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I’m pretty sure that Steve King can’t go a waking hour without touching something coming from the other end of the globe. Nor can he go a day without using several things invented by someone from each continent on the globe (except maybe for the Antartic). On a day to day basis Steve King is dependent on hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people just so he can live his life like a normal human being. From the intern that gets him his morning Caramel Latte, to the tailors in China who made his suit. And he’s not alone, that intern is equally dependent on hundreds of other people and so are those Chinese tailors. That’s how mankind gets it’s shit done, by relying on everyone else to pitch in just a little. I know Steve likes to think he’s better, I mean it is a fancy suit he’s wearing and those Caramel Latte’s aren’t cheap. But if rather than elevate ourselves above the rest, we embrace our interconnectedness, then we realise there’s 7 billion of us all prepared to pitch in just a little.
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Oh, certainly. The problem is, the people and accomplishments that usually are celebrated by the people most invested in “white pride” are not the inventors, musicians, sculptors, artists, or scientists, but the conquerors, kings, generals, killers, enslavers, and inquisitors.
There are so many “white pride” blogs out there that celebrate the Third Reich, for example, that it’s essentially a become a dog whistle for “I’m a white supremacist racist who wants to violently subjugate anyone not like me” at this point, regardless of what other meaning non-vile people might want to attach to it.
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Well, military history is a part of the heritage. I understand that some people are quick to be oh so ashamed of themselves and their group, but that is their problem. In any case, Steve King talked implicitly about contributions in terms of inventions and discoveries, not military victories.
Then why does he have a Spanish name?
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I thought it was a Greek name… “Hey, Zeus!”
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Zeus: Why you keep calling me Jésus? I look Puerto Rican to you?
John McClane: Guy back there called you Jésus.
Zeus: He didn’t say Jésus. He said, “Hey, Zeus!” My name is Zeus.
John McClane: Zeus?
Zeus: Yeah, Zeus! As in, father of Apollo? Mt. Olympus? Don’t fuck with me or I’ll shove a lightning bolt up your ass? Zeus! You got a problem with that?
John McClane: No, I don’t have a problem with that.
Die Hard With a Vengeance
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So people with a slightly off-kilter and over-enthusiastic love for Jesus would now be Geez Nuts?
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So you’re saying you prefer to be proud that you’re “white”?
Did you know that racial whiteness itself is a fiction emphasized for the primary purpose of subjugating darker peoples?
Having been duped by the whole idea of “being white” doesn’t strike me as something to be proud of.
As long as you think you’re white, there is no hope for you.
–James Baldwin
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I’m making an assumption here you’re being earnest and not just trying to trolley the rest of us here.
See, I really don’t get this at all. White pride, American pride, and so on. What is there to be “proud” of? That’s just your lot in life. It’s not like this is any sort of goal you can work toward – or something you can change about yourself. You can change your citizenship or religion, but you can’t change your race or where you’re from. You can be “happy” or “lucky” to be what you are, but ultimately it’s just how the cosmic dice roll landed for you.
A wise scholar named Ice T once said, “no one was given a choice in the race we were placed”
This is true but Europeans don’t have the monopoly on important contributions to culture and civilization. While Europeans were busy killing one another and dying of plague in the middle ages, the Chinese and Islamic cultures were making huge advances in science and maths. Let’s not also forget the huge contributions of ancient Egypt.
Yes, many important advances came out of Europe but more often than not it was on the back of prior work from other cultures. You could almost say Europeans were the cultural equivalent of Apple in that regard.
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Agreed.
The only reason ‘Black Pride’ even exists at all is because there is an entire history of shame, denigration & exploitation that comes with having a certain amount of melanin in one’s pigment.
It’s a countermeasure to try to offset literal centuries of hatred and misery which were perpetuated by society at large.
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See also: “why’s it gotta be #BlackLivesMatter when #AllLivesMatter!”
It’s a nice sentiment but it completely misses the point behind BLM.
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Exactly, and intentionally so.
That’s the epitome of derailment and deflection.
There is no implied ONLY in front of Black Lives Matter.
Like when we say Save the Whales, we don’t mean “Save the Whales and Fuck Everything Else!”
Such arguments are disingenuous and detrimental to the evolution of our society.
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Having lived in Ames for 5 years, I suspect he gets re-elected because of Mason City, Spencer, Storm Lake, and especially Fort Dodge. Also, half of Ames doesn’t vote there, they’re students registered to vote in their home districts.
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It depends on what you mean by that. I celebrate my Celtic ancestry in events and artwork, including bumper stickers. I encourage my mixed-race daughter to take pride in all of her forbears. I have a friend who’s very proud of his German heritage and ancestors.
Being proud of having skin with a high tendency to sunburn would be pretty weird, though, and probably abnormal. And identifying with completely unrelated people based on melanin deficiencies seems more like an obsequious toadying to power based on imaginary commonalities than any true ethnic pride.
Yep, in both positive and negative ways, sho nuff.
But King’s going to have to make a better construction than just this implicit culturalism, racist dog-whistling, and explicit religious bigotry if he really wants to get into Tautology Club.
Something like “Western Civilizations have done more Western Civilizing than any identifiable group that hasn’t” would be more apropos.
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Good on you; my mom & Gram did the same for me.
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That reminds me of a joke told by the comedian Tom Rhodes who said he’d like a parade for people like him (and, I believe, me): white guys with a very mixed racial history because our ancestors had sex with just about everybody.
The way he said it made me laugh even though when I stop and think about it at least some of that history includes the forced subjugation of people incorrectly considered “lesser”, which is neither funny nor something to be proud of.
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