Local news station KOB 4 reports that a convenience store in Mayhill, New Mexico, has angered local residents after displaying signs that read “Obama and other Muslims not welcome here” and “Colin Kaeper-dick, you overpaid half-breed: Take your millions and go back to Africa.”
[…]
a former coworker tells KOB 4 that the owner is actually very intolerant of anyone who says anything that offends him.
“If you go in there and you offend him, you can’t go in there no more,” Marlon McWilliams, who used to work at the store, tells the station. “He turns lots of people away.”
McWilliams says he tries to avoid going into the store, but says for many people who live in the rural area have difficulty avoiding it because it’s “the only place you can go to get milk and bread.”
The convenience store’s Facebook page has been bombed with negative reviews from locals who simply do not want to be exposed to racism when they go to buy a snack.
“Disgusting disgusting disgusting,” wrote one person. “I cant think of another way to describe this.”
“Sick, demented and racist,” wrote another. “Saw the signs and refuse to even step any closer. Don’t use religion to spew hate!”
According to KOB 4, the racist has the store up for sale, but at a very inflated price. The locals would be overjoyed if someone did buy it, just to say good riddance to the the idiot who owns it. I really feel for people who find themselves having to buy from there now and then, sometimes rural life can truly suck.
Via Raw Story.
In a bit of good news, a couple of racists had their arses handed to them. First up, Trent Bennett, whose resignation has been accepted (this is couched in such a way that you know there wasn’t much choice involved).
“I acknowledge that (these comments) were disrespectful and offensive,” Bennett wrote. “I am aware of the impact this has had, and though I negate that I have ever conducted myself in a less than professional manner in regard to my students, I have resigned my teaching position at Malvern High School.”
The former teacher said he had deleted his social media profiles, and he asked reporters and the public to respect the privacy of his family, friends and colleagues.
Bigots always insist their views never ever cause harm, or make them behave in an unfair manner. I don’t know if they are actually incapable of self examination, but they certainly shun it. It’s simply not possible for such beliefs and attitudes to stay all hermetically sealed up. They leak. They ooze. They come out in expected and unexpected ways, and that bias does come out in actions. It’s always a head-shake too, the routine requests for respect, which they not only expect, but truly feel they should be accorded, when they cannot be bothered to pay that respect to those they denigrate and target.
Via Raw Story.
Then there’s the never-delightful Carl Paladino, first featured here with his nasty fantasies, and again with the notpology of the year, who has been given his walking papers:
Carl Paladino was ousted Thursday by the Buffalo, New York School Board following a racist tirade on Michelle Obama. But during the hearing, School Board President Barbara Seals Nevergold didn’t hold back in her criticism of the Donald Trump campaign co-chair.
“Words matter, Mr. Paladino,” she said during the meeting, which Paladino did not attend. “Our president, the Commander in Chief of this nation for the last eight years, Mrs. Obama, our First Lady, and Mrs. Valerie Jarrett, special presidential council are all African-Americans. Among other things, they are accomplished, intelligent, beautiful people and that’s not just my opinion.”
But under Paladino, Nevergold said that they were reduced to criminals, frauds or gorillas.
“The impact on children of color, especially African-American children is incalculable,” she continued. “How do we encourage them to use their God-given talents to soar, to reach for the stars, when a sitting board member responsible for their education demonstrates such contempt of their role models?”
She went on to say that Paladino’s contempt for the First family and their aides has fallen to a level of “unmitigated and hateful, racist and misogynist, rhetoric” that can’t be disassociated from the race and culture of the students in the district. Paladino has established a record and a pattern of behavior that the board believed violated his oath of office as well as the ethics as a board member.
Nevergold said that she has heard from people all over the state, indeed the country, who were shocked that Paladino would “demonstrate such a lack of responsible leadership.”
“They would like me to tell you, ‘You’re fired,’” Nevergold continued, as the audience applauded. She asked that he do the right thing and resign.
Paladino has 24 hours to tender his resignation; if he refuses, the lawyers come out. According to the articles, the room burst into applause as Ms. Nevergold concluded her firing of Paladino. I’ll add my virtual applause. Oh, that was quick: Paladino refuses to resign.
A white New York City emergency medical technician was reportedly lying when he said he was the victim of a racially-motivated attack on Christmas in the Bronx.
Mediaite.com reported Thursday that 41-year-old Steven Sampson’s headline-grabbing story about getting stabbed and robbed of $2,600 worth of Christmas gifts by a “menacing group of thugs” has turned out to be full of holes.
[…]
Anonymous sources within the police department who spoke to the New York Post said that it quickly became clear to police that Sampson wasn’t telling the truth.
“He gave so many different accounts of what happened, he’s no longer credible,” they said.
[…]
In recent years, the word “thug” has been appropriated by white conservatives as shorthand for young black men of whom they do not approve. Writer Charles F. Coleman Jr. said in Ebony magazine that “thug” is the new “N-word.”
“The racial epithets of yesterday are no longer commonly acceptable but have been deftly replaced with terms that are racially neutral on their face, but the usage of which is almost exclusively reserved for Black and Latino people,” Coleman wrote. “The result, is that through the persistent use of such language, folks are able to draw — consciously and subconsciously — associations between certain words and ethnic groups.”
“‘Thug’ is the latest, and perhaps the most dangerous example of racism’s new lexicon,” he said.
It’s a mystery to me why people do such a thing. All I can figure is that the hate eventually boils over.
Via Raw Story.
And finally, the racist-elect is rather desperate to appoint a Latino person to the department of agriculture, in an attempt to show their “diversity”. Apparently, it has not dawned on them that one somewhat brown person in a sea of white isn’t diversity.
Politico reports that Trump and his team are making a last-minute scramble to add some Latino to his cabinet to make it slightly more diverse than the mostly white cabinet that he’s set up so far.
“They’re desperate to find a Latino for [The Department of Agriculture],” one Trump donor anonymously told the publication, although Politico notes that the agricultural industry has been resistant to endorse Trump’s prospective candidates because he and his team “have reached out to candidates who are part-Latino and have no experience in agriculture.”
Via Raw Story.
Pierce R. Butler says
“Paladino” sounds sort-of Latino; maybe if he starts calling himself “Carlos” he can get a job as Sec of Ag.
Caine says
:Snort: Let’s hope he doesn’t get any ideas.
Parse says
I’m going to cite the heck out of that Mayhill story. It’s about a clear counterexample as you could wish for to all the classic minimalizing excuses.
You CAN’T always go to another store. The ‘free hand of the market’ does not slap racist businesses down. Negative comments don’t shame them into behaving properly.
I only wish real people didn’t have to suffer to make those points.
Caine says
Parse:
Me too. I hate it when people decide to get self righteous about such things. When you live rural, you’re often stuck between a rock and a hard place. Living in the rural wilds of nDakota, we just got slammed with another one -- a local store owner, who recently let loose about all us “filthy Injuns”, and a store which doesn’t have a bigoted owner, and hires Indian people, but just got bought out, by fucking Exxon. Life is so fun.
lorn says
On the up side, in what amounts to a classic judo move, the vaulting of bigotry into the limelight has given the haters the opportunity to feel safe enough to let their innermost thoughts come out. A lot of people who I had suspected were racists have sorted themselves out in a very public way. A few have been shocked that they were being grouped with Trump and the haters and backed away from their casual bigotry and sided with people who they seemed to resent. More have felt free to let the built up hate and resentment out in all its gory glory. Either way, it has been illuminating.
Pretty little blond girls have revealed themselves to be hate filled bigots and rough old codgers have shown themselves to be rude but even handed and just.
To get where we want to go we have to know the lay of the land. The pretty fog of politeness and civility has lifted and both beauty and ugliness have been revealed. We can, perhaps for the first time in recent memory, see what is really there.
The goal as farther off than I imagined and the terrain is rougher than I had hoped but I think I can see a winding and difficult path. I’m getting old. Damn, in four, never mind eight years, I’ll be near retirement age. To face this long journey at my age … damn.
Then again, what can they threaten me with that I haven’t seen yet? What can they do to an old man? One foot in front of the other. Perhaps I will see the end. And there are always friends along the way. Some of those rough old codgers and shrill harpies are pretty good company and know how to make me laugh when things are dark. I loves me some dark humor. It’s not like I got anything else to do.
Caine says
Lorn:
I know the feeling. It will be a few years before retirement hits here (3), and right now, we’re looking at moving to Mexico. We’ll all know more in 3 years, I’m sure, but I want to live out the last of my life in relative peace and safety, and the odds of that being the state here aren’t great.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
Let’S not forget that they’d cry out and call you a Nazi if you even personally decided to go to a different place for groceries is you can*.
Remember when Rebecca Watson said she’d privately no longer recommend millionaire Dawkins’ books?
*In Germany about everybody has a grocery chain they won’t patronise for ethics reasons, usually because of how they treat their workers. They go to the chain their brother, kid, mum, BFF boycotts for the exact same reason…