“That’s not how white men fight”


One of the texts that led to Tucker Carlson’s firing has been revealed. It’s surprising.

“That’s not how white men fight”

It’s not surprising because it’s a mild statement — it’s not. It’s deeply, implicitly racist. What’s surprising is that Fox News executives cared. Racism is what Fox News does. It’s just that Carlson plainly spoke out the words of white supremacy, and they knew this was going to be news…even if the Fox News audience would have agreed with the sentiment, and even now are probably looking at each other quizzically, wondering what’s wrong with the comment.

Me, I’m just wondering…how do white men fight? Have I been doing it wrong?

I think the way we’re supposed to do it is take advantage of any good fortune to oppress other people, make them weaker, and then exploit the hell out of them. Then there’s all the lying and cheating and stealing we do to maintain any advantage, all while declaiming that we are obviously superior and meritorious because we’ve got our boot on your neck and aren’t going to let you up. Yeah, that’s how white men fight. Then we live in terror that someone else might manage to do the same thing to us.

Comments

  1. Alan G. Humphrey says

    The epitome of how white men fight is the organized slaughter of bison to remove that source of food in how the west was won…

  2. robro says

    The Murdochs and Fox executives only “cared” because of their concern that the memo would come out during the Dominion trial. It’s all about money all the way down.

    What is surprising to me is that Tucker had even the slightest discomfort about his attitude toward the “Antifa creep” being assaulted by white men. Of course, he said he “should” be bothered by it, not that he actually was bothered by it. In fact, what he was saying is he was relishing what he was seeing.

  3. rblackadar says

    WTF, why the word “white” at all, in that screed? That makes it explicitly racist, not implicit. Which is unusual, even for Carlson.

  4. robro says

    I suppose that what bothered Tuck is that three white guys beating up the Antifa person wasn’t very “white” (aka “fair”) of them…as if being “white” is all about being “fair”. I don’t know where he gets the notion that racist white men only fight one-on-one. My experience growing up in the South during the 50s/60s is that racist white men were always ganging up on a black people all the time, often armed with sticks and axe handles if not guns. Even in the recent murder trial in Georgia, it was three white men who chased down Ahmaud Arbery and murdered him.

  5. remyporter says

    Part of me wanted to say “this must be fake” because the message implies that Carlson had a sense of empathy, but then he turned it around and made it about how his feelings were central to the experience, so no, totally his bullshit.

  6. raven says

    Me, I’m just wondering…how do white men fight? Have I been doing it wrong?

    Probably.

    You gain control of the government and then write all the laws in your favor to accumulate all the money and power in the society.

    Overt violence is rarely needed. Bread and circuses work much better.
    Divide the society up into antagonistic groupings such as gender, race, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, vaccination status, etc.., using designed hate engines, and let them fight it out.

    Leave enough for the working classes so that they don’t starve and get desperate enough to launch an October 1917 revolution on you.
    After all, they are…working for you.

    To see how it was done, just look at Wall Street, Washington DC, and our ruling oligarchies.

  7. Pierce R. Butler says

    “A couple of weeks ago” as of Jan 7 would put the event which so stimulated Mrs Carlson’s little boy right on a certain major holiday, the purported war on which totally preoccupies all the cast of the False Noise Network during that season.

    TC’s failure to connect those dots and wonder out loud what Jesus would do about such a situation plainly played the deciding factor in the pious Murdochs’ “should he stay or should he go?” decision.

  8. Akira MacKenzie says

    When I hear the phrase “White Men Fighting” I imagine shirtless 19th century white men striking silly poses and pummeling each other, bare-knuckled, while babbling about someone called the Marquis of Queensbury.

    BULLY!

  9. says

    Are we sure it was the racism that got him fired? Or was it the tiny bit of empathy for an “AntiFa kid”?

  10. antigone10 says

    Yeah, I’m with SQB.

    This is not a great statement of empathy. But it is an actual statement of empathy, the baby steps of introspection. He doesn’t want to be someone who gloats over another’s suffering.

    Not sure if that’s going to go any further of self-reflection than that is ALL he has done for the past 20 years, but it is a moment to go “Is this who I want to be?”

    It would be amazing if this was the moment that pulled him back. I always want to see people become better than they are. Let’s see if we can get some racial equity 101 in his brain while we’re at it.

  11. says

    Dated Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol riot.
    We saw “how white men fight” that day. Hit ’em over the head with a flagpole, while others get the noose ready.

  12. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 10

    Ah, but what WOULD Jesus do? I mean, assuming he existed at all, he’d likely act like any other mentally ill vagrant/cult leader: Froth at the mouth while screaming about demons stealing his bodily fluids.

    Not really helpful, isn’t it?

  13. drew says

    This blogpost is almost an exact mirror of Carlson’s tweet. From a position of rational acceptance, your only focus is on finding the . . . you’d call them “dog whistles,” but I note that the only howls are from liberals . . . and ignoring the way that Carlson, that hate-filled bigot, is somehow turning away from that hate. And that means he is ejected from the conservative in-group, alone, to be kicked by liberals.

    Maybe you’re mirror-universe Tucker!

  14. Rich Woods says

    Me, I’m just wondering…how do white men fight? Have I been doing it wrong?

    Where I come from, white men spent over thirty centuries honing their ability to fight by constantly fighting each other, thanks to a tight funnel of geography, before turning their accumulated expertise loose on the rest of the world. I’m pretty sure that the primary lesson of survival is to not fight fairly, although the secondary lesson of survival, that you shouldn’t fight at all unless you absolutely have to, strikes me personally as being the better idea.

  15. moonslicer says

    A few years ago I saw a video posted on a transgender forum. It showed two transgender women in the New York subway, and it appears there was a third with them who was actually making the video.

    We saw a guy pass by the two T-girls, and it appears he said something to them, but since there was no audio, we have no idea what it was. Relatively mild or truly offensive, we had no way of knowing. But whatever it was, he picked on the wrong T-girls. They really tore into him, literally throwing him around, throwing him up against the wall, etc., until finally he was lying on the ground, his hands raised in a clear sign of surrender. Even so, one of them gave him another boot in the ribs, and it hurt him.

    This video got very mixed reactions on this forum. Obviously, there was an element of satisfaction in it: for once it was one of theirs getting it, rather than one of ours. But a lot of us came out of it rather subdued, chastened. Violence is ugly stuff, and at the end of the day you simply want to turn your back on it, even knowing that the other side isn’t going to give it up.

    To be noted: the guy involved in this mess was white. The two T-girls were black. If there was any racist element in what he said to them, I withdraw. I’m not going to counsel black people on how they have to react to white racism.

    It’s what gets me about Carlson’s remarks above: the condescending attitude he has towards the “Antifa creep”, even while supposedly recognizing his humanity. That’s exactly how his side sees us, and I never cease to marvel at their lack of self-awareness. They are so smug, so sure of their superiority. It would never occur to them in a million years that they might actually be the bad guys.

  16. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 16

    Yes, yes, the poor, poor bigots being called “bigot” in public. Won’t someone think of the fee-fees of the poor fascists?

    Go fuck off and die, drew.

  17. tacitus says

    how do white men fight?

    From a commenter elsewhere:

    “Call the police and wait for them to blow the minority’s head off.”

  18. says

    Antifa. I think everyone should be spelling this “anti-fa” to make the connection with “anti-fascist” (and pronouncing it likewise). Fox, in particular, always had a standard practice of pronouncing it “an-TEE-fuh”. I have little doubt that their readers do not understand what it is short for.

    I imagine that if there was a group of anti-Nazis, Fox would be calling them “an-TEEN-uhs”.

    How can anyone who is truly anti-fascist be considered a creep for having that position? Calling them a creep literally means that you are, at the very least, a fascist sympathizer.

  19. says

    White people fight using overwhelming force from safety. E.g: a nuke dropped on a city from an altitude where the plane is barely visible, white phosphorus fired onto Raqqa by 155mm howitzers from outside of line of sight, an AC130 circling a MSF hospital for 30 minutes, pouring fire onto it, or a B-52 carpet bombing from high altitude. See also: British redcoats firing massed volleys and grapeshot at Zulus with spears.
    The characteristic of white people fighting other white people is mechanized carnage.

    I immediately thought of the film Black and White In Color which illustrates the principle perfectly. It’s about WW1 in Africa where the various plantation owners who were friends days ago had to raise native troops aligned with their home empires. They then stage a battle in which a lot of black people are killed, pat eachother on the back, and agree to do it again next year if the war is still on.

  20. anthrosciguy says

    Assuming Tucker is included in the category of “white men”, we find his own past claims have him getting another guy as backup before going back to assault a man in a bathroom who was supposedly “bothering” him.

    When Abrams asked how Carlson responded to being “bothered,” Carlson asserted, “I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know, and grabbed him, and … hit him against the stall with his head, actually.”

    So ganging up on someone is apparently how some white men fight.

  21. microraptor says

    @18: “T-girl” is a term that comes from gay porn and is borderline a slur. Please don’t use it when referring to trans people.

  22. says

    First, how did Tankie Tucks know the “creep” was “Antifa” (whatever the fuck that even means)?

    And second, as I said elsewhere, if Tucks knew ANY history, he’d know that that is indeed how white men have always fought.

  23. says

    @robro #4

    What is surprising to me is that Tucker had even the slightest discomfort about his attitude toward the “Antifa creep” being assaulted by white men.

    But also note how he uses that idea to dehumanize the person being beaten to shit. Tucker doesn’t just notice a bad tendency in himself and reject it, he immediately projects it outwards, unto the victim.

  24. birgerjohansson says

    Oh shit, that was dark.
    But I am not really surprised.
    Carlson has apparently never heard of a group of peaceful white gentlemen called Ku Klux Klan.

    OT
    Some good news to offset the negativity.
    -Yet another medicine is under development for Alzheimer’s disease. Unlike the previous one it shows major positive effects (but also side effects).

    -Researchers are refining ways to temporarily open up the blood-brain barrier for medication, so brain tumors can be treated with chemo.

    -Two synthetic compounds have been derived from ibogaine to treat drug addiction.

    And now back to that paragon of virtue from Fox News.

  25. chrislawson says

    Carlson has been spruiking deeply racist messages for years, including extremely dangerous messages that are likely to embolden race-based violence, e.g. Great Replacement Theory. Also, this text was from 2021. This is nothing more than FOX firing Carlson for leaving an evidence trail in the Dominion lawsuit, but needing to put some gloss on it for legal and PR purposes.

  26. StevoR says

    @14. feralboy12 :

    Dated Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol riot.
    We saw “how white men fight” that day. Hit ’em over the head with a flagpole, while others get the noose ready.

    See also lynchings and all the cowboy movies where they round up a posse.

    @21. jimf : “”Antifa. I think everyone should be spelling this “anti-fa” to make the connection with “anti-fascist”

    Or simply using the longer anti-fascist form? Not sure why it needs abbriviating.

  27. bcw bcw says

    If you’re an aging Democrat in the Senate, you fight by writing sternly written letters.

  28. says

    Considering that was a text, Carlson didn’t expect it to get widely disseminated which means this is something he actually believes. This leaves me wondering if he’s ever met any white men if he doesn’t think they will gang up on someone.

  29. kaleberg says

    Is the problem that this actually humanizes the guy?

    He has a nasty, racist gut reaction watching a group of fascists beating an anti-fascist, but, even as he enjoys it at some animal level, he recognizes that there is something wrong with this. He realizes that giving in to that kind of impulse makes him a lesser being, that he should be better than that.

    Ignoring Tucker Carlson and his record, this text would make a good start to an enlightenment story where some racist asshole starts realizing that his racism is a bad thing, something that he needs to fight, not simply ignore, accept or double down on. You’d think we’d want more racists to have this realization and, ideally, a good number to fight it and become better people.

    Since it is Tucker Carlson, I doubt he is capable of such redemption. While he worked at Fox, the money and adulation were too good, and, now, I doubt he has the strength of character it would take to change. Besides, there’s tons of wingnut welfare out there.

  30. bcw bcw says

    I think that for once Politico may be right about this: they say that the Carlson firing was Murdoch’s way to shift all the press coverage to Tucker Carlson’s firing and off of the Dominion and Smartmatic cases and off of FOX and Murdoch. So let’s focus here…

  31. StevoR says

    Historically white people have fought very unfairly with superior military weapons and biological warfare against Indigenous Peoples anyhow. For example, Australia’s First Fleet carried smallpox vials aboard and a smallpox outbreak “mysteriously” then broke out decimating the Indigneous peoples soon after its arrival in Sydney. See :

    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/was-sydneys-smallpox-outbreak-an-act-of-biological-warfare/5395050

    We don’t have official records of it being planned and used (surprise!) but the timing was certainly convenient as far a steh settlers were concerned and then we know what later Governors like Maquarie did against Pemulwuy, Tarenorerer :and Yagan among others. See :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_frontier_wars

    Indeed, so brutal was the British invasion, warfare and treatment generally of Australian First Peoples that it – specifically against the Tasmanian Indigenous population – actually inspired H.G. Wells classic, original 1898 alien invasion story ‘The War of the Worlds’ :

    It’s a dubious honour, but HG Wells’ 1898 piece of pioneering science fiction was inspired by British colonial treatment of Indigenous Tasmanians. According to biographer Michael Foot in H.G. The History of Mr Wells (1995), it started with a conversation between the socialist novelist and his brother Frank: what would an alien invasion feel like? A terrifying disaster, they concluded – not unlike how Tasmanians must have felt when their island was invaded. ..(snip)..Wells’ opening chapter spells out the parallels: don’t judge the Martians too harshly he says – they’re no more ruthless than our own species. Let’s consider the Indigenous Tasmanians, he continues, who were “swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants in the space of fifty years”. And much like in Wells’ original, the aggression of the alien invaders is to be judged against humankind’s own inhumanity – our ability to render people as other, to dominate, control and destroy them.

    Source : https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jul/14/war-of-the-worlds-the-pioneering-work-of-science-fiction-inspired-by-australian-brutality

    So to answer the “How do white men fight?” question, it seems the answer is like invading Martian aliens with no mercy and advanced technological might. Oh and by using WMDs like smallpox,and atomic bombs eg Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Guns, germs & steel.rings a bell here too.

  32. says

    IMO Everyone is missing the point on this one.
    “If I reduce people to their politics…”
    That was literally his job. That’s what he did on live TV every night. Denying it in private is apparently unacceptable to Fox “News” Corp.

  33. John Morales says

    StevoR:

    Historically white people have fought very unfairly […]

    Apparently white people historically fight to win, instead of trying to make it a fair fight.

    So to answer the “How do white men fight?” question, it seems the answer is like invading Martian aliens with no mercy and advanced technological might.

    So white men are, as you see it, superior at advanced technological might.

    Not sure that’s the sentiment you intended to express.

  34. silvrhalide says

    Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: This isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid and would be crushed if he was killed.”

    This is your conscience Tucker. We don’t talk much.

    Also

    much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him

    Yeah, if only you had a job as an actual journalist instead of one as a hairsprayed meat puppet mouthpiece spouting racist, misogynist, nativist crap.
    Because that’s a thing that actual journalists do: they talk to people and get to know them and then they share those newstories in print or on TV or the internet so other people can get to know them too.

    I noticed that in your fleeting moment of self-awareness, you didn’t actually DO anything to prevent the antifa kid from being beaten up by 3 other people, a thing that might have actually crushed him.

    As much as I would hope that fleeting moment of self-awareness would lead to a “road to Damascus” moment, I think that Tucker is too privileged, white and wealthy for that to actually happen. Because if it did, it might lead to greater self awareness and a certain amount of shame about your behavior and truthfully, I expect his subconscious to bury that moment forever so that he can continue in his blithe unthinking privileged existence, untroubled by the pangs of empathy and injustice.

  35. moonslicer says

    @ microrapter #25

    ‘“T-girl” is a term that comes from gay porn and is borderline a slur. Please don’t use it when referring to trans people.’

    Hello, microrapter! I don’t know who you are. I don’t know if you’re transgender yourself, but I am. And I’ll use any words I please when talking about transgender people, including myself.

    Now you’re wrong when you say “T-girls” came from gay porn. It came from the transgender community, and years ago the term was perfectly acceptable. My girlfriends and I never had any problem using the word among ourselves. But if gay porn has turned it into a borderline slur, they’re not the only ones. Our rag-tag band of enemies has done the same thing.

    And that’s not the only word they’ve tried to take away from us. A lot of trans people now shy away from the very word “transgenderism” because it has been twisted to mean “the transgender agenda” or something like that. It appears that these days we’re supposed to refer to our “transness”. Could we possibly have chosen a worse word?

    This is to say that our opponents are attacking our very language to make it difficult to talk about ourselves. I personally don’t see any reason to give into them. It’s ridiculous to allow outsiders to determine for us what we can say and what we can’t say. If we continue to use our words according to their original meaning, we’re thumbing our noses at our enemies. I see nothing wrong with that. And who knows, we might eventually shut them up when they realize they’re not landing any punches. And we should note that if we allow them to turn our words into slurs, no matter what new terms we come up with, they’ll turn those into slurs as well. We’ll end up doing nothing but chasing our tails.

    Do you understand? I’m 70 years old now or soon enough, and I’m tired of being pushed around in small matters as in great ones. So thanks for your advice, but I’ll ignore it.

  36. lotharloo says

    After seeing the message, the board alerted Fox executives that it planned to retain a law firm to investigate Carlson’s behavior, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.

    The text message, first reported Tuesday night by the New York Times, added to a cascading set of concerns about Carlson within Fox News that led the company to fire him last week, according to several people familiar with the internal deliberations around his departure from the network.

    Huh, so I guess the board of Fox News doesn’t actually watch Fox News because what Tucker wrote is pretty much inline with everything he says every day, every week.

  37. Dunc says

    I guess the board of Fox News doesn’t actually watch Fox News

    Of course not! Never get high on your own supply.

  38. mamba says

    I’ve watched COPS, Jerry Springer, and Youtube. I know how “white men” fight…usually drunkenly and sloppy.

    (“white men” in this sense meaning “racist idiot cowardly jackoffs”…which is what Tucker was clearly referring to. If you skin happens to be pale and you’re a decent person, you probably stopped caring about Tucker decades ago anyway…)

  39. numerobis says

    There is zero chance this message got him fired.

    We got the news that Fox kept an oppo file on Carlson. And now we’re supposed to be surprised that there’s a daily “leak” about him?

  40. erik333 says

    Its how everybody tends to fight… its rare for people to start fights they expect to lose.

  41. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    @16 drew it would have been nice if he had. But this was from 2 years ago, and there is no sign whatsoever that he learned from it or made any attempt to be a better person.

  42. says

    I’m getting Carson wasn’t finding some compassion, he was unnerved that a high ranking member of society like him was thinking like the peons. Direct violence is for the lower classes, not a “thought leader” like him. He’s too important to get his hands bloody by actually doing the violence himself.

  43. rietpluim says

    OMFG That little insight into Carlson’s mind is revolting. I feel sick.

  44. raven says

    There is a zero chance that this text had anything to do with Tucker Carlson being fired.

    In fact, it shows Carlson at his best, with a shred of humanity, however fleeting it was. He’s said a lot worse on his show on a continuing basis. He is an open white supremacist and that is why he has a huge following.

    What it is from Fox is an attempt to discredit Tucker Carlson. He is now an unhappy ex-employee who knows where all the bodies are buried at Fox NoNews.
    This is simply two rats clawing each other up because that is what rats do.

  45. Pierce R. Butler says

    As bcw bcw points out @ # 34, Politico has an interesting bit of speculation to offer: throwing TC out of the sleigh worked perfectly to distract the wolves (i.e., all other media) from the issues of False Noise systematic distortion revealed in the Dominion Voting Systems case.

    Since Rupert M never writes emails or texts to himself, this will remain forever speculative … but it surely fits!

  46. StevoR says

    @37. John Morales :

    StevoR : Historically white people have fought very unfairly […]

    Apparently white people historically fight to win, instead of trying to make it a fair fight.

    Yes – and they typically historically have managed to fight unfairly which contradicts Tucker’s apparent erroneous belief and comment saying otherwise.

    So to answer the “How do white men fight?” question, it seems the answer is like invading Martian aliens with no mercy and advanced technological might. (- StevoR -ed)

    So white men are, as you see it, superior at advanced technological might. Not sure that’s the sentiment you intended to express.

    Not, exactly no.

    Thing is when they have historically had an unfiar advantage, they’ve shown no mercy or hesitation when using their superior technology – and biowarfare and nuclear – capabilities and them been extremly brutal and dishonourable after winning and then oppressing their enemies. Historically speaking in terms of imperialism and colonialism.

  47. John Morales says

    <

    blockquote>Yes – and they typically historically have managed to fight unfairly […]

    <

    blockquote>

    I don’t think you get the concept of fighting to win.

    Thing is when they have historically had an unfiar advantage, they’ve shown no mercy or hesitation when using their superior technology […]

    Oh yeah, the iron chariots. Damn the iron chariots!

  48. GerrardOfTitanServer says

    Random aside:

    When I hear the phrase “White Men Fighting” I imagine shirtless 19th century white men striking silly poses and pummeling each other, bare-knuckled, while babbling about someone called the Marquis of Queensbury.

    You mean the pose with one arm extended out low in front of the stomach, and the other fist near their stomach, as opposed to protecting their chin? It’s thought that this was not a “silly pose” but rather the best fighting pose for bare-knuckle boxing under the historical rules.

    Boxing gloves are not there to protect the other fighter. Boxing gloves are there to protect the boxer’s own hands. Boxing gloves are weapons. They allow the boxer to punch much harder and with much less caution than normally. If you punch someone with full power without boxing gloves and you hit a hard part of the head, you’re more likely to do more damage to your own hand than to your opponent. You can break the bones in your hand.

    It’s thought that this made strikes to the head less common and more cautious in historical bare-knuckle boxing. Today’s boxing is much more violent and dangerous compared to historical boxing in a significant way because they use boxing gloves. Historically, bare-knuckle boxing matches used to last for much longer, and that’s in large part because they were not using weapons. It would be surprising to most people how hard it is to significantly hurt someone with strikes without a weapon compared to how easy it is to hurt someone with a weapon, including even boxing gloves.