.
Humdog
@Ladyraxterinok: I fear it would only be safe to try again if we all knew the banhammer would fly like we’ve never see it here. Even then, tho, you couldn’t recruit someone to that shitstorm, they’d have to volunteer.
SFBayAreaGal
Damn, the FTFNYT hit all the spaces on the racist bingo card plus expressing white fragility, white privilege and white supremacy.
What a piece of shit
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, dang…that was the one on voting integrity, wasn’t it?
Major Major Major Major
@Ladyraxterinok: I will say that I’m often reluctant to get too vocal about LGBT (especially T) stuff here, and have no plans to post anything very gay at the moment. The fights about Chelsea Manning’s name were not fun.
Baud
If we can’t have POC front pagers, I’d settle for the ability to edit comments in mobile.
The Midnight Lurker
Yes, you can call them racists. I’ve lived with these people most of my life. What’s happened is NOT natural. Some of these friends of mine developed strong racial opinions AFTER they left college. Most of the older folk were pretty politically supine until OBAMA. Blame Facebook (I do) and other social media, FOX, Limberg, Alex Jones, etc. What’s happening is that these forces and others are super-charging racism. I simply do not recognize my friends and family members who have gone this way. But they’re not fools – they are embracing this new political paradigm. They want to go this way.
We are way far past the, “Be nice to them – they’ve be misled” bullshit. These people aren’t just racists – they’re wannabe fascists. It’s truly fucking terrifying. Most days I feel like I’m living out the second act of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Humdog
@ruemara: I have no luck with gold panning but we have a great beach known as Agate Beach, because agates. And tide pools and forest or beach hikes. Fewer people could mean fewer people problems, but our cops hassle Native Americans, can not solve a black boy’s homicide, and generally cover for good old boys.
lamh36
Evening BJ.
Soooo the summer movie season is almost over…at the very least, the summer blockbuster season is over. So now is the time for the hot fall movie trailers to began dropping.
Today fall movie trailer: Venom, starring Tom Hardy. Yes, another comic book movie, but less a hero more anit-hero?
While I know a good bit about the Spiderman canon…I’ll admit, that I have only superfiical knowledge of Venom…but I like Tom Hardy and the trailer looks pretty good. Hopefully the movie is more than just the parts of the trailer we see…hmmm.
VENOM – Official Trailer 2 (HD) https://youtu.be/xLCn88bfW1o via @YouTube
Major Major Major Major
@Humdog: Agate Beach is neat.
Bolinas is weird.
Miss Bianca
I, for one, really miss ABL on this blog. : (
lamh36
Percysowner
I;m not sure where else to put this, but Hugh Hewitt (I KNOW) has and ESPECIALLY bad column today Even if you loathe Trump, vote Republican basically, Democrats have gone insane and are acting like decent human beings, and Republicans aren’t going to push back on Trump’s horrors, but vote Republican anyway, because behaving like a decent human being is worse (for Hewitt’s taxes, I guess).
Jay
@dnfree:
“but I wish I could make even a small dent in the armor. ”
Won’t happen, ever. The conservative mind clings desperately to it’s world view. Change only happens through a traumatic life changing event, to them or a very close loved one. Often the change only effects their view on that one related issue.
“I think liberals who have blocked their right-wing relatives may not realize how bad things have gotten.”
You don’t need to online interact with former friends and relatives to see the cray-cray, when you can watch a Congresscritter cite Alex Jones on CSpan.
Interacting with Trump’s America is actually making people sick.
Miss Bianca
@lamh36: So.Much.Winning.
Humdog
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe a different Agate Beach? Mine is at Patrick’s Point in Trinidad. never been to Bolinas.
Also, sorry to hear you don’t feel this community would be as receptive to LGBT issues as we ought. Maybe if there is no treason mixed in like Chelsea, it would go better? Or maybe we need to be challenged on it if you can stand putting it out there.
Jeffro
@Percysowner: that is one lame ass article . We had a pretty good chat about a few threads ago. I think the general consensus was that if you realize that this is their last best hope/argument we are in a pretty good spot is November. Now we just need to run to the finish line!
randy khan
@Baud:
I’ll admit I didn’t bother reading it, because to a large extent they’re all the same, so I’m not surprised to hear that the tone was condescending. I have yet to see one that does any kind of decent job analyzing the problem of people who are racists; they all just seem to say that liberals have all the agency and should be the ones who adapt.
Mandalay
@A Ghost To Most:
I don’t like her or trust her, or David Frum, or Max Boot, or Bill Kristol, or George Will, or Joe Scarborough or any of the other Republicans who pretend to be chummy with Democrats while Trump is in charge because it is convenient for them, and they have nowhere else to go.
They were all vile and condescending before Trump took over, and the minute he’s replaced by Romney or Pence or some other odious shit they’ll be gone from CNN and **MSNBC, and start badmouthing Democrats again.
** Sadly, I fear Scarborough, the vilest of the lot, will probably still be around.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Hey Adam, what do you make of Michael Frank Scheuer and his call to murder any and all Democrats? If anyone wants to read about his guy here’s a link.
lamh36
I was thinking if Mueller gets some Dems caught in his crosshairs, that the GOP screaming partisanship, would be moot (of course it won’t stop them)…
eemom
Agree that we need more POC FPers here, but meanwhile, there are other sites like The Root and its subset, Very Smart Brothas, that folks looking to expand their perspectives can check out. I’m sure there are others as well.
Platonailedit
@lamh36:
What a shitshow.
Another lurker
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Not just the stars and bars. The other day I was on I-75. I passed a Pick up that was proudly sporting the double, vertical lightning bolts, the insignia of the S.S..
These people need to be ignored, marginalized, be-littled. If they live in your neighborhood they need to be shunned. Shunning works for many cultures to point out and correct many negative behaviors. The JWitnesses use it effectively when someone is “disfellowshipped.”
debbie
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
I remember reading his book (about the U.S.’s hubris) right after 9/11 and he seemed to make sense then, but he’s a nutjob now. Meth maybe?
father pusbucket
@Baud:
Thank you. This lit the figurative bulb above my head. I think my brain is wired to focus on logic such that I missed the condescension. I feel that I’m always obligated to call out racist speech and behavior, but I see no value in labeling people I know personally as “a” racist because it’s pointless (public figures are another matter). And, yes, I have given up on some people and simply avoid communicating with them at all.
And Ms. Renki is sure as hell wrong about one thing: these people don’t “think” they’re honoring their ancestors (and all the rest of it); that’s what they say. Also +1 for randy khan.
Major Major Major Major
@Humdog: I’m sure it’s a common name for beaches littered with agate! Bolinas is across the lagoon from Point Reyes.
It’s just very enervating dealing with assholes in identity threads, even if it’s only a few.
ruemara
@Humdog: I think the tendency to trip and fall right into slurville is a sign that you need to work on your own prejudicial issues. I have great sympathy for Chelsea Manning’s distress due to gender dysphoria, but I also think she’s a real basket of fail and vapidity, both pre & post coming out. I just want her to get some help and not be used. But anger to her is no reason to misgender her. See also my stance on prison rape jokes and any other racial slurs.
lamh36
Dan B
@Humdog: I grew up in a small town in Ohio. Catholics were considered foreign. Niw I live in South Seattle. There are lots of Filipino stores snd neighbors. The neighborhood is 10 percent white. We’re glad we live here. Some family won’t visit. Good!
Schlemazel
@Major Major Major Major:
I didn’t either
I do miss MM
Ladyraxterinok
Things I didn’t learn in school (HS grad 1957): 1st black slaves brought to colonies in 1619, WH built by slave labor, etc.
I attended Tulsa public schools from 1946 to 1957. Never, ever heard about the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. When I said that in the 90s to a black colleague who also grew up in Tulsa, she just looked at me and said simply that blacks in Tulsa have ALWAYS known about the Riot…and its aftermath.
Once again reminded that I and all whites have a lot to learn.
Schlemazel
@Ladyraxterinok:
It takes a special kind of person. I don’t think I would enjoy having to ignore that level of ugly aimed at me
eemom
@Mandalay:
Agreed. Another lesson in suckerdom, the way people keep falling for the “nouveau woke” schtick that those dyed in the wool hacks are milking for all it’s worth while the milking’s good.
Next up, the Koch brothers.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@randy khan:
Then why does every Black/Muslim/Latinx/LGBTQ person that I know personally encourage and thank me for doing so?
As Dacia Mitchell of the Unreasonable Fridays podcast (which sometimes features Imani Gandy) noted: it makes the world just a little bit better and safer for Black people: isn’t that a good enough reason??
lamh36
nymofnyms
I liked ABL because she was angry. And black. And a lady. What’s not to like?
As for dealing with racists in your daily life, I long ago took the attitude of Rude Pundit. I’m not going to change how I talk to them just so that they feel better about themselves. I tell them they’re wrong, that Jesus told me so, and that he also told me to tell them that they needed to go fuck themselves.
I mean, it’s right there in the Holy Bible.
Schlemazel
@Mandalay:
each of those made Dump possible. They have supported the worst of the ‘conservative’ viewpoints as long as those views were couched in dog whistles. There is no reason to believe they will no go right back to it once a polite Republican goes back to humming the dirty parts
Schlemazel
@lamh36:
Vin Webber was replaced in COngress by Batchit Bachmann. I would LOVE to see him go to jail!
Mike in NC
@lamh36: I immediately figured Kim would ship the US a bunch of boxes filled with goat bones and whatnot. Trump is such a gullible cretin.
ruemara
@randy khan: I hate to tell you, but it’s not a “good feeling” that telling them they’re wrong & racist causes. What it does is break tacit consent silence grants.
lamh36
Platonailedit
smintheus
It boggles my mind how many people can read a sentence like that and not instantly recognize the tweet is about racism. And then…
Truly, the art of the dope slap is a bygone memory.
smintheus
@Ladyraxterinok: I grew up in a small New England village in the ’60s where almost nothing happened, living right next door to a town property where the largest Klan rally north of the Mason-Dixon line had been held during the 1920s. Nobody once mentioned it. I learned about it only by accident decades after I’d moved away, by doing an internet image search.
RandomMonster
A President Baud would move the Garbage NYT to a landfill. (Angling for a post in a Baud administration.)
Dan B
@randy khan: Good post. I immediately flashed on how I would never ask a POC acquaintance to talk to a racist relative. Why would I subject them to that?
As a gay man I have encountered many homophobes and spoken to groups that didn’t know openly gay people. Part of the reason is we are mostly invisible and also a part of every community. We’re everywhere. Our next door neighbors, a black family (we’re white, neighbors on three sides are black) thought that my partner and I were brothers. They’re really friendly and haven’t changed a bit since my partner explained we were a couple.
The dilemma with POC is they’re obviously POC, for the most part. If racists want to know about POC they know where to look. It would, of course, be awkward. It reminds me of a friend who’s a black Muslim, an Imam. His congregation works with a couple women from Somalia who cater “share a meal with a Muslim” dinners. (Yum!) Another acquaintance is with the local CAIR. He’s trying to build bridges between the local LGBTQ community and the Muslim community but hi priorities are with protecting Muslims from the current regime. And the suspicions of locsl gays are strong.
In addition to “voting” we need to put time into building connections between communities. Trying to move racists feels very un-strategic, a distraction.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: I had people on threads here angrily explaining to me that gosh darn it a person can’t force them to use whatever name and pronoun they like that day! What’s to stop her from identifying as an enchilada??
And then the other day a few people were being dickish about a fairly routine queer theory explanation of how even a well meaning Trump-sucking-Putin’s-dick joke can still be seen as homophobic. Killed my desire to talk about this stuff for a while.
lamh36
Here’s mine: Dancing with a forbidden love.
Steeplejack
@smintheus:
If you read that whole Twitter thread, which is both hilarious and horrible, it is amazing how many people deep in the thread make comments showing that they think it’s all about and only about tipping.
Occasionally you will see a “D’oh! Now I get it.”
gene108
@hitchhiker:
Racism started a 120 years earlier, with the Spanish annihilation and subjugation of the Native Americans they encountered. Europeans only turned to African slaves, because the Native Americans were dying off in large numbers, probably due to diseases brought by the Europeans, to provide a large enough slave force for European colonization.
Edit: Basically racism in the Western Hemisphere began the second Columbus set foot here. It is engrained in all aspects of our civilization.
John Revolta
Look, all’s I’m sayin’ is, how would you like it if your sister went out with a n**-*****r?
Ladyraxterinok
@Dan B: I grew up in OK and graduated HS the yr our schools were desegregated (and whites moved out of the district to the suburbs). When I came back to town to interview for a small college teaching position in April 1989, I stood on the steps of a building in the early evening and looked across the campus. I saw only black students. An impossible occurence in 1957 when I left for college.
Humdog
Major4, you nailed it with the term enervating. My heart starts pounding in my ears and I want to flee if I get what could be construed as a negative response to a comment. Hard to imagine what a front page post and hostile comments would provoke but enervating it would be.
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Zandar’s stalker was terrifying. Like, “clear and present danger of bodily harm” terrifying.
Dan B
@ruemara: Your comment struck a chord. 25 years ago I dated a black guy. Fell head over heels for him. He was so out of my league – currently provost at a second tier Ivy League school… I talked him into hiking at Mt. Rainier. He was extremely anxious and very glad to get back to the city. It was a revelation even though I’d lived in the deep south before integration. Now a senior ranger at My. Rainier is black and tries to get POC into the outdoors.
It still hurts to think of that trip to Mt. Rainier. (And I get wistful thinking of him.)
Ben Cisco
That FTNYT article is garbage. I’ve long since adopted VDE’s stance regarding them – they’re just as big a threat (if not bigger) as the fascist cult they’re constantly providing chaff/flare cover for.
As for the blog and POC voices, after what ABL, Zandar, et al went through, it’s nice to see an appreciation of and call for more of them here. I also second the calls to check out The Root, Very Smart Brothas, and TNC. Good and varied takes all.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: That was my suggestion. I don’t know if JGC asked them.
Dan B
@ruemara: Your comment struck a chord. 25 years ago I dated a black guy. Fell head over heels for him. He was so out of my league – currently provost at a second tier Ivy League school… I talked him into hiking at Mt. Rainier. He was extremely anxious and very glad to get back to the city. It was a revelation even though I’d lived in the deep south before integration. Now a senior ranger at My. Rainier is black and tries to get POC into the outdoors.
It still hurts to think of that trip to Mt. Rainier. (And I get wistful thinking of him.)@Major Major Major Major:
ruemara
@Major Major Major Major: You are seen. And it’s entirely fair. I don’t expect to have to explain to liberals that this is transphobia. I’m fundy raised. If all I did was shrug and say, ok, inside you’re a woman and you need to be able to let your outsides match, then it should be less of an obstacle for non-fundy liberals.
Major Major Major Major
@Humdog: I learned the word from dungeons and dragons, as I recall ?
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
There is so much violence directed at transgender people and it’s getting almost no coverage. We could do a lot more to educate ourselves and provide a safer space here than we do now. Maybe one of our book threads could be used to provide sources for learning. I also think there are times and topics that would benefit from more assertive moderation.
schrodingers_cat
Russia is targeting its dissidents using ICE
link
A Ghost To Most
@ruemara: There are plenty of places here to pan for gold, and there is a mountain near Salida where people find gems. Two checks, one trip?
Dan B
@Major Major Major Major: I hear you. It’s great to hear you mention your husband. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed, be yourself and tell your story.
I got involved in Chicago Gay Liberation in 1969. In two years we faced down a Mafia contract, faced down the Chicaho Vice Squad, got dancing in the bars, and did two actions at the 1971 American Psychiatric Association convention. The most satisfying thing for many of us was the speakers bureau. We just told iur stories (fairly dramatic in that era) and took questions from the audience. You could feel hearts and minds open. Niw most of our friends are in 20 plus year relationships, something that was extremely rare in the early 70s, except for independently wealthy men and people in the “gay jobs”.
What’s happening with Sessions and Pence is frightening. I was booted out of college in 1970. Many people lost jobs or suffered in mental hospitals. Going back would be torture.
BruceFromOhio
Yes, you should be using kerosene on every single one of those fucking flags. It helps clarify the topic for all interested parties, or stupid fucking columnists.
Just what I want in this life is a finger-wagging lecture from the FTFNYT opinion page, of all places.
Ladyraxterinok
@smintheus: I only learned that the Klan had been very strong in the 20s in Tulsa when my gramma told me about her experience with the Klan when I was in grade school.
She was invited to join the ladies auxiliary. She said she politely told them she wouldn’t (couldn’t ?) join anything her husband couldn’t join. (He was from Switzerland, and the Klan hated ‘foreigners.)
IIRC she said they approached her because she was a good member of the First Baptist Church. I didn’t think anything about her comment at the time, but now…?
We certainly never learned in the Tulsa schools about how strong the Klan had been in the city.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
Yikes when did this happen? I’m wondering if I missed it because I was elsewhere or missed it because I was being stupid.
MagdaInBlack
On the subject of history we white folk were not taught, I highly recommend
” The Warmth Of Other Suns : The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” Isabel Wilkerson
smintheus
@Steeplejack: Yeah, it’s hilarious and worrying. I posted that comment after reading the twitter thread, with the original poster repeatedly telling dimbulbs that it’s not really about tipping, and further dimbulbs still not getting it.
Roger Moore
@Uncle Ebeneezer:
I think this is right. The point of calling people out when they do racist stuff is to let them know that we won’t tolerate it. They may not like being called out, but that’s still better than letting them get away with it with no push back. The last thing we want is to normalize racism, and letting it slide does just that.
smintheus
@lamh36: People suck mostly
rikyrah
@Miss Bianca:
How are they handling the legal marijuana issue, now that we have Attorney General White Citizens Council?
Stance on 3-D guns?
What steps should Colorado take to expand voting?
Platonailedit
@schrodingers_cat:
Talk about becoming a stooge state. #maga
Amir Khalid
@lamh36:
Why am I not surprised?
lamh36
@lamh36: BTW, this is the article from WashPo this tweet references:
@washingtonpost
They speak English. Their co-workers don’t. At a rural chicken plant, whites struggle to adapt to a changing country.
Ladyraxterinok
@Major Major Major Major: Resistance to name and pronoun choice reminds me of the rabid resistance many whites had to calling Cassius Clay by his new name Muhammed Ali.
A Ghost To Most
@nymofnyms:
Fuck civility.
Major Major Major Major
@MomSense: last week sometime? The Manning stuff was longer ago, more during her transition/coming out period.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
That except from the Times starts with a hell of a straw man…white liberals need to stop screaming racist? When has anyone, anywhere ever seen that happen IRL? Maybe if it actually happened? I’ve never seen it happen outside some kind of mass protest event.
Like just two random people on the street and one is yelling at the other that they’re racist? Never, ever happens but maybe should. Being polite and accommodating which is what happens 99% of the time sure isn’t working, or winning any points with the sensitivity police at the NYT.
Dan B
@nymofnyms: Hooray for holy righteousness! As a gay guy I aim to achieve my inner drag queen whenever Im faced with willful idiots. Drag queens and trans women were key figures in the Stonewall riots. We need hybrid righteous Christians / drag queens. Oh, there’s Mrs. Betty Bowers, Worlds Best Christian!
lamh36
https://media.giphy.com/media/Wt7mWh1qyQ0RG/giphy.gif
A Ghost To Most
@Dan B: Give it up for Landover Baptist Church!
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
Ok, I’ll see if I can find them.
Amir Khalid
@Humdog:
Whatever Chelsea Manning did or does is an issue completely separate from her being transgendered. Does one consider the sins of cis-gendered heterosexuals when thinking about whether they belong in regular society?
Gex
@Uncle Ebeneezer: QPOC here. There’s nothing more heartening seeing someone OTHER than us stand for us.
Major Major Major Major
@MomSense: why bother?
@Amir Khalid: people make rape ‘jokes’ about prisoners that they’d never make about the non-incarcerated. Of course, there’s a bunch of homophobia wrapped in there for good measure.
? Martin
@Roger Moore: But sometimes the result is better than that. I’ve told here a story of going to my barbershop at a new hour, after my regular guy moved out of state, and watching the staff pass over a black customer. I insisted he go before me, and the customer gave me the go ahead in the same sort of exasperated ‘this shit happens to me all the time and I’m not going to make a scene over a haircut’, but I insisted and made a scene before walking out. I proceeded to call the business out on Yelp and word of mouth and elsewhere pretty much every few days. A year later the business was gone. I don’t think it was a coincidence – they were the oldest business in the city and had just completed a remodel, and the guy I was arguing with was the owner. A lot of coworkers went there and I convinced them all to go somewhere else (a new shop had just opened by a Vietnamese family and they deserved the business) and I suspect many of them encouraged others.
And part of the reason I pushed so hard is that this is a college town, and this was the closest barber to campus. There are no black barbershops nearby, and a new student might need a little time to find a community to help him find such a business and how to get there. I don’t expect the local barber to necessarily be the best fit for any given customer, but fuck if I’m going to tolerate them being hostile in the process, nor am I going to tolerate them making my job of getting students harder by putting out the signal that minorities aren’t welcome.
I don’t have to do it very often – we’re generally pretty good here, but I’ve learned to stop being polite about it. I also don’t back off. I’ve been secretly harassing a coworker that was verbally abusive to my wife some 20+ years ago. He thinks he has the worst luck, but mostly he just has me fucking with him constantly for 2 decades. Periodically I share my antics with my wife, which always makes her feel just a little bit better.
Humdog
@Amir Khalid: I fear my comment led people to believe I was defending anti trans bigotry. I am not.
Gex
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: What articles like this fail to notice is that we’ve tried talking nicely about these issues. We’ve argued and reasoned. It’s no more effective than calling them racist. We don’t start here. We end up here when they refuse to engage in discourse honestly. Once the ample evidence of centuries of white attitudes towards black people fails to break through to them, it seems only fair to call them what they are.
Gin & Tonic
@? Martin:
Huh. I didn’t realize you were Irish.
Mike in NC
@lamh36: I hope Mueller has enough dirt on Spicer to put that sychophant behind bars with the rest of them.
Ladyraxterinok
@A Ghost To Most: Landover Baptist was blocked fo a while in the 90s by the Tulsa co library system.
Schlemazel
Seeing so many people “come out” on this thread I am reminded of the now ancient New Yorker cartoon of two dogs talking while one sits at a computer: “On the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog”
If people were open to enlightenment they would be surprised at how hard it can be to tell a person’s skin color, religion, orientation, food preferences, personal vehicle model or shoe size simply by reading them in comments. It would almost make the Internet worth all the trouble it causes if people could learn
? Martin
@Gin & Tonic: Oh, I am sooo Irish. Legitimately. And yes, I learned the tactic from my even more Irish dad who delighted in destroying his employer from the inside out, ultimately turning them into the IRS over all of their tax fraud which he had been meticulously documenting for years.
schrodingers_cat
@Schlemazel
I am a cat.
BruceFromOhio
@rikyrah: These are good questions for any candidate.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
Don’t many people use jokes as subterfuge, an underhanded way of putting others down?
BruceFromOhio
@schrodingers_cat:
And you’ve been clear on that from the start. Much appreciated!
Jeffro
@MagdaInBlack: omg that is SUCH an excellent book! So rich and engaging!!
BruceFromOhio
@Schlemazel:
Facebook and Google seem to have the hang of it.
A Ghost To Most
@Roger Moore:
This. Right before I retired, a fellow DBA related dining out with a friend from OK he called a “country bumpkin”. The black waitress accidentally dropped friend’s fork off the table, and went to get a clean one. While she was gone, friend says “She only did that because she’s a ni-clang”. The DBA just shrugged at me, like what ya gonna do?
I replied “I’m a country bumpkin. He’s a fucking racist. Don’t coddle them.”
I was retired shortly after.
debbie
@lamh36:
I was hoping @realdicknixon would have a pithy tweet about this, but no. ?
Major Major Major Major
@debbie: but of course.
Barbara
@Major Major Major Major: There are more than a few expresions I no longer use after reflecting that their meaning is dependent on a view of the world that is homophobic, or that women are weak or stupid (Fill in the blank isn’t for sissies) or both (referring to gay men as Miss so and so). Strangely I don’t feel like my power to traffic in descriptive insults has been diminished.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
Spicer is a sad remora looking for a whale.
What’s Chris Christie up to?
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Major Major Major Major: I have to concede that I’ve read some dismayingly ignorant, homophobic crap on this site over the years from commenters who consider themselves progressives. There were all kinds of bullshit statements about how inherently “untrustworthy” gay people were as allies during the first Obama campaign that changed my perception of this blog as a safe space for minority perspectives.
Dan B
@Major Major Major Major: It’s great you bring up the “Trump gay for Putin” issue. It’s complex because on at least a couole gay blogs mist commenters think that’s a great dig at Trump. But there is pushback. At a deeper level it’s about misogyny, dominance, subservience. LGBTQ people have suffered great harm from those. They still do in many countries. So these images are open to abuse.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s there were many closeted people. With great frequency they were mentally unstable and abusive – see Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover. Gays called many homophobes closet cases, and they often were. Today many straight people sense the same dynamic when it’s most often simply dominance and misogyny. Conflating abusive hierarchy with closeted gays is a risky business.
Calling it out accurately and in a way that is clear and persuasive is a tightrope act. I’m glad you talked about how that responsibility makes you feel. There’s much sorrow in my life because I’m gay but it’s because of the way society has been blind to my humanity and not because my feelings are unmoored from reality.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
I read a Twitter thread in the past week, about the abuse that this government is bestowing upon the transcript community. The sudden hard times that they are having in getting passports. How, those with passports, are now getting letters , talking about their passports not being legal. This is deliberate. As deliberate as taking children from their parents with no intention of returning them . When folks like me say that they want to return to Jim Crow, we are not exaggerating, and have no time for those who would suggest that we are.
This evil muthaphuckas ? have put children in cages, and the overwhelming majority of Republicans have no problem with that. And, you think that I am going to try and understand them?
Phuck Outta Here ? ?
Major Major Major Major
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: holy cow! I wasn’t around for that but wow.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: Every time I see Christie’s name I think of Terry Malloy: “I coulda been somebody.”
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: IIRC it was about Andrew Sullivan in particular not gay people in general. Unless the Reverend is talking of something else all together.
MagdaInBlack
@Jeffro:
And heartbreaking?
BruceFromOhio
@Ladyraxterinok: Muhammad is a name of power. And then:
Cassius is an ancient Roman name.
Of course people sat up and took notice. Plus, he was the greatest.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: Are you sure you exist? Asking for Heisenberg.
Dan B
@Barbara: It’s interesting that there are many English swear words that are about sex and/or misogyny. Germans use animals for cursing, or so I was told.
Schlemazel
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m an asshole, but you all guessed that
TenguPhule
@hitchhiker:
Sadly no.
schrodingers_cat
@Dan B: I comment, therefore I am.
Matt McIrvin
@Dan B: Québécois cursing is ecclesiastical, all about hosts and tabernacles.
smintheus
Just saw this posted on local Craigslist. This is what I call an effective way of fighting back; then blame it on the Russians – hoist by one’s own petard, eh.
chopper
@debbie:
yeh. personally i think it’s a good idea to have a rotating monthly post or something for somebody. so amir or ruemara or rikyrah or whoever could toss something up but there’s no stress to produce on a regular basis. just a way of having people see things they wouldn’t notice from another world or another perspective. not
a guest post but, at the time at least, an actual fp.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
i’d suggest coming here to Hawaii but we seem to be losing our Aloha spirit over the last couple of years too.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: As a Leo, I find that I am also a cat. But based on the year of my birth, I am also a dragon. Apparently I am a cat who barfs fire not furballs.
Amir Khalid
@Dan B:
Schweinhund! Well, that one, that I know of.
dnfree
@Jay: Unfortunately in some cases those who refuse to perceive any racism in Trump are also evangelical Christians. I almost feel like having trained themselves to believe the improbable (that the book of Genesis is completely accurate scientifically, for example, and that the theory of evolution is a hoax), they are more vulnerable/gullible to believe other things that are demonstrably false. And these days there are plenty of media sources that are willing to feed them drivel. Add that to the burning desire to outlaw abortion and it’s very difficult to have an impact.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@schrodingers_cat: It may have started there. That’s not where it ended. I remember the sick feeling in my stomach as I read comments about what “gay men” were “really” like by people who felt that Roy Cohn, J Edgar, and Andrew Sullivan were representative. As a survivor in the goddamned trenches of the AIDS epidemic who demonstrated, marched, organized, fought and prayed while my heterosexual peers mostly ignored us or celebrated, reading shit like that here made it obvious that, as much as I loved and delighted in this blog and most of the jackals, I would never feel “at home”.
Barbara
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: I’m the one who pokes people in the eye with a stick if they use the “c” word. A lot of people are not really conscious of the bias lurking beneath common expressions, so it’s good to be gentle, but it gets annoying when people double down and insist that their particular use is not offensive.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: dragons are basically cats.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I learn so much on this blog.
Viva BrisVegas
@BruceFromOhio:
In a historical sense, he changed from one slave name to another.
In the Transatlantic slave trade, while whites were the retail slavers, arab muslims were the bulk of the wholesale slavers. The white slavers did not go inland to collect their cargo. Most African slaves were sold by their rulers to arab caravans and taken to markets on the west coast for sale.
Then there was the slave trade that went from sub-Saharan Africa and East Africa direct to the Middle East.
Omnes Omnibus
@Viva BrisVegas: Missing the point by a couple of miles, you are.
Chip Daniels
Substitute “pedophilia” for “racism” and see how far you get with the “be nice to them” stuff.
Brachiator
Spicer probably thought that he was in the clear here. So glad to see that he was wrong.
Steeplejack (phone)
@trollhattan:
Last seen a few days ago spouting the party line about “collusion isn’t a crime” while looking ridiculous in what appeared to be a purple velour exercise suit with a Princeton logo. All he was missing was heavy gold neck chains.
schrodingers_cat
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: I was not here (reading or commenting on Balloon Juice) during the first Obama campaign.
Viva BrisVegas
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not really. I understand that it was about power relationships.
I was just pointing out that choosing Islam as an opposing force to slavery and Jim Crow was a somewhat conflicted choice.
Brachiator
@dnfree:
Many evangelicals are racist, and in exactly the same way that Trump is racist. Others will defend Trump because he appears to be delivering on their pet issues, abortion and forcing Christianity into the public sphere.
Steve in the STL
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: I don’t remember anything of the sort. There have been specific gay people who have been pilloried, and rightfully so for being assholes, but never for being gay. There have always been openly gay posters here and no regular poster has had an issue with it.
father pusbucket
@trollhattan:
You are my hero for today.
Immanentize
@Ladyraxterinok: @BruceFromOhio:
My cousin had a good joke/thought experiment along these lines:
“Who do you think was the better basket ball player? Kareem Abdul Jabbar ot Lew Alcindor?”
But you have to be of a certain age to get the jokes-on-you.
Brachiator
@Viva BrisVegas:
No. You were just being a dope.
And it’s typically a white racist who tries to drag in this aspect of the slave trade to deflect or minimize what happened in the United States and the Americas.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: I am a proud Leo/lion/cat. And a pig.
Pig cat. What could be finer?
Barbara
@Viva BrisVegas: I call BS. You can’t make the use of the name Muhammad a testament to every wretched thing done by anyone named Muhammad in the history of the use of the name Muhammad. Not every Muhammad was a slave trader, indeed, most people named Muhammad were never slave traders, including the original prophet.
Steve in the STL
@Dan B: she exists, but if you know where she is you don’t know how fast she’s moving
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@ruemara:
This is why it’s important to call out racism, misogyny, and queer-phobia when it comes up – FTFNYT with that ‘don’t call out their racism’ bullshit. They need to check their perspective. My fellow straight cis white male contemporaries here at Balloon Juice need to from time to time as well.
Jay
@dnfree:
They may be evangelicals, but they sure arn’t Christians.
Steve in the STL
@Immanentize: @Omnes Omnibus: I’m a proud fire sheep lion. Or might be proud if I knew wtf that is
Jay
@Steve in the STL:
I tried to google that, but it lead to a bunch of Russian GRU sites.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Many Evangelists are open to non-whites becoming a part of their church so long as they adopt the attributes of white churches and mores, especially music. When I read about mega churches and large evangelical churches that experience conflict over Trump or race more generally, I am often struck by the attitude that what evangelicals mean by acceptance has a lot more to do with the idea that African Americans must accept them and their ways than vice versa. They think they are being open minded just because they let them walk through the door. And they really don’t get why that’s not enough.
James E Powell
@debbie:
It’s the most common way of they express racism, sexism, homophobia, and other bigotries while claiming immunity from any negative reactions. Hey, lighten up! I’m just kidding!
MoxieM
@Amir Khalid: yeah, eine Zeige (a goat) is one of the worst things you can call a woman, or so I am told by my daughter.
I too miss TNC, and the Horde on the Atlantic. I learned so much, about so many things. In the early days I was studying the economies of the sugar islands (Caribbean) and how smuggling across the trade entrepôts of European powers operated. Yeah, learned so much.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Steve in the STL: Sorry that you don’t remember it. I do. Maybe there’s a reason it registered for me and not you. Don’t know how to break it to you, but if your point is that this blog has always been welcoming and affirming of LGBT+ people, I’m here to tell you as one of them, that that’s bullshit. Don’t know how to search the archives from that period that isn’t post-by-post, but given that there are other LGBT+ people in this very thread telling you of similar experiences and perceptions with posters on this blog, maybe the problem isn’t that I hallucinated the experience, ya think?
Barbara
@MoxieM: I got out of the habit of reading TNC, but I concur. I always looked forward to reading his blog and his articles. He is such a good writer, someone who not only has insights but can express them with incisive and striking imagery.
Brachiator
@Barbara: Interesting comments. I’m more familiar with the churches that are still explicitly racist, oppose integration and interracial marriage, etc.
I can see how some mega churches would push for one way assimilation. But are there also parishioners who push the boundaries of what is supposedly acceptable?
different-church-lady
EARTH TO NYTs: RACISTS DO NOT WANT YOU TO TALK TO THEM NICELY. RACISTS DO NOT WANT YOU TO CHANGE THEIR MINDS. RACISTS WANT TO DOMINATE OTHERS. DEMANDING UNILATERAL POLITENESS FROM YOU OR THEY WILL CREATE CONSEQUENCES IS ONE OF THE WAYS THEY ATTEMPT TO DOMINATE YOU. FUCKING WAKE UP.
Omnes Omnibus
@Viva BrisVegas: Do you want to po-mo his choice?
Jay
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
People often don’t see what doesn’t effect them.
People also often read in the comments, what they want to read, not what is written.
I like getting corrected on Race/LBGTQ/Women issues.
Helps me learn and see.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Sure there are, but most people move on.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Interesting and insightful article at Vox: White people are self-segregating
Viva BrisVegas
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ali’s choice was Ali’s choice, I’m not second guessing him.
I was trying to say that it’s a wide world out there and there are lots of stories. Accepting something as ahistorical as Ali’s “slave name” change at its face value serves to minimize the stories of others. In the limited context of Jim Crow it may have made sense, in a wider historical context it doesn’t. Saying so doesn’t exculpate anyone.
The Pale Scot
To paraphrase Babs, “Why would I want to waste my beautiful mind on these people”
meant cite “dnfree”
AnotherBruce
That is the whitest thing I’ve ever read. Hell, what is missing is any mention of POC. They are just not relevant to the discussion. They are disappeared. It’s all about the white peeples.
Steve in the STL
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: perhaps. I recall a lot of hate directed at Andrew Sullivan for being a hypocritical asshole, and at Manning for committing treason. But I don’t see any anti-LGBTQ bias in any of the regular posters here these days.
And I admit that I didn’t get M^4’s concern about trump sucking Putin’s dick comments as being anti-gay; they are clearly anti-trump and condemn trump’s great affection for the dictator who is trying to destroy our country, and not anti-gay or anti-dick sucking in general.
In employment law terms, comments and actions are illegal if they are both subjectively and objectively discriminatory; these don’t meet that test.
Maybe I’m just too jaded after 20+ years as a labor and employment lawyer.
@Jay: which conveniently allows you to ignore the flagrant anti-management side labor and employment lawyer bias on this site!
Brachiator
@Viva BrisVegas: You keep on digging. The point you claim to raise is irrelevant to Ali and to US history.
But your tactic is exactly what white racists do. Unable to deal with American apartheid, they offer a weak distraction. To this extent, your comments are an excellent example of the points that others have raised.
moops
So the tone is BS, but the problem is real. It is a constant chore to shame my parents out of the casual slide into racism that they pick up in their assisted living home. It is important to not be afraid to use the term “racist”. Like dealing with other character flaws I find it is better to point out what are racists statements, and what are racist thoughts than it is to label them “racists”. It is easy for a shamed person to try and take back their power and claim the deplorable mantle. They have a long track record of being good people. They are good people who are in regular contact with people that have bad behavior. Fortunately they are the kind of Christians that actually care what would Jesus do, so I have a lever on them when they are not focusing very well or squirming when talking bluntly. I also invite them to point out my bad behaviors at the same time. Only fair. I’m willing to listen to their concerns because it is important for me that they do not become my racist bigot parents and I have to cut them off as so many here have had to do.
Aleta
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Aleta
@Major Major Major Major:
There was an article about that by Meredith Loken in the WaPo, one of the many responses to the NYT’s homophobic “joke” video “Trump and Putin: A Love Story.” She mentioned how those jokes equate weakness with ‘female’ or ‘gay’ (demeaning to both), an attitude that’s the norm in the military and the security-defense world. The stereotype of how a “real man” should perform (“adopt alpha, warrior mentalities;” “display aggression, violence and physical toughness; and promote overt heterosexuality” is also a military norm. She describes their language about weapons as part of this.
Cheryl Rofer wrote about this months ago. The comments were mostly supportive from all sexes, but later there was a bit of re-interpretation that the problem was only “it upsets the ladies” and some disbelief about the effect of mere words.
Original Lee
@? Martin: This. I once went to get my passport photo taken at an urban mall, and didn’t realize I had showed up on a Baby Picture Special day until I had been in line for a while. A little bit after I figured this out, the photographer spotted my very pale, single self in the long line of POC women with babies and told me I was next. I refused, giving him an astonished face, and told him I’d wait my turn. He tried to insist, but I dug in my heels. Two hours later, I finally made it to the front of the line, and he made a big scene about it, too. I just kept playing puzzled about why he wanted me out of the line, even though I’m pretty sure he knew I knew that he started treating the customers ahead of me in line better after he figured out I was watching. OTOH, one time I was in a clothing store to pick up an item that had been backordered, and for whatever reason, I was the only white customer in the store, and the staff immediately tried to wave me to the front of the very long check-out line; they stopped waiting on everybody else until I consented to have my business dealt with, so I was kind of forced to go along with it. I did wait and resist for almost 10 minutes before it was clear it was their way or not at all, which really pissed me off. I have since told nearly everyone I know about this incident and recommended another store, but it’s hard to tell if there’s been any decline in business, because that store is used for orders of hard-to-get mandatory items for school. I wish I could say this stuff rarely happens, but just a few weeks ago, a waiter apparently decided he didn’t want to deal with our very diverse lunch group and didn’t even hand us menus until I grabbed the host 40 minutes later. He obviously didn’t get a tip.
Viva BrisVegas
@Brachiator:
US history is not all history. I was talking about the African slave trade. If you can’t get your head around the fact that that involves more than just the US, you should get your head out of your arse.
I don’t give a flying fuck what arguments white racists use. Nothing they say determines what I say.
Brachiator
@Aleta:
There is much more than intimations of gayness or homophobia at play here. And it is typical and ridiculous that some of this crap comes from David Brooks, who is not anyone’s idea of macho.
Dan B
@Aleta: Aleta
Thanjs fir Cheryl’s post. It’s a thorough breakdown of the dynamic of homophobia / misogyny. Lots of gay men don’t nitice the misogyny. And the out down if LGBT people also creates a stumbling block to building relationships between gays, blacks, and Muslims. White supremacists have emasculated black men and Wahhabism has dehumanized women and gays.
And who’s the winner in all this? We know the answer.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Gex: I’m fortunate enough that I don’t witness overt bigotry too often in meatspace (most of my work is with activists and people from minority groups who are very “woke” for lack of a better term) but I try to step up online every time I see something that needs pushback. I know that if the situation was reversed, and I was being bullied, I would greatly appreciate it if even only one person stood by my side and called shit out. It may never change the bullies mind, but it can help teach everyone reading/watching/listening to be better and make the marginalized person feel a little safer.
Dmbeaster
@Platonailedit: I wish that there was some certainty about how they died. Being killed at a bandit roadblock in the CAR would be great cover for an assassination of journalists (not that Putin needs deniability), but it is also a very plausible way for anybody to be killed there.