Wypipo can’t imagine it not being about them.
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Michael Harriot, is that you!?!
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Exactly, any time anybody talks about doing something that might not be about them and they scream about something being taken away from them. Because if a black life matters that must mean the white life does not. Dumb.
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It’s not easy to be the skinniest guy and the fattest guy in the same room, but this guy can pull it off.
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I have a question for the moms and dads out there with adult children…
First, it should be known that my one full-blood brother (estranged) is a casual racist and a Trump supporter. In the name of family integrity, he is allowed at family gatherings, but we still do our best to shut down topics in conversation that approach the level of anti-debate like the guy in this video.
So my question is this – do you make any effort to make your kids know when they’re really being assholes? If so, how have things turned out?
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I would just have push him out of the way while “Move B****” was playing. I doubt he’d fight back after that lol.
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But then you gotta first go get a boombox, cue up the track…
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Thanks for writing MY comment before me. 
I woulda grabbed his phone and thrown it down the sewer, or stomped it to pieces. But I’m a bit irrational when it comes to assholes.
“Maskless troll” is now my favorite put-down for rabid Trump-lovers
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He may have glommed onto the Fred Phelps school of revenue-generation and is prepared to be punched in the face for a payout, but that would involved a modicum of at least weasel-grade intelligence and some fortitude. So more likely he’s a fucking moron, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some grifter try exactly that tactic sooner or later.
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It’s a pretty standard tactic against any oppressed group. You try to claim the moral high ground by saying you “just want everything to be equal”. Of course, the intentionally ignored subtext is that things are very not equal at the moment. The same people used the same arguments to resist affirmative action policies, efforts to increase recruiting of women in tech, civil unions over marriage for LGBT, reverse racism claims, etc, etc.
The music changes, but their dance never does.
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I agree with you, but one reason people sit there and do nothing is because there are also videos of people standing up for the poor Muslim girls and getting murdered by the harasser. I feel it is a moral imperative to defend people from racists and Nazis, but it isn’t an action to take lightly.
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Sometimes in tricky situations where I’m speechless, in dreams I manage to overcome the fear to speak or act, resulting in more ease of action in waking life. That conflict between emotion and reason trips us up like when you’re fishing for a clever retort to someone making fun of you.
While the backwoods reactionary far right have been empowered to reveal their shadow selves, I feel this is a moment of kairos to collide and counteract with a force of good.
Unfortunately the video in the original blog post devolved into a shouting match with a manic energy vampire, however, neither party backed down (particularly the gentleman addressing the harassment).
Some times you just wish you could expeliamus someone off the map, but that’s likely the cause of people writing manifestos and shooting the innocent.
Holy water.
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Me, too. Like, save the whales didn’t mean fuck the dolphins. It just meant the whales were more at risk, so let’s focus on that.
I wish someone had asked him, “so, are you saying black lives don’t matter? Because otherwise, I can’t see your problem with that sign.”
Right. “Starting…now. No, wait, now.”
I’ve tried having the conversation about how it isn’t and hasn’t been equal with folks, and that’s their take, “well, we shouldn’t be giving anyone any advantages. Starting now.”
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I’ve been using the fence and step-stools illustration to teach equity to my 3yo son. How he gets the idea that some people need no help, others need a step stool, and some need a ladder to look over a fence yet grown ass adults can’t comprehend it boggles the mind.
Amazingly he also knew who George Floyd was and what happened to him before we ever brought it up. He explained the whole thing to my wife when she told him we were going over the the memorial the next day. She was a little taken aback. I guess having Minnesota Public Radio on at the house near constantly has an effect.
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Good parenting! And yeah, having NPR on all day will help kids learn about current events at a very young age… Same was true for my kid. She’s now a pretty socially aware teen!
As an aside, it’s infuriating to me when white parents stamp their feet at the notion of teaching issues of racism and oppression to young children and they view it as inappropriate content. It very much can be done and should be done. Doing otherwise is only lying to your child to shield them from the truth and that will only have one of two results: one, them resenting and not trusting their parents when they do learn the truth, or two, them denying reality as adults. Children of color and LBGQT+ children, and girls of any race or sexual orientation don’t get the luxury of being shielded from oppression, as it’s part of the way the world constructs us as historical subjects (white cisgendered girls less so than others, of course).
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We’re big believers that no topic is inappropriate, only responses are. Now there’s some things we won’t go out of our way to expose him to (R rated movies or even PG ones for that matter right now) but if he brings up an R rated topic then we must move forward on it in an age appropriate matter. It’s super important that we raise him in a way that sees all people as worthy of love and respect and that we talk about how some people aren’t treated right. That’s why it was important to bring him to the George Floyd memorial. I don’t need go there to believe the problem is real but real concrete examples are good for teaching little kids. That’s the same reason I embrace (literally and figuratively) my trans cousin-in-law. Hopefully consistent examples for the next generation will help them be better than the current (and more-so previous) generations.
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There are various recommended reactions including addressing the woman as if you are friends/colleagues, basically cutting the abuser out of the dialogue while not confronting them.
While the instinct is to round on the abuser sometimes getting the abused out of the firing line is the better outcome.
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