I had this weird naive notion that when I left a city with an active KKK chapter for New England that I wouldn’t see the kind of racism I was familiar with in Ohio. But Maine and New Hampshire are deeply backwoods places, I discovered. Yikes.
9 Likes
it really isn’t better but i found the straight-ahead honesty of racism in texas preferable to the surreptitious version i saw practiced in colorado.
8 Likes
People say this often, but it’s super-sad and beside the point.
Imagine there’s two creeps who want to cut off your leg. One will do in ten minutes, snap-snap, and one will do after a brief seminar and a long speech about how sorry they are that they have to cut off your leg.
Of course you might appreciate some efficiency and straightforwardness for its own sake, but the end results are the same. Giving people credit for being openly racist is little bit like patting someone on the back for being open about enjoying strangling puppies.
Always remember that the “time-saving” you enjoy from open bigots is offset by the fact that they are also more open about their shitty ideas when they’re in a position of power, and that their lack of public shame helps them propose (and achieve) gross stuff that someone else might pause at.
It’s nice to remove a layer of gaslightery, sure, but I sometimes wish people would keep it in proportion to what effects a bigot still has.
7 Likes
But that’s the point everyone is trying to explain to you: it DOES incite violence, up to and including mass murder.
7 Likes
If you feel like sharing the full story, it definitely sounds worth listening to.
4 Likes
5 Likes
While I’m reading up on unintended consequences, slippery slopes, and the long arc of Justice (I had never heard of any of those things, btw, thanks), maybe take a class on how not to be a pompous jerk? The Constitution isn’t really what its fetishists make it out to be.
4 Likes
For one, as originally written, it was meant to exclude large numbers of people - from women, to slaves, to freed people, to Native Americans, and even white non-land owning men until the Jacksonian period. That alone should give us pause about the constitution. Getting it to be more meaningful for those of us who were excluded was a serious struggle.
Just a general note, not trying to historysplain the constitution… I think you get it…
10 Likes
Now that’s an appropriate reaction. People were outraged at the message, people ostracized the source, the management of the chain took action. In short, the speech had consequences - without the need for government to silence it.
“You, the franchisee, have the freedom of speech. I, the customer, have the freedom to favor someone else with my custom. The franchisor has the freedom to withdraw your franchise if your speech is damaging enough to the brand. Any more-or-less civilized friends that you once had have the freedom to cut you off. None of that infringes your freedom of speech.”
Some here would argue, I’m sure, that the consequences were not severe enough, but it’s a start.
2 Likes
I was reminded of this discussion here in this thread when I read the following article just now. Perhaps it says what you are saying?
4 Likes
i get your point here, but the difference really is more pointed than that and it’s not a matter of saving time but more a matter of knowing where you stand. you should also note that i didn’t say like, respect, or admire but instead used a form of the word prefer. since i was forced to put up with racism in both places, i preferred the kind where i could easily see it and avoid it instead of the kind that hides and denies it even exists. i’d prefer not to have to put up with either but i don’t live in that kind of world, at least not yet.
7 Likes
You’re good. Nothing against you or your experience. You should have it as easy as you can get it. And you’re right that people are different in different places. Open bigotry is easier to see.
I just get irked that the actual bigots often twist the sentiment from “It’s functionally easier when people are open about their bigotries” to “There’s nothing wrong with being openly bigoted. Hiding it’s the only problem.”
That’s not you.
9 Likes
Simply put exactly what I said.
After all the campaigning I did for Bernie and the doors I knocked on and the pavement I pounded after he was out of it and then I finally found out Cheeto had won, a few days later, I was at a bar across from the cemetery on Rt. 30 near Pittsburgh. Where I remember getting a beer in disgust, and walking out to see that smug face in a 50 ft ad LED billboard lit up basically over their graves.
There is a cemetery there where my grandparents are buried about a hundred feet or so from the road, on Rt. 30 just near North Versailles. And right at the fucking entrance to it, that distance from them, is a full size LED billboard that has been basically coopted by the local GOP slime with no tact. It does a lot of strict GOP and “morals” ads. Right over their graves.
I can’t visit them anymore without getting angry and wanting to take a sledgehammer to the thing. because of these tasteless fucks. It would be in poor taste and really trashy in my opinion even if it was just normal ads to put it right at the entrance to a cemetery regardless of politics.
Thing is it’s an overtly political GOP eyesore for at least half of the ads or more. And many of them are just deeply obnoxious and vile.
So anytime you see me comment on how much I hate anyone even remotely connected to Trump, Trump himself, etc, think about this fact on top of the fact that I am liberal and work in Machining having to put up with these morons for the last 10 years before they literally gloated over my dead grandparents graves.
To call me an angry liberal is beyond an understatement. When I’ve said I fully intend to shit on Cheeto’s grave after he dies of too many berders one day, its just natural payback for me.
Trumpians are slime, and its amazing I get through the day at all without having an embolism every 5 minutes.
3 Likes
Another example I wanted to mention. When the election was happening, I was actually in Maui, vacationing with family, fully expecting to be sipping a mai tai while Hillary sailed into office. As the results came in and it was clear that Trump was winning, the crowd at the bar at the beachside resort was cheering like it was the Superbowl… a large group of old white guys in Hawaiian shirts shouting “f you, Hillary! Lock her up!” and “MAGA!” and “build the wall!” as Fox News posted the results. The locals all looked despondent and depressed. It was a reminder that white racist guys are everywhere.
9 Likes
Word.
When I lived in the Caribbean, they were there. When I briefly lived in Florida, they were there. Growing up in Ohio, they were there.
I live in Cali now, and guess what? They’re here, too.
10 Likes
“Incitement” has a pretty narrow definition legally. Saying “these people are bad” is not the same as “These people are bad and you should do something about them” although both are noxious. (Don’t yell at me if you don’t like that, I’m just commenting on they way laws in the US work.) I think there is a legitimate argument for changing that, but it’s on rocky Constitutional ground, and more importantly, you can get some bad unintended consequences from it.
It’s a good debate to have though.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
