More blithe racism

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by The Man

And it's not just Oklahoma: Texas fraternity under fire for racist party allegedly forbids interracial dating, Mexicans, and ‘fagetry’

The letter was copied and posted around campus after its existence was revealed, including additional unexplained prohibitions against working out, Facebook, “inside bathrooms at the House,” and “awkward convos.”

Members were also warned against “crying to Mom,” “being a pussy (quiting),” and being “deuschbags.”

The letter forbids many garments, grooming, and clothing styles associated with fraternity members, including backwards hats, gelled hair, facial hair, Fiji or beer shirts, and designer clothes such as Abercrombie, Old Navy, and J. Crew.

So just German douchebags are prohibited?

Instructions unclear. Dick stuck in ceiling fan.

[Dingfod]

Univision's Gordo y Flaca talk show host Rodner Figueroa got fired for saying First Lady Michelle Obama looked like a cast member on Planet of the Apes.

In other news, Rodner Figueroa joins cast of Fox and Friends on Fox News.

[Ymir's blood]

Media coverage of gang violence sure looks different when the perpetrators are white - Vox

[BrotherMan]

I was talking about this with a friend last night. I said something to the effect of "those bikers are white thugs." As soon as it left my mouth I realized how insidious racism can be. I even noted it later with my friend. I didn't just call them thugs, for some stupid reason I felt it necessary to use the adjective white in front of the word. It's as if I've been indoctrinated that a regular thug can't be a white person or something.

[Ymir's blood]

I usually think of thugs as game sprites.

"Skyrim belongs to the NORDS!"

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

I was talking about this with a friend last night. I said something to the effect of "those bikers are white thugs." As soon as it left my mouth I realized how insidious racism can be. I even noted it later with my friend. I didn't just call them thugs, for some stupid reason I felt it necessary to use the adjective white in front of the word. It's as if I've been indoctrinated that a regular thug can't be a white person or something.

now, see, you had me right up until the last bit. i thought- this person has just realized that using the term 'white' is racist. i was proud of you (but not white proud).

then there was that last bit and it was like a robert frost moment for me.

you've been indoctrinated to see colour. in fact, i think it's innate.

relax. they really were mostly white.

[BrotherMan]

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by ZEZOZE

you've been indoctrinated to see colour.

...Is the goal then to not see color?

...racial “colorblindness” — the idea that ignoring or overlooking racial and ethnic differences promotes racial harmony.

Trainers and facilitators say colorblindness does just the opposite: folks who enjoy racial privilege are closing their eyes to the experiences of others.

“It benefits me not to pay attention,” says Benn, who is white. “I never have to question whether or not my race is being held in question when I apply for a job. It benefits me not to question that (because) it makes it look like I got here on my own.”

Here is one person's advice on how to be less racist:

Kadijah Means Focus less on color blindness, because honestly, you're not going to get a gold star for that. Be more color competent.

[ZEZOZE]

naw i said it was actually innate. it's more than indoctrinated.

chunks, i want you to see all the colours and delight in them.

don't be a prisoner of the prism. you gotta ride the rainbow, man.

[Ymir's blood]

WATCH: Virginia cop uses pepper-spray, Taser on unresisting black man having stroke

[BrotherMan]

President Obama delivers Eulogy

A lot of outlets are focusing on the President singing. That should hardly be the point of any article talking about this eulogy.

[lisarea]

Activist pulls down Confederate flag in front of South Carolina statehouse | US news | The Guardian

They put it back up in time for a scheduled "rally" where people are going to go pray or declare fealty or something to the battle flag of an enemy state, because there are people who do that right out in the open and everything.

[Watser?]

Wouldn't the US usually drone people openly displaying the battle flag of an enemy state? I wonder why not this time?

[The Lone Ranger]

[lisarea]

A couple of weeks ago, people still had some plausible deniability about that fucking flag. Our education system is fucking dismal, and there are people actively and explicitly fighting to keep it that way.

So you see some goombah flying that stupid flag, and it is actually possible that they have no idea what it is or what it means. They could honestly be that ignorant through little fault of their own.

But people like this woman are doing something about that. They're educating people about American history, and they're eliminating the ignorance excuse. So maybe some people will change their minds about the flag, but probably more importantly, bigots can't continue feeding off ignorance about it. It's not dogwhistle anymore. Everyone knows exactly what it means.

[BrotherMan]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Activist pulls down Confederate flag in front of South Carolina statehouse

I'm all yay for the gay marriage but I don't know what else can happen this year to top this picture.

[The Lone Ranger]

Earlier today, I logged onto Facebook in order to read a rather nice message from a former girlfriend (she was celebrating the Same-Sex Marriage ruling).

I expected that most of my other "Facebook Friends" would have less inspiring posts, and sure enough, there were plenty of outraged posts about how the Confederate Battle Flag is a symbol of "Heritage, Not Hate" -- about how slavery had nothing whatsoever to do with the Civil War, and how anyone who thinks otherwise should "Learn some history, morons!".


Personally, I don't think that I'm the one who needs a history lesson here. Also, I don't think that Gone With the Wind counts as a historical document.


I've lived in enough different places to know that racism is by no means restricted to the South. But the deep and abiding refusal of so very many [White] Southerners to recognize what their "heritage" truly was is something to see.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by lisarea

A couple of weeks ago, people still had some plausible deniability about that fucking flag. Our education system is fucking dismal, and there are people actively and explicitly fighting to keep it that way.

So you see some goombah flying that stupid flag, and it is actually possible that they have no idea what it is or what it means. They could honestly be that ignorant through little fault of their own.

But people like this woman are doing something about that. They're educating people about American history, and they're eliminating the ignorance excuse. So maybe some people will change their minds about the flag, but probably more importantly, bigots can't continue feeding off ignorance about it. It's not dogwhistle anymore. Everyone knows exactly what it means.

I had no clue that the Confederate states declarations of secession were so overtly racist. I had never read them, and they sure didn't cover that in American History class in Texas or Oklahoma.

[The Lone Ranger]

Or North Carolina -- just the opposite, in fact. As I recall, my teachers tried very hard to convince us that the Civil War had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery.

[Kyuss Apollo]

TLR, I would bet none of your teachers (or "Facebook Friends") ever bothered to read South Carolina's Declaration of Secession (aka, "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union"). Should be required reading when studying causes of the Civil War.

...The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

...We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

This was on December 24, 1860. Less than four months later, these same treasonous racist asshats opened fire on Fort Sumter. So yeah, actually the Civil War had everything to do with slavery.

[Ari]

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Kyuss Apollo

South Carolina's Declaration of Secession

Other states' declarations of causes say essentially the same things, but South Carolina's is the bat-bat-batshittiest.

My personal fav from that time is CSA Vice President Andrew Stevens' famous Cornerstone Speech:

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

[The Lone Ranger]

I need to save some of this somewhere, for future reference.

[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Or North Carolina -- just the opposite, in fact. As I recall, my teachers tried very hard to convince us that the Civil War had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery.

I think a lot of that depended on the part of the state and especially the teacher. I went to a mostly Black elementary school around the start of integrated busing and had teachers that stressed slavery as the cause. Other teachers in other places and times threw in the State's Rights and Tariff smokescreens though I can't recall any that went so far as to deny Slavery as a cause.

[Ymir's blood]

I used to lead tours at a plantation. You won’t believe the questions I got about slavery. - Vox