From Pine View Farm

“That Conversation about Race” category archive

“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0

This time, it’s The Virginian-Pilot’s Larry Rubama who hears a rhyme.

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*Mark Twain

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

The fire this time.

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The Reich Stuff 0

The mask drops.

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The Privatization Scam 0

Michigan State professor Josh Cowen documents the duplicity. A snippet (emphasis added):

Many of the same people pushing the claim that vouchers are a civil rights issue are also those who want to ban teaching about racial inequality in public schools. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed the nation’s largest voucher bill last year, has also said that slavery had some benefits for African Americans. In Arkansas, home to some of the most important moments in actual civil rights history, the same legislation that created vouchers in that state also put strict limits on the teaching of race in public schools — and removed African American history from the state’s list of approved AP courses.

More documented duplicity at the link.

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

Michael Paul Williams hears echoes of the rise. Here’s a bit of his article:

Antiracism in America remains a foreign object, given the pervasive and systemic racism so foundational at the nation’s birth. Racism is the American default, which is why attempts to cure it seldom take hold.

(snip)

We’ve seen this backlash at pivotal points in U.S. history: the Reconstruction period following the Civil War; the aftermath of the American Civil Rights Movement; and in response to the election of our nation’s first African American president. Its latest iteration is the reaction to the 2020 racial reckoning that occurred after incidents of police brutality that took the lives of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among others.

I commend the entire article to your attention.

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Courting Disaster 0

Caption:  Real Housewives of the Supreme Court.  Image:  Mrs. Alito and Mrs. Thomas standing on the roof of the Supreme Court.  Mrs. Alito is raising an upside-down American flag and Mrs. Thomoas is slinging a noose over a gallows.

Via Balloon Juice.

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

Robert Reich argues that the America’s second Civil War has already begun.

Follow the link for his reasoning.

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Licensed To Kill 0

PoliticalProf.

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

A local high school baseball team has been benched because some of its members insisted on rising again.

America’s original sin of chattel slavery continues to exact its toll and poison our polity.

Afterthought:

That some of the team members are racist does not surprise me.

After all, racism is an American creation. Specifically, the belief that one race is somehow inferior to another and therefore can legitimately be subjugated and exploited is a construct created in the British colonies in America during the 17th Century to justify rationalize excuse chattel slavery. From there, it spread to everywhere Europeans established colonies during the Age of Empire.

I am, however, somewhat disturbed by how willing persons are today to flaunt their racism before others, over half a century after the passage of the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s.

Why, one wonders, do they think it has become okay to take their hate-full-ness public.

(Yes, I have my theories.)

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

The New Secesh have launched a counterattack.

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QOTD 0

Harriet Tubman:

I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.

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What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You 0

Unless you’ve been asleep, you have seen the news about how Republican Thought Police are busy policing thoughts they don’t like, particularly thoughts granting equality and inclusion to persons who diverge from being white, Evangelical they-call-themselves Christians, or straight. I’ve certainly posted about it a number of times (you can search for “Republican Thought Police” on the sidebar, over there —–>).

At Psychology Today Blogs, Heather Rose Artushin looks at the harm banning books can do. Here’s a tiny bit from her article; follow the link for a detailed look at the harm that Republican Thought Police are causing.

Research supports that book bans are bad for mental health, especially impacting:

      1. Marginalized individuals whose stories are contained in the majority of challenged books. . . .
      2. Children and teens suffer when books are banned in their schools and public libraries for many reasons. . . .
      3. Librarians and school staff experience added stress and anxiety due to the atmosphere of censorship that book banning creates. . . .
      4. Authors make their livelihood selling books, and book bans not only impact some authors’ income, but might leave them feeling excluded and marginalized as well. . . .

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“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0

Today’s rhymes are brought to you by Michael in Norfolk and by AL.com’s Roy S. Johnson.

____________________

*Mark Twain.

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Diagnosis: Delusion 0

I think any psychologist would agree with me that this is a clear case of projection.

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This New Gilded Age 0

Title:  Growing Hypocrisy.  Frame One:  Two men stand in front of a chart with a line going Up.  Man one says,

Click to view the original image.

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

If this is not de facto secession, I don’t know what is.

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The Woes of Jerry Whinefeld 0

Sam Seder dissects Jerry Seinfeld’s whining about “woke.”

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A Picture Is Worth 0

Right-wing demonstrators chanting,

Via Job’s Anger.

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Republican Thought Police 0

Farron delights in Florida Man’s being hoisted on his own petard.

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Gutting Out the Vote 0

LA Granderson has a question concerning the Speaker of the house:

The next time Speaker Mike Johnson stands in front of a microphone to talk about election integrity, I want you to remember this: Nearly a third of voters in Louisiana are Black, and yet Black voters had control over less than 20% of the state’s congressional districts. White voters make up less than 60% of the electorate yet had control over more than 80% of the power.

(snip)

Johnson’s party has been working to suppress Black votes for decades, so what is he talking about when he trumpets “election integrity”?

Follow the link, where Granderson puts his question into context.

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