“That Conversation about Race” category archive
Translating Trumpery 0
Dick Polman tries to make sense of the language of Trumpery.
No excerpt or summary can do his article justice. Just read it.
Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt 0
At Philly dot com, Professor David Livingstone Smith reminds us that Faulkner was correct when he said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Silence Speaks 0
In related news, Josh Marshall points out that
The Shafts and the Spears 0
Elie Mystal explains the dangers of the enablers of evil, those self-styled “intellectuals” and pundits who provide the rationales for hatred and bigotry. A snippet:
The law can confiscate and incarcerate all the spear points in the world, but it’s powerless to do anything about the shafts. The shafts are protected, not by the Second Amendment, but by the First. And the white supremacists hiding in plain sight know that and celebrate that and dare you to challenge them. When you do, they slither up their Free Speech crosses and claim the “high ground.”
Hood and Winked 0
Petula Dvorak puts the blame where it belongs. A snippet (emphasis added):
Except today, there are no hoods.
Donald Trump gave everyone permission to take those hoods off with his winks, nods and refusal to take a moral stand on racial hatred and intimidation during his campaign and during the first six months of his presidency.
In a related article, Austin Gonzalez, who was present in Charlottesville, calls out Donald Trump’s “many-siderism,” which, I reckon, is sort of like both-siderism on siderism growth hormones.
Out, Out, Trumpled Spot 0
Dick Polman considers Donald Trump’s weaselly reaction to the racist terrorism by vehicle in Charlottesville, Virginia, yesterday. A snippet:
Of course, denying responsibility would’ve made him look even worse, because the sheer weight of the evidence renders him guilty as charged. Yesterday’s spilt blood is on his hands.
Read the rest.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., argues that one factor contributing to yesterday’s racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, was our society’s inability to be honest about racism. A snippet:
Like when people say that talking about racism is racism.
Or when they babble pious inanities like “racism goes both ways” and “all lives matter.”
Nor have news media always brought clarity. It was pundits, after all, who kept ascribing Donald Trump’s rise to “economic anxiety” even as his followers were yelling racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs with unbridled glee. And leave us not forget how media have allowed the folks who brought such chaos to Charlottesville to brand themselves under a banal-sounding new euphemism — the “alt-right” — as if they were not the same bunch of mouth-breathing, lowlife racists they always were.
The Trumpled Agenda (Updated) 0
Addendum, Later That Same Day:
The Charlottesville Daily Progress has more on today in hate. An excerpt:
There’s nothing like imported hate.
Full Disclosure:
I spent a year at U.Va. a long time ago, during which I realized I was not cut out to be an academician. (Dammit, it’s “academician,” not “academic.” “Academic” is an adjective, for Pete’s sake; “academician” is a noun. It’s called “grammar.” Grumble grumble.)
Rageaholics 0
At the New York Times, Emory University Professor Carol Anderson explores how racism and bigotry infuse the politics and political tactics of Donald Trump and his dupes, symps, and fellow travellers. Here’s a snippet; follow the link for the rest.
The guiding principle in Mr. Trump’s government is to turn the politics of white resentment into the policies of white rage — that calculated mechanism of executive orders, laws and agency directives that undermines and punishes minority achievement and aspiration.
Afterthought:
I recently purchased a Sunday-only print subscription to the New York Times, and I’m glad I did. Although I adhere to the “why would anyone want a newspaper that doesn’t have comics” school of thought, it really is darned good reading (except for David Brooks’s column, which is mindless piffle why they keep someone who is always wrong on the payroll is beyond me).
I must say I’m quite impressed with their customer support. The first paper was supposed to arrive last Sunday and did not. When I called the number in their “Did You Enjoy Your First NYT” email, their Automatic Lady was without question the best Automatic Lady I’ve dealt with on a toll-free number. Automatic Lady credited my account without question and suggested I call back during normal business hours on Monday.
I did so and I was talking to a courteous and competent Real Live Human Being in fewer than 30 seconds. And my Sunday Times was there on the doorstep this morning.
I reckon reading it will take me all week.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Bree Newsome makes a convincing argument that, even though they lost the war, the Secesh won the peace.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Elie Mystal comments on Attorney-General Sessions’s latest strategy to foster racism and bigotry. A snippet:
It’s like saying “the races shouldn’t swim together, so I’m going to pull the lifeguards until all the non-segregated pools are forced to close down.” Even if you agreed with the disgusting point, making everybody less safe is the worst possible way to force everybody backwards.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Warning: Language.
Tales of the Trumpling–Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
Still rising again after all these years . . . .
Since filing a lawsuit against the school district a few weeks ago, Jasmine and her family have been the target of a torrent of racist and hateful messages. Messages that are too sickening and hateful to be shared here.
Back in the 1960s, my Southern school district finally realized after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that segregation was done and began a show process of integration. There was one black student in the white high school, a senior, the first year; eleven black students joined it the next year as juniors; and so on–full merging of the black and white schools did not occur until I was in college.
I am certain that those students were carefully picked and all of them acquitted themselves well. There were no overt tensions at the school (of course, this wasn’t in Mississippi, either). By the time my brother graduated a few years after me, the valedictorian was a black girl. The students accepted it, because she had clearly earned it.
More to the point, the parents, the administration, and the community accepted it, though a small percentage of the white student body fled to two “seg academies” and were roundly resented by the students who remained in the public high school. I have long been grateful that the administration had the wisdom to admit defeat.