This is the functional part. It doesn’t matter what the law actually states, as long as it opens the door to terrorize compliance with the Nat-C line. War is peace, slavery is freedom.
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I think that’s the bit that puzzles me: if I was interested in denying that there’s a problem my preferred narrative would be along the lines of “Sure, slavery was definitely wrong. That’s why we nobly and voluntarily* got rid of it so long ago that it’s definitely not relevant now* and everyone lived happily ever after!”; rather than “the glorious colorblind future is going so very well that I can’t condemn slavery without clearing it with the local GOP political officer first…”
They obviously aren’t being honest; I’m just surprised that this is a situation where you’d reach for “don’t talk about this fairly well-known thing” rather than “Well, yes, bad things have happened in history that’s too distant to be relevant; look at me being super honest about that…” as a denial strategy.
*the war of northern aggression was a coincidence
*American Meritocracy has eliminated hereditary privilege
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Welllll,… Child labor laws are being erased. We’ve got a massive prison industry and a WS police force… At some point genocide and slavery are going to be the literal next steps. How will they normalize those if they don’t lay the groundwork?
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The new strategy is apparently to deny that bad things ever happened to non-white people, because to acknowledge that is to at least imply there are historic imbalances that might need to be redressed, and we absolutely can’t have that. To reshape our consensus reality to one that insists racism has no meaningful impact on people’s lives, that must also be retroactively true as well.
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“To say is slavery wrong — I really need to delve into it to see.”
Well, perhaps she should demo Dubai’s “guest worker program” as a worker to see.
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This is actually what these assholes fear. The know that slavery was a violent horrible institution, and that Jim Crow was reinforced by horrific forms of violence. What they fear is that Black Americans are not out for equality and equity, but for revenge - which would include sending them into situations that are enslavement.
So, no. That’s not a solution, because the point is that slavery is not a way to run an economy at all, as no one should be subjected to inhumane conditions. Tit for tat doesn’t help anyone, either.
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All true.
I’m just angered by the total lack of empathy and humanity they show, and it seems the ONLY time they EVER change their minds is when it happens to THEM personally.
Covid, poverty, healthcare, social justice, etc.
Even the SLIGHTEST bit of compassion or thinking about someone other than memememe.
It’s disheartening.
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I feel ya. Treating them the same won’t sooth our anger, or fix the problems they’re causing… getting the out of office, having the GOP fix their party (or just get rid of it altogether), and strengthening our democracy will help, though.
Well, just look at what’s happening with the people convicted for Jan. 6th. The people who support them are not calling for wide-spread reforms in the criminal justice system - just that they be let out because they claim they are “political prisoners” which… LOL, no!
These people just don’t do compassion for anyone they consider an “other”… It’s a central point of their identity (speaking of identity politics)…
Yeah, again, I feel ya. I don’t think throwing our values out the window will make us feel better or fix the problem. Now is the time to hold onto those more than ever, and push back as hard as we can. They have not won yet, despite all the damage they’re doing, and it’s on us to hold onto our value system ad to not let them win…
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i think it goes further than that even. to the idea that bad things only happen to white people
fake victimhood is essential because resentment breeds payback, and it requires new laws to “undo” the oppression being experienced by the well washed white masses
why bend reality when you can break it entirely
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Since they are the only “real actors” in history, and everyone else are just NPC that they can use and abuse, as they see fit, because… GOD… or whatever… they are the only ones who can get hurt… it’s really scary how many of these people buy into that mindset…
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I feel like this is what some of us–suburban white kids mostly, if not entirely–were already taught, or at least a version of it. When I was growing up the very whitewashed version of “history” we got was “Slavery was bad but the Civil War ended it and there was some leftover bad stuff but civil rights legislation got rid of that, and everything’s fine now.”
Some of us were lucky enough to have teachers and other adults who taught us that the past was much more complicated than that and the present is informed by the past. I think the new strategy is to try and make the current teachers afraid to teach kids now that the present is definitely not “fine now”. Even without those lessons some of us still had enough awareness to know that things were definitely not fine, but it’s easier to maintain the status quo if people–especially the privileged–don’t talk about what’s really going on.
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“America was founded on great ideals about all people being equal, and pioneers settled the continent from one coast to the other after Natives decided they didn’t really need any of the land. However, a few southerners were racist because they hadn’t been taught better. Then one day Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech about how people shouldn’t be judged by their skin color, and everyone loved it. And so America became a happy, prosperous country for everyone, the best in the world except all of a sudden it also somehow sucks now so we need to make it great again.”
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Ignorance is Strength.
The book was meant to be a warning, not a guide.
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One of the reasons these laws are being passed now:
They know their hate is unpopular and are trying to enshrine it in law. They will lose, but the next couple of decades will be miserable until the octogenarian set starts leaving the halls of power.
(Note: paywalled article)
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It’s not just the boomers… People like MTG, Boebert, Desantis, etc, are very much Gen Xers.
I think the problem with that angle is that is just assumes that bigotry is just a byproduct of aging, when it’s more about the culture your steeped in.
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They will often make exceptions for acquaintances and family members who they consider to be the “good ones”. They never seem to make the step to realising that if their regime didn’t go after all the “good ones” then there would be no campaign of hate against the larger group.
Even Hitler had someone he thought of as one of the “good ones”
I have right wing family who think I’m one of the “good ones” too. I don’t want to be one of the “good ones”, I want people who I have never met and never will meet to be left alone to live their lives in peace.
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