Twitter, Oh Twitter V.

White supremacists (Twitter).

White supremacists (Twitter).

White nationalists and self-identified Nazi sympathizers located mostly in the United States use Twitter with “relative impunity” and often have far more followers than militant Islamists, a study being released on Thursday found.

Eighteen prominent white nationalist accounts examined in the study, including the American Nazi Party, have seen a sharp increase in Twitter followers to a total of more than 25,000, up from about 3,500 in 2012, according to the study by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism that was seen by Reuters.

[…]

Berger said in an interview that Twitter and other companies such as Facebook Inc faced added difficulties in enforcing standards against white nationalist groups because they are less cohesive than Islamic State networks and present greater free speech complications.

Oh really. Hmmm. Interesting how there aren’t any greater free speech complications when it comes to stomping on Islamic extremism, but boy oh boy, does it ever get complicated when it’s white extremists. Sure.

The data collected, which included analysis of tweets of selected accounts and their followers, represents a fraction of the white nationalist presence on Twitter and was insufficient to estimate the overall online size of the groups, the report said.

Accounts examined in the study possessed a strong affinity for U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, a prolific Twitter user who has been accused of retweeting accounts associated with white nationalism dozens of times.

Three of the top 10 hashtags used most frequently by the data set of users studied were related to Trump, according to the report, entitled “Nazis vs. ISIS on Twitter.” Only #whitegenocide was more popular than Trump-related hashtags, the report said.

Yeah, there’s shocking news. I’ll try to work up a shocked expression or something.

Full story here.

The Speech.

The Lakota people refer to warriors as “akicita” and still use this term while referring to veterans. The akicita lead the way toward the prayer site in the rain. (Photo: Thosh Collins)

The Lakota people refer to warriors as “akicita” and still use this term while referring to veterans. The akicita lead the way toward the prayer site in the rain. (Photo: Thosh Collins)

Trump’s toxic mess of a speech in Arizona. You can read the transcript of the speech. I just have one comment on one small section, for now:

These are valid concerns expressed by decent and patriotic citizens from all backgrounds, all over. We also have to be honest about the fact that not everyone who seeks to join our country will be able to successfully assimilate. Sometimes it’s just not going to work out. It’s our right, as a sovereign nation to chose [sic]  immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us.

Now I know Trump has no love for Indians, he makes that clear at every opportunity. Here’s the thing, though, us Indians were declared sovereign nations some time ago, so how about if we choose the immigrants to this county that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us? Seems about right to me.

Sausage Party.

A 'Sausage Party' movie moment between ‘Frank’ (Seth Rogen) and an Indian Chief that is a bottle of alcohol labeled ‘Firewater’ (Bill Hader), as well as the Indian’s compatriots, an African American who is a box of grits and a white man who is a Twinkie.

A ‘Sausage Party’ movie moment between ‘Frank’ (Seth Rogen) and an Indian Chief that is a bottle of alcohol labeled ‘Firewater’ (Bill Hader), as well as the Indian’s compatriots, an African American who is a box of grits and a white man who is a Twinkie.

I admire Vincent Schilling for sitting through this mess of juvenile idiocy, sexism, and unabashed racism, so I won’t have to do it. I was absolutely appalled by the 2nd Despicable Me flick, and almost killed my own television set, because we only netflixed that monstrous mess of racism, sexism, and casual violence.

To the excitement of Seth Rogen fans, his toilet-humored animated film “Sausage Party” hit theaters this August. To the dismay of anyone with a social conscience, the movie has a slew of racially charged epithets that seem contrived to offend just for the sake of being offensive.

I am a Native American, and I grew increasingly uneasy watching the moments between ‘Frank’ (Seth Rogen) and an Indian Chief that is a bottle of alcohol labeled ‘Firewater’ (Bill Hader), as well as the Indian’s compatriots, an African American who is a box of grits and a white man who is a Twinkie. (Video Clip – Caution: Strong Language)

https://youtu.be/wRLQ0g9z0P0

The film, directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, and written by Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, is also filled with sexual references involving any phallic shaped foods, and there are a minor few funny moments reminiscent of life during recess in sixth grade, but the racially charged moments only seem to qualify themselves by continuing to attack all races without any real attempt to call forth a social commentary.

Shortly after the film gets started – it was off to the races with racially charged humor. Food products in the Chinese food section had slanted eyes and spoke in broken english, German food products were led by a Hitler looking product screaming “Kill the Juice” and the relationship between a bagel (Edward Norton) and a lavash (David Krumholtz) laid upon the issues of the Jews and Palestinians.

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Trump’s America: Bully Nation.

Student activist protests hateful environment in schools (Screen capture).

Student activist protests hateful environment in schools (Screen capture).

An ad from progressive group Move On shows how around the country, nonwhite and Muslim students are getting bullied by racist whites who’ve been emboldened by the unvarnished racism of the Donald Trump campaign.

Titled “Our Kids,” the video shows excerpts from news stories in which black, Muslim and Latino schoolchildren across the U.S. have been threatened and harassed by their white peers.

In Oregon, vandals hung a banner aimed at Latino students that said “Build a wall” — a reference to Trump’s promise to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep Latino immigrants out of the country.

At a high school basketball game in Chicago, white students chanted “Trump! Trump! Trump!” at black and Latino players and their supporters.

As the 75-second video moves from incident to incident, an ugly picture emerges of what’s motivating Trump voters, no matter what the candidate and his TV surrogates say about “economic anxiety” and “outsider politics.”

“Donald Trump is endangering our kids,” the ad says, before cutting to footage of students describing their experiences.

This country is caught in a whirlpool of shit. This hatred has to stop. Please, share this, get this out everywhere, it’s an important message for all.

Via Raw Story.

Council for National Policy.

Stephen Bannon.

Stephen Bannon.

If you’re like me, you went “who?” Yet another nasty group of people, who revel in extremism, and one I had not heard of before. As it turns out, two Trump henchpersons have not only heard of it, they are part of it. How surprising, right?

According to an SPLC statement, Breitbart.com CEO Stephen Bannon and pollster Kellyanne Conway — hired as Trump 2016’s CEO and campaign manager, respectively — are members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a highly secretive group that includes a roster of controversial white supremacists and rightwing agitators.

“The CNP is not controversial so much for the conservatives who dominate it — activists of the religious right and the so-called ‘culture wars,’ along with a smattering of wealthy financiers, Congressional operatives, right-wing consultants and Tea Party operatives — as for the many real extremists who are included,” wrote SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok.

The SPLC was able to obtain the CNP’s closely-guarded 2014 membership directory and found that it included “people like Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate who for years was on the board of the white supremacist League of the South; Jerome Corsi, a strident Obama ‘birther’ and the propagandist hit man responsible for the ‘Swift boating’ of John Kerry; Joseph Farah, who runs the wildly conspiracist “news” operation known as WorldNetDaily; Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel leader who has worked to re-criminalize gay sex; Philip Zodhaites, another anti-gay activist who is charged with helping a self-described former lesbian who kidnapped her daughter from her former partner and fled the country; and a large number of other similar characters.”

Conway and Bannon’s names both appear on the CNP’s 2014 membership roster. The SPLC was unable to determine their current membership status.

The Center noted that the CNP has every right to keep its membership secret, but the membership roster opens a window on how purportedly moderate Republicans meet and network with right-wing extremists in formulating their policy agenda and crafting legislation.

The CNP roster of members includes “real extremists, people who regularly defame LGBT people with utter falsehoods, describe Latino immigrants as a dangerous group of rapists and disease-carriers, engage in the kind of wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing for which the John Birch Society is famous, and even suggest that certain people should be stoned to death in line with Old Testament law,” the SPLC said.

Well. That’s terrifying. These are the people the so-called not completely batshit repubs are networking with, and we are now living in interesting times, with the rise of white nationalism and open bigotry. I think I could have lived without this particular knowledge, but it’s best to as knowledgeable as possible these days.

Via Raw Story.

Bigot, Bigot, Bigot, Racism!

Former Missouri GOP head Ed Martin with Phyllis Schlafly (Facebook.com).

Former Missouri GOP head Ed Martin with Phyllis Schlafly (Facebook.com).

Holy moly, the bigotry just keeps piling up and up and up and up. There’s just no end to it all. First up, Ed Martin, who is a Tea Party person, who was assuring people at a rally that no, they weren’t bigots, and that’s it’s not racist in the least to hate Mexican people. Or Muslims. Or the whole variety of brown people.

Riverfront Times writer Danny Wicentowski attended the rally, which he described as a scene where “some 200 patriots who really, really hate Hillary Clinton listened to a succession of speeches delivered by a string of local conservative luminaries who also really, really hate Hillary Clinton.”

Before featured speaker Jim Hoft — also known as conservative blogger The Gateway Pundit aka “The Stupidest Man on the Internet” — took to the stage, former Missouri Republican Party director Ed Martin reassured the crowd that they’re not racist for hating Mexicans.

“Donald Trump is for Americans first,” Martin said of the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. “He’s for us first. It is not selfish to support, or to be for, your neighbor, as opposed to someone from another nation. And Mexico, Mexicans, that’s not a race. You’re not racist if you don’t like Mexicans. They’re from a nation.”

:Momentarily typeless: Wow. I don’t even want to know what he thinks about us Indians, because we’re nations too. I imagine in our case, he thinks differently about all that nation stuff.

He applied the same logic to Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigrants.

“If you don’t think Muslims are vetted enough because they blow things up, that’s not racist,” Martin said. “There’s white Muslims, black Muslims, green Muslims. This is not racism.”

Um. There are green Muslims? Where? There’s also this issue of Muslims in general “blowing things up”. There have been a lot of white men prone to “blowing things up” too, so are they going to be uber-vetted also?

On Monday, Martin released a statement to the St. Louis Dispatch newspaper attempting to walk back the racist remarks, saying that by “Mexicans” he actually meant “illegal immigrants.”

Honestly, it should be an automatic indictment of these people, that they have walk back just about every comment, because they can’t manage to think before they speak.

Next up, why it’s LePage again, and his feelings are hurt, yes they are!

Per Politico, LePage told reporters in Maine on Wednesday that he was deeply wounded when he heard a report that he’d been called a racist by Maine lawmaker Drew Gattine. Even though the report turned out to be false, LePage called Gattine and left a threatening voicemail last week where he called him a “c*cksucker” and a “son of a b*itch.”

But really, it’s LePage who is the victim here.

“I may not supposed to be that sensitive to these things, but I am,” LePage confessed. “I lose sleep over this, and it’s frustrating when you hear people talk about cheap political stunts to hurt their opponent and not do the right thing. Being called a racist was a horrible thing for me. It was enormously hurtful. It hurt my family.”

LePage then declared that he would never talk to the news media ever again as punishment for hurting his feelings.

“I will no longer speak to the press ever again after today,” LePage said. “And I’m serious. Everything will be put in writing. I am tired of being caught — the gotcha moments.”

I…I…uh, oh man. Here’s a thought, Mr. LePage, shut the fuck up. That would be best for everyone.

Rounding out the racism report, the NFL.

Professional football players who commit violent crimes almost always get a second chance in the NFL, provided that they can still play well.

However, it seems that many NFL executives are drawing a line against signing a player who doesn’t stand during the national anthem.

Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman has talked with several NFL execs who said they wanted no part of having Colin Kaepernick on their teams, even though the athletic quarterback could still help a team in need of a player at the game’s most important position.

“I don’t want him anywhere near my team,” one front office exec told Freeman. “He’s a traitor.”

“He has no respect for our country,” said another. “F*ck that guy.”

“In my career, I have never seen a guy so hated by front office guys as Kaepernick,” said an NFL general manager.

Golly, and here I thought they were all about the money. Let’s see:

Defensive end Greg Hardy viciously assaulted his former girlfriend and left her covered in bruises. Despite this, he was welcomed with open arms by the Dallas Cowboys after serving his suspension.

Former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocked out his wife Janay Palmer in an elevator in 2014, and his team still publicly praised him as a man of great character. In fact, the team even posted an article written by a Ravens PR bigwig that was titled “I Like Ray Rice.” The team only released Rice once video of the incident came to light.

Quarterback Michael Vick ran a brutal dog-fighting operation in which pitbulls were tortured and killed. He was nonetheless scooped up by the Philadelphia Eagles right after he finished serving his prison sentence.

Minnesota Vikings running back was indicted for whipping his four-year-old son with a tree branch, leaving his legs covered in slash wounds. Nonetheless, he was welcomed back as a hero the year after he served his suspension.

Wide receiver Donte Stallworth killed a pedestrian while driving under the influence of alcohol — that didn’t stop the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Redskins or New England Patriots from signing him after he served his time.

But Colin Kaepernick isn’t good enough to spit on. Interesting, ennit? The NFL has finally decided to get all moral and righteous, right up until another player does something terrible, then they’ll be back to supporting criminals again, I’m sure.

LePage: The Apology.

CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

You didn’t think I was serious, did you? Okay, well LePage sorta kinda apologized, except not really. He’s sorry he made noises about stepping down.

All of this morning’s headlines focused on Maine Gov. Paul LePage apparently apologizing for an angry voice mail he left a state lawmaker, suggesting during a radio interview that he might even resign.

By the end of the day, the headlines were about LePage taking back the idea of quitting.

Lost in the political intrigue is that LePage didn’t apologize for using a gay slur. (He repeatedly called Rep. Drew Gattine a “cocksucker.”) He’s instead apologizing for losing his temper. LePage said he nearly couldn’t breathe after a reporter told him Gattine had said the governor is racist.

LePage also certainly isn’t apologizing for endorsing racial profiling. In a news conference Friday after LePage got caught leaving that short-of-breath, furious voice mail, the governor defended himself by saying “people of color” are “the enemy.”

[…]

LePage is aware that what he’s saying is considered racist, though he’s equally certain he’s not racist.

“Now they’re saying, ‘Well, you can’t do this,’ every day they’re saying, ‘You can’t do it because of the racially charged atmosphere in our country,’” he said. “But the same token is all lives matter. That’s the bottom line: All lives matter. And the majority of people dying are Mainers.”

Yes, yes, dying at the hands of those awful brown people from out of state. This, when he openly admits all the meth in Maine is being manufactured and dealt by white Mainers. But it’s the brown people’s fault, and no, he’s not racist, not one whit.

The governor issued a much less apologetic statement before his radio interview. In it, LePage acknowledged he’d purposely called Gattine “the worst word I could think of.” He didn’t apologize to LGBT people. He didn’t take back the proposal to racially profile people entering Maine.

“I make no apology for trying to end the drug epidemic that is ravaging our state,” he said. “Legislators like Gattine would rather be politically correct and protect ruthless drug dealers than work with me to stop this crisis that is killing five Mainers a week.”

The worst word you could think of was cocksucker? Really? Wow. I get the feeling LePage doesn’t think much of women, either. As for your crisis of five Mainers a week dying, perhaps you need to focus on more social programs which could help people when it comes to drugs. Are you working to make sure people have clean needles? Do you have needle drop off stations? Free clinics with counseling? Low cost rehab? Anything? Because just being a racist twit who wants an excuse to go homicidal on brown people is not going to help your problem, Gov.

The Advocate has the full story.

The Poor Get Everything Free. It’s A Disaster.

Donald Trump and Wayne Allen Root (YouTube/screen grab).

Donald Trump and Wayne Allen Root (YouTube/screen grab).

Wayne Allyn Root, a Donald Trump admirer who often claims to be in frequent contact with the GOP candidate has led campaign rallies for him in Nevada, said yesterday that people who receive federal benefits such as Medicaid, welfare and food stamps should lose their right to vote, as should women who use “free contraception” under the Affordable Care Act.

Root’s plan would cut a large swath of Americans from the voter rolls: Roughly one in five Americans benefit from means-tested benefit programs, while 67 percent of women with private health insurance use copay-free contraception through the Affordable Care Act (which, by the way, is paid for by insurance companies, not by the federal government).

Root told Virginia radio host Rob Schilling yesterday that much of the energy behind Trump’s campaign, as he discusses in his new book “Angry White Male,” is that the country is “evenly divided between the makers and the takers,” so “the middle class is basically paying, paying, paying and the poor get everything free, and it’s a disaster.”

One time, we needed to apply for help, because serious broke, no food, no anything. We sat in an office for over 8 hours only to see someone who wanted us drown in a swamp of red tape, when we explained that a new job was in the works, just needed help for two weeks. Much frowning, sighing, and grumbling. Then a pronouncement: if you have a job, you don’t qualify for aid. “We. have. no. food.” Frowning, sighing grumbling part II. Wanders off to talk to other people. Finally comes back with a “I really shouldn’t do this…” Okay, I can give you two food vouchers. We received paperwork for $80.00 worth of food to cover the two weeks. In return, we had to commit to 80 hours (each) of community service. Anyone who thinks poor people get anything for free needs to be most seriously smacked.

Root said that he had recently seen a map on the internet showing that if only “taxpayers” had been allowed to vote, the 2012 election would have been “a Republican sweep.”

“So if the people who payed the taxes were the only ones allowed to vote, we’d have landslide victories,” he said, “but you’re allowing people to vote. This explains everything! People with conflict of interest shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If you collect welfare, you have no right to vote. The day you get off welfare, you get your voting rights back. The reality is, why are you allowed to have this conflict of interest that you vote for the politician who wants to keep your welfare checks coming and your food stamps and your aid to dependent children and your free health care and your Medicaid, your Medicare and your Social Security and everything else?”

Root quickly amended his statement to say that receiving Social Security and Medicare shouldn’t disqualify someone from voting, but “in general most of the things I just rattled off should preclude you from voting.”

We could get landslide victories by denying Christian straight white conservative men from voting, too. Hmmm.

“Social Security should not, Medicare should not, because you paid into the system,” he said. “But all the other stuff, all the other goodies, free Obama phones, free contraception, you know what, you can get them but you shouldn’t be allowed to vote, it’s a conflict of interest. Take that away, we’d win every single election in this country.”

:chokes on tea: Free contraception? On what planet? Here’s a thought – you pick up the tab for 20 years of contraception for 5 women, plus the pink tax they have paid for those 20 years. Then tell me what you think about free contraception.

Via RWW.

NC Pastor’s Job Plan for Black People.

CNN's Carol Costello speaks to Angela Rye and Thomas Rodgers (screen grab).

CNN’s Carol Costello speaks to Angela Rye and Thomas Rodgers (screen grab).

Apostle Thomas Rodgers, Sr. of Antioch Road to Glory International Ministries in North Carolina told CNN host Carol Costello that black Americans should receive “dual citizenship” so that they could find jobs in Africa.

“African-Americans are the only people in the world who do not seek dual citizenship,” Rodgers said. “That’s why Chicago gangs, California gangs, the Crips and the Bloods and Detroit in Michigan — we have gangs in the streets because blacks have no vision, they have no leadership.”

“You’ve also talked about building a road back to Africa,” Costello noted. “Can you explain that?”

Rodgers replied: “Matter of fact, where our ancestors came from, from the Indian Ocean all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, that’s 4,000 miles and we want to go back and help with the highways all the way across, to create jobs, train rails, pipelines, oil, petroleum. They create jobs for young people that can’t find jobs here, that the Democrats have not did.”

“I think it would give young people in prison [jobs] just like Great Britain did,” he opined.

Er…is he referencing what I think he’s referencing? Holy isht. No, no, that’s not a good idea. Nope.  You can read the rest of his, um, ideas here. There’s video, too.

I Saved More Black Lives Than Beyoncé! I Did!

Pop star Beyoncé Knowles at the Mtv Music Awards on Sunday Aug. 28, 2016 (Screen capture).

Pop star Beyoncé Knowles at the Mtv Music Awards on Sunday Aug. 28, 2016 (Screen capture).

Giuliani. Again. Someone needs to get this man distracted into doing something else. Please.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani reacted angrily to pop star Beyoncé Knowles’ performance at Sunday night’s Mtv Video Music Awards, declaring that his anticrime policies have “saved more black lives” than any black performer.

Politico reported that the Republican mayor and longtime Donald Trump confidant appeared on Monday’s Fox and Friends to decry Knowles’ message and declare that he’s “saved more black lives” than any of the performers featured in the ceremony.

Knowles’ performance featured the group #MothersOfTheMovement — a group of women of color whose children have been killed by police — and stylized depictions of police violence.

“Her dancers were circling around her and one by one, they fell to the ground, and there were red lights underneath them. And that was supposed to symbolize cops killing black individuals,” said Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Giuliani replied, “because I had five uncles who were police officers, two cousins who were, one who died in the line of duty. I ran the largest and best police department in the world, the New York City Police Department. And I saved more black lives than any of those people you saw on stage by reducing crime and particularly homicide by 75 percent.”

Y’know, rattling off how many cop relatives you have is irrelevant. I have a cop relative myself, and boy, did I ever hear stories. They weren’t good stories, either. Cops are people, with all their inherent flaws and biases. There are a whole lot of cops who are busy murdering Native People, Black People, and Hispanic people, along with assorted brown people, the key being brown. This cannot be denied, nor can it be denied that cops have been sanctioned to murder people of colour, as they sure as hell aren’t being punished for it in any way.

“Of which, of which maybe 4,000 or 5,000 were African-American young people who are alive today because of the policies I put in effect that weren’t in effect for 35 years. So if you’re going to do that, then you should symbolize why the police officers are in the neighborhoods and what are you going to go about it? To me it’s two easy answers: a much better education and good job, and what the heck have you done like in Baltimore, when they all stood in Baltimore,” Giuliani ranted.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I see cops in my neighbourhood, I run away. I don’t want anything to do with them. And please, don’t be pushing the “well, who are going to call if you’re in trouble?” My answer is I don’t know, but my first thought might not be cops.

He went on to attack politicians who stood in solidarity with demonstrators in Baltimore last year who were protesting the killing of Freddie Gray by Baltimore cops.

“I was sick when I saw all the politicians sitting, standing in Baltimore after the police situation and saying, nobody’s done anything for this community in 50 years,” he went on. “Well, that is a heck of a thing to say, because they’ve been in charge for 50 years. And they have failed the community. I didn’t fail Harlem. I turned Harlem around. I didn’t fail Bedford-Stuyvesant, I turned it around. Go there now. Go walk in Harlem. Then flash back to 25 years ago and go to Harlem before I was mayor, and one was a place where crime was rampant and no national stores and now there’s a thriving community in Harlem.”

I don’t live in NYC, but I hear things now and then, like about people being forced out of certain areas by hostile gentrification. They aren’t dancing in the streets, singing high hallelujahs to Giuliani.

Fox and Friends’ Brian Kilmeade opined that Knowles is sending the wrong message to the next generation of black youth, saying, “And Beyonce is an extremely popular and powerful performer, and when she does stuff like that, that message to the next generation is pretty indelible.”

“It’s a shame,” Giuliani replied. “It’s a shame.”

No. No, it’s not a shame, it’s the right damn thing. Just as Indians are standing up and saying no, the same with Black people everywhere. We have that right, and we’re more than a bit tired of our white colonial masters. Perhaps Giuliani has saved a whole lot of Black lives. Beyoncé is letting people know about injustice, about bigotry, and that yes, they have a voice, and a right to use it. I think that’s pretty important.

Via Raw Story.

Shut Up and Play Ball.

Tommie Smith, John Carlos at 1968 Olympics (public domain), Colin Kaepernick (Facebook).

Tommie Smith, John Carlos at 1968 Olympics (public domain), Colin Kaepernick (Facebook).

Lorraine Berry has an excellent article up at Raw Story about why white fragility explodes any time an athlete who is a person of colour acts on their principles. There really should not be any problem with any athlete (or other entertainer) using their position to point out very big problems. These people have all worked very hard to attain their present status and position, and yes, they earn a fucktonne of money. That money, however, is not a gift from the oh-so-magnanimous white folks to that slave on the field who happens to momentarily delight the owners. The reaction of white people over Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the anthem is sickening. Shouts of “ni**er!” all over, people aghast that he’s given all that money, and is so damn uppity and ungrateful. For anyone with a conscience, for anyone with empathy and compassion, there’s an obligation to point out injustices, an obligation to do something, and to stand by your principles. It takes courage to do that, and it might be nice if a bunch of white people could figure that out.

Just a snippet from Lorraine Berry’s article, it’s excellent, click over and read!

…Kaepernick issued a statement through the NFL after the San Francisco 49ers first pre-season game, after he had failed to join the pre-game ceremony of standing for the playing of the national anthem. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

In the 1968 Olympics, two American athletes and one Australian athlete took on the entire International Olympic Committee in an effort to protest a variety of issues in which the IOC’s decisions were making it harder for black athletes all over the world to compete fairly and to live in a just world. Their actions were greeted by the American public — and by American journalists — as if they had attempted to burn the Olympic games down to the ground, and they were seen as men who had thought their egos larger than the supposed spirit of the Olympic celebration of international brotherhood (sic). Of course, the Australian athlete, Peter Norman, who took silver, was punished in Australia, which had its own abysmal human rights record toward its Aboriginal population, and the payback for his participation in the protest was that he was never allowed to represent Australia again. …

Previous posts about this: Post-Racist. Right. The Bigot’s Answer to Everything: Fire.

White Lives Matter…

White supremacists protest outside Houston, TX NAACP (Photo: Screen capture).

White supremacists protest outside Houston, TX NAACP (Photo: Screen capture).

White Lives Matter has hit the big time, they’ve been noticed and classified by SPLC as a hate group. At first, I was inclined to be dismissive, just another bunch of disgruntled bigots, but it looks more serious than that.

Activists with the “White Lives Matter” movement will be aligned with other white nationalist groups like the KKK or skinheads, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map.”

The map is released each year to show hotbeds of racist activity across the United States. Heidi Beirich, head of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, told VICE News this week that the “movement” is “clearly white supremacists” who should instead be operating under the slogan “only white lives matter.”

According to an SPLC report from earlier this month, the Black Lives Matter movement came out of a response to the shooting of Trayvon Martin and advocates largely for accountability and equal rights by law enforcement.

The White Lives Matter movement, by contrast, goes beyond what mainstream conservatives have advocated as an “all lives matter” position. Instead, their group is lead by 40-year-old Rebecca Barnette of Tennessee. Barnette also serves as the vice president of the women’s division of the racist skinhead group Aryan Strikeforce. They promote a pro-whiteness agenda, claiming that the race is under attack from immigration, integration and other race-mixing.

Barnette’s focus is to create a “new world” for whites, where they can be safe from the dangers of persecution from non-whites and non-Christians. The SPLC cites a post from Barnette on a Russian social networking site used by many white supremacists and neo-Nazis in which she claims Jews and Muslims have formed an alliance “to commit genocide of epic proportions” of the white race. Now is the time, she adds in the same post, for “the blood of our enemies [to] soak our soil to form new mortar to rebuild our landmasses.”

These groups are out in full force, recruiting and advocating for their support of whiteness. Just last week, armed white supremacists stood outside of an NAACP headquarters in protest, waving Confederate flags and “White Lives Matter” banners along with signs with slogans frequently used in the white supremacist movement.

Full story here.

Cops, What Are They Good For?

Chicago police officer listening to Rhymequest -- (Twitter screen grab).

Chicago police officer listening to Rhymequest — (Twitter screen grab).

A Chicago rapper who was held up at gunpoint in the early morning hours attempted to file a police report — only to have desk officers blow him off and then tell him to leave when he became aggravated about their lack of interest, reports the Chicago Tribune.

In a video clip posted to Twitter under the comment, “You wonder we don’t report crimes? The police treated me disgustingly,” rapper Rhymefest (real name Che Smith) is heard attempting to get a desk officer to take his report only to have her tell him to get out.

 

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