Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/10/children-in-virginias-trump.html
…
1 Like
I would love to say this surprises me, but it absolutely does not. I practice pediatrics in VA and see the same patterns of intolerance and violence among my patients. We have a very blue city in a very red rural area and the differences are striking. I actually would have guessed a much larger statistical difference.
20 Likes
And most kids in rural Virginia have guns. Just say’n.
5 Likes
I think school systems are mostly organized along the county level in virginia-- the exception being the “independent cities”. So the statistical granularity isn’t ideal.
1 Like
The post in the BBS is out-of-sync with the post on the blog. It will update soon.
Thanks!
3 Likes
Put this study in the obvious-but-necessary file alongside the one about the olds being more prone to spread around fake news.
I haven’t seen that Bad News Bears clip in years. I forgot how accurate they were about portraying the dynamics of bullying, right down to the quick shot of Joey Turner’s no-value-added henchman giving his little smirk before and tossing in a weak insult after.
While conservatives at the time tut-tutted about the kids in the film being so foul-mouthed, I suspect what really made them uncomfortable was that Joey’s father, coach Roy Turner (played by a perfectly cast Vic Morrow), reminded them a lot of their own strict and abusive fathers.
Post-2016, it’s only a matter of time before a conservative or Libertarian writes a piece demanding that we re-evaluate the movie with Roy Turner as its true hero.
11 Likes
4 Likes
And now we pause for a word from our sponsors
16 Likes
During the campaign in my kid’s Seattle elementary school being “A Trump” was briefly slang for being mean.
6 Likes
We have friends from jolly old England who live here and during the campaign they laughed that ‘over there’ where they were from “trump” meant to fart (mb from trumpet?)
They weren’t laughing when the russians elected their guy.
and now we all cry…
…and the article doesn’t surprise me in the least: electing Trump was seen as a huge validation of racism, white supremacy, dipshitism, neandethalism (my apologies). Electing the racist a-hole in chief let these sorts off. the. leash.
4 Likes
In my more optimistic moments I tell myself that they are reminding yet another generation (as mine was in the 50s and 60s) that racism, antisemitism, etc are not extinct in the USA, only lurking in the shadows for another opportunity.
8 Likes
Yeah, it’s come out of the shadows. People keep talking about how, when Trump is gone, all these racists are still going to be around, but they were already around. They just feel free to openly voice it, now. Which is both a problem and an opportunity…
6 Likes
2 Likes
For me that 9% of racist bullying is telling. Most kids of course pattern their behavioral foundation after what they observe at home. That 9% is pretty close to what I suspect is the 10% or so of overt hard-core racists that the other 20% of Americans who elected 45 make common cause with (and thereby with their overt racism). Admittedly, I would have expected the statistic to be a little higher given the roughly half of Americans who don’t vote, but I also realize that 45 gave a record proportion of overt racists a reason to vote for him and most of them probably turned up to do so even as progressives stayed home or were prevented from voting.
4 Likes
They’re following the lead set by their parents and, at least in the case of young men, afraid of looking like “wimps.” The parents likely mock anyone they see as weak, which is why they like Trump, and that gets passed on to their children.
Of course, the other side of this coin is that the behavior that Trump exhibits is exactly the kind of behavior that you’d expect to see from deeply insecure people who need constant attention and to lash out or otherwise lower the status of others in order to feel better about themselves.
This doesn’t excuse any of the behavior. Trump should be in prison, along with a lot of the people that helped him get to where he is, and he has burned away basically every shred of respect or kindness a human can deserve apart from that which all humans deserve by virtue of existing.
5 Likes
That might be the most succinct dive into redneck psychology I have read. Granted, it’s a shallow pool, but nonetheless, a worthy endeavor.
I don’t think “redneck” is a good word to use here. Yes, a lot of people who support people like Trump like to use that term to describe themselves, but it is ultimately a classist epithet designed to make the kind of manipulation happening here easier for the ones doing the manipulation.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
