Right. Watching this, I can’t help but think of black communities terrorized over the years… not all that long ago… by white assholes like that, and worse. Houses burned, people murdered… and no one held to account.
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I can empathize. Going to high school in South Carolina it was easy to find casual racism.
It was also easy to find people who took zero of that shit. So I’m in that side of things. I think it’s too bad that they grew up racist assholes because of their parents or it’s what they’ve always been taught or whatever, but similar to my feelings in To Kill a Mockingbird, I’m not going to get too worked up when Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose dies and we can all move on as a society instead of having to be nice to an old lady who just grew up that way.
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Well, for starters they weren’t cops…
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No, I understand where you’re coming from; I came from a deeply racist part of the country and have lived with both casual and overtly violent racism first-hand. I know quite well how mob mentality works and how difficult it is for someone to see their awful behavior as ‘bad’ when they’re in the middle of it. Exactly as you say, these folks are using cognitive disassociation to literally think of the person who pointed a shotgun at kids as a separate human being.
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I think that’s fair, but I also think that it’s important to realize that Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose isn’t a one-time phenomenon, but something that will repeat, time and again, throughout all of history, and that her kids and her grandkids and all the other people in her neighborhood aren’t going to be effectively shamed out of her ideology, either.
We don’t have to be nice, or even polite. For me, it’s just important to recognize that these are human beings who are the architects of their own suffering and the suffering of so many others, just because of the way they see the world. I want to figure out how to evangelize them, to have them own their monstrous behavior, to force basic human empathy down their gullets.I want to eradicate some of their core beliefs and worldviews, to do violence to their sense of self.
I’m not about to try and stop anyone from savoring the tears of fragile racists and saying “Fuck those assholes, they got less than they deserved,” though. Fair enough, and in some ways kinder. 
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Frankly, they need to make the first step, whether it’s going to Seder somewhere or letting a black person go first at a traffic light.
Until they decide they want to change I’m fine with waiting for Mrs. Dubose to die off childless and alone.
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I guess our major point of divergence is that I see this as hopelessly optimistic.
Either way, we can agree: godspeed, Mrs. Dubose.
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Lead. Horse. Water. Drink.
These days there are enough troughs of water around that nobody should miss them. And if they are it’s because they are being willfully obtuse.
Ain’t nobody got time for that.
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Man, when people are blubbering in a courthouse and inventing other personas to pin their sins on rather than confronting the idea that they might’ve done a superbly shitty thing, I start to wonder if the horse has ever seen water before, if it would even know what to do with it if it was lead there. For most folks, I think, it’s pretty hard to challenge the social groups they belong to, racism and all. It’s why expulsion is such a useful punishment for cults like the Mormons. These ties are stronger than reason.
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Well, yes, they probably would have, because it’s not illegal to have a racist parade.
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I can’t seem to muster any fucks to give for these people. They’re not crying because they feel terrible about the terrible things they did. They’re crying because they got caught, and they’re being punished.
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Per one of the defendants, "“But I want you all to know that that is not me. That is not me.”, ostensibly because they were drunk.
Too that I say, “In vino veritas… cheese-dick.”
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… or, Don’t go away sad. Just go away.
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Oh, the white butt-hurt is strong with this one…
Racist blubber is the best blubber.
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How else are you supposed to invoke the “but I have black friends!” defense?
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“That is not me.”
Except on Tuesdays. Sometimes Thursdays. Generally on Saturdays and Sundays, too, particularly when I’m drinking. Never on Easter, though, that’s a hard limit. Okay, it’s also me on any day that ends with “y” and doesn’t involve a national major holiday that requires me to be kind to others, and it definitely IS me on July 4th, which everyone knows is a white’s only holiday and is about celebrating our white anglo-saxon Christian terrorist culture with explosive devices.
But not me. Seriously. Except for those.
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The weirdest 180 I’ve ever seen.
On. A. Dime.
No.
They were thinking of the incipient prison rape.
They were looking at being nearly middle aged , broken and unskilled.
They were sad at the prospect of having nothing and being unable to provide for themselves due to the conviction.
They were thinking of the missed barbeques and parties.
Missed xmases and birthdays.
But believe this not one thought was spared for the mental scarring their acts caused.
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Initially, I thought the sentences were too harsh as what I read elsewhere was that they were just driving by yelling slurs.
Bit if they threatened to kill children and pointed weapons at them? Yeah, I’m fine with their time.
Now someone needs to look into the cops’ apparent unwillingness to intervene in what was clearly a threatening situation.
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