Hate Sells category archive

At NJ.com, Keith E. Benson points out that the right-wing’s ginned up outrage over critical race theory (which, again, is a graduate-level subject not taught in primary and secondary schools) is part of a long pattern. Here’s a tiny bit of his article:

The decrying of CRT is part of a long American tradition of white backlash that is aided by a well-funded conservative messaging apparatus skilled in amplifying white rage for political gain based on misinformation in efforts to protect whiteness and the societal benefits it provides white Americans.

Under cover of opposing CRT, the right and the racists they wish to rally have gone farther. As noted elsewhere in these electrons, they are using CRT as a smokescreen to whitewash (a most appropriate term) America’s history of slavery and discrimination against and exploitation of black persons and other minorities. They want to go back to teaching the same sort of sanitized history that I was taught in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, in Virginia’s segregated school system.

AL.com’s Francis Coleman suggests that some persons have a–er–misguided notion of the meaning of “freedom.” Here’s a bit from his article:

Freedom — the kind people shout about — is usually the freedom some people want so that they can do whatever they please without anyone objecting. Trouble is, those same kinds of freedom-lovers often want to restrict others in their desire to do whatever they want to do, also without objection.

If you want to be free to do practically anything you want to, you have to extend the same to everyone else.

And there’s the rub.

Follow the link, where he expands on said rub.

A 56-year-old woman has been charged after an 18-year-old Indiana University student was repeatedly stabbed in the head on a public bus in an attack the school says was because the victim is Asian.

I could not determine whether the victim is, in fact, an immigrant. She was not identified other than as an 18-year-old student in the news reports as of this writing. I suspect there she’s likely no more an immigrant than I am.

But whether she was born here or abroad is irrelevant. What’s relevant is so many feel free to unleash their bigotry and hatred on others, sadly, with encouragement from far too many public figures.

We are devolving into an uncivil society.