Politics of Hate category archive
The Trumpling Goes Viral 0
This is your–our–country on Trump.
(snip)
But as a bus rolled past, the man again yelled out, this time screaming at the driver to “run them all over,” Zhu said.
He turned to her and she knew it was coming.
“Please don’t,” she said.
“Right after I said that, he spit on me,” Zhu said. “I didn’t really know what to do.”
The story goes on to describe a web site being created to track such hate-full incidents.
Words fail me.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
The Des Moines Register’s brilliant Rekha Basu tags the Maytag Foundation (which is no longer in any way related to the appliance manufacturer) for its financial support of an anti-immigrant spin factory.
Bigotry Goes (Corona)Viral 0
I have noted from time to time in these electrons the increase of incidents of cruelty and bigotry directed at persons (who look as if they might be) of Asian descent since stories of the coronavirus entered the news. As if a virus gave a damn . . . .
Valentina Stoycheva, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, examines how persons excuse themselves from culpability for their cruelty during such a health scare. An excerpt (emphasis added):
Epidemiological Twits on Twitter 0
Afterthought:
Given the similar wording in the twits Farron cites, one must needs wonder to what extent they may have been of robotic genesis.
Stray Question, A Notion of Immigrants Dept. 0
I once knew someone who was “second generation Italian.” The family’s grandmother came to the United States as a baby, sleeping in the drawer of the family dresser in steerage on the boat.
Am I the only person to see the distasteful irony of someone named “Cuccinelli” being rabidly against immigration?
Racism Goes Coronaviral 0
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, television newsperson Nydia Han, who is of Asian descent, makes a request:
My dad does not have coronavirus. Neither do I. So please don’t treat us like we do.
Follow the link for the rest, and feel shame that she had to say it.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
The writer of a letter to the editor of The Tampa Bay Times asks a good question regarding Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict the American dream to persons whose looks he likes (follow the link for the complete letter):
A Notion of Immigrants 0
Methinks Noz has a point.
All the News that Fits 0
Will Bunch talks about the latest (!) white supremacist terror attack, this one in Germany, and laments the failure of the press to give it the coverage it deserves. A nugget:
That’s disgraceful — and arguably racist.
(snip)
It’s hard not to believe that — with our ADD-addled ability to focus only on the latest outrage of the last hour — we are missing the most alarming and important trend of the last decade. That would be the rise of violent, brownshirt-style, right-wing global extremism and the concurrent era of authoritarian-style rulers on every continent, whose angry rhetoric toward migrants, ethnic minorities or women inspires these terrorists. The world’s indifferent response to similar trends in the 1930s led to global conflagration in the 1940s. Are we repeating those mistakes in the 2020s as we fail to connect the dots?
Methinks he is onto something. We have forgotten the lessons of World War II.
I am not sanguine.
The Bullies’ Pulpit 0
Thom reports on a Washington Post article about the proliferation of bullying in Donald Trump’s image.
Epidemiology, Reprise 0
As I have mentioned before, the panic being fomented, primarily on cable news and “social” media, over the coronavirus is wholly disproportional to the threat. And now that panic is going viral in its own inimical way.
Alexandra Brewis and Amber Wutich explore this at Psychology Today Blogs. A snippet:
This is because growing fears toward groups associated with emerging epidemic diseases act to hasten disease spread. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is all because of the way stigma undermines effective public health responses. For coronavirus, that stigma is targeting people from China. It is happening all over, including at Arizona State, our own university campus . . . .
Follow the link for their description of how such reactions hinder effective public health responses.
The Unfringed 0
An AP story in the Denver Post highlights the spread of unhinged conspiracy theories, assisted by “social” media and Donald Trump and the Trumpettes. Here’s a bit.
Conspiracy theories are nothing new, but experts fear the powerful engine of social media and a volatile political climate have ramped up the threat of violence.
Aside:
Methinks one of the fuels for conspiracy theories is persons’ inability to deal with the complexity of real life. Instead, they embrace the absurd in a search for the easy.
