Temper, Temper! (Continuation 10).

racist-teacher

That lovely screed was written by a pre-Kindergarten teacher. Make that former pre-kindergarten teacher.

The Democrat & Chronicle reports that the Children’s School of Rochester has fired substitute teacher Cassandra Elizabeth Sutton after discovering that she wrote on Facebook that she “caught a n*gger” who was allegedly “armed and hiding behind the shed in my neighbor’s back yard.”

[…]

“She was immediately terminated as soon as we saw the posting,” Children’s School of Rochester Principal Jay Piper told the Democrat & Chronicle. “We pride ourselves on our diversity. They were very offensive and hurtful remarks.”

TES Staffing, a staffing agency that connected Sutton with the school, also said that it would no longer employ Sutton after her racist rant.

[Read more…]

Sunday Facepalm: The Big Edition.

Ricky Berry -- WATE screenshot.

Ricky Berry — WATE screenshot.

You go away for a few days, and there’s a rising tide of stupid everywhere. We’ll start with sliced cheese, which as everyone knows, is scary stuff. Maybe not quite this scary, though…

What began as a spontaneous trip to the store ended up being one of the most bizarre experiences of Ricky Berry’s life.

He and his roommate went to purchase cheese and ended up having the police called on them.

Berry and his roommate said they walked into the CVS in Carytown and asked an employee if they sold sliced cheese. The worker kindly replied that they did not.

A few minutes later, the employee — all of the store employees, in fact — were nowhere to be found. Berry and his roommate, Philip Blackwell, said they were in the store with another customer for more than 30 minutes alone before an officer with the Richmond Police Department showed up.

[Read more…]

A Comment.

If you know who should be credited, please let me know.

If you know who should be credited, please let me know.

I wrote a comment on another blog yesterday, because I just could not take one more supposedly reasonable person making excuses for those poor, misunderstood people who voted for Trump. It’s making me queasy sick, and possibly leading to a genuine head ‘splosion. I know what the fuck is wrong with all those Trumpoids, but those busy doing nothing but bleating excuses? I’d like an answer, what in the fuck is wrong with you? If you are making excuses, you need to shut the fuck up, stat. Or, you know, you could grow a fucking spine and stand up to all your Trumpoid families and friends. Go ahead, be brave. I’ll wait.  Anyroad, here’s the comment:

The bottom line is that people, for whatever reasons, who perceive they were being done wrong, were promised they would have that metaphorical dog to kick to pieces: “you’ll be able to kick those brown people in the teeth! You’ll be able to knock immigrants on their ass!”

That’s what white people, who are always looking to blame someone else, wanted, and that’s what Trump promised them. It’s all ism: racism and sexism. White people are getting bolder by the second, proclaiming their need to preserve their race, by which they mean, “we need to be on top of the people pile again, with everything in it’s right and natural order, white is right!”*

Trump also promised white Christians the path to what they want the most: the ability to stomp on people, grind them to dust and blood, to offer up to their psychopathic god. “No more queers!” “No more abortion!” “No more contraception!” If you haven’t already read about all the legislation on these matters, paint yourself as a willfully ignorant dumbfuck. It’s happening, and it’s happening because that is what these people wanted. No way out of that.

It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if you don’t think your relatives are horrible bigots, or your friend who voted for Trump really isn’t a bad sort, or whatthefuck ever excuse you have cooked up. Unless you’re going to argue they are brain damaged, and couldn’t really understand all the blatantly bigoted shit which spewed from Trump’s mouth non-stop, there are no excuses. NONE.

By attempting to excuse people, you’re just another witless cog in the normalisation machine, helping to normalise fascism and unspeakable crimes against people, all people. STOP DOING THAT.

WAKE THE FUCK UP.

P.S. Fuck every single one of you whiny, mealy-mouthed fuckers who just can’t stop whinging about how hard their “thanksgiving” is going to be: fuck your squeamish privilege, your entitlement, and your godsdamned arrogance.

Caveat: I am not talking about those who have already gone 100 rounds with family or friends; nor am I talking about those who are dependent on family, and have to make the tactical decision to be quiet in order to stay alive. I am talking about all the assholes who must defend all Trump voters because their family members or friends voted for him; I am talking about all the fucking assholes who have been whinging and wringing their hands over how awful their holiday is going to be, sitting at a table over laden with food, and having the unbearable task of stuffing their fucking faces and watching television.

We will be spending thankstealing at Standing Rock, with the other protectors, against an army of vicious thugs. A friend will celebrate unthanksgiving on Alcatraz. I know other people who will be busy helping others, the homeless, or refugees. If your only fucking problem is having to refrain from noisily sighing whilst dining with family, shut up and stop defending the indefensible.

* Why yes, I do know that Trump voters were not %100 percent white. Don’t even think of using that as an excuse. Don’t. The majority voters were white, and they drove that vote.

No, Absolutely Fucking Not.

Two young Donald Trump fans wait to get inside the Trump rally in Manchester, N.H., Nov. 7, 2016 (Andrew Cline/Shutterstock).

Two young Donald Trump fans wait to get inside the Trump rally in Manchester, N.H., Nov. 7, 2016 (Andrew Cline/Shutterstock).

A week after Donald Trump won the presidency, many students on the University of Delaware campus were still devastated. Professors at the blue-state public school where Vice President Joe Biden is an alumnus canceled classes, helped organize marches, and held discussions so that students could process their feelings and fears.

But the UD students who voted for Trump were thrilled. It’s not just that their candidate won, but that the Democrats’ reliance on “identity politics” failed. Hillary Clinton’s campaign bet on the votes of women, minorities, the LGBT community, and other groups whose political positions are often shaped by the way they identify. But the Clinton campaign didn’t just fail to get out the vote — it also alienated white people who don’t like being told they’re bigots.

Trump didn’t win the election thanks to college graduates. The majority of them backed Clinton — except for white college-educated voters, who went for Trump by a narrow four-point margin. Nevertheless, Trump voters on campuses across the country view themselves as underground rebels fighting a corrosive epidemic of political correctness. Just don’t expect them to wear their “Make America Great Again” caps to the dining hall.

“It’s the new counterculture,” said Jared, an undergraduate who wore a suit and tie to a recent meeting of the UD College Republicans. “It’s the equivalent of being a hippie protesting at Kent State,” he said, apparently referring to the 1970 Vietnam War protest that ended with National Guard troops shooting four unarmed students to death.

“Or being grunge in the ’90s,” another student chimed in.

:Massive Facepalm: I was part of the counterculture. Bonafide hippie, right here. These ignorant twerps wouldn’t know a counterculture if it fucking bit their arses off. People died at Kent State, murdered, as they ran away. A silence swept the land when that happened, and then a wave of screaming took place, it was past time to make things change. These stupid, whiny, overprivileged, entitlement minded gits have absolutely no fucking business talking about Kent State, let alone comparing themselves to those who were there. Especially in light of the special idiot who compares Kent State to being grunge in the ’90s. Yeah, wow, talk about hard times, dude, that was just awful, wasn’t it? I’m stunned. Just stunned by the depth of this willfully ignorant entitlement. These idiots would run away from an actual protest, afraid they might mess up their hair, or possibly get those oh so cool conservativeculture clothes dirty. This is a good illustration of the dumbing down though, of the idiocy being embraced in this lost country, and newspeak is firmly entrenched. Counterculture? No. Concult, yes. These little asswipes aren’t counter anything. They are the boot stomp of conformative fascism.

In the 1960s, the University of California, Berkeley, was known for free-speech protests, said Andrew Lipman, a UD senior and the chairman of the Delaware Federation of College Republicans. Now, in Lipman’s view, the university is known for “silencing conservative speech, because it’s considered hateful.”

Gee, that would be because a great deal of conservative speech is hateful, you dumbfuck. It would be so nice if vacuum headed idiots like Lipman would bother to think about why so many people do not have the slightest interest in hearing “conservative speech”. Any minority person could tell him why, but I doubt Lipman and his dudebros much care to listen to minority people. Probably aren’t too keen on listening to women, either. At least not women who aren’t bound up in the conservativeculture.

Trump’s win is a boon for every college student frustrated by progressive campus activists’ concepts that have gone mainstream, such as “trigger warnings,” “safe spaces” and “microaggressions.” Lipman wasn’t a big Trump supporter, but he’s concerned by reports from UD students who say they don’t feel comfortable voicing pro-Trump sentiments in class, in their dorms, and around campus. He’s such an advocate for free speech that he helped bring Breitbart News writer and alt-right celebrity Milo Yiannopoulos’s “Dangerous Faggot” college tour to UD two weeks before the election.

Oh, they don’t feel safe expressing themselves. Why, persons of colour and women and queer folk wouldn’t know a fucking thing about that one, no. So, I guess, Mr. Lipman, what you want, is what Pres-elect Pussy Grabber wants, a safe space. Oops, how did you get yourself into that box?

There’s much more at BuzzFeed, but I’m ending this post now, it’s too early in the morning for me, it’s barely light out. I have always taken great care to avoid falling into the “oh, young people today…” garbage, because it is garbage. It’s really difficult to stay away from that right now, so I’ll go have tea.

Full article at BuzzFeed.

Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton.

Schuyler Sisters -- via Hamilton website.

Schuyler Sisters — via Hamilton website.

A performance of “Hamilton” was rudely interrupted in Chicago Saturday night when a theatergoer cursed the cast members on stage, reports Broadway World.

According to an audience member, a patron seated up in the balcony disrupted the play shouting, “We won! You Lost! Get over it! F*ck you!” during the musical number “Dear Theodosia,” startling the singers.

Reportedly the patron became enraged earlier by the well-known line from the musical: “Immigrants, we get the job done.” The man created a disturbance that lasted through two numbers, forcing nearby theatergoers to go in search of security. The man was taken into custody after a brief struggle and theater staff later told patrons the man was intoxicated.

[Read more…]

Sunday Facepalm.

art_laughingjesus_pb1989

Bonus points to those people who, like me, saw Laughing Jesus in the original incarnation, Playboy Magazine, back in whatever it was, ’71? Oh the outrage, too.  Onto the facepalm. There’s nothing much to laugh about here, unfortunately.

Several places have started publishing their local write-ins, I only have heart enough for two. From Gwinnett county, Georgia:

Hundreds of voters in Gwinnett County chose not to cast their vote for the candidates on the ballot in last week’s presidential election.

A list from the county showed a wide range of candidates voters decided to write-in.  The list includes cartoon characters, former presidents, food and celebrities.

[…]
Nearly 100 people wrote in Jesus, while 25 went with God. One person wrote in Holy Spirit. Mickey Mouse got more than 20 write-in votes.

Harambe, the gorilla who was killed at the Cincinnati Zoo when a 3-year-old fell into his enclosure, got five write-in votes. Some voters went with their stomachs and cast write-in votes for pizza, a potato and “one whole grain Pop-Tart.”

You can peruse the full list here. There was also a write in for:

GIVE THIS LAND
BACK TO THE
NATIVE INDIGENOUS
TRIBES,
REPARATIONS TO
DESCENDANTS OF
AFRICANS, DESTROY
BABYLON, STOP
MILITARY AND
PRISON INDUSTRIAL
COMPLEX, STOP
RACE/GENDER/SEXU
ALITY/RELIGIOUS
DISCRIMINATION,
END POLICE STATE,
PROTECT THE
ENVIORNMENT

Now some of that is a lovely sentiment, and some admirable goals,*  to be sure, but what in the fuckety fuck did this person think this would accomplish? Outside of being on a very modestly viewed blog, not one damn thing. What would have made a difference? A vote for Clinton. The linked .pdf is 138 pages of write ins. One idiot took the time to write in “We Are Doomed”, but just couldn’t bring themselves to do the right thing, like all the other idiots. And yes, if you decided to go with a write-in, you’re an idiot. You’re an idiot because it was screamingly obvious this particular vote was binary. One of two choices. All these people showed up to vote, just so they could demonstrate not voting. Never has the failure mode of clever been more apparent.

NJ.com reports there were 1,695 write-ins in Gloucester County. That’s compared to 384 write-ins in 2012. I have no doubt there’s similar in every single county in every single state. We can thank all these decidedly not clever people for being on the sinking boat on a sea of fascism we now find ourselves in. I think that puts Jesus’s laughter on the hysterical side.

*Absolutely clueless on that Babylon thing.

Saturday Silliness.

A Trump fan proudly shows off his Trump Starbucks cup (Twitter).

A Trump fan proudly shows off his Trump Starbucks cup (Twitter).

Donald Trump’s most ardent coffee-drinking followers are not happy that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz endorsed Hillary Clinton this year — and they’ve come up with a curious way to get revenge.

As The Hill reports, Trump fans have started asking Starbucks baristas to write down Trump’s name on their cups when they order drinks. The “movement” was inspired by a Trump fan who had a temper tantrum in a Starbucks earlier this week when he accused Starbucks of engaging in “anti-white discrimination” because his coffee was delayed.

Now Trump fans are posting their #TrumpCups all over Twitter in an act of rebellion against Starbucks that also happens to involve giving the company more of their money.

There’s a shining example of right-wing logic for you. “We’ll make you say Trump’s name, hahahahaha!” all while handing over absurd amounts of money for what I understand isn’t an all that grand of a product. They’re also handing substantial amounts of money to a company they are all upset with. Life is beginning to resemble an episode of The Simpsons. In the midst of despair and feelings of helplessness, it’s important to remember the virtues of mockery. When something is absurd, it’s good to point it out with a healthy dose of mockery.

Via Raw Story.

In yet another fine example of right-wing logic, the white supremacists of Daily Stormer have their knickers in a knot over the Twitter ban of Richard Spencer and other prominent white supremacists. Twitter is trying to curb openly white nationalist garbage, so the solution? Well, the white dude club came up with this: fake black accounts! Yep.

“Twitter is about to learn what happens when you mess with Republicans,” said Anglin in the blog post. Anglin called on his readers to create more fake Twitter profiles, saying that their posts needed to be “indistinguishable” from actual Twitter accounts belonging to black people.

“When you have time, create a fake black person account,” Anglin wrote. “Just go on black Twitter and see what they look like, copy that model. Start filling it with rap videos and booty-shaking or whatever else these blacks post.”

Sounds like a really solid plan, right? No flaws at all, nope. Having an account which is absolutely indistinguishable from that of any actual person of colour, that will show them! Not that they can pull off that indistinguishable business. Seems they don’t realize that people of colour are people, y’know, individuals, with different ideas, tastes, likes and dislikes. They’ll be creating caricatures, and are confident they won’t be spotted.

Via Raw Story.

All the Trumpty Dumptys.

Rep. Peter King. CREDIT: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

Rep. Peter King. CREDIT: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) spent some time deriding people. He first spent time moaning about all the protesters, then he decided to jump all over students for their inaction. There’s repub logic for you.

“These college students. I find it incredible. I dunno what would happen if a real war ever came. You think back to the greatest generation. And now you have these people, they’re having crying sessions, giving them comfort dogs, they’re giving them group therapy, they’re giving them consolation, because they’re so upset that Hillary Clinton lost the election,” said King.

“C’mon, have some guts, have some nerve, get out there, we’re supposed to be a great country. Are these the morons we’re counting on to be leaders in the future?”

They certainly can’t be more moronic than you, sir. [Full story.]

CREDIT: AP Photo/Seth Perlman.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Seth Perlman.

The Trumpoids are busy whipping up lists of everyone they should boycott. As might be expected, it’s a long and not terribly rational list.

While many in the country are protesting and condemning Donald Trump’s election as president, his supporters (including both the alt-right and other traditional conservatives) are trying to counter with their own demonstrations. At the top of their list of targets is PepsiCo, but it’s one of only many companies some are planning to boycott for criticizing Trump or otherwise working against what they believe to be his goals.

Full story here.

Ken Blackwell, who President-elect Trump selected to lead his domestic transition CREDIT: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File.

Ken Blackwell, who President-elect Trump selected to lead his domestic transition CREDIT: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File.

Then there’s Ken Blackwell, who is determined to get rid of all that queerness, in any way possible.

President-elect Donald Trump selected Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state who ran for governor in 2006 and was crushed by a nearly 34 point margin, to lead up domestic policy for his presidential transition team. Blackwell is also a senior fellow with the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designated a hate group because of its anti-LGBT positions.

Blackwell is not exactly shy about his anti-LGBT stance. Indeed, as The Guardian’s Scott Bixby notes, Blackwell claimed during his gubernatorial bid that homosexuality is a “choice” that “can be changed.”

Full story here.

“Pres. Trump Says This Is Okay.” (Continuation 6)

Brittany Daughenbaugh. Facebook.

Brittany Daughenbaugh. Facebook.

Brittany Daughenbaugh couldn’t sleep, so the Capital University student decided to go on a Pokemon Go hunt in the early hours of Thursday morning. She had seen the men across Francis Street but paid them no mind. She was on the trail of a good catch.

“Suddenly, they’re behind me,” Daughenbaugh, 20, said Monday. One man wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and the other a “Trump-Pence” sweatshirt.

She said the sweatshirted man grabbed her arm and told her, “Don’t you worry, honey. President Trump says this is OK.” He then punched her in the face and the arm. She fell, hit her head on the pavement and blacked out.

[…]

She wrote a lengthy Facebook post Friday about the attack, in part as a warning to other Capital students to be careful, but also to encourage only nonviolent opposition to the bigotry and aggression.

“Protest and fight, but do it peacefully. Do not burn the flag. Do not vandalize. Do not fight hate with hate,” she wrote. “The only way to fix this is with willpower, passion and love.”

Her post drew scores of comments of support, but one man wrote that the facial bruise in her Facebook photo was a “terrible makeup job.”

“Take your agenda and lies someplace else and quit trying to get attention and smear someone’s name,” he wrote.

Full story at The Columbus Dispatch.

[Read more…]

Right Wing Rumbling.

confederate-flag-814x458

Right wingers have been polishing their rhetoric and goddidits, and they are increasingly leaving the halls of right wing for alt right, throwing their lot in with the white supremacists.

Michael Hill, president of the neo-Confederate League of the South has had plenty to say:

Once the globalist-progressive coalition of Jews, minorities, and anti-white whites stops reeling in confusion from the results of yesterday’s election, we can expect them to start striking back with trickery and violence. Thus, we as Southern nationalists face both danger and opportunity.

Now, more than ever, we need tight organization and numbers to help drive a stake through Dracula’s heart and keep him from rising once again to menace our people and civilization. No mercy should be shown to the enemies of our God, our Folk, and our civilization. None would be afforded us.

Dracula? How did a literary figure get into this? I’m sure that stands for someone or something, but right now, I don’t give a damn. It’s idiocy. Why not invoke the ever popular zombie apocalypse? As for no mercy would be afforded them, oh, that wins some sort of hyperbole prize. These people start crying over criticism, which is what they tend to call being treated mercilessly. Hill also had a warning for all those pure Southerners:

…So here is my warning to the victors: do not go back to sleep and think all is well. If you don’t finish the job by routing your enemies and driving them into the sea while you have the chance, they will re-group and be back at your throats in no time! You have been given a reprieve by God (probably undeservedly so); do not give your enemies and His a reprieve.

Their goal is to dispossess you of everything. If you have not heard that over the past year, then you have not been listening. Just what the hell do you think multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance are all about? Your enemies care nothing about those things. They are merely used as weapons against you for your dispossession and ultimate destruction. The sum of their effect is White Guilt.

[…]

These media elites (and others of their elite ilk) look forward to the demise of old white America and the rise of a new paradigm in which they will hold sway. You will be dispossessed, sequestered in the equivalent of ghettos, and will be a despised and hated minority in the country your ancestors built.

Just once, I’d like for one of these clowns to acknowledge that they just love ghettos, as long as they aren’t in them. Those ancestors of yours did not build this country. They stole it through genocide, then had slaves do the actual work.

You, by God’s grace, may have been given a short reprieve from this scenario. Redeem the time! As for me, I recommend that we get busy with Southern independence. We need our own country, and it must be run by us for our own interests. It must once again be White Man’s Land.

I’m just fine with you founding White Man’s Land. First of all, you need to get the fuck out of this country, find a place which is completely uninhabited, purchase it, and there ya go, white fantasy land! You won’t do that though, because at the bottom of it all, you’re a chickenshit. You wouldn’t have the slightest idea of how to run your little ‘country’ or island, or whatever you found. Via RWW.

Elsewhere, Mike Huckabee has been waxing folksy on what a great president Trump will be, wait, the greatest ever, you betcha!

Horowitz’s annual “Restoration Weekend” allows far-right activists to mingle with conservative elected officials. This year, Steve Bannon, who left Breitbart News to run Trump’s presidential campaign and has since been named the president-elect’s chief strategist, was scheduled to attend, although we have not been able to confirm that he actually showed up. Milo Yiannopoulous, a Breitbart editor and apologist for the racist alt-right movement, was given an award.

In remarks to the conference that were broadcast on Periscope by Andrew Torba, the CEO of an alt-right version of Twitter, Huckabee told attendees that Trump “will turn out to be one of the great presidents of our time and may be one of the greatest ever.”

[…]

He also said that Trump would make sure that government agencies “will run a fair show,” saying that in contrast he would have had to “seek asylum in some foreign country” if Hillary Clinton won the presidency “because I knew I was going to be a target.”

Again with this remarkable hyperbole. Does anyone even think about Huckabee? I don’t. There’s such a need for puffery in the old white guys’ club, they are just so darn important they have to keep reminding people of it. Via RWW.

Sam Rohrer is positive that Trump’s being elected was god’s doing. He doesn’t say which god. Maybe Loki. Jim Bakker is of the opinion that Trump’s election is the greatest miracle ever. Janet Porter is gleeful over the green light to illegalize abortion. More dead women, ain’t that great!

David Kupelian, of World Net Daily, has declared that a very particular disaster has been avoided:

“We would have seen how evil works if we had Hillary Clinton as president,” Kupelian said. “She would have literally driven many people insane. I mean that in a clinical way.”

While older people would have responded to a Clinton presidency by praying more and stocking up on food and supplies, Kupelian asserted, young people would have been driven over the edge and soon started carrying out mass killings.

“To have an outright criminal married to a certified sexual predator in the White House and to glorify that and all that is implied in society elevating these people back into positions of ultimate power, as basically the rulers of the world,” he stated, “to a lot of young people whose souls and views are still being formed, they’d go nuts. And you’d see more acting out and criminality and people doing crazy things. You’d say, ‘My God, how did that happen? Why did this person go and shoot up a classroom of people?’ and so forth. I’m saying, you elevate somebody like that to the president and you unleash hell.”

People have elected a criminal and a sexual predator to the presidency, and fascism has been unleashed. We can go ahead and call that hell.

Empathy for White Conservatives? No.

merge

Kali Holloway has an excellent article up at Raw Story: Stop asking me to empathize with the white working class. Here’s just a bit of it:

[…] Trump stoked racial hatred, but he didn’t invent it, so stop acting like he did because it makes you feel good. The irony of this whole thing is that Trump knew better than a lot of “good” white folks—even recognized as well as folks of color did—how much white power and supremacy means to white people. From day one, he bet that it would be enough to get him elected. He ran a brilliant campaign, in a country where a brilliant campaign can almost solely consist of telling white people they might not be on top forever. He called it. Credit where it’s due.

The only surprise to come out of this election is how many, and how quickly, white people want us to empathize with the people who voted against our humanity, our right to exist in this place. Even before the election, the Washington Post actually had the audacity to berate us for not crying for the white working class. In the days since Trump won, the number of articles urging everybody to be cool to Trump’s America, to understand what they are facing, to hear their grievances, has added insult to injury. Bernie Sanders issued a statement saying Trump “tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media.” I read it at least three times and couldn’t find the words “white supremacy” anywhere in it.

Please miss me with all this nonsense. I’m not even going to get into how this is based on an easily refutable economic lie, especially since others have already spent precious time they’ll never get back breaking this down. But even if it was true—and I am well aware of what’s plaguing the white working class, from substance abuse to suicide to a loss of manufacturing jobs—I refuse to take part in the endless privileging of white pain above all others. (Martin Gilens, who has studied this stuff going way back, notes that when the media face of poverty is white, this country suddenly gets a lot more compassionate.) Latinos and African Americans remain worse off than the white working class—which is still the “largest demographic bloc in the workforce”—by pretty much every measurable outcome, from home ownership to life expectancy. Where are these appeals for us when we protest or riot against the systemic inequality we live with? Where are all the calls to recognize and understand our anger?

For hundreds of years, white people have controlled everything in this country: the executive office, Congress, the Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, Wall Street, the lending institutions, the history textbook industry, the false narrative that America cares about liberty and justice for all. But I need to understand white feelings of marginalization because a black man was in the White House for eight years? Because political correctness—a general plea for white people not to be as awful as they have been in the past— asked that white people put more effort into being decent than they felt up to? Because white folks didn’t like that feeling when politicians aren’t singularly focused on the hard times and struggles of their communities? Audre Lorde said (I wonder if that woman ever got sick of being right), “oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.” For a people who have shamed black folks for supposedly always wanting a hand out, for being a problem of the entitlement state, I have never seen people who so firmly believe they are owed something.

Let me pass along some advice black folks have been given for a long time: stop being so angry and seeing yourself as a victim, and try pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s really all I have for you right now, this re-gifting of wisdom. […]

I’ll stand with Ms. Holloway here, and I stand by Iris, too. Over at Death to Squirrels, I said that my days of empathizing with cons of any stripe are over, and they are. White people have gone full court whiny now, wanting everyone to pat them on the head and say, yes, yes, you have it so bad, darling. No. Even liberal white people are getting in on the Whine Wagon. “But you have to be nice to them! They’re just misunderstood!” My response to that? The fuck I do, and the fuck they are.

Before I go on, the standard disclaimer: no, all white people aren’t awful. No, all white people aren’t unrepentant bigots. No, all white people are not willfully ignorant assholes. Yes, lots of white people get it.

This nonsense of “you must have empathy for them, you must!” needs to stop, right now. The people who voted Trump into the position of president-elect did so for specific reasons, but the primary one is exactly what Ms. Holloway said: power. White people are all about power, and they love their privilege. Of course they listened to a fucking gold-plated idiot who told them their power as Mighty Whitey was slipping. They’ve already felt that, and yep, they’ve been very upset about it, and grabbed onto Trump with a death grip in order to get firmly ensconced on top of the people pile once more. I have no idea why white liberals have latched onto the tone argument; Trumpoids have no interest in anyone being nice and understanding, they want obeisance and submission. They want to be what they always have been in this country – lords of the manor. They want to be able to spit, sneer, and be in a position of authoritative judgment of all others. White cons have no use whatsoever for white liberals, either, so that makes the tone argument even more inexplicable.

I’ll be 59 in a matter of days. I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. Tumultuous times, rife with change, change for the better. There was such hope in the ’70s, people had such faith in the future. This is not what we were dreaming about. The 80s saw the serious rise of conservatism once again, especially Christian conservatism. I’ve been around for the whole thing, and decade by decade, cons have gotten worse, more extreme, more hateful, more spiteful, more poisonous. It’s not a surprise the white wall of conservative xianity took their one chance to power, nor is it surprising that white supremacists have wrapped themselves around Trump like a cloak. All that, I understand. I don’t like it at all, but I understand it.

What I don’t understand is this hand-wringing call for sympathy, tea and cookies. No. No, no, no. When have Christian Cons every had empathy for anyone except themselves? When have white supremacists ever had empathy for anyone except themselves? Christian Cons and white supremacists are evil people, perfectly willing commit themselves to evil to gain their goals. We’re dealing with one of those acts of evil right now. They did the proverbial deal with the devil in order to get closer to all the things they want, and what they want, more than anything, is to stomp people into submission, one way or another. They want to stomp all those feminist sluts into the ground, removing any sort of bodily autonomy, unless it happens to be their bodily autonomy on the line, natch. “No More Uppity” might as well be their battle cry, along with the requisite god, guns, and bible business.

I haven’t recovered quite yet, but to anyone who thinks that “you gotta be nice to them” is some sort of strategy or argument, I have one response: Fuck No.

Kali Holloway’s full article is here, highly recommended. Also recommended: https://twitter.com/drskyskull/status/796916965956874241

This Is Racism.

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump react as they watch the election results during Trump’s election night rally, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, in New York. CREDIT: AP/John Locher.

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump react as they watch the election results during Trump’s election night rally, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, in New York. CREDIT: AP/John Locher.

[…] America’s demographics are changing, and they’re changing quickly. By 2055, there will no longer be a single racial or ethnic majority in the United States and 14 percent of the country will be foreign born, according to the Pew Research Center. Forty-three percent of Millennials are people of color.

Let’s be clear: This is scaring white voters. White people believe that they are more often the victims of racism than black people, according to a 2011 new study from researchers at Tufts University’s School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. The research also found that white voters perceived social progress for people of color to be much swifter than it actually is.

The authors wrote, “These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality — at their expense.”

Research has also established that as U.S. demographics shift, the pro-white and racist attitudes of white people become more apparent, according to a study from New York University and Northwestern University. The same researchers also found those who read about these demographic changes often are generally more supportive of conservative policies and more likely to identify as conservative.

Throughout history, there are many examples of how the racism of white voters has been mobilized to favor a candidate for president. We saw Barry Goldwater and President Richard Nixon employ the Southern Strategy, which took advantage of white people’s anxieties about the economic and social advancement of people of color. Writing in Slate, Jamelle Bouie describes this pattern of progress and white backlash, starting with the Reconstruction:

Like clockwork, white Americans embraced a man who promised a kind of supremacy. We haven’t left our long cycle of progress and backlash. We are still the country that produced George Wallace. We are still the country that killed Emmett Till.

We have also seen these fears manifest themselves overseas as European far-right political parties with anti-immigrant sentiments win historic victories.

The fear of white voters — the fear we will no longer be at the center of American politics and culture, having our needs tended to first, and the fear that we will be asked to acknowledge our role in white supremacy and to stop doing harm to people of color, whether it be violence or perpetuating racist stereotypes — has always been there. Now, we need to acknowledge that it is largely what motivated Trump voters. A majority of Trump supporters said they saw black people as “less evolved” than white people, according to a Slate survey with a sample of 2,000 non-Hispanic white people.

When we say that class is what takes a Trump voter from dangerous to misguided and confused, we are condescending to low-income people living in rural areas. By doing this, the media takes away their agency and suggests they didn’t know any better. But they know exactly what they have done. […]

Yes, they do know exactly what they’ve done, and they all have their little justifications for doing it, and it all goes back to the comfort of being on top of the people pile, being assured that yes, of course white people are superior, and you have every right in the world to stomp all over those others. My state, nDakota, had a great deal to do with Trump being elected, and I can’t even begin to express how uncomfortable I am right now, how much anxiety and fear fills me whenever I look at any white person in this state, knowing there’s a high probability they voted for that xenophobic, homophobic bigot, open racist, a rapist, a sexual predator, a con man, an open fraud, a sociopath, pathological liar, climate change denier and ignorant asspimple. Much like my country, my home [state] has disappeared, swallowed whole by intolerant assholes who think they are owed the right to stomp on other people, to oppress, to marginalize, to own, to rule. There just aren’t enough fucks in the universe for those of you to whom nothing was more important than your shallow need to control other people, to safeguard your racism. *spits*

The full story is at Think Progress.

F*ck Your Feelings.

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Oh, university, where you go to embark on great learning, new experiences, opening that mind! Supposedly, anyway. Seems many people at university go there with their underdeveloped brains set in cement. Today, it’s the University of Alabama. At least it’s not Ndakota again.

Students and administrators were welcomed by a sea of hateful Trump-inspired chalk messages outside Manly Hall at the University of Alabama on Friday, AL.com reports.

Manly Hall is home to the departments of Religious Studies and Gender and Race Studies and the messages clearly targeted the people who frequent the building.

The racist and anti-feminist messages were written in chalk outside the building and read, “Build a freaking wall #YUGE,” “Trump 2016,” “F*ck your feelings,” and “#Feminism is cancer.”

A faculty member of the department shared the photos on Facebook with a message that accompanied the post. Juan P Black Romero, who is a part-time instructor of “race, gender, and Latino immigration politics” at the university wrote:

Another of those hateful mornings at my office. They have become too common by now. Less than a week from the election and the push for the open display of racial difference that is becoming more desirable if not acceptable. This messages are warnings and threats to all of us who want a better world for all. These messages set the limits of the achievements of our society up to this point; these messages tell us that we have gone too far in our claims of treating each other as human beings and working together. This is what is being offered as a reality in this election with Trump, this limitation and eradication of anything that doesn’t build race and fulfill the desires of Whites.

I can’t say I am angry anymore; I am scared, but I won’t stop, ever, doing my job. If anything, I can say that I am more inclined to love. Today, I will join a group of scholars and students that deal with these issues of difference – race, gender, ageism, class, disability, and more. We will work on this, I am sure; work for a better world.

Well said, Mr. Romero. We certainly have our work cut out for us.

Via Raw Story.