Update:
Remember folks, you don’t have to go to every argument you’re invited to, especially when the other guy has already made up his mind. (Thin Black Duke)
If I were teaching a class, this would be required reading.
What’s happening to undocumented immigrants is not new to Black Americans.
by Shalise Manza Young (posting at The Contrarian)
None of what’s happening with undocumented immigrants is new for Donald Trump.
None of what’s happening with undocumented immigrants is new to Black Americans.
A clip of Attorney General Pam Bondi talking about Kilmar Abrego García came up in my Instagram feed last week. Bondi’s white pinstriped suit was accessorized with a sparkling cross, a familiar sight among women in the increasingly fascistic MAGA set.
Apparently the bigger the cross, the bigger the fiction, because not one word that came from Bondi’s mouth was grounded in reality. Kind of like every appearance White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, also a fan of oversized crosses, makes in front of cameras.
Bondi said, “hard stop, [Abrego García] should not be in our country.” That is patently untrue: He was granted legal status to remain here. Bondi: “MS13 is characterized, as it should be, as a foreign terrorist organization.” No evidence has been presented in court that shows Abrego García has ever been a member of MS-13, and, even if he were, merely being in a gang isn’t a crime.
And on and on she went. With every passing day, the story this administration spins about Abrego García gets more fictional as the administration works to convince the American people that it’s OK to snatch a man with no criminal record and the legal right to be in this country and send him to a foreign gulag with no due process.
He’s brown, so they don’t care. And they’re working hard to convince you not to care, too.
For centuries, similarly fantastical tales have been conjured about Black people to justify their subjugation, which is why this is all achingly familiar for the community and those with knowledge of American history.
The message, often buoyed by the media, has long been: They’re Black, so we don’t care, and neither should you.
If you can read the next paragraph without crying or flying into a rage, you are doing better than I am.
It’s nothing we don’t already know, but seeing those sentences lined up one after another, boom, boom, boom. Truth bombs raining down.
Black men are dullards so they can’t be leaders; they’re violent, so they must be kept under lock and key. Black women are hypersexual, so raping them is allowed. Black people don’t feel pain, so doing medical experiments on them without anesthesia is permitted. They are never to be believed but frequently to be accused, evidence be damned.
Watching that clip of Bondi, my mind drifted to the horrifying story of Marcellus Williams. Last September, Williams, a Black man, was killed by the state of Missouri, with then-Gov. Mike Parson pushing the execution through despite evidence that Williams was innocent of the murder for which he was found guilty in.
Williams isn’t the only one. Stories abound of Black men who were put to death or given life sentences, losing decades with their families for crimes they never committed; the National Registry of Exonerations has tracked acquittals since 1989, and of the 3,663 individuals in its database, 1,952 are or were Black. That’s 53%. Black people are roughly 12.5% of the population in this country.
The way media covers stories also goes a long way in shaping public opinion and upholding the negative stereotypes about Blacks. Just a few days ago, a 20-year-old white man named Phoenix Ikner allegedly opened fire at Florida State University, killing two and wounding six others. His online footprint shows a fascination with Hitler and Nazis, and yet searching his name results in smiling selfies alongside stories of his difficult childhood.
But when teenager Trayvon Martin was killed by self-styled deputy George Zimmerman for the crime of minding his own business in a neighborhood Zimmerman thought Martin didn’t belong in, NBC News posted a story headlined, “Trayvon Martin was suspended three times from school.” After George Floyd was murdered in front of onlookers by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for being suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill, some outlets worked overtime to highlight Floyd’s time in jail and other issues. In both cases, portrayals of Martin and Floyd gave the impression that their deaths were deserved.
The kidnappings of Abrego García and all the men who have been disappeared to El Salvador have something else in common with Black people: no due process.
Floyd was killed after merely being accused. New York police killed Eric Garner for the misdemeanor of selling untaxed cigarettes in 2014. A year ago, four teenagers suspected of stealing a car died after the car they were in was intentionally rammed by police, causing it to wrap around a pole. No matter what any of those Black individuals were accused of or had done previously, they deserved their day in court, just as the Constitution promises.
See why all of this is so familiar? Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, presidential adviser Stephen Miller—they all keep screaming that the men they’ve trafficked to prison in El Salvador are violent “aliens,” even though reporting shows very few of them have a criminal history and were swept up on often ludicrous allegations, like the interpretation of an “Autism speaks” tattoo as one representing a violent gang.
They’re all following the lead of Trump. There’s 50 years of evidence of Trump’s racial animus, beginning with the first time his name appeared in The New York Times: All the way back in 1973, the Justice Department brought suit against Trump and his father for refusing to rent apartments to Black applicants.
He began his political career by widening his scope of non-white targets, calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, though he so generously added, “some, I assume, are good people.” Campaigning a year ago, he called undocumented immigrants “animals” and “not human.”
To be sure, Trump and his cronies haven’t backed off their racism toward Black folk. Moves made by defense secretary and enthusiastic Signal user Pete Hegseth—such as questioning in one of his books whether since-fired chairman of the joint chiefs, four-star Gen. C.Q. Brown, was promoted to his role because of his race; saying “the dumbest phrase on planet Earth is ‘diversity is our strength'”; and banning the celebration of Black History Month in schools on military bases—clearly demonstrate his beliefs about Black Americans.
Latino migrants are their target now, but when Trump floated the idea of sending American citizens to the concentration camp in El Salvador, alarm bells immediately went off for Black people. History—both American and Trumpian—tells them who would be at the top of the list if or when that time comes.
This writer is someone to watch.
Here’s her short bio at the end of the article on The Contrarian:
Shalise Manza Young was most recently a columnist at Yahoo Sports, focusing on the intersection of race, gender and culture in sports. The Associated Press Sports Editors named her one of the 10 best columnists in the country in 2020. She has also written for the Boston Globe and Providence Journal.
Find her on Bluesky @shalisemyoung
Open thread.
prostratedragon
Who was that comedian who used to talk about someone whose crucifix pendant had “a real guy” on it?
WaterGirl
@prostratedragon: I am not familiar with anything like that.
Professor Bigfoot
Yeap. We will always be one of their targets, if not their major target.
I often reference 1877 when neo-Confederates strangled Reconstruction in its cradle; when Northern whites washed their hands of defending the civil rights of Black people and Jim Crow was born.
Here we are again.
ArchTeryx
And now I’ve been added to the target list, not that I’ve ever, in my life, been off it. If anyone understands folks like Professor Bigfoot its me, because despite having white skin, I’ve been segregated, targeted, and attempts made to murder me my entire fucking life. And now Brain Worms wants to put me and everyone like me on a “registry.” We all know where this is going.
Baud
Heh.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: That’s funny. Reminds me of the “Paul is dead” decoding back in the day when dinosaurs roamed.
CHETAN MURTHY
@O. Felix Culpa: Backward-masking FTW!
dm
Ezra Klein had an interview with Steven Hahn, NYU historian and author of Illiberal America: a history.
Andrew Jackson and the Native Americans. Jim Crow. The Palmer Raids. Japanese American internment. Operation Wetback.
It’s not new, and it’s not an aberration.
Baud
Via Reddit
waspuppet
I used to work with Shalise. Good to see her continuing to make a mark.
Delicate Butterfly
I wasn’t aware that the United States had a history of rounding up black folks and sending them to prisons in El Salvador.
I have so much to learn.
prostratedragon
@WaterGirl: Might be before your tume. 1980s, I think. But although he didn’t straightout say “Opus Dei,” he was talking about just this sort of person.
Bupalos
To some extent I think the ongoing focus on this authoritarian turn being “just more racism” is a kind of soothing song for white liberals. “This is just like what has always happened…” and it doesn’t target me, just my “allies.”
True and not true. The reality that the left has better trained itself to see continuity in the ethnic component of the authoritarian project appears to have a flip-side: to some extent it comes at the cost of understanding the malleability of how ethnic division goes forward, as well as the full-spectrum appeal of authoritarianism in an age of economic, social, and climate destabilization accompanied by government paralysis.
“It’s just racism” is a disabling kind of myopia that causes us to miss over and over the current political dynamics at work. The right is becoming less white, poorer, less educated, younger, and more male. The left is becoming whiter, wealthier, more educated, older, and more female. And offering less and less in the way of bold policy, instead turning towards its own kind of politics of the past – “Make America MAGA-free Again.”
Professor Bigfoot
@Delicate Butterfly: Yes, you clearly do.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Leopards: faces. I mean, MAGAts were waving official “Mass Deportation Now” signs at his campaign rallies. What did they expect?
@Delicate Butterfly:
LOL. Chain gangs of wrongfully convicted (black) men don’t exist in your history books, I gather. Nice try to deflect to irrelevant details though.
ETA: Or what the good Professor said at #14.
Professor Bigfoot
@O. Felix Culpa: that one cannot wait to express their anti-Blackness.
CHETAN MURTHY
@O. Felix Culpa: That’s what I thought of immediately: vagrancy laws and prison farms.
zhena gogolia
@Professor Bigfoot: Check out #13.
O. Felix Culpa
@Professor Bigfoot: I’ve noticed.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, that one too, but with moar sophistry.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
I don’t know. A handful of liberals using “LatinX” in their newsletters is pretty grating.
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
Time, dammit!
hitchhiker
@Delicate Butterfly:
Is this meant to be funny?
There was no need at first to round up Black people and send them anywhere — they could just be shot where they stood.
A little later we had the lynching picnics, where nice white people could eat their sandwiches while their Black neighbors were hanged from a likely tree.
Then we just locked them up, sometimes making them work so that our friends could profit off their labor. It’s understood that jails and prisons are filled with Black people whose crimes are not different from those of white people who are routinely given 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th chances to outgrow their youthful mistakes.
I often wonder at the extreme patience Black Americans call on; I’ve lived a long time, and I haven’t met many white people who wouldn’t lose their shit under this kind of assault on their humanity.
Professor Bigfoot
@zhena gogolia: I did, and I chose to ignore that ignorant white bullshit; if you’ll excuse my language.
CHETAN MURTHY
The modern mode of “discourse” among conservatives seems consist entirely in variations on “the card says moops!” I think that’s what this is.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: LOL. She said through her tears.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
Someone needs to be telling them over & over & over: this is why you should never vote for Republicans.
Belafon
@Delicate Butterfly:
I think we found the person who wrote the “DHS didn’t do anything illegal since the DOD transported the gang members” argument. I’m surprised they would be here at this blog.
rusty
I started following Shalise on Bluesky, she will be a good read.
Bupalos
I am rarely surprised at the depth of the reaction to my missives on a heightened focus on racial justice not being an effective way to fight authoritarianism. But I’m interested here in how one sees post #13 as “anti-black.” That feels particularly online/algorithmic to me
Old Man Shadow
Yeah, the playbook is pretty familiar.
I mean, I suppose we could start the American version of that poem with “First they came for the Native Americans, then Black people… then Natives again, Black people, Latinos, Chinese, Irish, Italian, more Latinos, more Black people, more Chinese, always Black people, then Japanese, Black people, and Latinos round 1039…”
prostratedragon
@ArchTeryx:
We certainly do. The identities of most Black people in this countfy are already ascertainable. And the forever-nameless to me president of my college has allowed personal contact into on college faculty to be turned over to whatever appendage of this thing, without informing the profs, for the purpose of a survey that asks whether they are Jewish. Messages showed up on people’s cell phones yesterday.
WaterGirl
@Baud: How did they not see this coming?
WaterGirl
Seems like a good time for an old favorite:
karen gail
@dm:
The US government learned it from the European countries that colonized parts of the world; along with the Catholic Chruch setting up missions that were willing to use native people as “slave labor.”
As bad as the US government was it was the Catholic Church that setup and maintained the Indian Boarding Schools.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
“Quick, set up the display of Goya beans on the desk again.”
//
WaterGirl
Professor Bigfoot
@WaterGirl: Wise, wise words that I hope to be able to internalize.
Some. ;)
O. Felix Culpa
Sealions gonna sealion. ‘Nuff said.
Delicate Butterfly
@Belafon:
Maybe think harder.
Bupalos
Here’s and interesting one in my upcoming series “Better Know Your Ethnic Identity Subgroup Dynamics” as you try to fight authoritarianism. In the Democratic Party, guess which ethnic identity subgroups gave the most positive and most negative responses to the following question:
“Does the increasing number of people of many different races, nationalities, and ethnic groups in the United States make the country a better place to live in, a worse place to live
in, or does it make no difference?”
Then weird bonus round: across parties, guess which ethnic identity subgroups gave the answer closest to 50-50 AND closest to each other.
p.a.
They would inflict any brutality to “save souls.” Now, “conservative” Catholics and evangelicals don’t even use the bad excuse of salvation. They just like to inflict pain.
O. Felix Culpa
@prostratedragon: OMG.
karen gail
Read history; even the history of US has been full of hate for “others.” At the time of foundation of country Indians were seen as “savages” while many of the “founders” had no problem with only Protestant males being allowed to own property. Legally, Catholics couldn’t own property.
Then with each ‘wave’ of immigrants another group of people was made “other” and “undesirable.” What held fast was how many places had bounties on Native Tribes, especially when they were on land that contained ‘riches.” People would hang a group of Indians and declare a day of thanksgiving and rejoicing.
Professor Bigfoot
@prostratedragon: It’s enraging.
Watching it happen, listening to those voices telling us we don’t see what we see with our very own Mk I eyeballs…
karen gail
@p.a.:
Book published in early 1980’s by former priest who was assigned to South America; he was infamous for exposing the Catholic Chruch for still using torture in 1970’s to “convert” the native peoples. Just reading the book made me ill, he didn’t get all that graphic but left so much to imagination when he said that the tools used during the Spanish Inquisition were still be used as tools on Native people.
Belafon
@Delicate Butterfly: Naaah. Tolerance requires a commitment from both sides, and you’ve obviously chosen not to have actual empathy.
LAC
@Professor Bigfoot: Looks like an ineptly named poster is fluttering into the pie heap.
trollhattan
Bwa-ha-ha, JD’s boss gets the same Vatican “welcome.”
WaterGirl
@trollhattan:
Tempting to call him “Not even second row FFOTUS”
hitchhiker
@trollhattan: Jeebus, put him in the crying room with the other little babies.
Harrison Wesley
@trollhattan: He’ll try to force himself into the front row. If that doesn’t work, he’ll throw a tantrum and leave.
CHETAN MURTHY
@trollhattan: @WaterGirl: nom nom nom nom
Bupalos
@Belafon: Occasionally this board pulls the trigger too soon on this kind of thing, but I guarantee this one is a kind of performance artist. I think it occasionally loses track of its assumed identity as a parody of the left.
Delicate Butterfly, you must concentrate! You are a Delicate Butterfly!!!
CHETAN MURTHY
@LAC: The first comment, I didn’t respond to, b/c ….. why bother, dipshits gonna dipshit. But they had the ballz to actually come back? Yeah, you’re right, pie.
Soprano2
@Baud: That is a level of denial that’s hard to understand. I think they were afraid of the black woman. Over and over I heard people like this say, before the election, some version of “He won’t deport people who are hard-working and have been here a long time, like the people in my family. He’ll only deport the lazy no-goods who cut in line in front of my family members and got help they never had”. I think this was the basis of a lot of the votes for FFOTUS by Latin people, resentment that recent asylum seekers got help their undocumented family members were never offered.
Also, fuck cancer sideways. I just learned that my high school music teacher, who was my favorite teacher and also instrumental in where I went to college and staying with music (see what I did there?) has pancreatic cancer! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…..
Belafon
@Harrison Wesley: 300% spiritual tariffs.
Layer8Problem
@O. Felix Culpa: And a delicate hint of condescension.
Professor Bigfoot
@Harrison Wesley: I would NOT take that bet. Hell, I’m still salty about the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 2018. I can EASILY see that from him.
Kirk
@Old Man Shadow: minor step in there is
White people who get out of step and disagree with these events get hammered hard. Not as constantly as the non-whites, but it happens.
At the same time there’s legitimate mistrust from the non-white community.
Whites who care need to learn patience and endurance, growing the thick skins that can do the right thing regardless.
trollhattan
@Harrison Wesley:
SWAG, he suddenly becomes double-booked and no-shows.
Everybody wins.
prostratedragon
“So Long, Farewell”, this time sung for others.
Jackie
@Harrison Wesley:
In a situation like that, is it ungodly for everyone attending to give a standing ovation?
prostratedragon
@O. Felix Culpa:
@Professor Bigfoot: That is just what it is. And very much gives off the odor of an op planned quite a while ago.
David Collier-Brown
@Delicate Butterfly: wrote
Trying, but not succeeding.
1) An example is the white-sponsored back to Africa movement: “The back-to-Africa movement was seen as the solution to these problems by both groups, with more support from the white population than the black population… The small number of freed slaves who did settle in Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance.”
2) Similarly, Abraham Lincoln tried to send freed Blacks to Île à Vache near Haiti. Unsuccessfully.
3) In 1922, the Mississippi state Senate voted to evict the state’s Black residents out of the country. Also unsuccessfully.
It’s not a secret, but you won’t read about it in schoolbooks. So it might as well be a secret, from you. (It was mentioned in a university course in Canada, where I first heard about it)
RaflW
@O. Felix Culpa: Tiger Beat on the Potomac just 25 days ago:
Both sides!
I do not expect a retraction.
Marc
You can count me as another one who thinks that racism alone isn’t enough to describe what the Trump administration is doing. Crossing borders has always been a bit more of a problem for me than it would be for equivalent age whites (how many times have you been strip-searched, white folks? I once had to contact my US Rep to stop repeated strip searches by MIA customs). It’s just a matter of time (perhaps months) before they start harassing (if not detaining) white US citizens returning home who just happen to be “known” opponents of Trump. White liberals returning from summer overseas vacations may find they’re being extended the same courtesies by CBP that some of us non-whites have been getting for decades.
Bupalos
No guessers. I should have offered a prize.
For the first question, within the Democratic Party Asians feel the most positive about increasing diversity at 84%, and Blacks are the least positive at 57%.
Weird bonus question answer: It’s the original odd couple! Blacks and Whites overall have almost exactly the same 50-50 level of support for increasing diversity. 52% for Blacks, 51% for whites.
LAC
@CHETAN MURTHY: Yep. I can’t with stupid today.
Melancholy Jaques
@WaterGirl:
Really believe it was the refusal to consider a woman as president.
Baud
Working class hero.
Professor Bigfoot
@LAC: I’ve not pied either because I’m enjoying some of the responses to their… comments.
The down side of the pie system is that not only is the miscreant submersed in dessert, so is anyone that replies to them.
Professor Bigfoot
No, it’s not all “racism.”
But it absolutely is all straight white male Christian supremacy.
Of course, that’s usually referred to as simply “white supremacy,” because the “male Christian” is usually silent.
Harrison Wesley
@Melancholy Jaques: I find it odd that this is a problem in the USA, but not in many other countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Marc
@Bupalos: Citation for this survey? Definition of “increasing diversity”? Did the question(s) as presented actually mean the same thing to each of the participants?
Professor Bigfoot
@Harrison Wesley: “Straight white male Christian supremacy.”
The “straight male Christian” part is usually silent but always present.
trollhattan
@RaflW:
Ballot-splitting provides some headscratching outcomes.
North Carolina, 2024:
President
Trump 2,898,423 Harris 2,715,375 (close!)
Governor
Stein (D) 3,069,496 Robinson (R/ Black Nazi) 2,241,309 (not!)
A state we need to figure out, going forward. Five bucks says they get more EC votes after the next census.
Josie
@Professor Bigfoot: I was going to make this comment, but you beat me to it. The only thing I would add is that white women are acceptable as long as they are willing to be sex objects and/or brood mares.
frosty
Sadly, this is all too true.
frosty
I would put a bet on that.
Harrison Wesley
@Professor Bigfoot: I thought I read that the President of Mexico had an 80 percent approval rating. I can’t imagine a politician here at any level with a number like that.
japa21
@Professor Bigfoot: I always enjoy reading your comments, even when I may find some point I disagree with.
You are correct. It is not all racism, and people who automatically jump on that argument make a mistake.
Just like it isn’t all anti-semitism or ageism or misogyny.
But all those play a role, and all of them go right to the “white, straight male Christian supremacy you refer to.
And as a white, straight male Christian, it pisses me off.
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot:
I frequently toggle the replies to see what the fuss is about.
prostratedragon
Just saw this from Karen Attiah. Looks interesting.
Attiah was supposed to give the course at Columbia School of Intl and Public Affairs but, well, you know …
Attiah’s substack on the matter: Columbia Canceled My Course on Race and Media. I’m Going to Teach It Anyway.
WTFGhost
@Delicate Butterfly: ENGLISH MUTHAPHUCKAH! DO YOU SPEAK IT?
Jay
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-courage-to-be-decent
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trumps-deportation-machine-keeps
Kristine
Pie, pie, pie, pie!
Pie, pie, pie, pie!
Lovely pie! Wonderful pie!
Lovely pie! Wonderful pie!
UncleEbeneezer
@japa21: Listing every Ism/Phobia that contribute to White Supremacy makes for incredibly long and hard-to-digest comments. I think using White Supremacy™ or “bigotry” as an umbrella term is more effective. But usually when I see someone say “It’s racism” I assume they aren’t saying “it’s ONLY racism” (especially when it’s someone like Professor Bigfoot who acknowledges all the rest, all the time).
geg6
@Delicate Butterfly:
But you may or may not be aware of the US rounding up people from Africa and shipping them to a life of chattel slavery here. But you do you, I guess.
Eolirin
@japa21: It’s not Christian everywhere, and it’s not white everywhere. Those are the local manifestations. The Khmer Rouge and the current Israeli government aren’t any different for not being white or not being Christian.
The dynamic is the same everywhere, at all times.
Ignorance, dominance politics, toxic masculinity, fear of the other weaponized as a form of control, rampant corruption amongst the elite, power at all costs, and solely for its own sake.
It is hatred and sadism. The need to have someone to dominate and hurt lies at its core, in every form it takes. It is unmitigated evil.
The racism isn’t the cause, it’s the effect. But it’s also entirely inseparable. The dynamic cannot exist without it. Diversity and equity are a threat to its ability to sustain itself. Without separation into in and out groups the ability to justify gleefully causing others pain evaporates, if everyone is equally human, there is no ability to celebrate hurting people.
And that more than anything else is intolerable. The suffering is always the point, and it will never ever stop.
CatFacts
I’m getting the impression our little butterfly is a long-time troll under a different nym and IP address. Just under a pretty-sounding nym instead of a porn one.
Trivia Man
@O. Felix Culpa: “No true Scotsman” can be easily transmuted to “no true racist”. They didn’t send slaves to El Salvador prisons so… it is completely different. There arent and poison gas showers yet, get back to me when those ate built. A real racist wouldn’t agree with clarence thomas rulings so this isnt REAL racism.
Trivia Man
@p.a.: the go to motivation now is “save AMERICA as a perfect ideal!”*
*Fictional perfection, definition updated daily
4 legs good , 2 legs better!!!
Trivia Man
@trollhattan: bet: he sits in the front row and dares them to move him
My bet says he blows it off for “reasons”
Trivia Man
@Professor Bigfoot: i solve that by toggling nyms i respect and using that to decide if i want to see the original. I usually toggle you because i value your take on the pied comment
Jay
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camps-1933-39
Precise language is important.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: Oh, gee, the rich might flee the US? DON’T THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME, DONALD!
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay:
The mechanisms they build to use on one hated group will be expanded to others, it’s as sure as the inverse square law.
karen gail
Silver lining?
Trump keeps claiming he’s working on a deal with China. Beijing says that it is all in his mind
karen gail
@Professor Bigfoot:
What the whitewashing history books leave out is Nazis surprise that those in US were upset about the concentration camps since the Nazis “stole” the idea from US treatment of Indians.
gvg
@Professor Bigfoot: You can toggle the replies if you know the person is witty. Mostly though, pieing does tend to work at making them go away.
Sometimes someone is just being a hothead about a certain issue and pieing gives them a chance to cool down. After a couple of months you can check again and see if they have become OK again,
Captain C
@p.a.: JV at the Vatican: “Hey, can you show me the torture chambers? Is anyone getting ‘interrogated’ today? What do you mean you don’t do that anymore?”
sab
@O. Felix Culpa: I am so old that I remember seeing chain gangs driven by while I was waiting for the school bus in elementary school.
They didn’t need to send them to El Salvador because nobody would stop what the sheriffs were doing to them here.
Captain C
@Trivia Man: I’d like to see a couple well-muscled cardinals remove him like the cowboy in the movie Casino.
columbusqueen
@Professor Bigfoot: A rotten moment in our history. At least Grant fought the good fight against the KKK, unlike that SOB Hayes.
Bupalos
Is there a kind of solidarity-acid present in treating the very current and very acute use and abuse of migrants as a kind of introduction to BLM and re-presentation of blacks as ‘the ones who really know about this?’ Because I can at least faintly hear a kind of contest over victim status here. And I could wish to hear a louder strain of “Free Abrego Garcia.”
I know online that the binary that’s drawn is “white” and “non-white.” And we pretend that white solidarity and non-white solidarity is a given- despite very ample evidence to the contrary. I’m just thinking about what the reaction might be to an article about Floyd’s murder that was like “None of this is new to Chinese people in America” or “None of this is new to Mexican-Americans.” In historical context, it’s actually all-new to all of us, all the time.
As always the bottom line for me – does this help us contain this authoritarian moment and start to rebuild and extend democracy and equality. I don’t really see the theory on how it does, and I wish someone would speak in those terms.
RevRick
@Baud: The flip side of that is that most white people love him, especially in the unReconstructed parts of the South….but I repeat myself.
Gretchen
RFK wants to get medical records of autistic people for his bogus « research » of causes. Kids can’t get school intervention services without a diagnosis, and don’t reach their potential without services. But getting them services would get them on the list of people he doesn’t think should be the way they are. Scary.
Bupalos
@Professor Bigfoot: Surprisingly, a really outsized percentage of the tech overlord authoritarian class (that is a huge part of this particular political MAGA coalition) is gay, and almost all of them are atheist.
Bupalos
@Baud: I think Trump disapproval in September among Hispanics was a fairly similar (high-60’s) percentage. That wasn’t what happened at the ballot box, because you don’t get to vote “not that guy.” You have to vote FOR a candidate.
Professor Bigfoot
@Bupalos: Yes, and? Perhaps the closet is more important to them than their orientation. Maybe they’re like Roy Cohn, who “wasn’t gay, he just like to have sex with men!”
Harrison Wesley
@Gretchen: I’m going to really go out on a limb here. I predict his “research” will prove vaccines cause autism.
pluky
@Delicate Butterfly: Now need historically. Our country has been quite content with chain gangs and such right here at home.
Melancholy Jaques
@Harrison Wesley:
My guess is that it’s related to the vestigial Leader of the Free World mythology. It seems to require a white male who makes bellicose remarks, promotes hatred toward foreigners, & promises to hurt them.
Melancholy Jaques
@Professor Bigfoot:
The fact that it is understood without being said shows who deeply embedded it is.
Ramalama
@Marc:
Back when I was crossing the border hundreds of times per year, it happened on the entry to the US side. One of my riders from Syria… He came in with $3000 cash to buy an HD tv for his mother in Montreal. He lived in the US but was currently unemployed. He was a coder and could get a job any time, anywhere. (Which was anctu true. I’d driven him a few times before that and we had long talks on the drive).
And the guard said, “Must be nice to have so much money when you’re not working,” and took him back and strip searched him.
At the time, Boston was lousy with tech people and coders galore.