“That Conversation about Race” category archive
Base Desires 0
Dick Polman suggests that the news media’s fascination with Donald Trump’s base is old news. A snippet:
You know what? Enough already with these people. They’re not newsworthy anymore.
They’re the impenetrable hard core. They’re not going to change, no matter how much damage Trump does. Last week, after I listed a mere 40 of Trump’s most blatant bald-faced lies, I was emailed by a Trump fan who acknowledged none of them. Doris, who lives in central Pennsylvania, instead told me this (I’ve preserved her spellings): “Your column degraded our president who wants only to make America a great country for all that live here. I hope in the future you right a piece about all his accomplishments as he swims upstream in the ocean of democrates that seeks only to bring him down. He wants to make America GREAT and strong to be the backbone of democracy around the globe to promote peace, as I believe he will accomplish better than any president we ever had.”
Wait a sec … Trump, the devotee of dictators, is “the backbone of democracy around the globe”? Nothing penetrates the fan base.
Here’s a New Year’s resolution for the mainstream press: Dial it down with the Trumpkins. They are just 35 percent of Americans.
I suspect that part of the media’s fascination with Trump’s base is an inability or unwillingness to understand what activates them (I’m betting on “unwillingness” here).
What activates the Trump base is racism. There are, natch, other stones in the arch of Trumpery, but racism is the keystone.
The corporate media, which wants the Trump base to read its columns and watch its television networks, doesn’t say that out loud because it might offend 35% of its viewers, readers, and masters.
The Lies People Tell Themselves 0
Another Southern myth, busted.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
Breakfast with a side of bigot:
A Texas waitress said some customers left a racist symbol behind when they left their table.
Tenasha Ballard said she had been serving four high school students recently at an IHOP in Sherman, and they asked for a takeaway coffee cup, reported KXII-TV.
When she returned with the cup, Ballard found the teens had cut some leftover pancakes into the letters “KKK” and fled.
More Trumpling at the link.
No Place To Hide 0
Thom discusses our culture of institutionalized spying and the loss of privacy.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Tony Norman suggests that refusal of “Judge” Roy Moore to concede defeat in the Alabama Senatorial race is a fitting analogy to the Southern myth of the “Lost Cause.” A snippet:
With the passage of time and enough lies, even allegations that he tried to initiate romances with children will be brushed off by sympathetic historians as scurrilous propaganda the same way the atrocities of the antebellum aristocracy are considered lies spread by liberal historians. They’ll say he took countless lie detector tests and passed.
One more time, when next you hear someone bemoan the “Lost Cause,” ask him or her to explain precisely just what was the cause that was lost.
The Voter Fraud Fraud 2
Elie Mystal gets to the nub of the Republican gut-out-the-vote movement:
Of course, up here in “evidence based” land, the black vote is the result of the Republican party’s ongoing strategy of ignoring black people and, latterly, being expressly racist towards black people in hopes of energizing racist white voters.
Much more at the link.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
Our Trumpled youth speak out.
“Black people are trash; they need to die,” she said.
The racist, hate-filled rant has gone viral on social media, of two Pleasant Grove High students — one is seen in the background laughing at her friend’s racist remarks.
The girl in the video went on to say: “When the police were killing all those black people I was so happy.”
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Charles Finn eviscerates the rationalizations of the secesh and their sycophants in a searing screed.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
And the Trumpling continues . . . .
(snip)
According to Johnson (recipient of the letter–ed.), the letter was loaded with N-words and contained the threat: “We are asking nicely but one time only.”
To the Contrary 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Ronald Riggio explores the reasons why persons will vote against their own self-interest. Here’s a bit of his piece:
In the U.S. Presidential election, two other psychological processes come into play: (1) the limitations caused by a two-party system; and (2) the we-they feeling (or in-group, out-group bias).
Follow the link for the rest.
‘____________________
*I must quibble with his use of “surprisingly.” The Republican Party has quite skillfully marshaled white resentment and racism since the days of Richard Nixon and his odious “southern strategy.”
Republicans listened to Lyndon Johnson, even if no one else did, and took his words to heart.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
This is your country on Trump.
As Washington’s KHQ station reports, the manager, Jade Cardwell, was sticking up for a black bartender against two unruly customers before the situation escalated to violence.
“Right away, when they came in, they were dropping the N word,” Cardwell said. “We have a black bar tender we just employed. We weren’t having it. We wanted them gone.”
The Trumplers left him severely injured and in need of surgery.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
Ryan Bills of Las Vegas, Nevada, was charged with criminal mischief, a serious misdemeanor, Storm Lake police said. His case did not appear in Iowa’s online courts records system Tuesday afternoon.
More Trumpling at the link.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
A jury of their peers . . . .
The Associated Press, via ABC News, reports that attorneys for defendants argued on Friday that it would be wrong to only pick jurors from a pool of urban residents because they could be prejudiced against the defendants for political reasons.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Field reports from the field. A snippet:
_____________________
*Moore made no mention, of course, that enslaved mothers, fathers, and children were routinely separated and sold off to different buyers, nor that enslaved women were not uncommonly used as brood mares to generate more “stock” for slave traders.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
The attempt to prettify slavery and romanticize slaveholders continues apace.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
Balloon Juice reports on how racists have seized on the license granted by Donald Trump and his dupes, symps, fellow travelers, and, natch, the Republican Confederate Party.
We are now a pariah nation.