“That Conversation about Race” category archive
Elections Have Consequences . . . 0
. . . and they are not always positive.
Not Knowing Their Place 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., notes that there seems no “right way” to protest against discrimination. A snippet (follow the link for the rest):
When there was violence in the streets over unpunished police killings of African-American men, they said that was the wrong way to go about it. Most of us agreed.
But when peaceful street demonstrations took place, conservatives didn’t like them, either. Then, last year, NFL player Colin Kaepernick hit on the idea of sitting through the national anthem.
But conservatives said that was disrespectful to veterans. So Kaepernick started taking a knee instead. Many others followed suit.
Conservatives said that was still wrong . . . .
It’s not the protests that conservatives find distasteful.
It’s the uppity.
Since protest of any kind is inherently uppity, there is no form of protest that conservatives will find acceptable.
Twits on Twitter 0
Lost in translation twits.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Josh Marshal decodes de code.
Facebook Frolics, Yet More Racist Frolickers Dept. 0
In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tony Norman comments on the (now ex-)Fire Chief who posted a racist statement about NFL coach Mike Tomlin and then claimed it was not racist, no sirree, not racist at all. A snippet:
I know what you’re thinking: What’s the race-ish card?
Follow the link for the answer.
Plus ca Change 0
David Farmer has heard it before. A nugget:
It was echo of the stinging voice of Alabama Gov. George Wallace that I heard in Alabama last week.
The speaker was President Donald Trump, but his words carried themes from the not-so-distant and ugly past.
The Unmasking 0
Jenee Osterholt points out what was obvious to anyone who paid attention. An excerpt:
Donald Trump is the president America deserves.
He’s forcing the country to take the mask off, to confront its systemically oppressive ways, to deal with the fact that xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, able-ism, anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia and, yes, racism, are real. Say it with me: Racism is real.
(snip)
Perhaps this is what happens when a rich reality TV star who gets off on debasing and firing people storms into the White House. Or maybe we’re watching the institutional racism that has been remixed and masked in mass incarceration, mortgage discrimination, redlining and more stack together like Voltron and become a president.
Myth Makers 0
In my local rag, Roger Chesley looks at the text books used in Virginia schools around the beginning of the Twentieth Century and at how they promoted the lie of the “Lost Cause.”
Read it.
Plus ca Change 0
At the Boston Review, Kahlil Gibran Muhammad spots a pattern in the flickering light of tiki torches (emphasis added):
Follow the link for the complete article.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., marvels at the kerfuffle over Jemele Hill’s tweets pointing out–nothing new here–that Donald Trump is a white supremacist. A snippet:
Really? Well, if Hill deserves firing for calling Trump a white supremacist, then what does he get for actually being one?
Follow the link for his answer to that question.
Presumed Guilty 0
Shorter Will Bunch: “If you doubt force of racism in the U. S., meet me in St. Louis.”
All the News that Fits 0
Afterthought:
I’m a Southern Boy. I grew up under Jim Crow, I attended segregated schools, and I have my share of baggage.
I’ve known lots of racists and even more white folks who grew up with racism and did not realize that they had been trained to it from birth.
It’s the rare racist who will admit to being racist.
Which leads to the question: Who is more vile, the person who is proudly and avowedly racist or the person who is silently racist and unaware of or willfully blind to his or her racism?