“That Conversation about Race” category archive
Warning Flags 0
They are waving them right in front of us and we are not paying attention.
History Is What Happened 0
It is not what persons want to believe happened.
As long as white Americans continue to willfully blind themselves to the facts of America’s original sin of chattel slavery, America will (continue to) live a lie and be vulnerable to that lie.
And I say that as a white guy who numbers among his ancestors persons who held slaves, as the saying went, including the man who signed John Brown’s death warrant at Harper’s Ferry.
That was not me and I am not them.
I’ve mentioned before how Second Son brought that home to me when we visited Harper’s Ferry and saw a wax figure of said ancestor, signing said death warrant, in a display there. Second Son said, “So, he was on the wrong side.”
And he was.
I already knew that, but, as I said, that comment brought it home.
A Sign of the Times 0
As Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.“
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Michael Paul Williams is less than impressed with Virginia’s Governor Trumpkin’s appointees. Here’s what he has to say about one of them (emphasis added):
Our moment of racial reckoning, teetering on the brink, does not need a Confederate apologist. But here comes McLean, who likened Abraham Lincoln’s attempt to preserve the Union to “Russia invading Ukraine” during a July 18 interview on John Reid’s talk show on WRVA radio. She also claimed that “slavery would have been outlawed in the South within five or 10 years, but they wanted to do it on their own time.”
I can only assume that “they” were not considering the desired timetable of the enslaved.
Follow the link for the others in his list.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Thom points out that America does not seem able to escape its original sin of chattel slavery.
It’s All about the Algorithm 0
But algorithms don’t just happen. They are created, and it appears that those who create them do so in their own image:
Those virtual robots, which were programmed with a popular artificial intelligence algorithm, were sorting through billions of images and associated captions to respond to that question and others, and may represent the first empirical evidence that robots can be sexist and racist, according to researchers. Over and over, the robots responded to words like “homemaker” and “janitor” by choosing blocks with women and people of color.
Follow the link for much, much more.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Words fail me.
The University of Central Florida has removed anti-racist statements from departmental websites, a move that one professor has decried as an “infringement on academic freedom” in the wake of the passage of a Republican-backed law that restricts how race can be taught.
Much more at the link.
Derailed 0
I guess they “don’t see color.”
Words fail me.
Aside:
“I don’t see color” is a favorite mealy-mouthed motto of persons who want to pretend that America racism isn’t.
It’s Bubblicious 0
Steve M. wonders whether just maybe Republicans are high on their own lies.
Democracy Plutocracy
0
A member of the European Parliament argues that the United States is a failing state.
His arguments are difficult to counter, as one of our two major political parties has dedicated itself, not to democracy, but to minority rule at any cost.
Bumper Sticker Shock 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear decodes de code.
Courting Disaster 0
At the Des Moines Register, John and Terri Hale explain why they disagree with four recent, major Supreme Supremacist Court decisions. Their article is notable for its clarity and simplicity and I commend it to your attention.
Here’s their take on one of them (emphasis in the original):
Our view: Public dollars are for public schools that take on the challenge and the opportunity of educating everyone, regardless of skin color, abilities, beliefs, primary language, gender identity, or sexual orientation. They should not be used to support the teachings of any particular faith nor any institution that discriminates in admissions or hiring.
Twits on Twitter 0
Yet more racist twits, these ones reacting to Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas’s condemnation of the Supreme Supremacist Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade:
“This is stuff I haven’t seen since” the civil rights movement, she said.
Whitewashing History 0
Georgia is among the states that have outlawed teaching truthful American history. At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Maureen Downey writes of the dilemma that teachers face now that said law has gone into effect in Georgia. A snippet:
Never mind that there are many chapters of U.S. history that should cause anguish — the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre where Colorado cavalrymen slaughtered Native American women and children, the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson decision that legalized “separate but equal,” the 1906 Atlanta race riot where 5,000 rampaging white men and boys murdered at least 25 Black Atlantans going about their daily lives and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, and the forced relocation and incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
Under the new divisive concepts law, a Georgia parent could complain that a teacher’s comments during a discussion of the Atlanta race riot crossed into what the bill defines as “‘race scapegoating, assigning fault or blame to a race.” Such a complaint could land the school system in front of the state Board of Education facing sanctions.
Follow the link for a discussion of possible strategies that teachers can use to avoid falling prey to the proponents of prevarication about the past.
Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt 0
It’s also a law in Florida.
Afterthought:
Denying history means never learning its lessons.
In this case, it is quite clear that those who would deny history also reject its lessons, because they are too busy still rising again after all these years.
Whitewash 0
Speaking of the Republicans’ war against truth in learning . . . .