Discussion: Racism - Part 3

[chaseter]

First Amendment is not without limitations. Personally, I am of the mind that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are terror groups and the government can limit the speech/assembly of terror groups.

Said the same thing.

 

[terry78]

Someone on another board made that same argument then about five other people countered it by saying BLM and Antifa are in that category as well.

 

[mclay18]

Their argument falls apart when BLM groups didn't murder anyone and peaceably assembled to protest. Even more, if you try to nitpick the "Antifa" group, which is going against fascism (which Twitler wants to put in place).

Neo-Nazis and white supremacy groups are NOT the same as BLM and Antifa groups.

 

[terry78]

It is weird how so many entertainment and fanboy forums I've visited over the years have suddenly just spiraled downward into a bunch of racist posts. Obama and Trump's respective elections really show you who folks are as I said.

 

[Boy Scout]

I literally just saw a video on Facebook titled, "If you hate Nazis but like BLM, you're a hypocrite."

****ing REALLY?

 

[squeekness]

I literally just saw a video on Facebook titled, "If you hate Nazis but like BLM, you're a hypocrite."

****ing REALLY?

People probably post crap like that just to start arguments. They live for drama.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I literally just saw a video on Facebook titled, "If you hate Nazis but like BLM, you're a hypocrite."

****ing REALLY?

In the alternative facts universe BLM is apparently directly responsible for widespread looting, and violence across the nation including the indirect deaths of people who couldn't get to hospitals and the murder of police officers. Thing is when I go looking for evidence in places like Snopes it turns out to be highly exaggerated at best or complete fabrications. And yet the narrative on the right is of cities under siege by large groups of BLM terrorists. I suggest anyone go to Snopes and put BLACK LIVES MATTER into their search and read through the supposed litany of crimes and acts of terrorism they're accused of and then read what investigations have actually uncovered about these claims. It's stunning.

 

[squeekness]

In the alternative facts universe BLM is apparently directly responsible for widespread looting, and violence across the nation including the indirect deaths of people who couldn't get to hospitals and the murder of police officers. Thing is when I go looking for evidence in places like Snopes it turns out to be highly exaggerated at best or complete fabrications. And yet the narrative on the right is of cities under siege by large groups of BLM terrorists. I suggest anyone go to Snopes and put BLACK LIVES MATTER into their search and read through the supposed litany of crimes and acts of terrorism they're accused of and then read what investigations have actually uncovered about these claims. It's stunning.

Because people don't like having to look for the truth. They can"t be bothered to verify.

 

[Boy Scout]

And what about ANTIFA? I've tried to do resssrxh on them before and found nothing worrying. Certainly nothing to justify people comparing them to the KKK or Nazis. Not saying that they don't exist or aren't concerning in their own right, but I feel like there's a reason I haven't heard much about them.

 

[ouroboros]

I never understood the obsession rednecks have with the Confederate flag. It's a war they lost. Some of them hang on to that flag like it's a winning lottery ticket. And not to stereotype but everyone I've personally met who's obsessed with that flag tended to have racist tendencies. Not saying they are racist because some of them really do have a best friend that is black but it's true.

My impression is that most of them don't think of the Confederacy in terms of what it did to black people, but how it represented white people of the South, and their interests as against those of the white people of the North. Given that the current narrative can only talk about the South's abuse of slaves, it's not surprising that nearly no one today appreciates that in the minds of Southerners, the Civil War is still a quarrel between different groups of white people with opposed interests.

The narrative also doesn't pay much attention to the fact that the North did not universally outlaw slavery until many years after the war's conclusion.

 

[ouroboros]

That's what I'm saying. But some of them REALLY believe that it's not about that. Have you ever been down south to a hick town and see how they darn near bow down and worship that flag? Real talk, some of them would literally kill if you insulted that flag.

And some people would kill you for defending Confederate monuments. Are they equally looney tunes?

 

[ouroboros]

Because the Far Right is convinced that efforts to remove Confederate monuments constitutes a vast conspiracy to "erase history" and "destroy their heritage". Which is ironic, because they both claim to be the only true patriots and then base their precious heritage in one of the biggest acts of treason ever committed against our nation.

Oh, please, no contemporary person cares about the accusation of treason. Plenty of countries secede from larger nations, and it's usually encouraged as an act of self-determination. The only thing moderns care about is the South's institutionalization of racism.

 

[ouroboros]

Picking out the relevant parts of Hellified's post:

youre use of the martin/zimmerman incident as an example shows that you have no idea what the issue was to black people.

On the contrary, I think most white people have been inundated with the matter of what Black People Think About the World. I don't deny that some people can shut it out, like the people you mention who have no problem with reporting black people for the Crime of Being Black. But it's one thing to say "Black People Think X," and another thing to say, "Black People are Correct About Everything." In the case of Zimmerman, I wouldn't have minded seeing him do some jail-time for manslaughter. But a lot of people, not exclusively blacks, wanted to treat Zimmerman's act as murder in the first degree, which it clearly was not. Why did the District Attorney overcharge Zimmerman? I can't think of any reason except to mollify the extremists by subscribing to their narrative-- and so Zimmerman did no time, because it was important to the extremists' narrative to call him a murderer.

show where blacks as a group have established laws in this country that discriminate against anyone

Are you going back in history now? There were some official laws on the books, like laws against racial intermarriage, but by and large most of the strategies used to oppress black people were not laws, but customs. There was no law on the books that said, "Whites ought to lynch blacks every once in a while to keep them in line." It was a custom, however repugnant, that white people evolved "off the books." While you can argue that the lynched man doesn't care whether he was killed by law or by custom, it makes a difference to us now, or at least to anyone answering the oversimple claim that racism is systemic. On the contrary, the law's claim to be rational and non-partisan is the black American's only weapon against the chauvinism of custom.

On a related topic, I put it to everyone here: have you ever seen a black person prosecuted for having simply been in the presence of a white child? I've seen a lot of false crimes attributed to black people over the years, not least being the sin of being in the company of adult white women. But this idea from "black-ish," picturing black men as pedophiles, is an idea I don't really think is widespread, and I suspect the show's writers made it up out of whole cloth. However, if anyone has a specific example of a pedophile prosecution, feel free to roll it out.

 

[DeadPresident]

You're wasting your time, ouroboros, the entire point of keeping definitions, crimes, and transgressions as vague as possible is so that anything at any given time can be interpreted or argued as being discriminatory. It's important never to define or specify the crime nor the perpetrator because that allows the shadowy and secretive concept of racism as the only obstacle to minority progress to endure.

There are racists in America, as there are anywhere, and their actions affect minorities - and as soon as you claim you'd like to find them and address racists many of the participants in this thread will change the goal posts to keep things vague. That way the struggle is eternal and the shadowy cabal implementing and maintaining institutional racism continues to "exist", and all whites can be assumed to be complicit. I've tried reasonably addressing the issues multiple times and gotten nowhere, this thread invariably devolves into a circular mess of kafkatrapping and nonsensical conspiracies.

Fact of the matter is it's in nobody's interests to actually address racism because then there isn't a scapegoat for the suffering of others anymore, it's a phenomenon that must continue to exist forever so that the noble fight can exist forever.

 

[ouroboros]

False equivalency. The President of the United States, the leader of the Republican Party referred to Neo-Nazis as "us" in a press conference today. Republican silence on the rampant racism, misogyny and homophobia that runs in the party's veins, says a lot more about their constituents than I think they realize. The fact that they vote over and over against their own interests, for the removal of their health care, for the destruction of global warming prevention, against the rights of women...No, both parties are NOT the same.

And I have not seen anyone on the Left praising Micah Johnson or supporting him.

The transcript I saw had eliminated the "us." Maybe it's a cover-up-- although not too many journalists are interested in covering for Trump these says -- or maybe it was done because someone in the legal department said that the transcript would get them in legal trouble. I suspect we'll never know.

 

[ouroboros]

Are you suggesting the history of racism in America isn't based in white people and their treatment of minorities? One proudly defended this weekend by the the Republican who is the President?

The history of racism in America is also based on the people who sold Black Africans to white Americans. Guess what? Most of them were either black-- that is, people from sub-Saharan Africa-- or "brown," if that's an adequate denotation for North African Arabs.

 

[ouroboros]

A lot of Klan rallies had counter protests that were peaceful. It can happen.

But based on the Nazis we saw this weekend, it is not going to happen. They are militarized.

What do posters here think it meant when the supremacists in Charlottesville chanted, "We will not be replaced?"

 

[DeadPresident]

What do posters here think it meant when the supremacists in Charlottesville chanted, "We will not be replaced?"

It's pretty simple:

63% of white men and 53% of white women voted for Trump, so the idea that educated white people can help is laughable a lot of them voted for him. The only thing we can wait on is when the minority population outnumber the rest, white people (whether educated or not) proved this last election that they can't be relied on to vote for the betterment of everyone in the country rather than just themselves.

This sentiment + far right nationalists = …?

 

[ouroboros]

Maybe. Probably depends on the state. We have white rallies in Canada as well, but so few people show up and the media often doesn't care that it just kind of falls away. And Alberta (where I live), is considered kind of a hub for neo-Nazi *****bags. But their numbers are small. And they fit that stereotype of being violent losers and so the majority of the time, the leaders of these groups are in prison and can't even attend the rallies. But they do have their rallies and they don't get arrested for it.

There was even a blog of some asshat who would write articles calling for the death and rape of numerous women. He operated this blog for years until finally, it was shut down because his threats had become a little too worrying. And then he died and no one cared anymore. I don't think our hate speech/crime laws are so restrictive that Canadians are somehow repressed (or oppressed).

Frankly, I think that until recently that's how most Americans looked at the white supremacists, as fringe *****ebags. I think a combination of pressures-- two being Jihadist threats and the 2005 economic debacle-- caused some White Americans to be seduced by racist rhetoric, if only in the form of a nutty candidate who jabbered about walling off immigrants. However, the behavior of the supremacists in Charlottesville went too far for the same Americans, with the result that many politicians and businessmen are jumping off that train of thought.

 

[Mad Ones]

the "many sides" crowd is out today

 

[DeadPresident]

the "many sides" crowd is out today

That's a cute ad hominem attack to use against anyone you disagree with, I'm assuming. Did you figure you've got to get a little more subtle than just flat out calling people "racists"?

 

[Mad Ones]

That's a cute ad hominem attack to use against anyone you disagree with, I'm assuming. Did you figure you've got to get a little more subtle than just flat out calling people "racists"?

Why does calling people out on shirking responsibility for a violently racist history because "blacks sold blacks in Africa" bother you so much?

Whatever, this thread will be a toxic pool of "I'm not racist but..." until the next Nazi rally.

 

[DeadPresident]

Why does calling people out on shirking responsibility for a violently racist history because "blacks sold blacks in Africa" bother you so much?

Intellectually dishonest arguments bother me.

And what do you mean exactly by "shirking responsibility"? Responsibility is something someone takes for their own actions, it's an incredibly moronic thing to do to expect a beneficiary of a crime to be treated like the perpetrator.

If I'm misunderstanding correct me, but it sounds like you want whites alive right now to take responsibility for the actions of their ancestors, how on earth do you implement that?

Whatever, this thread will be a toxic pool of "I'm not racist but..." until the next Nazi rally.

It's pretty self-defeating to come into a thread and drop a snide one-liner and then blame other people for not contributing to a discourse. Do you always self-sabotage like this?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The history of racism in America is also based on the people who sold Black Africans to white Americans. Guess what? Most of them were either black-- that is, people from sub-Saharan Africa-- or "brown," if that's an adequate denotation for North African Arabs.

Which of those Africans were Americans again? Who forced the white Americans to buy them again? Who forced them to beat them, rape them and murder them? Who forced them to separate families established on American soil? Who forced them to believe in the idea of the superiority of the white man and using it to justify slavery? It is amazing how hard some people want to defend the one thing everyone should agree on.

 

[Mad Ones]

Intellectually dishonest arguments bother me.

And what do you mean exactly by "shirking responsibility"? Responsibility is something someone takes for their own actions, it's an incredibly moronic thing to do to expect a beneficiary of a crime to be treated like the perpetrator.

If I'm misunderstanding correct me, but it sounds like you want whites alive right now to take responsibility for the actions of their ancestors, how on earth do you implement that?

People can inherit a lot more than money. Responsibility is about respond-ing to the Other. Charlottesville is just one way American history continues to haunt, and it's going to keep happening until it's reckoned with. Removing these racist statues is one step towards that, but of course many people see a responsibility to not be racist as anti-white hate or erasing their version of history.