I guess we need an "are we a racist country" thread.
Smedley said:
I only came on here to address the MOLanon notion that Biden and Harris didn't say what they said.
Here’s hoping that, despite your silence, PVW’s and flimbro’s comments made the visit worth your while.
Funny, throughout these recent discussions there has been much consternation on here about how awful the topic is, why go there, memes/yuks to please make it stop, etc. Now apparently there's an issue with my "silence".
And yes, I read and appreciate others' perspectives and opinions on the matter, including flimbro's and PVW's, of course that's not going to change my own opinion which has been formed by living in the US for approx half a century. But I respect people's opinions on the matter; while their opinions are different I do not think they are better or worse than my own, and I do not seek to change people's opinions.
Smedley said:
Funny, throughout these recent discussions there has been much consternation on here about how awful the topic is, why go there, memes/yuks to please make it stop, etc. Now apparently there's an issue with my "silence".
And yes, I read and appreciate others' perspectives and opinions on the matter, including flimbro's and PVW's, of course that's not going to change my own opinion which has been formed by living in the US for approx half a century. But I respect people's opinions on the matter; while their opinions are different I do not think they are better or worse than my own, and I do not seek to change people's opinions.
Honestly, I still don't know what your opinion actually is, as you've never explained what your understanding of being a "racist country" is. My best guess has been that you view racism strictly as acts by individuals -- and if that's the case, I've offered my critique of that view. But beyond that, it kind of feels like you're not actually that interested in the topic and more trying to make some comment on Biden and Harris, or something. I can't really figure out what your point is, though the effect has been to assiduously avoid actually talking about racism.
Link to Babylon Bee Article: https://babylonbee.com/news/media-commits-to-creating-25-more-racism-in-2021
Media Commits To Creating 25% More Racism In 2021
April 17th, 2021 - BabylonBee.com
U.S.—After a successful 2020, media organizations have announced a cooperative effort to create at least 25% more racism in the year 2021.
"Racism is our lifeblood, it's what we live to talk about every single day," said CNN President Jeff Zucker. "We work diligently to find it everywhere we can-- and when we can't find it, we must create it. This year, we are redoubling our efforts to bathe the American public in racial resentment until everyone is living in despair and agrees how terrible our country is!"
"It's an important service we provide for the people," he continued.
Major media companies such as ABC, NBC, and CBS confirmed they will be cooperating to ensure every news story and piece of entertainment is selectively chosen and edited to hide the truth, skew reality, and tell a narrative of racism and discrimination.
"It's the right thing to do," said one NBC producer.
Sources confirmed that once racism has successfully caused the dismantling of America's legal system, they will move on to climate change to dismantle America's economic system.
Babylon Bee is a conservative's idea of satire.
And "conservative satire" is an oxymoron.
Smedley said:
Now apparently there's an issue with my "silence".
Not an issue. An observation, most recently contained within a hope.
Smedley said:
And yes, I read and appreciate others' perspectives and opinions on the matter, including flimbro's and PVW's, of course that's not going to change my own opinion which has been formed by living in the US for approx half a century.
And of course.
Smedley said:
Funny, throughout these recent discussions there has been much consternation on here about how awful the topic is, why go there, memes/yuks to please make it stop, etc. Now apparently there's an issue with my "silence".
And yes, I read and appreciate others' perspectives and opinions on the matter, including flimbro's and PVW's, of course that's not going to change my own opinion which has been formed by living in the US for approx half a century. But I respect people's opinions on the matter; while their opinions are different I do not think they are better or worse than my own, and I do not seek to change people's opinions.
your opinion formed by living in the U.S. as I assume, a white person?
RealityForAll said:
Link to Babylon Bee Article: https://babylonbee.com/news/media-commits-to-creating-25-more-racism-in-2021
Media Commits To Creating 25% More Racism In 2021
April 17th, 2021 - BabylonBee.com
U.S.—After a successful 2020, media organizations have announced a cooperative effort to create at least 25% more racism in the year 2021.
"Racism is our lifeblood, it's what we live to talk about every single day," said CNN President Jeff Zucker. "We work diligently to find it everywhere we can-- and when we can't find it, we must create it. This year, we are redoubling our efforts to bathe the American public in racial resentment until everyone is living in despair and agrees how terrible our country is!"
"It's an important service we provide for the people," he continued.
Major media companies such as ABC, NBC, and CBS confirmed they will be cooperating to ensure every news story and piece of entertainment is selectively chosen and edited to hide the truth, skew reality, and tell a narrative of racism and discrimination.
"It's the right thing to do," said one NBC producer.
Sources confirmed that once racism has successfully caused the dismantling of America's legal system, they will move on to climate change to dismantle America's economic system.
an example of how truly hard it is to write a polemic and be funny at the same time.
drummerboy said:
smedley,
Please read this article, and explain to us how it doesn't describe a racist country.
Did some research, sent an email and received the following from the Rabbi of the Synagogue in Wausau:
Thank you for reaching out. The Times article indeed paints a dire picture of the state of Marathon County Wisconsin and by extension rural America at large. What the article does not convey is that the City of Wausau is declared a Community for All by our liberal mayor. Nevertheless, our Jewish prerogative to stand in solidarity with all minority voices continues undaunted. We at Mt. Sinai have not faced any explicit antisemitism recently. With the other local clergy, I published my position in support of the resolution.
Hopefully the national attention will serve to guide the region toward more beneficial attitudes. Let me know if you would like to discuss the matter further.
We appreciate your interest,
Smedley said:
Funny, throughout these recent discussions there has been much consternation on here about how awful the topic is, why go there, memes/yuks to please make it stop, etc. Now apparently there's an issue with my "silence".
And yes, I read and appreciate others' perspectives and opinions on the matter, including flimbro's and PVW's, of course that's not going to change my own opinion which has been formed by living in the US for approx half a century. But I respect people's opinions on the matter; while their opinions are different I do not think they are better or worse than my own, and I do not seek to change people's opinions.
And that friend is the ‘beauty’ of living on the positive side of the ledger in a racist society. Beneficiaries needn’t be bothered with details, only the end result. Beneficiaries don’t so much need to actually ‘know’ history, they only need to acknowledge it in the abstract, and even then only when it suits them. Because after all is said and done what they feel and experience individually is the only truth that matters. These folks think that truths based on facts are really only ‘opinions’. Categorizing truths as opinions is a handy way of sapping them of power and by doing so sidestepping discourse. Sidestepping is crucial because not doing so can lead to accountability.
the many flavors of racism
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/05/campus-cancel-culture-is-out-of-control-2
============================================================
I see sophomores at Oberlin have destroyed the First Amendment by objecting to calling Oscar Meyer turkey and Miracle Whip on Wonder Bread a “banh mi” again:
In her career in journalism, Nikole Hannah-Jones has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant.” But despite support from the UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor and faculty, she won’t be getting a tenured teaching position at her alma mater. At least not yet.
As Policy Watch reported last week, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media pursued Hannah-Jones for its Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, a tenured professorship. But following political pressure from conservatives who object to her work on “The 1619 Project” for The New York Times Magazine, the school changed its plan to offer her tenure — which amounts to a career-long appointment. Instead, she will start July 1 for a fixed five-year term as Professor of the Practice, with the option of being reviewed for tenure at the end of that time period.
“It’s disappointing, it’s not what we wanted and I am afraid it will have a chilling effect,” said Susan King, dean of UNC Hussman.
Just flat-out political pressure from the hardcore wingnuts, contemptuous not just of academic freedom but higher education itself, who dominate the UNC Board of Governors. This represents easily the gravest threat to free speech on campus.
The Hussman Faculty have issued a statement:
Failure to tenure Nikole Hannah-Jones in her role as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism is a concerning departure from UNC’s traditional process and breaks precedent with previous tenured full professor appointments of Knight chairs in our school. This failure is especially disheartening because it occurred despite the support for Hannah-Jones’s appointment as a full professor with tenure by the Hussman Dean, Hussman faculty, and university. Hannah-Jones’s distinguished record of more than 20 years in journalism surpasses expectations for a tenured position as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.
The failure to offer Hannah-Jones tenure with her appointment as a Knight chair unfairly moves the goalposts and violates long-standing norms and established processes relating to tenure and promotion at UNC Chapel Hill. The two immediately preceding Knight chairs in our School received tenure upon appointment. The university counts among its ranks of tenured faculty many leading professionals with distinguished work in their fields. Indeed, one great strength of the Hussman School is that our students learn directly from people who spent decades in advertising, public relations, business, and journalism. The university and its leadership have routinely confirmed the outcome of the numerous faculty bodies entrusted to make decisions as to what is best for their students.
RealityForAll said:
Link to Babylon Bee Article: https://babylonbee.com/news/media-commits-to-creating-25-more-racism-in-2021
Major media companies such as ABC, NBC, and CBS confirmed they will be cooperating to ensure every news story and piece of entertainment is selectively chosen and edited to hide the truth, skew reality, and tell a narrative of racism and discrimination.
Growing up, I would have agreed with this premise. Knowing what I know now, this premise is exactly backward.
I knew we didn't have a problem with racism in my community growing up because of the simple fact that there was no race. Black people were something that happened on tv, out on the coasts and in the cities. Sometimes in sports, when our school played one of the schools from downtown. There just weren't any black people where I grew up, so how could racism, or talk of race at all, even be relevant? Bringing it up was self-evidently a provocation.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight the absurdity and narrowness of that view is much clearer. There were, and are, in fact many black people living in my home town. If I never saw them or thought of them or interacted with them in any way, it wasn't because they didn't exist, but because their existence had been systematically and effectively erased from my awareness. To repurpose a phrase, my community had selectively chosen to edit and hide the truth, to skew reality, and to tell a narrative where racism and discrimination were absent and talking about them was a problem.
It was not, of course, an accident that there were virtually no black people in my community. Growing up of course I was entirely ignorant of the history and choices that so effectively segregated my town, and I just took it for granted as "natural," when it was anything but.
Clearly the folks paying the highest price here were and are the black citizens of my hometown, but I'd like to point out that I, as a beneficiary of that system, paid a price too. My understanding of my town, my community, and ultimately myself was constrained and distorted. How free was I, when there were entire parts of my city that I could not go to because I barely even knew they existed, beyond a vague generalized understanding that they were "bad" parts of town? What relationships never happened, what experiences never could have occurred? Impoverishing others impoverishes ourselves. The walls we build to keep people out also imprison us within.
It's hard, hard work to see what you've been socialized not to see. Even today, when I've gotten better at noticing many of these walls, I'll sometimes be surprised to find the a metaphorical rock in my hands, and am unsure if I just took that off the wall in a small attempt to pull it down, or was absentmindedly placing it atop the wall to build it back up. Or maybe even just helping shift the wall from one configuration to another. I do know, though, that running around with our hands over our eyes screaming that there are no walls ensures they'll never come down.
PVW said:
RealityForAll said:
Link to Babylon Bee Article: https://babylonbee.com/news/media-commits-to-creating-25-more-racism-in-2021
Major media companies such as ABC, NBC, and CBS confirmed they will be cooperating to ensure every news story and piece of entertainment is selectively chosen and edited to hide the truth, skew reality, and tell a narrative of racism and discrimination.
Growing up, I would have agreed with this premise. Knowing what I know now, this premise is exactly backward.
I knew we didn't have a problem with racism in my community growing up because of the simple fact that there was no race. Black people were something that happened on tv, out on the coasts and in the cities. Sometimes in sports, when our school played one of the schools from downtown. There just weren't any black people where I grew up, so how could racism, or talk of race at all, even be relevant? Bringing it up was self-evidently a provocation.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight the absurdity and narrowness of that view is much clearer. There were, and are, in fact many black people living in my home town. If I never saw them or thought of them or interacted with them in any way, it wasn't because they didn't exist, but because their existence had been systematically and effectively erased from my awareness. To repurpose a phrase, my community had selectively chosen to edit and hide the truth, to skew reality, and to tell a narrative where racism and discrimination were absent and talking about them was a problem.
It was not, of course, an accident that there were virtually no black people in my community. Growing up of course I was entirely ignorant of the history and choices that so effectively segregated my town, and I just took it for granted as "natural," when it was anything but.
Clearly the folks paying the highest price here were and are the black citizens of my hometown, but I'd like to point out that I, as a beneficiary of that system, paid a price too. My understanding of my town, my community, and ultimately myself was constrained and distorted. How free was I, when there were entire parts of my city that I could not go to because I barely even knew they existed, beyond a vague generalized understanding that they were "bad" parts of town? What relationships never happened, what experiences never could have occurred? Impoverishing others impoverishes ourselves. The walls we build to keep people out also imprison us within.
It's hard, hard work to see what you've been socialized not to see. Even today, when I've gotten better at noticing many of these walls, I'll sometimes be surprised to find the a metaphorical rock in my hands, and am unsure if I just took that off the wall in a small attempt to pull it down, or was absentmindedly placing it atop the wall to build it back up. Or maybe even just helping shift the wall from one configuration to another. I do know, though, that running around with our hands over our eyes screaming that there are no walls ensures they'll never come down.
sounds like you grew up in Clark, NJ
ml1 said:
sounds like you grew up in Clark, NJ
Midwest. One thing different there than here -- there's a lot more space. So I'm being very literal when I say I almost never saw black people. Here, everyone's so crowded together that the dividing lines are much more obvious.
PVW said:
ml1 said:
sounds like you grew up in Clark, NJ
Midwest. One thing different there than here -- there's a lot more space. So I'm being very literal when I say I almost never saw black people. Here, everyone's so crowded together that the dividing lines are much more obvious.
I grew up in Clark, and at that time there were literally no Black people living there. I didn't personally know a Black person until I was 18 and working in the GM factory there. It was not a good way to grow up. One of the aspects of racism that people don't talk about much is how stunted the development of white people is when they grow up in such segregated surroundings. The ignorance and hatred that surrounds kids in places like that isn't good for them. OTOH, I suppose growing up there and moving away has taught me to try to listen and keep my mind open about racism. Given how I grew up, I'm well aware of how much I've had to learn.
at least I'm no longer ashamed to say I grew up there. The town is still embarrassingly backward on race and racism. But it's where I'm from, for better or worse.
ml1 said:
I grew up in Clark, and at that time there were literally no Black people living there. I didn't personally know a Black person until I was 18 and working in the GM factory there. It was not a good way to grow up. One of the aspects of racism that people don't talk about much is how stunted the development of white people is when they grow up in such segregated surroundings. The ignorance and hatred that surrounds kids in places like that isn't good for them. OTOH, I suppose growing up there and moving away has taught me to try to listen and keep my mind open about racism. Given how I grew up, I'm well aware of how much I've had to learn.
at least I'm no longer ashamed to say I grew up there. The town is still embarrassingly backward on race and racism. But it's where I'm from, for better or worse.
How did you start noticing and questioning this whole set up? Was it working at the GM factory?
PVW said:
How did you start noticing and questioning this whole set up? Was it working at the GM factory?
way earlier than that. My friends and I were probably around 12 when we noticed that everyone pulled over by the cops seemed to be Black even though no Black people lived in the town. We knew "driving while black" was a thing even as kids. And then of course there was the overt racism that we heard all the time. That was like the air that surrounded us.
Interesting recollections from you two.
I grew up in New Rochelle, NY. , the home of de facto segregation and busing.
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,870332,00.html
Our town started busing just about the time I started elementary school. I remember kids talking about how all of these black kids (they used different words) would be swarming our school.
I lived on a street that had a bunch of kids around my age. All of them went to Catholic school, even though our elementary school was about a two minute walk from us. And we were a working class neighborhood, so the cost of going to Catholic school was not insubstantial.
It wasn't until years later that I realized that they avoided the public school because of busing. It was not a tolerant neighborhood.
New movie (entitled The Woke Reformation) has not yet been released. Based on the trailer, the movie has a different perspective on the Woke movement (and by implication racism) than what is generally propounded on MOL. Trailer is thought provoking. It will be interesting to see the whole movie when released,
Link to "The Woke Reformation - Trailer":
RealityForAll said:
New movie (entitled The Woke Reformation) has not yet been released. Based on the trailer, the movie has a different perspective on the Woke movement (and by implication racism) than what is generally propounded on MOL. Trailer is thought provoking. It will be interesting to see the whole movie when released,
Link to "The Woke Reformation - Trailer":
oy. not again.
drummerboy said:
RealityForAll said:
New movie (entitled The Woke Reformation) has not yet been released. Based on the trailer, the movie has a different perspective on the Woke movement (and by implication racism) than what is generally propounded on MOL. Trailer is thought provoking. It will be interesting to see the whole movie when released,
Link to "The Woke Reformation - Trailer":
oy. not again.
I don't think it's "again". Anti-anti-racism has been a part of US culture for a long time, unfortunately.
nohero said:
I don't think it's "again". Anti-anti-racism has been a part of US culture for a long time, unfortunately.
I guess. This is just the latest flavor.
RealityForAll said:
New movie (entitled The Woke Reformation) has not yet been released. Based on the trailer, the movie has a different perspective on the Woke movement (and by implication racism) than what is generally propounded on MOL. Trailer is thought provoking. It will be interesting to see the whole movie when released,
Link to "The Woke Reformation - Trailer":
anyone who calls it a "woke" reformation is giving away their bias from the start.
and what do you think is "propounded" on MOL that you have such an objection to? I'm intersted to hear your "unwoke" perspective.
Since you brought up 'woke' here's a brief example of WHY some people are expressing concern and raising their voices.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/us/ronald-greene-video-louisiana-police-death/index.html
Unfortunately, this clip is real. The Woke Reformation, on the other hand, is a fiction created by aggrieved white men who detest being called out on their bullshyte. Ronald Greene really died because he found himself in the custody of law enforcement. None of the people in the trailer really give a crap about "justice" although they keep prattling on about it. When Ronald Greene said, "I'm sorry I was scared I'm your brother" he really meant it- he was afraid he was going to die and he was appealing to their humanity. So, in response, the cops tased him, punched him, and then kicked him for a while. When the people in the trailer say they are afraid that political discourse will cause division- they're lying. They thrive on 'division'. They profit from division- they require division to exist.
What they're really afraid of is large numbers of people being fed the fcuk up with their violent society, their lying, their cover-ups, and their lack of humanity.
ridski said:
RealityForAll said:
Dude
Hey, it has the "2+2=4, and ONLY 4, DAMMIT!!!" guy on the team.
When did "woke" go from being a verb "He woke up" to being an adjective?
What is this penchant for destroying the language?
Sometimes I like to answer my own question.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woke-meaning-origin
heaven forbid you fill your head with info that might challenge your beliefs.