Whitesplaining Apologies.

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Lawrence Ware at Fusion addresses the massive facepalming wrong of whitesplaining apologies by people caught doing things which are racist as hell. Mr. Ware lists the 5 worst whitesplaining strategies, which also apply to other types of notpologies.

1. “I apologize to anyone who may have been offended.”

This is the classic non-apology. To say that these words have meaning at all is pushing it. The person in the wrong isn’t expressing remorse over what they’ve said or done; they’re merely acknowledging the response of the offended. This statement is but a logical step away from saying, “Y’all just need to stop being so damn sensitive.”

2. “I have black friends.”

Somehow a white person caught doing something racially problematic thinks having a black person as a favorite in their iPhone absolves them of racism. Someone should tell them it just doesn’t work that way. Put succinctly, we don’t give a damn if a white racist has a black friend.

3. “I know MLK quotes.”
Some white people have a tendency to take MLK’s words out of context. When King wrote in Where Do We Go From Here, “Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn,” he was probably talking about the same white folks who are misusing his words, like Seattle Mariners backup catcher Steve Clevenger, who apologized for his offensive comments about the Charlotte, North Carolina, protests by harkening back to MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech: “I am also proud that my inner circle of friends has never been defined by race but by the content of their character.”

4. “You misunderstood.”

This is insulting. The statement implies that what the offended party heard was not actually what the offensive person said. A slightly more authentic, yet just as problematic, approach is the “that’s not what I meant” defense. In that case, one owns that what they said might have been distasteful, but insists that they didn’t intend for it to offend. It’s similar to a 5-year-old who accidentally hits their sibling, but thinks screaming “I didn’t mean to do it” will sufficiently solve the problem. Just because a person didn’t mean for something to be racist, doesn’t mean that they didn’t do something hella racist. Just ask the folks who believe that the Confederate flag is all about heritage. Yeah, white folks who say this sound about as dumb as them.

5. “I don’t see race.”
Aside from the fact that it is nearly impossible, this is a statement centered in white privilege. In Racism Without Racists, Edwardo Bonilla-Silva argues that pretending that race doesn’t exist only perpetuates white privilege because it doesn’t force us to address the systemic nature of oppression. Racism is not just interpersonal—it’s also institutional.

A few words of advice to white folks caught being racist: Just own it. It’s not cool, but admit it and learn from your mistake. Your attempts to whitesplain your way out of having said something racist is coming off about as ridiculous as Shaggy’s attempts to prove his fidelity in “It Wasn’t Me.”

Full article at Fusion.

The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss.

A YouTube video from North Dakota’s new Gov. Doug Burgum. More of the same about Standing Rock.

A YouTube video from North Dakota’s new Gov. Doug Burgum. More of the same about Standing Rock.

Damn. Think about what was possible: A governor who is framing his entire administration on innovation just dismissed the most disruptive force in his state’s recent history. That is what Standing Rock is about. Instead of saying, “What can we learn from this? What can we do together?” The new governor relied on the screen saver that was there before; the idea that powerful forces will roll over the tribe and build the Dakota Access Pipeline without interference. Thank you.

Burgum also scratched away at an old story: The Obama administration created this problem.

But his larger message is that the state of North Dakota and its corporate partners are more powerful than any tribal government. Instead of a pause, a moment to engage in a government-to-government dialogue, the new governor emphatically says the pipeline will get built soon. No. Matter. What.

“Make no mistake, this infrastructure is good for our economy,” the governor said in his YouTube video. “And it’s the safest way to transport North Dakota products. Failure to finish it would send a chilling signal to those in any industry who wish invest in our state and play by the rules.”

[…]

The new governor could have reset the law enforcement battle lines too. Nope. “As a result of the Obama administration’s refusal to uphold the rule of law on federally owned land, both our citizens and local and state law enforcement have been put in harm’s way,” he said. “These actions are putting daily demands on the scarce resources of our state and local government.”

Those daily demands are because the state of North Dakota made it so. Pick a word: defuse, de-escalate, negotiate. There were so many better alternatives, ones that were dismissed in favor of sending in the cavalry. I have interviewed many government officials over the years that successfully reduced tension instead of using the police powers of a state. In every test the state failed in this regard and the new governor is following the same path.

I had hopes that Gov. Burgum would see the potential of the Standing Rock story as one that could make North Dakota a beacon. Think about this: This moment in history has brought indigenous people together in a way that’s unprecedented. And the world is paying attention to that. What an amazing opportunity, something that could stir the imagination of investors, entrepreneurs, and governments. Potential partners in a state that found a solution by working with tribes to solve an intractable problem.

The former governor blamed social media for this global perception. But that misses the point that the Standing Rock Tribe owns the story. And that won’t change because the new governor posts a video on his account. The problem is not social media. It’s the message that the State of North Dakota will use the rule of law, the police power of a state, to roll over a tribal nation. It’s a message of brute force instead of inspiration.

Same old tired shit. Same old tired white privilege. Nothing ever changes. Mark Trahant’s full column at ICTMN.

A White Christmas.

Ann Coulter (Shutterstock)

Ann Coulter (Shutterstock)

Ann Coulter attended VDARE’s Christmas Party, piling yet another conservative onto the unapologetically white supremacist platform. We’re going to be seeing more of this, like Bill O’Reilly’s recent adoption of white supremacy. I had thought the normalisation of fascism and the open agenda of white supremacists might take at least a short while, but apparently not. The open embrace of white supremacy should be ringing alarm bells all over the place, but I no longer have even the smallest bit of faith in people hearing those alarms and waking the fuck up.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported Wednesday that Coulter was spotted Dec. 9 at VDARE’s annual gala and even gave an impromptu interview to John Derbyshire — a U.K. expat famous for being too openly racist for the National Review.

[…]

“VDARE’s list of contributors, in fact, is akin to a Rolodex of the most prominent pseudo-intellectual racists and anti-Semites,” wrote the SPLC’s Stephen Piggott. “They include names like Jared Taylor, who once wrote that black people are incapable of sustaining any kind of civilization; Kevin MacDonald, a retired professor who wrote a trilogy claiming that Jews are genetically driven to undermine the Christian societies they often live in; and the late Sam Francis, a white nationalist ideologue who wrote several key racist books.”

This is Coulter’s second star turn at a white nationalist event since the fall, Piggott noted, “In September, she spoke to the annual “Writers Workshop” event put on by the anti-immigrant and white nationalist publishing house The Social Contract Press (TSCP).”

The TSCP is a Michigan-based publishing house that specializes in the writing of white supremacists.

[…]

The election of Donald Trump has emboldened many U.S. racists and spurred them to reveal their true colors.

Via Raw Story.

Backing Black Business.

CREDIT: iStock.

CREDIT: iStock.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) just launched a database of black businesses to support, with the goal of “[building] long-term economic power for Black communities.”

On Monday, the organization unveiled backingblackbusiness.com, an interactive map and directory of online stores where customers can purchase food, health and beauty supplies, entertainment, and lifestyle goods — all from retailers owned by black people. The site also includes nonprofits, and allows business owners to add themselves to the database.

The full article is at Think Progress.

I clicked over to backingblackbusiness.com, and while I’m not in LA or NY, plenty of business owners have online shops, and after perusing a few (I got completely caught up in Loving Anvil, and am plotting on when I can spend money there) I don’t think I’ll have any problems at all, supporting black businesses. The site is brand new, so a bit rough, but there’s a lot to explore!

White Nationalism, A Global Affair.

Alexander Dugin, the leader of the Eurasian Movement (far right) takes part in a Russian nationalists’ rally in support of Serbia in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, April 27, 2008. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel.

Alexander Dugin, the leader of the Eurasian Movement (far right) takes part in a Russian nationalists’ rally in support of Serbia in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, April 27, 2008. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel.

Many Americans, primarily conservative, bigoted ones, are often found across the ‘net, bemoaning globalism. American wannabe nazis don’t have issues with globalism, they embrace it.

Aleksandr Dugin, is a radical, Trump supporting, self-proclaimed philosopher from Russia. Traditionalism and cultural purity are two of his most valued philosophical tenets. And while his influence may be overstated in Russia, his ideology has infiltrated white nationalist circles in the United States and parts of Europe.

One of Dugin’s biggest fans is Richard Spencer, the head of the racist National Policy Institute (NPI) and the man who popularized the term “alt-right.” Dugin’s work has been published on Spencer’s former website Alternate Right. And Spencer’s wife, Nina Spencer (who also goes by the aliases Nina Kouprianova, or Byzantina) has regularly translated Dugin’s work into English on her blog (though the blog gives the disclaimer saying that translated words are not necessarily the views of the translator).

[…]

Spencer’s adherence to Dugin’s ideology was shown as recently as last month when he tweeted a message of Dugin’s, using the same “swamp” metaphor that President-elect Donald Trump has employed when pledging to “drain the swamp.”

The Swamp is to become the new name for globalist sect, open society adepts, lgbt maniacs, Soros army, posthumanists and so on. Drain the Swamp is not only American categorial imperative. It is global challenge for all of us. Every people now is under power of its own Swamp. We all together should start the fight agains russian Swamp, french Swamp, german Swamp, and so on. We need to purge our societies from the influence of Swamp. So instead of fighting between ourselves let us drain it together. Drainers of the whole world should be united.

So, a purge. A purge of all those undesirable types from all societies everywhere. Does it take three whole guesses to figure out what their solution to all us excess people might be?

Full story at Think Progress.

UPDATE: Bannon and Dugin, Common Ground.

Bannon referred to Dugin while answering questions at a talk hosted by the religious right wing Human Dignity Institute in the summer of 2014.

“When Vladimir Putin, when you really look at some of the underpinnings of some of his beliefs today, a lot of those come from what I call Eurasianism,” said Bannon. “He’s got an adviser [Dugin] who harkens back to Julius Evola and different writers of the early 20th century who are really the supporters of what’s called the traditionalist movement, which really eventually metastasized into Italian fascism. A lot of people that are traditionalists are attracted to that.”

Bannon is referring to Dugin here. Dugin is a proponent of traditionalism — a philosophy in which all moral and religious truths come from divine revelation and are perpetuated by tradition — and counts Evola, an influential Italian fascist, as one of his influences. This speech took place in 2014, when Dugin’s support for the annexation of Crimea had him prominently in the news.

Oceti Sakowin Camp.

Photo by Tom Jefferson.

Photo by Tom Jefferson.

There are still people at the Oceti Sakowin camp, a considerably smaller number, around 2,000, who will stay until DA is gone. They are requesting that no one new come into camp right now, as weather conditions are very harsh. Those of us fighting the Black Snake still need help. You can signal boost, get involved in various actions, or donate, all is appreciated, deeply.

Have a look at the Oceti Sakowin Camp site, and see if there is a way to add your voice to the many.

The Dakota Access Pipeline may be on hold, but Water Protectors are still fighting for their freedom.

Perry the Prayer to Be Energy Secretary.

Rick Perry speaks to Fox News (screen grab).

Rick Perry speaks to Fox News (screen grab).

Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, whose style of governance was basically “hey, let’s pray!”, has been tapped by Trump to be Secretary of Energy.

CBS is reporting that President elect Donald Trump has chosen former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to be his energy secretary.

[…]

According to Major Garrett of CBS, two sources have confirmed Perry will be offered the spot  and will accept.

As CBS notes, Perry sits on the boards of two major energy companies, including Energy Transfer Partners which owns a subsidiary Dakota Access LLC, which is attempting to build the Dakota Access Pipeline.

It’s not enough to say all these rich assholes are living in one another’s pockets, they are living in each others rectums. It’s quite the racket Trump is setting up, making sure that all his investments don’t suffer by protecting his fellow investors, all of whom are climate change deniers, and pro-fossil fuels. (See here for the Exxon mess.)

People must get serious about fighting filthy energy, our lives are at stake. When we remove the earth’s ability to sustain us, we’ll die, and not pleasantly so. When we have poisoned all the water, we’ll die. And once again, water systems are not neatly contained puddles. Water flows, it meets other water, it’s an intricate and beautiful network, one which is vital to the health of our earth, and the life residing on it. Everywhere you look, more pipelines are being approved, against public sentiment and wishes. Trudeau, who styled himself a friend to the Indigenous nations of Canada, recently approved two major pipelines. Trump has vowed to okay Keystone XL, and while he won’t be pinned down on DAPL, he says “there will be a fast resolution”. As he’s heavily invested in ETP, I’m sure it doesn’t take much work to figure out which way he will go. The coal industry is also getting much more pushy, pinning their hopes on a Trump presidency. As usual, much of the pipelines and planned coal stations will be on Indigenous land, and treaties will be broken left and right, while colonialists happily destroy the ability of Indigenous people to sustain themselves, and make sure their land and water is always at risk of being poisoned beyond repair.

Does anyone think that the blatant disregard shown by Trump and his appointees won’t matter? Climate change is real, and we are already feeling the effects of it. Sea levels are rising. Water is routinely poisoned by gas and oil. Land which used to yield food is now rendered blasted and useless from fracking. Things will continue to get worse unless we change things right. fucking. now. Trump and his cronies have no interest in that at all. They plan to accelerate all the damage. When great swathes of the U.S. are no longer inhabitable for 3 to 6 months a year, what’s going to happen? Do you have enough money to purchase alternate residences, and the money cushion involved in moving back and forth? Are you going to get out your precious, beloved gun and start shooting people who don’t have resources? What do billionaires care about any of that? The entitlement brought on by having endless amounts of money and power allows them to think they will never, ever be victimized by such things, but planetary climate change doesn’t care about billionaires, and while it might get them last, it will get them.

The most recent pipeline leak here in nDakota, it was not detected by all that supposed early detection equipment, so no more of the same, tired bullshit about how safe pipelines are, and oh, they have detection equipment, because that crap does not work, and pipelines leak, end of story.

People in Arkansas and Oklahoma need help to stop a pipeline.

…More. Right. The orange man is on deck. Trump the troll. His minions. Pipeline lovers. Oil-addicted junkies. Wall builders and bigots. The illegal immigrants in this country are not brown. I’ve said this before. Many times. These gibbed geeks are the descendants of European invaders. But enough of that. Word is the oil-and-gas fat cats at Energy Transfer Partners are pissing and moaning into their whiskeys and ryes. Whiny brats. They said they’ll push on. President Andrew Jackson pushed on, too. The Trail of Tears happened anyway. “Justice Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Another whiny brat.

There’s little justice in this world, but on December 4, Native Americans got a taste. It’s always a fine feeling when good prevails over evil. And that’s what these pipelines are. Evil. Pure. Unadulterated. How could they not be? The oil oafs and their seedy oligarch asshat homies know pipelines leak. And they know people get sick when they do. Just ask the folks in the gulf who are still suffering from the massive BP oil spill. They agonize from chronic respiratory illnesses and skin diseases. THEY know what happens when pipelines leak and poison the water, sink into the soil. But these paunchy pipeline pricks turn a blind eye in the name of profit. They are gibbed vermin, and they deal in deception. …

Excerpt from Simon Moya-Smith, writing from the Oceti Sakowin Camp.

Standing Rock: No DAPL Roundup.

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© Marty Two Bulls.

Standing Rock: No DAPL Roundup.

Sacred Stone Media/YouTube Grassroots coalition against DAPL announces December as a month of action, focused on banks.

Sacred Stone Media/YouTube
Grassroots coalition against DAPL announces December as a month of action, focused on banks.

We, the below stated, are a coalition of grassroots groups living and working in the Dakota Access resistance camps along the Cannon Ball River in Oceti Sakowin treaty lands.

Sacred Stone Camp | Indigenous Environmental Network | International Indigenous Youth Council | Honor the Earth

The following is a coalition statement on the next steps for the #NoDAPL fight:

As we reflect on the decision by the U.S. Army (NOT the U.S. Army Corps) to suspend the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) river crossing easement and conduct a limited Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the resistance camps at Standing Rock are making plans for the next phase of this movement.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II has asked people to return home once the weather clears, and many will do so. Others will stay to hold the space, advance our reclamation of unceded territory affirmed in the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Laramie, and continue to build community around the protection of our sacred waters. They will also keep a close eye on the company, which has drilled right up to the last inch it can, and remains poised and ready to finish the project.

[…]

[Read more…]

No DAPL: Oren Lyons Speaks Out.

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Oren Lyons is a faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Council of Chiefs, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy) and a longtime international indigenous rights and sovereignty activist.

Accompanying article at ICTMN.

Jesse McLain, Asshole Bigot.

“Us North Dakota people are going to f*ck you up!”

I’m a nDakotan, Mr. McLain, and I think people like yourself are in dire need of a brain upgrade, along with classes on how to use said brain. This asshole bigot was caught on video threatening protectors at the Ramada Inn in Bismarck. Mr. McLain was arrested. At least Bismarck cops are being actual cops, not oil thugs. Mr. McLain was busy informing people he’d not only fuck them up, but fuck their wives too, because nothing shows what kind of a tough dude you really are by threatening rape.

A 33-year-old man was arrested Wednesday and charged with terrorizing a man involved in the pipeline protests outside the Ramada Inn in Bismarck.

Jesse McLain, of Bismarck, was allegedly one of two masked men captured on video yelling expletives and threats, including “take your protestin’ … back home” and “us North Dakota people are going to … you up,” into a vehicle at the hotel at 1400 E. Interchange Ave. on Monday afternoon, according to a Bismarck Police affidavit filed in the case.

Based on descriptions given in the affidavit, McLain is the man wearing a skeleton mask on his face. No charges have yet been filed against the other masked man seen in the video.

[…]

Police identified McLain after connecting the license plate on his grey van to a local service company in town, where he is an employee and driver of the van, according to the affidavit.

McLain was released from jail on Thursday afternoon on $2,000 bond set by South Central District Judge Gail Hagerty, according to the Burleigh County jail.

Via BisTribune.

Honouring Viola Desmond.

A portrait of Viola Desmond, a businesswoman and civil rights advocate, circa 1940. (Communications Nova Scotia/Bank of Canada/Flickr) .

A portrait of Viola Desmond, a businesswoman and civil rights advocate, circa 1940. (Communications Nova Scotia/Bank of Canada/Flickr).

Canada is finally addressing the wrong done to Viola Desmond, a remarkable woman, who made a stand for civil and human rights, and was punished for doing so, then thoroughly whitewashed.

You can read all about Ms. Desmond here, and Canada’s move to repair those earlier, despicable actions.

Oh, it’s a cosmic impulse to conquer.

Richard Spencer (Facebook).

Richard Spencer (Facebook).

Tim Wise has a good, in depth article up about the current crop of wannabe nazis, and how they can’t always manage to talk the talk, let alone walk the walk. So far, their de facto leader, Richard Spencer seems to be more concerned with polishing up the image of the “new identitarians” in an attempt to make them look all spiffy and intellectual. Just a bit here:

So again the question: how do white nationalists propose to bring such a thing about without violence?

The question was asked of Spencer recently, on at least two occasions. First by a Washington Post reporter and then during the Q&A session following his public presentation at Texas A&M University this week. And in both instances he tried to dodge the implications of his position. Though reluctant to offer many specifics about how one might attain a “white ethno-state” in America, he was ultimately forced to concede to the reporter from the Post, however dispassionately, that bringing his vision to fruition may require actions that would be “horribly bloody and terrible.” Then, at A&M, asked the same question by a black guy who demanded to know what white nationalists would seek to do with him, and how they planned to make it happen, a clearly nervous Spencer — not well-practiced when it comes to staring down a black man daring him to start some shit — was reduced to saying, “I’m not making you leave…You’re a citizen…you’re here.” In other words, he wouldn’t have to go anywhere: a statement that will come as quite a surprise to the Nazi shock troops who need and have come to expect from Richard a more unapologetic approach. Simply put, and using the terminology favored by the movement of which Spencer is such an integral part, he got cucked, hard. In the end, he went from being a brash and bloviating mini-Hitler, ranting to the audience about how “this is our Goddamned country!” to a feeble and frightened child or pathetic internet troll—a persona all too common to the movement and far more ubiquitous than the muscular brownshirt types they would like us to envision. Edward Norton in American History X they are not.

But make no mistake, ethnic cleansing and the violent removal of non-whites is exactly what they desire, no matter how unwilling they are to say so in the presence of black and brown peoples, like the ones upon whom they would need to make war, or simply away from the safe and breezy confines of a national media interview. In their private spaces or writings they acknowledge it, the way David Duke did in his autobiography, where he wrote that America must become an all white nation “no matter the cost or whatever sacrifices it takes,” that it will be necessary for “whites to prevail in a revolutionary physical struggle” over people of color and Jews, that whites must be “Aryan warriors,” and that “before the battle is over, many of us will find a heroic death… a physical revolution may be required…” Their entire worldview is about domination and subordination, and we know this because of something else Spencer has been saying recently, in interviews as well as speeches: the one at the National Policy Institute conference in DC, right after the presidential election, and the one at Texas A&M. Specifically, he has been quite adamant in proclaiming that whites are a people defined by a cosmic impulse to conquer.

Aha! So now we know what’s wrong with a lot of white people, they just have this cosmic imperative to be genocidal maniacs. How else could they possibly feel superior to everyone else?

Although Spencer insists he is not a supremacist because he doesn’t seek to rule over anyone else, the intellectual hard-on you can see him popping every time he professes the conquering impulse of whiteness — and his own admission that he gets literal wood reading about Napoleon — betrays his real sympathies all too visibly. But the inconsistency here — professing to believe in white conquest of others but not domination of them — is hardly the most internally inconsistent part of his worldview.

This can be most seriously filed under shit I did not need to know. Does anyone need to know that? Why in the fuckety fuck would anyone disclose such a thing? Eeeuw. Please, wannabe nazi or no, I don’t want to know a damn thing about your wank material. I will now declare this an excellent time to get myself back to other work for a while.

Tim Wise’s full article is highly recommended, have a read!