Oregon cop "cleared" after flashing white power sign at right-wing demonstrators

boing
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It’s all working according to the plan…

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I thought Vermont was whiter?

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The top ten whitest states in America, from the state with the highest white population to the state with the lowest, are…

  • Maine
  • Vermont
  • West Virginia
  • New Hampshire
  • Montana
  • Iowa
  • North Dakota
  • Kentucky
  • Wyoming
  • South Dakota

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/whitest-states

oregon is slightly less white than pennsylvania apparently. ( but it was indeed a white flight state, and had “sundown towns” including portland right up the end of segregation )

[edit] went searching for a slightly more reputable source as well. similar if not exactly the same:

Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Iowa, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Kentucky and North Dakota.

least white:

Hawaii, Mississippi, Louisiana, Maryland and Georgia

and when you think about the political and economic power in mi, la, ma, and ga… that’s about all the evidence needed for lasting racist power structures in the usa

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Comme ci comme ça. What the article was referring to was the explicit de jure creation of Oregon as a white ethnostate and the inevitable reality of the organizations created to enforce it.

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I bet there are still small Oregon towns that are sundown towns…

Sure, but that’s not been the case for a while now.

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That’s a matter of perspective. For the Black folks who have suffered constant harassment and lynchings (beyond those actually documented), I’m sure it feels very, very recent. It sure seems to feel current to the cops.

ETA; I must be misunderstanding your intent. Based on everything else you’ve ever posted here and your historical knowledge, I can’t believe you’d make the “it was a long time ago” argument.

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I think you are. I’m not denying racism in oregon, I’m saying that demographically, it’s not white as it was founded. I’m fully aware that racism still exists in Oregon, as it exists in every corner of this country.

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Unsurprising. In addition to the large African American population, we also have a major refugee resettlement center just outside of ATL. Clarkston, GA is considered the most diverse square mile in the country, I believe.

And of course, even here racism exists.

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That’s what always happens, no matter how hard the bigots try to exert complete control; the diversity of life still finds a way.

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But Donald Trump uses this gesture all the time. Do you think he knows what it means?
image

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Yours? Very funny!

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Abolishing the police is starting to sound necessary.

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So 4chan hoaxes everyone that the totally benign OK hand sign is a secret white power thing.

Then real white supremacists pull a Poe’s Law and start flashing it everywhere …

Our culture’s not cultured enough to survive.

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Maybe we can convince the white supremacists that they’re really a part of an old religion (and get them to learn something)…
Buddha symbol

I mean, this fat bastard has “White power” symbols all over him!
/s for the sarcasm impaired (I was raised buddhist)

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-The rest of us could very easily be fired for making those sorts of gestures while working.

Why do cities agree to police contracts and enforcement approaches that exempt them from all responsibility and accountability, again? Oh, right.

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My running assumption is no - for Trump, I think words, signs, and symbols don’t have meanings, they have effects on audiences. Effect is the same - he’s a racist asshole - just one practically incapable of knowing things, or believing things, in the sense the rest of us usually understand that concept.

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… anything about anything that doesn’t directly benefit him? No. Will he act like he does? Yes. I’m convinced if a reporter asked him if he knows the okay gesture had been appropriated by white supremacists, he would ramble on for awhile and at some point claim he invented it for them, and that they are really great people.

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There are not, at least legally. It would be a major violation of the state constitution.

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And therein lies the loophole. The state has to be willing to enforce it, and sometimes it’s not worth the hassle to do so…

Here is a website I found a while ago about sundown towns, which keeps a running list of those that either were or continue to be sundown towns:

Here is what they have on Oregon, FWIW.

I don’t know… never underestimate the lengths actively racists whites will go through to ensure they have a stronger voice, or the role that even supposedly blue states will play in backing them up, even if it’s not so obvious. Take a look at the difference between the reaction to CHOP and the reaction to the Malheur occupation… :woman_shrugging:

All that being said… Oregon today is far more diverse than it was founded to be, so that’s a positive.

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