RESISTANCE NEWS
NBC is reporting that anti-Trump advocates are building a resource network with free legal and financial help for people who could be targeted by the incoming Trump administration.— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) December 25, 2024 at 1:52 PM
(h/t Uncle Ebenezer)
Here is what I am saying: Democratic voters organically–& understandably–retracted both our attention and energy after fighting like hell for nearly a decade. It also happens to be the case that this same retraction of attention and energy is turning out to our tactical benefit
— Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) December 26, 2024
This is really good news to close this year: When we refrain from giving Trump a foil, the atmosphere starts to shift criticism more sharply on Republican discord, Republican policy, etc. Republican voter discontent.
That doesn’t mean general disengagement. We all need to take a break for mental health in any case. It could well be the case that this mental health break is also tactically sound. We’ll re-engage/whatever when it suits. But there is some power in all of this.
I think a lot of people feel powerless. I do/did. Failed to stop so much. Tried so hard to explain. Etc. I don’t think we are powerless at all.
Pitting Elon vs. Trump vs. Congressional Republicans was also *GOLDEN* and House Democrats deserve applause for that messaging. Keep poking the nest. Perhaps narcissistic sycophants start to lose the sycophancy when their only foes are in the same Hive, get what I’m saying?
Remember: Trump is a fading King. You think Democrats are the only ones who get that?
So this administration is negative 30 days old but has already had its first barely-averted-shutdown-crisis.
And also the first instance of Congress telling Trump to get lost (though I doubt the GOP would frame it that way), refusing to get rid of the debt limit.
So it's already goin' great.— "Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 11:14 AM
And, just to be clear, I understand that this administration's policies are likely to hurt real people. That sucks.
But, uh, I use gallows humor to cope. S'what I do studying the famously light & cheery topic of warfare, s'what I do with politics.
If that's going to upset you, well, fair warning?— "Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 11:19 AM
So, yes, I anticipate actual bad things will happen to real people and that's terrible; attempts at humor are not a negation of this.
Also, I am going to make fun of this detachment of dangerous doofuses. That doesn't mean I am making light of the bad things they do; I am making a mockery of them.— "Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 11:23 AM
Furthermore:
Sadly, AP is wrong. While it is true that most legacy media outlets are seeing a steep drop off, that is not true for many independent pro-democracy outlets.
For its part, Democracy Docket has has strong subscriber and membership growth since the election. www.democracydocket.com/me-subscribe…— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) December 26, 2024 at 2:04 PM
On The Road – jame – Xmas lights
narya
Good morning, jackals! As I’m contemplating my 2025 resources, I’m also contemplating where my support dollars go for 2025, and Elias is top of the list.
Elizabelle
I am good with seeing a shakeout between “legacy media” (ie. corporate programming funded by and benefitting the wealthy owners/shareholders) and actual journalism that provides value and education.
JMG
Interest in political news falls off dramatically after EVERY election. It revives when those elected do things to annoy/anger voters, so in Trump’s case I think we’ll see increased interest in politics before the Super Bowl.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
Overcast, gray and rainy again down here. Bleh.
lowtechcyclist
@narya:
Good mornin’ back atcha! It’s a gray day here in central Florida, and I think it’s supposed to rain later. Good thing we went to Bok Tower yesterday. Who knew there were hills in central Florida? Most of this place is flatter than the part of south-central Kansas where my grandparents lived, and my mother and uncle and cousins grew up in.
Nukular Biskits
I agree with Marc Elias. While I have no hard evidence to support the claim, I do think that independent journalism/media is seeing a surge in subscribers; i.e., yes, there is a move away from trad media.
How long will it be before outlets like CNN, for example, wake up and realize that fluffing conservatives isn’t a long term winning strategy?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
rikyrah
I truly believe that Democrats need to stop being Captain Save-A-Ho.
They voted for Republicans. They need to see Republicans at full throttle.😒 And get everything they voted for. No more mitigation of pain for the stupid.
narya
@Elizabelle: that’s one of the advantages of our current ecosystem: the new outfits can use Bluesky, etc. to get eyeballs and don’t need to rely on said “legacy” media.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
That “Defending Democracy” graphic in the first image is telling and sends a message.
@lowtechcyclist:
South-Central KS: I always tell folks that the Plains are surprisingly hilly. Okay, not Ozark-Misery hilly but as you point out, there’s so many places that are damned flat but don’t have the “rep” as damned flat. Portions of DE are flat like that. The TX oil fields, damned flat.
Ben Cisco
@rikyrah: Good morning!!
@Nukular Biskits: Difficult to get entity to see a thing when paycheck depends,etc. That is to say they’ll ride it right into the ground.
eclare
@rikyrah:
Yeah but that will also hurt people who voted D. Not a good look, although I totally get the frustration.
Scout211
It’s very encouraging to hear that independent news sources for Democrats are experiencing an increase in subscribers. The AP-NORC poll was discussed a bit in the overnight thread and the need for other sources for Democrats’ to get political news is definitely a must right now.
Another discussion overnight was Laura Loomer and other prominent MAGA influencers’ anger at Musk and Ramaswamy over their stance on H-1B visa holders for the tech industry.
Musk decided to punish them for criticizing him.
LOL. MAGAs in disarray?
Geminid
@Elizabelle: I’ve run into a couple interesting new Virginia-based media sites, Virginia Mercury and Cardinal News. The latter focuses on news from Southside and Southwest Virginia.
eclare
@Scout211:
Hehehe…gray, drizzly, and 57 here in Memphis. At least it’s not cold.
Professor Bigfoot
@rikyrah: Amen. I’m at, “Okay, this is what Americans* voted for. So let it be written, so let it be done.”
May these Americans* get every goddamn thing they voted for.
I look forward to watching ostensible “liberals” agree to return to Jim Crow in the name of “unity” and “national healing.”
(*”In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” —Toni Morrison)
TBone
Stalin says dark humor is like food. Some people don’t get it.
Ben Cisco
@rikyrah: People are going to get hurt, and I agree with you in theory even though I am among those being targeted (as we always are). Problem is that at this point I am not certain that the electorate getting what they voted for good and hard would change their opinion.
Suzanne
I read that Magdi Jacobs thread yesterday, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t really know if there’s tactical benefit in retreating. Might be too early to say. In general, I think people need a positive vision of the future, of their aspirations, and I don’t know if “retreat” will be read as such.
There is, unquestionably, mental health benefit, however.
Professor Bigfoot
@eclare: The time to march was November 5, and Americans* decided to stay home.
May they get everything they voted for, even though we know Davis X. Machina’s dictum will always apply for them.
JMG
@Ben Cisco: I think it will change some minds. We are a nation where a large number of adults are perpetually spoiled children. They don’t take disappointment well. They take inconvenience less well. If one year into Trump 2.0 a bowl of guacamole costs as much as a bowl of caviar, they’ll notice all right.
Phylllis
@lowtechcyclist: Did you go to Spook Hill? We thought that was the greatest thing ever as kids.
Suzanne
@Scout211:
Oh my God, the absolute MAGA meltdown about Vivek’s “American culture is too about sports and we need to venerate nerds to make more engineers, like Urkel!” manifesto had me grinning from ear to ear this morning.
TBone
It’s a big tent meme. I’m grateful for all types of jackals.
https://bsky.app/profile/fancysplace.bsky.social/post/3lec4r55wbk2r
Nukular Biskits
@Ben Cisco:
True dat.
But what CNN, et al, don’t seem to understand (or are willing to believe) is that the “catering to idiot conservative/MAGA” market is pretty much saturated right now.
Thirty years ago, there was a op-ed in the Denver Post by George McClure titled “Another liberal column. Right? “ In it, he pretty destroys the rightwing myth that there’s “liberal media” in this country.
A bit dated but it STILL describes the media landscape today.
Scout211
@Suzanne: There are many ways to fight back. Sometimes staying out of the direct fight can give space for the other side to fight each other. That seems to be happening right now as the Republicans and Trump’s MAGA supporters are seemingly jockeying for control and for power right now. I think the stepping back while this is happening is positive.
But later, when Trump is in office and we know what policies are starting to be put into place and we know what to fight against, it’s then time to step back up and not stay on the sidelines.
Soprano2
@Scout211: I find it hilarious and extremely ironic that the man who conservatives tout as the number one free speech defender suppresses speech on his platform when he doesn’t like it.
Soprano2
@eclare: It’s the same here except it’s 49 degrees. I’m tired of the gray, drizzly weather.
TBone
Thirsty bastidge Stew Peters xitted “The Indians are the foot soldiers for the Jews.”
They are trying sooooo hard for our attention (this was a screenshot, not a click).
Do not succumb!
TBone
@Scout211: 🎯
Soprano2
Which liberals do you think are going to agree to something asinine like this?
UncleEbeneezer
@Suzanne: I don’t think she’s talking about retreating. I think what she’s saying is that sometimes “don’t feed the trolls” applies to the media. As much as the media hates Dems/Liberals/Progressives, they also rely on us for their content. Trimming back our engagement with them leaves a vacuum and they have to focus on something else. That seems like one of the only ways they will ever actually focus on Republican fuckery. It’s also good for our own mental health.
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
On the other hand, this classic cartoon is relevant to the discussion IMHO, describing a LOT of my fellow Murkans:
https://bsky.app/profile/nukularbiskits.bsky.social/post/3lec5ipb5ik26
Nukular Biskits
@Soprano2:
Instead of “IOKIYAR”, it’s now “IOKIYEM”.
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: I have an entire book of Calvin and Hobbes. It is titled “There’s Treasure Everywhere!” Highly recommend.
https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/There%27s_Treasure_Everywhere
Soprano2
They’re not going to get what they think they voted for. Did you see the discussion about the WaPo article re: poor white people in New Castle, PA who voted for TCFG and are now hoping he won’t cut their benefits? Some of what they said is truly delusional. I think some of them project their desires onto what TCFG says rather than actually listening to what he says, the same way people did with Obama.
narya
@Professor Bigfoot: I think of that dictum often. It explains so much, and also helps me understand what I loathe about that attitude.
different-church-lady
Treating news as a consumption product was an unhealthy development.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I thought that was funny, too. The worst part is in a way he’s not wrong. LOL When I was growing up in a rural school all the boys thought “book learning” was only for girls and sissies. They thought they’d never need that, so why were they wasting time on it? You’ve heard Kay talk about how lost the young men in her community seem to be. I think this is all of a piece.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: The whole time I’m thinking, “The reason you’re such a major asshole is because you still can’t get over the fact nobody voted for you for prom king? Really?”
Suzanne
@Scout211: What you just described is what I hope happens, for sure.
In general, I am against positive messaging vacuums. (This is a position informed by my years working in advertising/marketing, not specifically around this situation.) Because…. exposure is valuable and attention is fickle. I’m of the belief that a lot of normie types honestly don’t have a great sense of what Democrats stand for, in a thematic level, what is our positive vision for the future….. and part of “the endless campaign” means that we don’t let up on that.
But I also think that presidential campaign years are absolutely emotionally exhausting, even when we win. Giving everyone some time off may prove to be a good strategy. I guess we’ll find out.
I will admit that watching the two sides of the Trump coalition already starting shit with one another, and we haven’t even gotten to the end of the year….. is a chef’s kiss moment from me.
different-church-lady
@Ben Cisco:
It will fuckin’ entrench their opinion even further. We’re already through the looking glass, and it’s Queen of Hearts all the way down.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
This is absolutely true….. but that’s because of Trump’s MAGA brand. Most people don’t listen to anything, they get overall impressions/images and then construct this whole world in their minds. They see him eating McDonald’s and making fun of disabled people — and they do all that stuff — so they relate. Relating is really emotionally powerful.
Soprano2
Yeah, for me too. It makes me wonder how many of the MAGAs actually pay attention to things. Did they honestly think their goals and the goals of people like Elon and Vivek were the same? Billionaires hate most all government; to them it’s a nuisance they want to be rid of, because they don’t believe it’s necessary. For them, it’s probably not, because they can afford to pay for anything the government might do for them. Government’s role where they’re concerned is to rein them in, which is why they hate it so much. How many MAGAs thought the goal of DOGE would be to destroy SS and Medicare?
TBone
@different-church-lady: 🎯
narya
@different-church-lady: especially because recognizing you’ll never be prom king (or whatever) is actually FREEING.
TBone
The not-Dem normies I know IRL are focused on: crime! now.
different-church-lady
@Nukular Biskits:
Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
John S.
It doesn’t seem to be just Democratic voters.
Since the election, I have spent ample time with my family and my wife’s family. They are all very conservative Trump voters (we’re both the black sheep). None of them wanted to talk about Trump. In the past 8 years, some of them wouldn’t shut up about Trump. Now, not a peep.
I don’t know why, and I don’t really care why. These have been the most pleasant visits we’ve ever had, so I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Soprano2
I agree. I think Democrats used to relate to people better. I have to say that sometimes I get tired of the “reading is always better than watching TV, you should always buy organic, why aren’t you driving an electric vehicle” ethic that comes from some liberals. My life is busy and complicated right now; sometimes I just want to be entertained, I don’t want to have to think deeply about what I’m watching. Is that so bad? Some liberals seem to sneer at a desire like that, and I say that as a liberal! People definitely pick up on that attitude.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2:
None of them, Katie.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: Some liberals do it because it gives them a small sense of power. They need correction on that point if they’re interested in not being assholes.
ETA: When I was a teenager (and lapsing into an immature young adult) I was quite convinced everyone was interested in the same things I was, and frequently ended up surprised when I got push back. Learning not to assume that was a very slow process but it made me a better person.
Suzanne
@UncleEbeneezer:
That goes two ways, though. Like, Secretary Pete going on Fox News is, I think, very helpful to our cause. Coverage of annoying student protestors at Columbia or Oberlin is, I think, really not helpful.
Like I said, I feel kind of two ways about it.
Baud
I’m not fully confident that there are enough liberals who can stand not being the center of attention to make holding back a viable long-term strategy.
ETA: Too many libs would prefer to be owned than ignored.
Scout211
Yes! And another one that the news is reporting on now is Elon’s Christmas X post bragging about his weight loss using Ozempic (later he clarified Mountjaro). He is in a Santa Suit and posing like a model with his new slim figure.
The media is now all aflutter with how Elon now is in conflict with RFK, the lesser because RFK, jr is very critical of the use of the weight loss medications.
Trump advisers in disarray! LOL
different-church-lady
@Baud: The dirtbag left will always be with us.
different-church-lady
@Scout211: Oh god, this season of The Housewives of Pennsylvania Avenue is really going to suck.
Baud
The ultimate purpose of retrenchment isn’t to hide. It’s to create a strong liberal counterculture rather than continuing to participate, and thereby entrench, the dominant conservative culture.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2:
There are always going to be people, liberal or not, who want to tell you how to live your life.
John S.
@eclare:
I’m currently in Knoxville, and it’s the same. Reminds me of the weather back home in Seattle, except that it’s not nearly as pretty here.
Baud
@different-church-lady: So will right-wingers.
Nukular Biskits
@different-church-lady:
Which makes CNN and other supposedly “mainstream” media outlets chasing MAGA eyeballs the journalistic equivalent of crack-ho’s.
Glory b
@Professor Bigfoot: Oh stop it. The pre emotive criticism is part of the reason we keep losing. Every time Dems try to tout an accomplishment, the “Yeah but…” crowd comes through the woodwork & gets all the attention.
No matter what, it’s never enough, even for a moment.
No wonder people think we can’t do anything.
Looking at you too, mistermix.
Starfish (she/her)
@rikyrah: Sometimes hoes need saving!
It would have been bad to deny all government workers their paychecks right before the holidays, even though it would have been just to make Republicans sit in the dumpster fire of their own creation.
different-church-lady
@Baud: One of the strongest emotional messages you can send an asshole is to pointedly walk away from the engagement. They want a battle for battle’s sake, and when you deny them of it they feel powerless.
different-church-lady
@Baud: But we repeat ourselves.
narya
@Baud: well-said. Exactly this.
Soprano2
@different-church-lady: You see it among TV and movie critics, too. They like the outlier shows and weird stuff, I think because they watch so much TV and so many movies that they’re bored with the things the average person finds entertaining. I’m on a TV interest list where most of the people liked Dave Letterman and Conan O’Brien and couldn’t stand Jay Leno and don’t like Fallon or Colbert or Kimmel. I never liked Dave Letterman because too many of his interviews seemed uncomfortable for the people he was interviewing. I think that’s what the TV people liked about it, but I thought it was obnoxious.
beckya57
@lowtechcyclist: A bit of family trivia: my paternal grandfather’s company did the tile work on Bok Tower, and my father was one of the workers. So you saw a bit of my family history.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
I do, too. I also think that the vast majority of the people who comment here are genuinely good, kind people who try to make informed, rational choices, and over and over again have a hard time relating to the fact that most people are not and do not. LOL.
This is also kind of why I bang on and on about “the brand” as a baseline thing that needs to come before the campaigns. Like, we need to appeal to a lot of people, over a long period of time, and no singular figure can ever be relatable to everyone, or good at every aspect of the job.
And people are weird — I was listening to a good podcast yesterday in which the guest commented that there are people who want to vote for Trump and AOC and they we no conflict there (which is fucking insane). So, like….. if we think about Democrats as a team, and we have a slate of great people working together….There can be someone who appeals to more people.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s true, I get it from the other side sometimes too. “How can you not like country music?”. I’m only saying I can understand how some people find that type of attitude obnoxious.
John S.
@different-church-lady:
I don’t know about powerless. Every time I’ve walked away from a political argument with a Trumper, it always felt more like I was depriving them of candy or taking away their favorite toy.
Baud
@different-church-lady: Eh, the right wingers actually have political strength.
mappy!
@UncleEbeneezer:
When faced with a circular firing squad, the operative instruction is “duck”. Then when said squad turns, proceeds with knives out, at each others back, walk away through the gaps.
You may be able to feed stupid but can’t teach stupid, and you can’t predict how and when stupid turns on itself…
Who would have thought that at this stage Russians would start fire bombing banks?
Are we Great Again, Again, yet?
Soprano2
@Glory b: You know we may not see them, but I suspect the conservative side has these people too.
Baud
@Suzanne:
This is why I support Marianne Williamson for DNC chair.
Starfish (she/her)
@Suzanne: I think I agree with Magdi Jacobs here. A lot of people have been freaking out at Democrats for not standing up enough against Republican lunacy, and I am about letting Republicans have all the attention that they so deeply desire.
The only piece of it is that I would push back on would be the way that Republicans want to define what Democrats are.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: The white ones.
Just like they agreed to the Compromise of 1877 to end Reconstruction.
Elizabelle
@Glory b: Thank you, Glory b.
I am sick of the circular firing squad and the loudmouths.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I heard a podcast about a focus group where one guy said he liked both TCFG and AOC because they don’t take any crap and are genuine. I don’t think he cared at all about their political stances, he liked the personalities. I think we need to acknowledge that there are a lot of people who vote like that. People feel like TCFG cares about them, even though we all know he doesn’t. I think what they’re leaving out is the “white”, as in “He cares about (white) people like me”. It’s the unspoken word that the press can’t bring themselves to say. I think there is a perception on the part of a lot of white people that Democrats don’t care about them, that we care about everyone except white people, and that we hate white people. We don’t, but a lot of people seem to have that perception. They don’t seem to notice how many white Democrats there are; all they see is what they perceive as a larger-than-average amount of people who aren’t white.
Starfish (she/her)
@Suzanne: Why not both? The US cricket team beat Pakistan, and there was a high level Oracle engineer on their team.
Professor Bigfoot
@Glory b: Why should I stop talking about how white people will stab us in the back to protect their comfort?
When history shows that’s how your demographic operates?
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: Well, I’m white and I would never agree to something like that. I suspect the other white liberals here would agree with me. Do you honestly think we’d all just roll over and agree to go back to Jim Crow? Again, your hatred of white people comes through loud and clear. You group us all together in the same way conservatives group all black people together as welfare cheats and criminals. It’s not an attractive look on anyone.
Ben Cisco
@JMG: We need a majority, though
Chris Johnson
100% correct. I’ve been saying for some time that fascism desperately needs people to volunteer for being a good enemy. They HAVE to have the ‘other side’ acting like they so easily act, they have to have a brigade of pussy-hatted purple hair people storming the Capitol.
So they can point and go ‘see? SEE? We told you! And now we’ll tell you more about what they are and why they’re doing that!’
I think it’s going to turn out that fascism is more effectively fought via contempt… in THIS instance.
There are specific reasons why this time it’s different. Germany was legit impoverished beyond what even the working class sees here and now. We’re flirting with it but not very hard: it’s not hard to have some social safety net stopping things from getting 1930s bad for us. Takes amazingly little, and so obviously Trump/Russia/Musk/Etc are looking to take away even that, on purpose.
But Germany legit wanted to BE powerful and was governed by people inside Germany with an axe to grind and revenge to seek, and living well WAS the revenge for them.
Ain’t like that. Russia’s running half the Republicans, has an axe to grind and revenge to seek, but revenge for them means using Trump and his cabinet as a wrecking ball to wreck all our shit, so us COLLAPSING is the revenge and the goal for them.
Whether it is goading Trump into acting more imperial than Russia in fact is, so they can say ‘see? SEE? America and NATO are just out for conquest and we are blameless!’, or goading RFK into gutting our western medicine so we all fucking die, the goal is not to HELP us or get power for us, it’s to take it away.
And thus, contempt, because this goal shows through constantly, and even the Republicans don’t want it. The MAGAs are wildly stupid, brainwashed, and quite often on drugs. They’re way out of control and not effective in the grand sense. They cannot do Fourth Reich because those controlling them do not in any way intend them to win: they are sacrificial.
Contempt works.
Contempt for them. Contempt for all the MSM, the Village, who went right along and were bought or threatened into total compliance. Contempt for it all. Tend your garden. These assholes can’t make good on their promises because the promises are lies. Our promises weren’t lies, the assholes just didn’t like them because they wanted racist/classist/nazi fantasies instead, and we weren’t promising that. But they cannot get what they were promised, without the fascist leaders actually being IN control and capable of holding real power.
And they are simply not meant to. They are puppets taking a dive for Putin, who is old and dying himself.
Starfish (she/her)
@Soprano2: Oh, I always drag the “you should always buy organic” folks because this is “keeping up with the Joneses” masquerading as “I really care about my family.”
Nukular Biskits
Something a number of you have touched on and was addressed in the Bluesky posts above is how the rightwing mediasphere absolutely relies on and generates content for the sole purpose of outrage generation. And, by that, I don’t necessarily mean outrage on the part of the MAGA faithful but on the part of those of us who are sick and f’ing tired of the distortions and lies being broadcast on a daily basis.
IOW, the rightwing mediasphere NEEDS the reactions of liberals to fuel their activities much as a fire needs fresh wood; i.e., they’re nothing but trolls. Relying on their “conservative”/MAGA/Trumpian base to sustain them would be like throwing a shot of gasoline in the fireplace to keep the fire going – you get an intense flame but only for a few seconds, then it dies down.
I think the correct reaction to every stupid fucking story in the “mainstream” (forget the rightwing media) that has all the signs it was intended to generate a reaction as opposed to inform should be ignored much as you’d ignore online trolls. And the absolute worst thing you can do to trolls is deprive them of their oxygen; i.e., your reaction and providing them attention.
Elizabelle
@Professor Bigfoot: Because you are among people who would not do that.
Read the room.
Why don’t you go take your schtick to a tankie website, or MAGAts?
Personally, I do not feel like we need to be scolded or disparaged. One can show some grace and courtesy to their fellows here
ETA: and, morons, I realize it’s NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE. But I would not stick around a website that was constantly denigrating women, either.
People can learn some manners.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: yes, I do, because history shows that’s what you do
You know it’s WHITE PEOPLE who brought us Trump.
Not anyone else.
Now tell me why you, as a white person, feel it so important to defend your whiteness.
Ben Cisco
@Soprano2: I did see (but was in no way surprised) by the excerpt I read. The delusion is symptomatic of the maga mindset. So is a complete refusal to either recognize or acknowledge facts. When they don’t get what they want, we’ll be blamed for it, and they’ll swallow yet another lie.
ETA – dcl beat me to it.
Professor Bigfoot
@Elizabelle: No, it’s not all of you. But tell me, why do you feel the need to defend yourself here on this subject?
different-church-lady
@Professor Bigfoot: Could you define “you” a bit more sharply here?
Another Scott
@Soprano2: +1
I think a lot of it was rebellion – I don’t have to do what adults say unless I want to. See how brave and edgy I am. Pay attention to me.
It’s childish and has lots of consequences…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
eclare
@Professor Bigfoot:
I get my health insurance through the ACA, please don’t punish me. Or wish for me to be punished.
schrodingers_cat
Its open season on Indians and Indian Americans on social media today thanks to that pathetic pick me, Vivek and his fucking big mouth.
Elizabelle
@Professor Bigfoot: Your schtick is sickening.
And it’s kind of funny. You are here on a blog that is full of liberals who voted wholeheartedly for Kamala and Tim, and are absolutely heartbroken over the results.
And you are here lecturing us because a fair proportion of us are white. For the bad behavior of other people, who we are not.
But we are liberals. And a lot of people put up with your schtick, or find it informative.
Not moi. Bad behavior is bad behavior.
A braver soul than you would go pull this schtick in the lion’s den. Ciao!
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Cue the “Not sure if trolling” Frye meme …
RaflW
I definitely think there’s good reason to not engage nearly as much in the “look at meeee! I’m creating havoc!” thing Trump has done all too successfully.
There’s been a fairly robust conversation going on at Bsky urging progressives to ditch the Resist engagement farmers, too. It’s worthwhile to understand what real threats Trump and his stooges are planning (ie: I take Stephen Miller fairly seriously on his vile immigrant pogrom plans).
But we need ‘resistance’ to be about actions, not just “look, he’s terrible, click like and reskeet!”
Elizabelle
@Professor Bigfoot: Why do you feel the need to attack us? Us? Who are pretty much on your side?
Maybe that’s a better question. Answer it, bigmouth.
Elizabelle
@RaflW: I agree. And one has to be very careful about not just amplifying the ridiculous claims and mayhem.
No wonder we are checking out of following the news.
PS: Delighted you got a white Christmas. How atmospheric.
John S.
@Elizabelle:
Politeness isn’t exactly a virtue here.
Professor Bigfoot
@different-church-lady: *white people in general.*
If it doesn’t apply, you can freely let it fly, but it’s so goddamn many white people that we are only rational to assume it of any one of you we run across.
Even here.
different-church-lady
So any rate, this particular nominally-whitey isn’t gonna get too hep up about someone blowing well-earned steam out the wrong vent.
sab
I just woke up after a cold night. ( Our new stupid furnace doesn’t work because Amazon lost in delivery a tiny fuse we need. ) We found an identical fuse at our local Ace Hardware but our furnace people say that will void the warranty that they aren’t honoring anyway because otherwise we would have heat.
The tiny space heater they gave us crapped out.
Our step-grand-daughter is arriving this afternoon with the love of her life since she was 14, and we have no heat. Way to impress her significant other that we are an okay family. As if he hasn’t noticed all the divorces.
Grrrr.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: He is not attacking you personally. He is talking about systemic privilege. And as a group white people did vote for Trump, even the women. They have been voting R since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Legislation.
different-church-lady
@John S.: I’ve learned plenty of manners.
Doesn’t mean I always use them…
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
Minorities helped put Trump over the top. If you want, we can start talking voting demographics, although it’ll take me a few to provide the publicly-verifiable evidence.
Look, I’m a 60-year old white Southerner and I agree with a lot of what you have to say. But consistently painting all white folks, liberal or otherwise, with the same huge brush isn’t helping your cause nor is it intellectually honest.
Just a piece of unsolicited, but friendly advice: Dial it back a little, please.
Professor Bigfoot
@Elizabelle: Sorry. Maybe you should talk to your white families, your white friends, your white coworkers.
See, I know it’s not the Jackaltariat in general, but WHITE PEOPLE hate to confront their families about their racism, about the role of white supremacy in their daily lives.
And THAT’S the point of my “schtick.”
Starfish (she/her)
@RaflW: Oh, I am glad that some folks are learning not to engage in rage bait. It will waste all of everyone’s energy to no real purpose.
It’s not good when Republicans or Democrats engage in that nonsense.
I am very much “Sorry, I don’t have energy for your nonsense right now” about a lot of things.
Nukular Biskits
@John S.:
Fuck civility.😉
eclare
OK now I have read the thread. I am out, back to music videos.
Totally OT, but if anyone needs anything other than caffeine, my favorite band
https://youtu.be/6tlSx0jkuLM?si=ehbGaNCJ0HTwuZvY
different-church-lady
@Starfish (she/her): I don’t even have the energy for my own nonsense anymore…
Elizabelle
I am out of here.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: They can never ask themselves why they feel so moved to defend themselves as *white people.*
To defend their *whiteness.*
But cannot ever, ever SEE this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t think that you can assume that white people here voted for Trump. And you know from previous conversations here that I agree with your broad point that the majority of white people are the impediments to doing anything decent in this country.
schrodingers_cat
@Nukular Biskits: Only one demographic has voted in the majority (over 50%) for Trump the three times he has run for President despite being manifestly unfit for the job.
Chris Johnson
@Elizabelle: Professor Bigfoot is dead-on the central Balloon Juice demographic in a way that’s important to acknowledge (I follow him on BlueSky, here is where he gets bitey as this is a jackal blog)
He is a possibly retired black male professional close enough to the upper class wealth-wise that he drives a Porsche.
I’m a working-til-I-die white male scrounger driving a ten year old Impreza, and very fortunate to be able to make my living in a way I care about, but I will never have a Porsche as long as I live. By american standards, Professor Bigfoot is better than me.
I class him with a variety of other Balloon Juice posters who might troll, but might just be people in circumstances I can’t relate to. I got all uppity once with a poster who still posts, acting like she was wealthy because she had a horse (or horses). She’s Midwestern… up here in the Northeast, that’s a wealth signifier, but not where she lives. Teachable moment.
I don’t think the Professor’s ‘literally everything is racism’ perspective should be the ONLY perspective, but I can see why that’s the sticking point for him. He doesn’t experience some of the pains I do, but he doesn’t get to opt out of that pain point. And yeah, it was actively used to give us Trump.
Starfish (she/her)
@different-church-lady: Right? I barely have enough energy for my own nonsense!
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: How many ostensibly “liberal” white people hold their tongues when Uncle Jimmy, “from another time,” starts up with his nonsense?
That’s what I’m really talking about.
I know– WE ALL KNOW the Jackaltariat, as individuals, vote the right way and do the right thing, but WHITE PEOPLE absolutely LOATHE the idea of actually confronting racism and sexism among their families and friends.
If y’all wanna hate me for talking about this, please, feel free.
different-church-lady
I think it’s fair to assume (based on very recent election analysis) that roughly 6 out of every 10 white people in this country are racist assholes.
Do with that what you will.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson: I bought that Porsche for 5000 bucks 7 years ago and please for the love of God don’t ask me how much I’ve dumped into it since then… but it’s also old enough to drink, so… ;)
Yes, I’m retired because i don’t want to have to be nice to the Trump loving white men I had to work for and with through my entire career; but my retirement doesn’t include yearly trips to Monaco and my daily driver is an 6 year old Ford sedan.
I’m still followed around in stores and treated with contempt by some white people and that will never happen to you.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sab: Oh lord. That sounds uncomfortable.
Nukular Biskits
@schrodingers_cat:
Be that as it may, that still does not negate what I stated and what is clearly a matter of fact: Minorities helped put Trump over the top.
NO demographic group votes as a monolith.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: My family is the ultimate in whiteness. One branch came soon after the Mayflower. Other branch came to Virginia and Maryland as indentured, and after the indenture acquired slaves.
I do not think like that. Frankly I am appalled, but their money payed for my college.
Then I got married to an also White guy. And his daughter married a Black guy. And they had a kid, and he already had kids. So I have Black grand-children. And all the horror stories that used to anger me are now viscerally upsetting.
I can’t know how you feel, but my emotional reaction has gotten dialed up from about five to nine.
Every time these kids leave the house I am afraid.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am sitting in bed under a quilt so okay so far. And our too cool for us cats are snuggling with the people they despise.
different-church-lady
So now that we’ve used the compass to draw a perfect circle, we can pull out the firearms, yes?
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: If we had a NE Ohio meetup would you come?
Professor Bigfoot
@different-church-lady: I just say so many that I am only rational to assume it of any white person I run across, until otherwise is demonstrated.
This is a lesson I learned years ago when I piped up with a “Not All Men” reply, because I knew *I* wasn’t like that!
The aunties (bless ’em) gathered me that day and helped me to understand that they all already know it’s not all of us. But it’s just so goddamn many of us, and if I want to change that, I need to talk to other MEN.
Now I understand that when women talk about what shits men are, I know they’re not talking about me, and I know the son of a bitch they’re talking about.
So I don’t need to say nothin’.
schrodingers_cat
@Nukular Biskits: Define put him over the top?
Trump would not have won without his white voters. Period
Trump and the R party would not have been treated with kid gloves by the media if they did not represent the party of majority of white people.
Trump doesn’t even become the nominee without white people.
But yes please blame minorities.
different-church-lady
@Professor Bigfoot:
Prudent.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: I HAVE to disengage, because (as you can no doubt tell from my comments here ;) ), like LeVar Burton, “I am also filled with rage.”
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Sure. But neither would have Harris.
Starfish (she/her)
@Chris Johnson: When did Professor Bigfoot join the Balloon Juice community? This person seems fairly new here, and they are engaging in creating Twitter-like discord here
I tend to carry big “everything is racism” energy, but I have toned it down by a lot because this creates racial resentment. We are living in big DEI-backlash times, and we should decide if we are truly spending energy on something that is beneficial. Is it more beneficial for me to try to “educate” a white person or more beneficial for me to send $50 to a black person who can’t make rent?
There was a trans-blogger who is usually about science, and she started discussing how she felt about the activism going on around the transwoman in Congress. I thought her take was interesting.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: I never make promises, but lemme tellya what– I would do my absolute DAMNEDEST to be there. Just let a fella know when!
John S.
@different-church-lady:
More like “hit dogs holler” part infinity.
Chris Johnson
@Professor Bigfoot: I need to call you on a detail. You’re making assumptions that are probably true in some cases but fail in other cases, and it’s important.
I talk to other white people who, identifying that I or others around me are not right wing, not their tribe, respond not by ‘starting up their nonsense’, oh no!
They clam the hell up. White people clam up. White people do not SHARE companionship. White people live in their houses and do not speak to their neighbors except to beef… I grew up in such a white people house. I’ve written on bluesky about how this is like scandinavian cabins, isolated family units in the cold that bleaches the brown right off ya, where any stranger could be a predator.
You are assuming a community that does not exist in the same way among white people, and then assuming it is enjoyed through shared hating of black people. And that happens but I wouldn’t call it warmth as you know it, or community as you know it.
When I’m around white people who are in the rightwinger tribe, what I see is a clamming up and coldness that I find very familiar. You should consider the reality of this. They are not ‘starting up with their nonsense’. Instead, what I see, what many liberal white people see from conservative white people, is that I’m treated like a retarded cousin whom you don’t talk about grown-up things around. And so they’ll find innocuous topics and past a point you would never know they were conservatives at all.
They KNOW you would ‘start up with your nonsense’ if they came out with it, so you spend years thinking you have a friend, and maybe a time comes when you realize they are betraying you. But until then… nothing.
So stop acting like we’re patting them on the back for their shit. They hide their shit. They’re white people.
cain
@Nukular Biskits:
Never.
Because the people in charge are still boomers and Gen x. All high on Reagan. They have not changed tactics since the 90s they are not going to change it now.
Instead they will buy independent media that is successful.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Harris didn’t win though.
Professor Bigfoot
@Starfish (she/her): Years and years ago I was “Ivan Ivanovich Renko.” If there are archives, you can look me up there.
Meanwhile, if you don’t like what I have to say, you can refute it or address it like a grownup.
TBone
@different-church-lady: too tired to hate is how I described it yesterday.
I have twelve spoons, and only those 12, to use before running out of spoons. Must use heaping spoonfuls in the best manner possible to avoid starving.
(Spoon Theory uses spoons to describe usable energy where one spoon represents one unit of energy. Nondisabled people may typically expect an infinite number of spoons (or endless energy) to accomplish goals each day. Some disabled people, however, start the day with a set number of spoons. Managing energy and resources requires a conscious, intentional effort. Disabled people might need to “reserve” or “spend” spoons for tasks that nondisabled individuals may not need spoons for at all.)
My spoons choose love.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
I wish I could say the same.
different-church-lady
I’ll tell ya one of the silver linings of white privilege: when a minority lashes out at me for being white, I just kinda absorb it, because I’m thinking, “Yeah, I put up with this shit like four times a year at most, and this person puts up with it four times an hour.”
Kathleen
@Professor Bigfoot: That won’t stop the usual “Fix This Joe Biden” suspects from using his inability to fix it as a cudgel against him. I’m betting they will milk “Blame Joe Biden And Democrats” for the next 10 years minimum.
Bill Arnold
@Chris Johnson:
Trump’s 93 Campaign Promises – Every promise made on video. (Ron Filipkowski, Nov 7, 2024)
He will break most of them, and should be called on every broken promise, IMO. Even ones that we are not unhappy he broke.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: I remember that nym. Also that we have been mutuals on Twitter for a while now.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson: Well, all you can do is all you can do.
I do appreciate to perspective… it’s not an insight available to people who aren’t white. From what we can tell, when white people get together in one room with other white people, the n-words fly like rice at a wedding.
(OKAY, OKAY, I EXAGGERATE… but you get the idea.)
Kathleen
@Ben Cisco: Yup. It’s that bad.
matt
Regular media is losing subscribers because they’re trying to sell the same content to MAGAts and normal people.
Nukular Biskits
@schrodingers_cat:
Look. I’m not here to get in a pissing contest with anyone.
But blaming white people EXCLUSIVELY for the return of Trump to the presidency is dishonest as fuck. Whether you care to admit it or not, folks from ALL walks of life and all demographics voted for Trump. Did more white people vote for Trump? Yes. But that does not excuse all those who aren’t white who voted for them.
I’ll say this as respectfully as I can: Stop blaming one demographic/ethnic group for us (and by “us” I mean white, black, brown, Native American, Asian, Hispanic, etc) on the left side of the political spectrum losing the 2024 presidential election.
Whether or not you can agree to that, I’m moving on to something a little more reality-based.
Kathleen
@JMG: But will they blame Trump? I’d bet 50% would not.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Yes absolutely. They relate because of their aesthetics.
Dems get associated — aesthetically — with people who use SAT words in casual conversation and who put their pronouns in their email signature and think sweet tea is an abomination unto the Lord (who they don’t believe in). So: if you hate that person, you vote for the candidate who also seems to hate that person.
(FYI, I was describing me.)
different-church-lady
@TBone: My spoons choose ice cream. I am innocent.
Omnes Omnibus
@Starfish (she/her): Professor Bigfoot has been commenting here for years. Sometimes more frequently, sometimes less so. He may be abrasive but he is not a new troll if that is where you were heading.
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
Mine choose Yuengling.
Professor Bigfoot
@Starfish (she/her): Also… I spent my entire career, some 45 years, almost ALWAYS being the raisin in the porridge.
I bring everything down to white supremacy because an entire lifetime’s experience tracks with extensive historical reading to show that every single thing that’s pathological in American culture and society can be traced directly to white supremacy.
Every bit of it.
And I’m too goddamn old and tired to shut up about it anymore.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Not until Spring ( no snow excuses.) Yay!
Chris Johnson
@Professor Bigfoot: I’d own a Porsche if I could feed it, 100%. Hope I made clear that I’m not judging that, I’d enjoy it too. Oddly enough you spent less buying it than my Subaru… but I bet it’s cost more in upkeep!
Agree completely that I’m not stalked in stores (or on streets: remember Trayvon? course you do, so do I) and by default never will be, in the way you are. This is why I don’t balk so hard at your ‘schtick’: I will NOT remain aware of that being real when it’s not my personal experience.
Yeah, it’s making people uncomfortable. My ‘out’ for that is jazz: I can legit say ‘I can only aspire to be as great at music as Coltrane’ and therefore there is a black man (many, really) that I aspire to and look up to. As long as I remember I love music, that’s my most basic reality. Without that… societal defaults wear on you.
Fascists don’t have to care about this. But it’s a fundamental problem that both challenges and inspires liberal multicultural democracies. People try harder when their competition is from all over, and mingled ideas are better. People don’t want to try harder (or, often, to try at all)
different-church-lady
@Nukular Biskits:
Oh? Where do you usually go?
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I have it on good authority that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has issued a dispensation for sweet tea.
For summertime use only, of course.
Baud
@Suzanne: You are very perspicacious.
TBone
@different-church-lady: ha! I hafta stock froyo in the freezer because hubby cholesterol level. Ice cream is a treat we reserve for occasional use in hot weather!
You have just reminded me I need to do Repatha injection on hubby.
frosty
@lowtechcyclist: I remember when we went to Bok Tower I looked out and exclaimed to Ms F “There’s a view! In Florida!”
TBone
@Baud: points for correct usage!
schrodingers_cat
@Nukular Biskits: I am not blaming them exclusively, I also blame the wannabes like Vivek who think they are super special and vote for MAGA T. But white people deserve the lion’s share of the blame for Trump’s return. Because that’s what Trump offered a return to white male supremacy and dominance.
And the statistics back me up on this. If everyone is to blame than no one is to blame.
kindness
Far too many ostensible liberals seem a bit more revenge minded than is healthy for someone who considers themself a progressive/liberal. Now, will I work hard for those normies who voted for Trump and are now shocked the leopards are going after their faces? I’ll continue to fight and work towards my beliefs becoming our basis. If that helps those normies, well it isn’t them I’m trying to help so much as the rest of us. Do I expect their appreciation for it? Nope. They’ve drunk the Koolaide. They believe bullshit. I’m doing this for us.
Betty Cracker
Speaking of the hostile media ecosystem, I was just reading in Vanity Fair that Kylie Kelce, a liberal, recently knocked Joe Rogan off the top of the podcast charts. Kylie Kelce is married to retired footballer/podcaster Jason Kelce. Jason is the brother of Taylor Swift’s boyfriend/Chiefs superstar Travis Kelce. [Source] I have no idea what this means, but anything that diminishes the influence of meathead Joe Rogan has gotta be a good thing, right?
Starfish (she/her)
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for letting me know!
It was a genuine question.
He is not a commenter that I remember (but we have so many commenters so it is not like I am going to remember everyone), but I will give more benefit of the doubt now that I know he has been in the community for a while.
narya
@Chris Johnson: @Professor Bigfoot: Yes, exactly. I come from a small liberal family. I live in a blue part of a blue city. I rarely encounter in-my-face racism (though of course I can see systemic racism, etc.), and Chris has it exactly right: when folks suspect my politics, they clam up. My friend–whose family IS racist and NOT liberal–has the same experience around his family: they simply don’t talk about politics or race at ALL around him.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: they’re a big deal in the Philly area.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Philly_Special_Christmas_Party
A sample
https://youtu.be/12mcK9lRSAs
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson: More in labor, busted knuckles, and loudly uttered cusswords than anything… LOL
I have wanted a Porsche ever since before I could drive- watching Steve McQueen bombing down the Mulsanne Straight in that P917K just… got me, y’know?
I’d reconciled myself to never ever owning one until this Boxster popped up in Facebook feed.
The only REALLY expensive repair I’ve had to have done was a clutch and flywheel replacement, which was entirely, completely my own damn fault. It was also has the ONLY clutch I have ever burned up in nearly 50 years of driving, and I coulda saved it if I hadn’t been a damned idiot…
With everything I’ve done to it, it’s still not worth more than 7 or 8 grand… but oh lord it puts SUCH a stupid grin on my face 😂
Nukular Biskits
@different-church-lady:
LOL! Definitely not here at the house, nosirree!
RaflW
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I used to camp in the Arbuckle Mountains of southern Oklahoma. There’s a lovely waterfall and some short, fun hikes. Not a very long drive from Ft. Worth where I was in college.
Now, people in Colorado wouldn’t call the Arbuckle’s “mountains” but it was really pleasant terrain, and a welcome shift from the very small hills of Cowtown.
Professor Bigfoot
@narya: And this is one reason why I’m in the Jackaltariat- this is something I really would never have considered, but it makes perfect sense, for all love.
Yeesh, you poor sods.
different-church-lady
OK, so we can all agree that owning a Porsche is the great uniter.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: I cannot stand sweet tea. LOL.
I remember visiting my in-laws in Arkansas, and we went to a barbecue restaurant the day we arrived. I ordered iced tea, forgetting that I needed to specify UNSWEET, and a side of green beans. The tea came out sweetened, the green beans came out covered in bacon, and I was horrified, LOL.
The server saw me blanch and she said, “Honey, this is the South. Our vegetables aren’t healthy here.”
Chris Johnson
@Professor Bigfoot: I’ve literally never seen that in my life, but my life’s been very isolated and very unusual. I don’t vibe like ‘one of the guys’ though I’m also a straight male: my autism and streak of genderqueerness causes people to treat me like a weirdo, and my abusive childhood led me to spending most of my life THINKING people were stalking me in the supermarket and hating me and wanting to harm me, when they really were not.
Nobody’s gonna start trying to do white-bonding with N-words around someone like that because they won’t know how the weirdo will react, so my experience has been uniformly of white people being more guarded around me (including family, thanks for asking) because they assumed I was broken and wrong. That’d be a sort of intersectionality based around mental health wellness.
So yeah: because I’ve mostly ‘read’ as a broken wrong person, people white or otherwise acted as if I was not safe to N-bomb around. And so I assume that’s how white people act, when there’s an element of ‘how they act around ME’ at play. But you wouldn’t have known that, except in the way I react to your ‘schtick’ provocations not like a normal white person.
It’s not about overcoming my training, it’s that I simply did not get that racial training because my life was damaged in such a way that I wasn’t treated as human. I wouldn’t recommend it as a racism fix :D but consider that as an unexpected perspective.
Professor Bigfoot
@different-church-lady: Even if it’s 28 years old and the convertible top has NEVER worked correctly?(well, for the last seven years, at least) 😂
narya
Yes, this. I’d like to throw patriarchy in there as well, because the combo expands the explanation circle even further.
Bill Arnold
@Soprano2:
Twitter/X does this regularly. Shadowbanning is a regular thing, and means no reach at all (e.g. not found in searched) for a week or so, at minimum.
The offenses are generally for disagreeing with Mr Musk’s opinions in some way.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: Taylor Swift is force for good beyond what I expected
Omnes Omnibus
The opening sequence of McQueen driving into Le Mans in his 911S…
schrodingers_cat
Latino men who voted for Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and other MAGA minorities like him share equal blame for Trump’s ascension. Since we have cleared that up. I guess we can close this thread.
BTW the majority of Latino men still voted D, though T increased his vote share among men of most demographics.
Patriarchy and whiteness won. America lost.
Women of only one demographic have voted for Trump all the 3 times he has run for President.
So #not all white women brigade don’t @me, lecture one of your Trump voting sisters instead. Get them to see the light.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson: The thing that will make you aware of your humanity and everyone else’s humanity is having that humanity denied.
Jews, Native Americans and Black folks understand this well, which is one reason why we all voted for Democrats. They’re flawed AF, but they (so far) recognize every individual’s humanity and their right to exist as their own true selves.
Suzanne
@narya:
Oh 100%. It is deeply white to stifle your real feelings and paper over disagreement!
This is why so many of us are in therapy! We learn this in the home!
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Why bother, we’d just have to open another one.
Professor Bigfoot
@narya: I like to say the “male” in “white supremacy” is silent, but it’s always there!
These days I’ll also add in “Christian,” as the conservative movement seems to be one of straight white Christian male supremacy.
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: Wanting one even.
Gin & Tonic
I didn’t have hard-right Congressman Joe “You Lie!” Wilson as a firm supporter of democratic Georgia (the country) on my 2024 bingo card, but here we are.
Chris Johnson
@Professor Bigfoot: Oh geez, a 917? O_O seriously.
I have a crush on that fairly recent ‘third party ultimate vintage 911’ which I don’t remember the name of. Not Porsche themselves, not the whale-tail Death Of Stockbrokers one, the one where some Porsche lovers made a company to do that specific old 911 up right and sell people the result.
Love Boxsters. relatable. So much less savage than the 911s, but still the loveliest of machines.
zhena gogolia
@Chris Johnson:
This is very astute. This is what my neighbors are like. None of my friends are Trumpers, but the people I live among are.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Glory b:
This is so true.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
IMO, it’s critical to name it. It works differently.
RevRick
@Nukular Biskits: Bright, sunny and 27 here in Allentown, but they’re forecasting a warming trend up to the 50s with rain the next four days, and then a turn to below normal temperatures through January. All we need is for a Nor’easter to set up off the coast to get clobbered.
On a positive note, the day we headed down to suburban Philly, a clipper system came through dumping 4” of snow. I decided I’d tackle it after reading the paper and tanking up with coffee, when I heard the clear scraping of a snow shovel. Turned out it was our 9-year-old neighbor boy from across the street. He had asked his mom(!) if he could shovel our walk. I thanked him and sent his mom a text telling her that she and her husband were raising great kids. All four are adorable.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic:
[LOOKS AT BINGO CARD] All the squares on mine say, “EVERYTHING’S FUCKED”
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you for that!
But lemme tell ya– if they’d built the Boxster first– or better, the Cayman, the 911 would never have been The Thing it is today.
Mid engine handling, whooo boy, there ain’t nothin’ like it!
(even if the convertible top has to be raised and lowered by hand…)
Marmot
Can we get to hating on the non-college educated and the evangelicals yet? Lot more bang for the buck there.
TBone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: this is about Taylor’s boyfriend’s brother’s wife, Kylie.
Her own spotlight. They’ve done a lot of charity and have much goodwill to spread even though the music is not my speed. (See #170)
dnfree
@Professor Bigfoot: I certainly don’t hate you for what you say. I remember Arthur Ashe, the tennis player, saying something to the effect that when he was in the privacy of his own home, he was just a man, but as soon as he stepped outside his door, he became a black man. It was a burden that shouldn’t have been there, that this society and our history placed on him.
By the same token, Vivek shoots off his mouth and now people from India and elsewhere are getting undeserved heat and hatred.
When I set foot outside my house, I’m white but also female, and that leads to assumptions and biases too. I wish I knew a way to change it.
But to your larger point, I do push back if relatives or friends or others express bias. I will do the same with strangers, too, unless they look like they might have an anger management problem and/or a gun.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: I saw that. (Didn’t have the patience to read it, though.)
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson: Mine’s a 97 so it’s got the little 2.5 liter 6– I’ve had pickup trucks try to drag race me and they just leave me in the dust even if I TRY to race ’em.
But man, let me get them on a curvy twisty road– I’ve never driven anything in my life that carries speed through a corner like this thing does. It’s so beautifully BALANCED.
(get the idea I love the damn thing?)
sab
@sab: Also too, my sister is the only one of us who had kids, and her husband was Han Chinese. So she jumped from very white to Not White immediately. The whole family is shocked, not from the racial category change, but from the reaction out in the world. All her kids moved to California, where Asian is beyond okay but merely normal.
RevRick
@Suzanne: You can’t deal with what you don’t name.
I might add that the very act of naming takes away some of the power of that which is named.
Harrison Wesley
@different-church-lady: Can the Revolution be far away?
different-church-lady
All this talk about sports cars reminds me that men are what put Trump over the top. 😛
Chris Johnson
@Professor Bigfoot: remember that! It’s important! Us poor pale sods have lost something human in that cold and isolation. We are NOT AS GOOD at that stuff and it makes us more dangerous and poorer by comparison.
When you imagine the uncle starting his crap, you’re thinking Uncle Ruckus. And that is a black man bringing his screwed-up community to the cookout.
Here’s a white uncle: I never met my Uncle Teddy, far as I know. There is a reason. He’s on that Scandinavian side, and he had what was called the Kohlemainen temper, and that’s the uncle who nearly beat my Aunt Christine to death when she and my dad were kids. I don’t know why. Grandma and Grandpa weren’t able to protect their kids from all of that. That is a white person uncle.
My mom had a sister I never knew. She had fits of some sort, and my other Grandma locked her away in some sort of care home… and never spoke of her again. This affected the hell out of my Mom, but she complied and also didn’t speak of her sister my whole life. Eventually it came out. That’s one hell of a white Grandma. (she was also a flapper, smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, drove a red convertible Firebird and was racist as fuck, so I am partly the product of my Mom rebelling against specifically the racism)
Remember white people aren’t one bit kinder to each other. But it’s also like pit bulls. That ferocity can be turned to the cause of good… but if it ain’t, that’s a problem.
different-church-lady
@Harrison Wesley: Roughly 6800 of them per minute.
Steve LaBonne
@narya: My Republican coworkers (back in the day) learned to shut up about certain subjects when I was within earshot. That really is how it works in my experience.
dnfree
@Chris Johnson: I have wanted to see you on a post and keep missing you. I want to recommend a book about Finnish immigrants to America, by someone with that family background. It so echoes some of your comments here about your background, and also gives a lot of background on the early labor movement in the Pacific Northwest.
https://shop.finlandiafoundation.org/products/deep-river
RevRick
@Suzanne: When I was in therapy for depression, my counselor gave me a homework assignment. Write the Ten Commandments of your family of origin.
At first, I was stumped. They were so deeply embedded in my soul that I couldn’t name them. But then I came up with the first: “Thou shalt not talk about money!” And it was like the dam broke, because the rest came flooding out.
It was a very eye-opening and therapeutic exercise.
narya
@Professor Bigfoot: Where it really plays out is among women who think that aligning with men is going to result in some of that power rubbing off on them–THOSE are (some of) the white women who go all-in for MAGA. They’re racist in their own right, of course, as well. I think of the MAGA female “look” as evidence: they want to be attractive to men because that alignment with men is what will “protect” them and give them power.
Suzanne
@Chris Johnson: So my mom’s side of the family — of mostly German and English heritage — have the KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON ethos absolutely locked in, in every form of interaction. No fighting, no arguing, grit the teeth, change the subject. Stoic. Conflict is seen as low-class. Like shit the Palins do.
Get along, don’t stand out, don’t talk about politics or religion. Deep cultural white people shit.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Yes patriarchy and white supremacy. White men who want that and women and minorities who want to be picked by those white men.
Gin & Tonic
@Professor Bigfoot:
Nothing wrong with a hand-operated convertible top (says this Miata-owner.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Don’t all families do that?
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot:
I heard a lot more of that when I was a kid, and in less of a position to object. Now, the people in my family who did that are either dead, or I don’t talk to them any more.
Suzanne
@RevRick: I remember the first time I saw people in a family have a disagreement and then work through it and come to agreement. Like…. Mind: BLOWN.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: Oh, you mean like in a fictional movie, right?
cain
@schrodingers_cat:
Fantastic
This is going to suck because outrage from Indians but also from the bhakts and right wing India first people are going to generate massive clicks for social media and it’s all generating revenue.
They need to stop provoking the beast for all our sakes.
Chris Johnson
You know, a neat thing about this blog and this commentariat is that we REALLY are so much the Democrat big tent, in the best of ways.
I saw multiple other white people pop up and support my not-wholly-flattering take on whiteness shedding a different angle of light on something that can be tough to manage in a liberal multicultural democracy, and that is HOW we function in a liberal multicultural democracy.
It’s not comfortable and it’s risky. I’m not afraid of that stuff much, so I had little problem saying ‘listen, prof, here’s what whiteness is REALLY like’ and explaining how it can be unflattering and really rather restrictive… but that’s the truth. IN THAT CONTEXT I can say, ‘white people aren’t as good at community and being friendly’ and be heard. And it’s important when black people are believing the white people are being a warm supportive community that excludes black people… if you figure the warmth is being intentionally withheld, just to be an asshole, well they must be SUCH assholes to act as they do and only be nice to their own!
The truth is grimmer and sadder… and a liberal multicultural democracy is the antidote to what ails white people in that respect.
And yeah, a lot of white people will fight it real hard. Because they’re full of hate, and if you ‘get’ that they hate their own… yeah, they’ll really hate you. We have a justice system because people can’t be trusted to be good. So you don’t just give up on the people who can’t be good: you try to set rules, and you try to defuse where it gets most toxic.
So I’ll soak up as many reminders of the larger reality that faces people who don’t look like me, as I can stand. and now and then… I will speak up when too much is being overlooked. When it’s important.
dnfree
@Professor Bigfoot: Your description of why you wanted your Porsche is so relatable to me! Early in our marriage (1960s), my husband got a chance to buy a used white Volvo P1800, which apparently was like one driven in a TV show. We only had it a short time (we were a one-car family and it wasn’t very practical), but he sure loved the image.
Denali5
““
@Professor Bigfoot:
While I agree with your comment that certain topics are avoided in conversations now, particularly political views, it is certainly upsetting to be ranked as racist because of being white. I am ashamed of my Tennessee roots because of the threats against Phil Williams, a Nashville reporter. What can I do about it? I really don’t know. I have a trans daughter and I am afraid for her safety even here in upstate New York. These are frightening times.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL.
I will note that the older members of the family certainly had some of the racist attitudes typical of their time…. but the real bigotry was for other white people seen as lower-class.
cain
@Professor Bigfoot: 👍👍👍
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat: Not seeing any attacks on Indians or Indian Americans on Mastodon, and that’s one of the big reasons I like it.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: Which is why too many white people are invested in making sure blacks stay poor.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: Agreed, 100%.
stinger
@Professor Bigfoot:
I may be wrong, but over time I have gotten the impression that Glory b is not a member of the White American demographic.
I feel there is enough divisiveness among Americans in general; does there have to be divisiveness among Jackals? I’m pretty sure all of us here voted for Clinton, and Biden, and Harris. All of us are devastated by the outcome of the recent election. Can we not be sensitive to that, and choose our written words carefully?
Professor Bigfoot
@different-church-lady: I hate that you’re right. Again.
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m not “defending my whiteness”, I’m defending myself as an individual. Do you feel collective guilt for everything bad every black person has ever done? Do you feel it’s fair for anyone to ask you to feel that guilt? Do you think it’s right for white people to label you in a certain way just because they have prejudiced, stereotypical views about black people? I think collective guilt is not productive. That’s not the same thing as forgetting history or not acknowledging reality – those things are bad. I’m an ally and yet you want me to beat myself up over what other white people who are not me do. I can’t control them. I can talk to them, and I do, but I can’t control them.
Raoul Paste
@Chris Johnson: This is part of why I keep reading this blog. It really expands my experience and understanding.
And from the way you write, whatever they are paying you, it ain’t enough.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: Sure. But class behavior isn’t just about — or even primarily about — money.
Raising your voice in public? God forbid, getting in a fight? Not having a properly wrapped gift at every occasion? Being Catholic and having a lot of kids? Tattoos?!?!
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: Well, evidently for some people it’s open season on white people today on Balloon Juice.
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: So? We are individuals. Responsible for our own actions. We don’t put people in prison for stuff their parents did, or ancestors. Sometimes our relatives cause us a lot of pain, even fear. I was a foster mom, but even before that I could tell you stories….
They past and even the present is full of injustice because of blaming many for the sins of one. Every time a black or Jewish or Muslim leader is expected to denounce some terrible act by another of the same “group” but white leaders aren’t, that is foolish injustice and this stuck on the same theme prejudice is just as stupid and unjust.
It can be enlightening and helpful at first, but beating a dead horse and not listening in return is wasting everyone’s time. I also think the Professor is talking himself into despair and depression. I found a long time ago that if you repeat the same sad words over and over, it’s as if they keep happening and you make yourself worse off mentally. Just not saying it can gradually cheer you up and not hanging out with people who encourage you to repeat it is also helpful. I learned to get up and go wash dishes instead of having gripe sessions with certain people at a certain job and became much less depressed.
On this website I have to say, grumpy people who are always saying white people are terrible get taken lightly now. That is not insightful or helpful. I am not only white, I was brought up by white parents who taught me. I am not a rebel in my family, I am what they intended. And even the Republican white people I am related to voted against Trump both times.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson: I completely get what you’re saying, and again, I deeply appreciate the perspective- the knowledge that the racists HIDE their racism even from their own families is… enlightening, if depressing.
It raises the question for me: can these people ever be gotten?
Will they EVER vote against white supremacy? It sounds very much like the only way Democrats are going to get white people, ever,
Now, please, someone convince me otherwise.
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: Twitter is full of it and also to some extent BlueSky. Its not just coming from MAGA types.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
Look, you gotta draw a line somewhere…
Soprano2
I agree, the MAGAs live for our outrage. It nourishes them. I think mockery works better than outrage. So much of what they do and say is silly (and outrageous, too, but for them that’s the point).
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: I like it. It’s been so long since I’ve been hunted…
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t know, when I asked if you honestly thought I would roll over and agree to go back to Jim Crow, you said yes, you thought I would, because that’s what “my people” do. This is not any more acceptable when applied to white people than when it’s applied to any other group.
mappy!
@Professor Bigfoot:
Monte Carlo, 1964, 1965, Cooper S, 1071cc.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m tuning out a lot and not just the news. Any of the YouTube channels I follow that tend to talk about the politicians and parties, I haven’t watched since the election.
No Seth Meyers no Liberal Redneck no Beau of the Fifth Column no Some More News.
Right now I’m sticking to anime fight commentary and art criticism. Only the latter sometimes gets political, but it’s theory not personalities.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: Well, when I asked a specific question, he was certainly talking about me, not about “systemic privilege”. Do you think I would roll over and agree to Jim Crow without a fight?
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: i consider it a sign of mental illness to vote for a candidate because you believe he will do all the things he promises to do that you like and none of the things he promises to do that you don’t like.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2:
They do. Those are the folks tsk-tsking about whether you went to church or trying to ban RVs, because they look ‘trashy’ or might be rented to homeless people. It used to be that everyone knew that spoofs like the ‘Church Lady’ from when I was really young was making fun of conservatives.
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: much agreed. The thing that absolutely enrages me the most about MAGAs is this idea that the sort of people who would have slammed me into a locker in seventh grade because they thought “reading was for fags” should, forty years later, be catered to by every element of our society.
narya
@Professor Bigfoot: Honestly, I don’t know if they can be “gotten” through politics–maybe through experience? I do think that some of what makes them crazy-mad is seeing multi-racial and/or same-sex couples on TV, for example, but I also think those same images help their KIDS maybe see things differently, and, as families become varied, maybe that starts helping around the edges? No clue.
Another Scott
@Chris Johnson: I think there’s some wisdom here, but I don’t know how universal it is.
Which came first? The Whiteness or the Maleness or the petit bourgeoisie?
A few anecdotes: 1) There was a small get-together at my parents place and I heard my dad talking with a couple of his old friends, telling jokes. And my dad told a nclang joke. They all laughed. I was taken aback and could only shake my head and groan. 2) A kind retired neighbor woman who volunteers at the local hospital was talking with someone while I was walking the dog and passing by. She was beaming as she talked about her daughter who was head of some national anti-abortion rally that was taking place in DC that weekend. I was taken aback, but probably shouldn’t have been… 3) When I was in college, I tried to make some money by delivering phone books one summer in Chicago. $0.25 each, IIRC. I was maybe 20 years old, maybe 130 pounds, white, glasses. I had a ’66 Olds F-85 that I could stuff with a hundred or so phonebooks. My delivery area was south of the campus, “Well the South Side of Chicago, is the baddest part of town…” A couple of kids followed me into an apartment lobby asking for money in a threatening way. I said “do you think I would be doing this if I had any money? I get paid when I’m done”. I was bigger than them (was lifting weights and swimming in those days) so they left me alone. When I was done with that street and heading back to my car, some guy grabbed the car door and said he wasn’t going to let me leave until I gave him some money. I was in the car, trying to close the door without much success when a really, really big guy came up and pushed him away and told him to stop hassling me.
It is eyeopening to be someone who obviously sticks out, who can’t do anything about that sticking out, and who is different for whatever reason. Like the fish that doesn’t know it’s in water, we can’t fully understand the culture we’re in as long as we’re not exposed to something different. If our friends’ humor is nclang jokes, if all our friends are anti-abortion, if strangers who don’t live in our neighborhood and will be gone in minutes show up, why should we consider the feelings or thoughts of those outside our tribe?
I don’t know.
FWIW.
Hang in there, everyone. People of good will have to find some common language and some way to work together to push society forward.
Best wishes,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: I guess some people is me.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: So here’s a couple of funny class-signifiers I was raised with:
1) Women wearing their hair down/long is low-class. (My mom commented on it when Kate Middleton wore her hair down for the royal wedding. I read later that the royals wanted her to have an updo and she pushed back.)
2) Athletic shoes should N E V E R be worn for anything except actual athletic activity. My mother was very displeased to see my classmates wearing them to school when I was little. I had to have “school shoes”, like Mary Janes or saddle shoes.
The Audacity of Krope
I don’t see why you’re getting so much pushback on this. Democrats are subject to the same bigotries as Republicans and, more importantly, acted on them several times just this year while they still had the power.
Next year the bandits will be leading the decision making and we know what will need to happen if anything is to get done. And how many view doing “something, anything” as preferable to just waiting out a bad situation.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: Okay point taken, I hadn’t read all your exchanges when I made that comment.
The Audacity of Krope
White people is a fake category. If you don’t believe me go out and try to order some white people food. The only white culture is the destruction of culture of those who moved to the US. African, obviously, but Europeans too. Make no mistake.
Nukular Biskits
@RevRick:
Obligatory:
Billy Joel – Allentown (Official Video)
cain
@Soprano2:
Mockery itself is attention.
Build your own ecosystem and kick the losers out.
They can’t survive without liberal outrage and some so called liberals use liberal outrage to line their own pockets.
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat: Of course not. It’s coming from the *algorithm*. Musk wants you to see lots of hate on Indians. Almost certainly the algo sends you extra Indian hate precisely because you are from there and it makes you mad.
With millions of posters there’s lots of sick posts to be amplified and as long as Musk is deciding what you see that’s what you’ll see.
On Mastodon there’s no algo deciding what I see and without that pushing the sickos I see absolutely none of it.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Well, I mean, eradicating racism is a centuries-long project that will never be truly complete. But lots of white people voted for Obama, and Harris. There’s no reason to think that their votes are ungettable forever.
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: Actually it doesn’t make me mad. I am seeing people in my feed who support Ds make these comments. Most of the comments are based in ignorance or worse still incomplete knowledge.
I do criticize Indians on my Twitter account a lot. I don’t mind criticism based on reality.
The Audacity of Krope
Oh, and I forgot the people who were already here. They may have gotten the worst of it. Not that I would have the stomach to try to judge that against all the others.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m curious. What would be the expected outcome of confronting family and friends who don’t recognize that are a bit racist? What do you think will happen?
Nukular Biskits
@Steve LaBonne:
Back during the 2020 election, there was a lot of pro-Trump rhetoric in my office but I wouldn’t engage as I fully believe discussing politics in the workplace doesn’t make for a great work environment.
One morning, however, the stream of absolute rightwing bullshit coming out of the cube next door (the one I call “The Buffoonery Cube”) was so egregious I lost my composure and loudly stated some folks needed to STFU and I’d be more than happy to have a discussion with their respective managers about whether they were paid to talk politics or not.
Needless to say my reaction was completely unprofessional and I later apologized for the manner and my words but the message was made very clear. The rhetoric was greatly scaled back.
Chris Johnson
@The Audacity of Krope: (coughs in Kalevala)
The Audacity of Krope
I didn’t lynch anyone so I’m not racist. QED, libtard.
Not an excuse to not have the conversation. One thing that helps some people, if they actually listen, is not assigning the “racist” label to a person but to a statement or an act. That, with at least a couple people, breaks through the surprisingly strong layer of white fragility.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RaflW:
In 2015 and 2016, I ran an ultra just outside Tahlequah. The terrain wasn’t any different than back in Central Misery, meaning pretty hilly, wooded, rivers. Basically, indistinguishable.
Oh, and I’d like to track down any voter, hell just one voter, that changed their voting patterns based on Buttigieg’s appearances on Faux “News”. We could do our version of a Cletus safari except it would be a snipe hunt. Don’t get me wrong, Pete’s brilliant in that setting but it doesn’t move the needle, just like Harris and Rogan.
Starfish (she/her)
@Suzanne: The whole not accepting cash as gifts and wanting gift cards instead is such a white thing, and it is so stupid.
stinger
@Suzanne:
@different-church-lady:
My immediate reaction to Suzanne’s comment was, “Oh, for me it was Moonstruck“!
emrys
@Nukular Biskits: I had a Peanuts poster that said: I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.
Citizen Alan
@Professor Bigfoot: i am increasingly convinced that your shtick is bullshitery and that you are, in fact, a twenty two year old white male MAGA supporter who’s just here to stir up shit and get your rocks off that way. I certainly can’t imagine any other reason for someone to come onto a lefty blog and try to stir up racial divisiveness in the manner you are doing.
Nukular Biskits
@The Audacity of Krope:
Oh, I have news for you … LOL!
ETA: White People Food
Steve LaBonne
@Nukular Biskits: Hey, it worked. No reason for regrets.
The Audacity of Krope
@Chris Johnson: That appears to be Finnish culture, not “white.”
Nukular Biskits
@Steve LaBonne:
The only regret is that I should have handled it without the yelling and cursing.
Otherwise, none at all.
Steve LaBonne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I can tell you what you get when you try to talk about the existence of white supremacy culture in our churches to some white “liberal” UUs- “You’re calling me a racist! But I marched in [year]! Waaaahhh!”
Suzanne
@Starfish (she/her):
OMG, my older family members think gift cards are super-low-class. My mom has the same gripe about gift registries. “Then the person knows how much I spent.” I remember, if they got someone a book as a gift, I was taught to cut the price off the dust jacket.
Gift-giving is, legit, a point of undiscussed contention and pretense.
Steve LaBonne
@Nukular Biskits: Yeah, despite my Irish temper I did manage to avoid that. A word to the unwise is sufficient.
Chris Johnson
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t know whether my Uncle Teddy stayed out of jail his whole life. Seems his behavior could well have had consequences.
I’mma ask you (before going about my day): knowing what you now know about Chris, do you think I would be gentle with white supremacists? As they show themselves? Are they welcome at my white person cookout?
No. Because I don’t have one, not of my own. Sometimes I’m welcome among the people who do have communities.
If I see a white fucker who does not meet my standards for humanity… for instance, the white cop who beat Miles outside Birdland, let’s say that guy… well, put that fucker on the ice floe and cast him away. Maybe you are more merciful towards your tribe when they err. I am not.
And you are among many, many white people who would stand alongside me, arms folded, and we’ll just watch the fucker die. It is on THEM to come up to the standard. I owe the white racist, the offender, nothing.
And in this, in some ways I guess I’m less human than you. But on the other hand, once you see this in us (and plenty of us jackals are white as fuck and totally merciless to those we deem offenders) you may be less quick to be provocative by suggesting we will defend white racists ‘cos we’re all a big white family of evilness.
…he don’t know us too well, do he?
I think OUR families should be more like YOUR families, but they ain’t. And that can mean that you’re surrounded by white people who have voted against white supremacy all their lives.
And will still do so even as you disrespect and provoke them <3
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: Sorry to hear it. :(
Miss Bianca
@Chris Johnson: If you’re talking about me, let me assure that keeping a horse is definitely keeping me poor.
But, apparently, I wouldn’t have it any other way… :)
Nukular Biskits
@Steve LaBonne:
I work in a white male-dominated environment with many (if not most) being supportive of Donald Trump. And in the defense industry.
Those that don’t know me (new hires, folks passing through, etc) naturally assume that because I’m an older white guy with a pronounced Southern accent, I must be one of the clan (and I used that term intentionally). Occasionally, when the subject of politics comes up, I typically will deflect it and change the subject. Most of the time, the other person will either get the message I’m not interested or they were just trying to make conversation and they move along.
Anyway, somewhat related, this year a number of us managers (yes, I’m one and I still think my company was bonkers to promote me to such a level) sent emails out to all our respective charges reminding them that we need to be respectful in the work place and to avoid discussion politics in the office. So this year, it was relatively quiet.
The Audacity of Krope
You can call it that, I guess, but what I saw was Irish food, Italian food, American food, French food, et c.
This is where I get back to “whiteness” as being nothing more than the destruction of culture.
Steve LaBonne
@Nukular Biskits: Well done.
Nukular Biskits
@The Audacity of Krope:
“White people food” is, to borrow from Urban Dictionary, pretty much any food cooked/eaten by white folks that is bland and devoid of taste.
I’ve been to some family reunions and other family gatherings where I could definitely testify to that. LOL!
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: Well, that could be me except for the pronouns part. As a friend of mine once said, “I prefer to remain a mystery…even to myself.”
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: By defending YOURSELF about white supremacy, you defend *whiteness.*
As was said elsewhere, “if it don’t apply, let it fly.”
Why do you need to defend yourself if you KNOW you’re not one of them?
HIT DOGS HOLLER.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@The Audacity of Krope: Oh, I’ve had conversations. I’ve not used the word racist. I’ve tried to be empathic, but they accuse me of calling them racist anyway and do some combination of ranting, crying, and treating me like an ungrateful foolish child who doesn’t appreciate everything they’ve done for me. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, about their attitudes ever changes. If anything, they just dig in more. My family is ungettable.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: You sound like the few white dudes from my career (also engineering) that I treasured, because they got it.
Some of whom I’m still in contact with, even. Hah, one I’m still FB friends with was from the one most racist company culture I ever endured!
You guys are damned thin on the ground, though. ;)
Professor Bigfoot
@Gvg: Mate, we don’t do despair and depression, from the Enslavement to Jim Crow to Donald Trump.
We have joy, and conservative white people HATE that.
Not conservative white people have trouble understanding it, too.
The Audacity of Krope
As a pastry-dough American, I think what you’re missing is that this is a discussion of culture, not skin color per se. This is why we have concepts like “pick-mes” and “welcome status at the barbecue.”
This isn’t about your white skin. This is about a white American culture that wants to seal itself off from outside influence and ossify.
different-church-lady
@Professor Bigfoot: So, I take it if I were to say something (idiotic) along the lines of “Blacks are a problem,” you’d know I wasn’t talking about you, right?
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: This, this, this.
To be proud of having Scottish, or Irish, or French, or German, or Monegasque heritage is awesome, because each of those is an ethnicity- embracing language, cuisine, and culture.
What is “whiteness?” What is the culture of “whiteness?”
If someone “white” wanted to celebrate their pride in ancestral Swissness and put on a Swiss celebratory feast (and EVERY human culture has celebratory feast foods!) we would all join in, wouldn’t we?
Ditch whiteness. Embrace your ancestral ethnicities, all of ‘em, and join in part of the human tapestry.
We are ALL children of the Homeworld.
Professor Bigfoot
@different-church-lady: Some are.
But not more than half of us.
More than half of you heartily embraced the white supremacist Trump, so YOU TELL ME HOW TO INTERPRET THIS.
The Audacity of Krope
I am intimately familiar with the conversation you describe, having had it many times myself. This is why I added that caveat about them listening.
Even if having that conversation 100 times only sparks a small glimmer of thought in maybe two people, though, it’s worth having.
Another Scott
@Citizen Alan: Wow.
I don’t get that impression at all.
Different perspectives are important. Mutual admiration societies are boring.
Hang in there, CA, and everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
HMU on Bluesky, if you want. There’s a lot more to the story than what I’m sharing here.
But my points, at the risk of whitesplainin’, are:
different-church-lady
@Professor Bigfoot: Was it my upper half or my lower?
The Audacity of Krope
I’m just saying people shouldn’t lump themselves in. Reject the white label. It’s freeing
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Over 70% of Indian Americans have voted D in the last 4 elections (I haven’t seen the data before that) but we all get tarred and feathered because of the 25 to 27% of the Viveks out there. By our allies. I don’t care what MAGAs say about Indians or Indian Americans
The Audacity of Krope
Further evidence that pale Americans of good taste should reject the “white” label.
tam1MI
I read about the same thing in Slate. I wonder if Kelce’s ascendance means that she is getting more listeners or that Rogan has lost some. I would like to think it is the latter. Rogan’s whole schtick was how he “wasn’t about politics”, him throwing his lot in with Hair Furor has got to have cut against that.
schrodingers_cat
BTW I have encountered a lot of hate directed against Indians on H1-Bs as well as international students on this blog and other liberal spaces in the last 8 years. Its not just Twitter and Elon’s algorithm.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: I learned something today that changed my perspective.
Understand, FROM THE OUTSIDE, it looks a lot like “liberal” white people are willing to overlook the racism of their families and friends.
But I see from more than one commenter here that those white people hide their white supremacy, even from their own families.
That is, it doesn’t matter if you DO try to engage them, because they are simply never ever going to hear it.
Which is a depressing-ass realization in itself, but also profoundly clarifying.
tam1MI
I would suggest that trans people be added to this list also. We are seeing them getting un-personed in real time. :(
The Audacity of Krope
White people, as a culture not individuals, put black people in a single category. White people also made themselves a category. That from within v from without aspect drives a lot of what people think is proper in these conversations.
White people made the white people problem and it is on European descendents of good conscience to fix it.
Nukular Biskits
@The Audacity of Krope:
I’m not sure I get the point here.
Are you arguing the “white label” is somehow something that should be avoided? If so, what of other “labels”?
Humans, rightly or wrongly, generally have an innate need to categorize things, including other humans. “White people” isn’t a technical term inasmuch as it is a means for folks to generically describe a group of people (which can, unfortunately, bring along all kinds of tropes).
scav
@Professor Bigfoot: By your strict application of “History tells us the White People always oppress us” rule, History also tells us that White People invented everything of importance and value which is demonstrably bullshit. But, you be you, presumably it makes your life simpler and more pleasurable to have everything tidied up with a neat and simple bow.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m saying it is something you should avoid applying to yourself. Put forward the more nuanced vision of your heritage and remember that white culture is nothing more than the tail end of the colonialist ourobouros.
I identify with my grandmother’s Irish and Italian cooking, with my uncle’s slight Eastern European accent, with a family history portrayed in at least a couple waves of immigration; not the notion that there is something about my flesh tone that unites me with the purportedly civilizing effect that European expansion had on the globe.
Perfect, if unintentional, example. History only says that if you accept the white label as real. This is literally the core conceit of white supremacists; that of a vast, all-encompassing Western culture. The really fucked ones talk about it all the time.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@The Audacity of Krope:
In the people I’ve had that conversation with no glimmers. None.
Despite the pressure by people on my side of the political divide to divest myself completely from mainly my Trumpy parents (but also some other family), I’ve gone the opposite way. I’ve made an effort to maintain a relationship with them. I’ve done this because I still love them and I know they still love me. People are complicated. They contain a mix of good and terrible. I try to focus on the good in them and on the things we still have in common. I remember all the ways they’ve been there when I needed them, and try to show up in return. I recognize that as deeply homophobic as they are, they didn’t reject me when I came out. So I don’t reject them for the things I have a problem with about them. I also make it clear when I don’t agree with their attitudes, but make a conscious effort to avoid unproductive political conversations. That kind of thing tends to get me bitterly criticized by liberal friends from liberal families who have no idea what I’ve been through.
Ironically, I think I’ve made it harder, not easier for them. My mother actually told me during our last huge fight that I should just let her go (stop trying to have a relationship with her). I’m like a fly in the ointment. They can’t comfortably believe all the worst stereotypes about Democrats and gay people, when I actually live the values they say they believe in, like supporting and loving your family. I’m financially stable, without a man (lesbian). I’m a responsible adult. I happily live in a city. I have ethically diverse friends. I’m well educated and have a good job. It grates.
I’m also seeing the impact on the next generation. My sticking around has allowed me to influence them by example. They are so much more liberal than my parents.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Here’s how you do it.
different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope: Agreed. But I’m picking a minor bone with the idea that I’m supposed to understand it’s not categorical (and just walk on by) but I’m not supposed to get the same credit when I (hypothetically) speak in categorical terms.
In the end, I totally get what the Professor is laying down, and even agree with a lot of it. But I think there’s a little bit of unnecessary hypocrisy going on here.
Steve LaBonne
@The Audacity of Krope: Whiteness is an artificial identity whose purpose is exclusion of those deemed not white, which has turned out to be a very flexible category over the centuries as the calculations of those in power, as to how to stay in power, have changed. There is no health in it.
different-church-lady
@Nukular Biskits: I guess another way of putting it is, “If white people are so shitty in this way, then why do the same shitty thing they do?”
The Audacity of Krope
I typically, but not always, reject categorical statements. And don’t even get me started on superlatives.
My attitude here is coming from a place of experience. I’ve been in this conversation in real life spaces too many times to count. Yeah, I used to get a little titchy at broad criticism of white people, myself. When I realized, though, that these conversations aren’t talking about skin color but culture; the heavens opened up, choirs sang, my cousin hit the lotto.
And the people making these remarks do understand why we might take them as hurtful. In these same conversations, I’ve had folk gently chide each other for such comments while drawing attention to my presence. I’m so far past caring, though, that I usually say “no, they’re right.”
A couple of my friends have taken to the term “well-seasoned” for that level of comfort.
Well, if it doesn’t help them, maybe it might help the world’s unified eternal soul.
@Baud: Exactly right, even though their approach may be a bit conservative for my taste.
StringOnAStick
@Chris Johnson: I will add to that that the liberal community spaces I spend time in are warm and friendly because they are liberal and diverse. In my former career I worked in redneckland pretty often, and warm ain’t happening there and never has, except to people they are related to in some way, and ONLY if your redneck list of identifiers is fully up to snuff; that’s only gotten worse as conflict to create social division keeps getting dialed up. I used to be able to pass in redneck spaces (I had to because it was part of my job) without joining in the white supremacist Christianist crap, but those are now required identifiers in that tribe and I no longer have to work with these people (thankfully). I work to increase the level of warmth and happiness in my (liberal) social groups, because I find people in those groups actually value that.
Not all wingnut white people clam up though, the very Christianist ones I’m related to can’t let even the most tangential opening pass without laying on the Evangelical White Christianist God Sauce pretty thick. I think they’ve added White Christianist and anti anything other than heteronormative to the list they feel called by the bible to proclaim to all who can’t get away fast enough to avoid it from them. If I never see any of these relatives again, I’ll be pleased.
Steve LaBonne
@different-church-lady:
Two words- power differential.
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: you ain’t wrong. So many people I know won’t “allow politics” discussions at family events because of the fights it starts. But silence is assent. And it’s on white people to make that racism retreat, and most of us, even here, are not ready to have that conflict with family.
I am and can, as a natural redheaded Irisher, but almost all my family already are hardcore Democrats. I gleefully do battle with others though. Which is somewhat limiting my social engagement.
Another Scott
@Baud: [ Ooof! ]
[ rofl! ]
Best wishes,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Steve LaBonne: Exactly. It was a rhetorical inquiry.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Citizen Alan: Dude. No.
Having read all 300+ comments just now, I”d say this is one of the more constructive and enlightening discussions we’ve had here since the election.
Starfish (she/her)
@Miss Bianca: I know someone here in Colorado who is a writer and had a part time secretary position to fund her ability to feed herself, and she was renting a stall somewhere for her horse. She was not wealthy.
Steve LaBonne
@Citizen Alan: Aren’t you a charming fellow. Into the pie filter with you.
Professor Bigfoot
@tam1MI: Facts. I have a trans grandson and I worry, too.
Starfish (she/her)
@Citizen Alan: See, this is what I was thinking too until Omnes told me that the Professor has been here awhile. It seems like so much sealioning.
The Audacity of Krope
Or a difficult to recognize, but real, offer of help.
I’d counsel patience toward our Citizens Alan, though. We were all raised in this culture together and it’s not the easiest thing to drop. As a gay man under constant assault from official whiteness, it was even hard for me.
Professor Bigfoot
@Citizen Alan: you are a very stupid white person.
Steve LaBonne
@The Audacity of Krope: To be a useful ally one has to be willing to see the world from the point of view of those to whom one wants to be an ally. Reality being what it is, there’s no way that’s always going to be a pleasant experience. We have to person up. (General observation not directed at you.)
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: it’s good to be forewarned and I say this as a white woman. ETA: as someone raised Roman Catholic, I am damn well aware that the white evangelicals will turn on us after they are done with the rest of the foreigners and the Native Americans.
The Audacity of Krope
@Steve LaBonne: Indeed.
Implicitly understood without the clarification, but appreciated nonetheless.
Chris Johnson
@Miss Bianca: I sure am! I tread carefully around you because back in the day I was an utter jerk to you and feel I had better be on my best behavior.
Besides, you take the name of a truly elegant mouse and that never fails to charm me :)
lee
@rikyrah: That is 100% my feeling on the subject. Maybe if those Republican voters suffer some consequences for their actions they might have a change of heart.
The Audacity of Krope
@rikyrah: @lee: Without a doubt.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: You are me with red hair then, in family gatherings.
Professor Bigfoot
@Starfish (she/her): Oh, that’s just your *white fragility* speaking.
;)
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: in my experience, that’s white trash behavior to openly use the N-word, even my aunt and cousins who aren’t college educated know better than to use that type of language around the aunties and cousins who are college educated. Although we’re all Northerners and raised Catholic as well (aunties still practicing, one cousin got mixed up with a low-class Protestant church and had a shotgun wedding, divorced with four kids now, eldest two are grown and in post-high school training). They may be stone cold racist but they aren’t going to let onto it in front of most of the extended family. Even my right wing nut job dad doesn’t openly use that word in front of me.
scribbler
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I agree with this completely.
Kayla Rudbek
@narya: co-signed on patriarchy also being a huge part of American problems.
Ben Cisco
I was away from my office for a while and just got back to (and read all the way through) this thread. Confession: I have felt a VERY LARGE sense of disappointment, sorrow and BETRAYAL since Election Day; this thread is the FIRST time since that I have felt HOPE.
Maybe if we can hear each other, we can get enough people to follow suit to turn it around?
Suzanne
@Kayla Rudbek:
100%.
WASP tradition is quiet quiet quiet.
I would love to see research/data on this, but I bet this corresponds to the educational polarization among white people. I would be willing to bet that there are still some significant cultural gaps between “Anglo-Saxon” white people, and “ethnic” white people (who are more Catholic).
The emphasis on restraint comes off as dishonest, maybe even shifty, to those who don’t grow up with it. I think it’s really off-putting to people who don’t recognize it.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: my grandpa and my dad argued about everything; the best example is that they would argue about how to tie knots. Despite my dad having been a Boy Scout with the knot-tying manual, a despite my grandpa losing several boat anchors into the lake and having boats go drifting off the dock, they would still argue about how to tie knots. Two stubborn Italian men. They could get more arguments done in two hours than most people could do all day.
Chris Johnson
@Kayla Rudbek: That’d be regional, too.
I’m trying to remember the black voice who was like ‘I would rather be in the deep south, where they will N-word you right to your face. Up in the north they would never say that word but they’ll still cross the street to not walk near you’. Something like that. I remember the message but not who’d said it. And it’s insidious, it’s why I harp on my musical connection to blackness: my heritage is too Northern, both as in Scandinavian and as in ‘suburbs of Boston’. You can end up racist as fuck in your choices, assumptions and attitudes without ever saying the wrong word, and that’s not good enough for me.
I feel like Northern is a very interesting heritage, it just has some interesting gotchas to keep an eye out for. It’s why I can’t relate at all to white people who get offended and require performative respect or they’ll pick a fight.
Where I come from it’s uncivilized to carry on like that. It’s just that if you do me wrong, one day you’ll be drifting off on an ice floe and I’ll be looking at you and just. watch. you. die.
:)
Denali5
I was actually relived when I moved to the North and encountered people who were direct and you knew where they stood. In the South, there is a high value placed on being nice, and that serves to mask a lot of ugliness.
Suzanne
@Chris Johnson:
100%.
I think so much just gets baked into our baseline expectations. Like, what is the proper way to behave? How do I fit in? What will my life turn out to be like? What is my position, my role? All of those thoughts that we start having as children are all deeply informed by sex and race and class, even if we never have a conscious bigoted thought in our lives.
Cognitive empathy takes a lifetime of practice.
Chris Johnson
@Ben Cisco: It makes me happy to hear that, Ben :) I see your name here and on bluesky but it’s not often I feel there’s anything I can do to brighten your day. Nice to be in the mix when a thread manages it.
We’re team BLUE. We’re trying to do just that against a very determined effort to undermine all that we stand for. And this sort of thing, this hearing each other, IS what we stand for because we are Americans and we’re the melting pot and the nation of immigrants and the multicultural haven however tricky and difficult that may be.
And we could trade that away for white supremacy and ROT and cease to be that America and immediately, and I mean immediately decline… because that’s the purpose of invoking that stuff! It’s being exploited by Russia (also very white people much like the Finns) to hurt us!
Or we can remember what we are, tough it out, and hang in there until the would-be Reich disgraces itself, and then when we regain power in a myriad of ways, we fully Tim Walz it. That’s another white man doing whiteness properly. 50.001 percent? BOOM. Gonna feed all the children and act right and do what we know is correct and anyone who doesn’t like it can sit in the corner and think about what they did.
Fascism dismantles itself. There’s a smaller and smaller number of people fighting each other to be the only true people.
Americans rally together, hear each other, and are prepared to cope with a lot of struggle to get to what they know is good. Then once we’re done we can call each other names and throw potato salad and go off in a huff.
We’re not done being America. Sure seems like a lot of idiots, assholes, and billionaire immigrants are eager to be done being America.
Ben Cisco
@Chris Johnson:
I cannot find the quote, but I’d bet my life on Paul Mooney. MLK also spoke to this when referring to the ‘white moderate’ in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail:
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Chris Johnson:
This.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: ethnic Catholic of course having gradations of status inside ethnic groups and then across ethnic groups, so a lot of infighting.
Fr. Andrew Greeley wrote about the difference between the shanty Irish (the blue-collar workers, cops, firefighters) who had the bad reputation for excessive drinking, violence etc versus the lace-curtain Irish who wanted to be respectable and show off for the WASPS (sending their sons to Notre Dame and Georgetown and Loyola, becoming lawyers, doctors, politicians, priests and nuns, building churches and schools etc). I didn’t have as much contact with the Irish side of my family as my Irish-ancestry great-grandparents were divorced in the 1930s and there was still some strain and stigma about that.Great-grandma having been a nurse was definitely on the lace-curtains side before the divorce.
The Irish in the Midwest were higher status than the Italians, Eastern Europeans, or the Latinos (they got there first and they spoke English), and the Germans and Austrians kept pretty quiet about their ethnicity because of the World Wars. (Germans being divided Catholic and Lutheran didn’t help them either). The French were too outnumbered in most parts of the country to be a big influence. Boston, Philly, and New York had more shanty Irish than St. Paul and Chicago in my perception as a kid, although one of the Minnesotan Catholic archbishops brought over a lot of Irish immigrants from Connemara (who probably included some of my ancestors). I’m probably not qualified to try to assess the social hierarchy for Catholics in the West and Southwest.
And the Catholics weren’t enthusiastic about cross-ethnic marriage even to other Catholics through at least the 1970s. My father and two of his college roommates had a sign in their room saying “welcome to the Irish-Italian ghetto” (all three of them were Irish-Italian ancestry) and the Irish Chicago contingent in my era still had the attitude that they really owned the campus.
cain
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: kudos to everyone for bringing their authentic selves.
Kayla Rudbek
@Chris Johnson: whereas my Italian ancestors invented the vendetta, after all. Usually more noises and knives than an ice floe or letting someone fall into the river in the winter. Although the Normans made it all the way to Sicily…
We also have the Italian women who invented Aqua Tofana, so quiet poisoning is within the Italian tradition
Tehanu
@Citizen Alan:
@Chris Johnson:
@Nukular Biskits:
@Chris Johnson:
What you all said.
Gloria DryGarden
@Chris Johnson: brightened my day , too.
thank you. You hold a vision of us pulling though this mess
I’ll have to return to read all the comments on this thread. Fascinating to explore the flavors of whiteness, as well as the lukewarm subdued versions of northern racism. I come from the mid western WASP niceness thing, and it’s so ingrained. Garrison Keillor used to do skits w the California, New York and midwestern versions. I was so busted; it revealed me to myself. YET I dislike the pretense of the “keeping it nice” mandate.
all the ways we divide, and are encouraged to separate on tiny cracks of ethnic and color and religious differences, when we really need to connect, and find common ground, to work together in mutual support, while recognizing differences that are important to us.
Is this too big a vision?
Chris Johnson
@Gloria DryGarden: Too big? It got us here. <3
Steve LaBonne
@Denali5: I’m from New York and it was difficult to adjust to Midwest Nice (and I still despise it). You just can’t talk the same way to an Ohioan as people talk back East.
Steve LaBonne
@Kayla Rudbek: Can you explain it to Scalia and Bill Bennett?
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: what denomination of Protestant Christian you are depends on your social class if you’re white. From top to bottom, a rough ranking for the upper Midwest: Episcopalian, Lutheran, Presbyterian/Methodist (could be a tie here, this is more local), Baptist, Jehovahs Witnesses, Holy Roller/Pentecostal, with the snake handlers and the storefront churches being rock bottom.
Unitarians may not consider themselves Christian, but their social status ranks towards the high end in my opinion.
Seventh-Day Adventists and Mormons not as common in the Midwest, but they would rank mid-range to lower on the social scale due to their weirder practices, although their education could make up for some of that.
Catholics of course are internally divided by ethnicity as I said in this thread. The larger cities used to have ethnic parishes, so the Irish would have a parish, the Germans would have a separate parish, the Poles would have yet another parish, etc. each with its own separate church building and frequently a grade school. Staffing for each parish would be by ethnicity/language skills; the body of the Mass would be in Latin, but the homily and songs would be in the language of the parish. The newer arrivals may have had to share the building with the older residents, so for instance you had the Italians or the Poles griping about having to hear Mass in the crypt while the Irish got to use the main level of the church. When I was a kid (and into the current day) there were multiple Sunday Masses, one designated as the Spanish-language service, because Vatican II authorized service in the local language instead of Latin.
Steve LaBonne
@Kayla Rudbek:
Working against our own classism is an ongoing challenge for UU.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: check and check on points 1 and 2. Only hippie women wore their hair long and loose without any form of restraint (barrettes and headbands or a ponytail or other styling were acceptable for long hair, short hair didn’t need any restraint, my female relatives would have worn a hat, beanie, tiny lace chapel veil, or a scarf in church regardless of hair length). And athletic shoes were white clonky, clumsy things that didn’t go with a school uniform, skirts, dresses, or a preppy look in general.
Suzanne
@Kayla Rudbek: So I spent the early part of my life in Suffolk County, NY, then moved to Phoenix East Valley. I would say that most of the Northeast roughly follows that same hierarchy. I grew up in Presbyterian churches primarily, and then when we moved to Arizona — second-largest Mormon community in the world — it was definitely a shock. I remember, right after we moved, I had Mormon classmates asking me if I went to church. I said yes, but that we were trying out different churches to find one we liked. They had never heard of that, LOL. (If you don’t know, Mormons get assigned a specific meetinghouse to attend based on where they live, and a specific time slot. No choice in the matter.)
My father is Italian and grew up Catholic. My mom’s parents hated him, LOL.
I remember a great deal of judginess toward Catholic families when I lived on Long Island, mostly about the number of kids. There was one family who had five boys, and they got gossiped about. The people across the street had four kids, and one of the boys was kind of a delinquent asshole. There was definitely talk about the parents having “more kids than they can handle”. When we moved to AZ and met many LDS families of eight or more…. I thought my mom was going to faint, LOL.
The Audacity of Krope
Those two are in it to win it.
Steve LaBonne
@The Audacity of Krope: I’m rooting for injuries when the Tradcath / Talibangical war starts.
WaterGirl
@Professor Bigfoot: It seems me that you silenced a black voice on Balloon Juice today.
And your comment at #324 crosses the line about no personal attacks.
The Audacity of Krope
So vehemently agreed that I’m willing to be collateral if I knew, for society’s sake, they would destroy each other.
Denali5
@WaterGirl: Seems like Alan started it with his comment at #268.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: heh. Catholic parishes technically have a geographical catchment area, but in practice if you don’t like the local pastor or if the Mass times are inconvenient, you wind up driving to a parish that you do like. My mother-in-law has done that for years (her parish has priests from a religious order as opposed to the diocese of Arlington). In this day and age they are happy enough to get any attendance so they don’t enforce it that much. Maybe enforcement for a wedding or annulment if you’re not a donor to the parish.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: and Mr. Rudbek is one of five boys and they locked the babysitter in the garage as kids.
WaterGirl
@Denali5: There’s a difference between sharing your thoughts that someone might be a troll stirring up trouble related to race, and calling someone a “stupid white person” in a conversation about race.
TerryC
@Professor Bigfoot: Hey, prof. I haven’t heard the n-word at all wedding or anywhere else until a cousin in WV used it on 2004 while I was helping him roof my aunt’s house. I told him off and left and lost that branch of the family.
But I haven’t heard it anywhere since then. Nowhere.
Nettoyeur
@Starfish (she/her): They’ll get another chance tp $hït the bed in a cpl of months.
Professor Bigfoot
@WaterGirl: Fair.
I actually had second thoughts about that one, but I ran out of time to edit it. He pissed me off and that was my opinion of him.
Now tell me what Black person I’ve silenced.
Professor Bigfoot
Deleted; fuck it, it’s just not worth it.
WaterGirl
@Professor Bigfoot:
Glory b. at comment #64.
You completely disregarded her and dismissed her opinion as wrong, and then referred to her with “your demographic” as you were railing against white women.
Glory b’s is a very valuable voice on this blog, and it’s no surprise to me that she left the thread after your response.
TBone
@Kayla Rudbek: I heard the term “lace curtain Irish” from my mom once, describing her maternal grandmother. I just thought it meant prim and proper. Mom was anti-racist to her core but the class divide was harder I guess, if she knew from where that term arose when she used it.
Kayla Rudbek
@Steve LaBonne: sigh. I need to start with my own family first. My grandfather had a subscription to National Review and a collection of Fr. Coughlin’s sermons which we found cleaning up the house after he died. It’s taken until my generation to get liberal. Scalia and Barr follow along with that line of thinking. It may take until their great-grandchildren to break the curse.
The thing that convinced me the most as a child that the Protestants were not on my side (and I can still remember 40-something years later) was the scene in Revolt in 2100 where the hero is a military deserter on the run in New Mexico or Arizona. He has to trust that the Spanish-speaking old woman helping him is a clandestine Catholic who hates the religious dictatorship and won’t turn him in for the reward money. So I connected that up with the Catholic martyrs under Elizabeth and Cromwell (all the priest hole structures in old English houses), and I was all, “yep, that’s correct, the Protestants will oppress the Catholics yesterday, today and in the future if they get the chance.” (Dad and Grandpa would complain about the city of Minneapolis being too Lutheran by comparison with Catholic St Paul, and then also complain about the Southern Baptists and Southern Methodists that they had encountered in the Army)
As an adult, of course I realize that any religion can be abusive and used by dictators, and Catholic countries have traditionally had a bad record with dictatorship.
Kayla Rudbek
@TBone: prim and proper definitely came with lace-curtain outlook, as an outward sign of respectability. They were trying to prove that all the English stereotypes about the Irish were wrong and they spoke Queen Victoria’s English, not so much Shakespeare’s English. Also, as a result of the Great Famine in the 1840s, the Irish started marrying very late in life, with very little premarital sex, and a lot of people never married. Some of them took religious vows, but others didn’t. So a lot of single aunts and uncles around in the community.
The stereotypes are old and had surprising effects. My dad has this rant about how Army pay works (separation of food and housing costs from the salary if I recall correctly) because it was initially designed during the Civil War to keep the drunken Irish immigrant enlisted soldiers from drinking up all of their pay.
chemiclord
@rikyrah: The very real problem there is that you wind up hurting millions of people who didn’t vote for Trump, and still not change a single mind in the MAGA cult.
chemiclord
@Ben Cisco: Ask any black centerfielder playing in Fenway Park just how racist and willing to use the n-word people in the northern states are.