Rolling 2016 Thread on Race

NAACPWP

anyone who talks shit about Michelle Obama should be jailed

At Upenn a lot of the black freshman were added to a racist GroupMe thread and began receiving messages from white supremacists based in Oklahoma. Apparently one of the OK racists was accepted at the school (though never attended) and was added to the Class of 2020 FB group which he used to gather personal information on black students.

because america is already filled with white spaces. because to challenge white supremacy we need POC thought in white spaces. because most white americans, liberal and conservative alike, instinctively ignore and marginalize POC thought, because POC thought makes them feel uncomfortable.

when POC speak, i need to shut the fuck up and listen, and then i need to carry that message, as best i possibly can, to the many, many places where POC are not allowed.

I really don't know which level of irony to tackle first here. Do I start with "white person proclaims need to listen to people of color while simultaneously not listening to or understanding the question/objection being posed by the black man looking at this group for the first time" or do I ask again "how is this group listening to the voices of POC if it is for white people/by white people as the verbiage on the website led me to believe" and wonder if the more explicit framing will get you to answer the actual question I was asking (which other people on the thread DID answer, btw; the website is terrible and makes the group look like something it is not unless you are familiar with them already, so I'm not 100% sure why you non-answered my question).

Their website is terrible. And fwiw I think they operate in like small local chapters so the quality of analysis is prob variable? As are the local partnerships that each chapter organizes with POC-led orgs in their area.

I do think it's a long but maybe necessary trip from "painfully earnest might cry" dawning race consciousness to actually being ready to function in a useful way for movement efforts. If SURJ isn't the right vehicle for getting people there, maybe something with key differences would be better, but SURJ is kind of what we have? And the whole point is to keep the work out of POC spaces so Black and brown ppl don't have to witness white tears/fragility/etc.

I went to a meeting once. It was p awkward. The person who opened the meeting did the whole yoga-esque icebreaker. "Close your eyes, put your feet flat on the floor, and FEEL the energy coming out of your feet and FLOWING all the way down to the ground." (We were on the 10th floor.) I organized some admin stuff for them and then had to bow out because of scheduling. They would have wanted me to take on more responsibility and I have kind of a full plate tbh. There were Black, brown, and Asian folks there as well, and some people from local racial justice orgs as facilitators.

Ideally SURJ or something like it would get people ready to provide the labor to support Black-led organizing with extra resources and capacity. Need money? Ask your white allies to fundraise. Need 25 people to do behind-the-scenes work for an event? Ask for white volunteers who will take orders from your org. Need non-POC to make a safety barrier to protect LGBQTPOC at a protest? You see where this is going.

Yes, that all makes a lot more sense that the picture the website drew for me.

picturing a little animation of a cop throwing some tear gas and a white guy diving on top of it before it gets close to protestors

Nothing so heroic. It's better to think of it as white guy making uhhh protest puppets or something in a barn for a POC org to carry in the streets because he has the time to do so. But then him not going on the march itself because he doesn't represent the affected community.

from puppet master to puppet maker

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54183f486bb3f7d466f059ec-960/surge-movement.png

see, this is exactly why i wish and what still posted here.

The war on punctuation could have been temporarily suspended for that sentence.

(We were on the 10th floor.)

lol

I will admit that the first thing that came to mind as I read through the website was the teacher from the Kwanzaa pageant episode of The Boondocks

I really don't know which level of irony to tackle first here. Do I start with "white person proclaims need to listen to people of color while simultaneously not listening to or understanding the question/objection being posed by the black man looking at this group for the first time" or do I ask again "how is this group listening to the voices of POC if it is for white people/by white people as the verbiage on the website led me to believe" and wonder if the more explicit framing will get you to answer the actual question I was asking (which other people on the thread DID answer, btw; the website is terrible and makes the group look like something it is not unless you are familiar with them already, so I'm not 100% sure why you non-answered my question).

― ¶ (DJP)

djp, since you're directly asking me a question, i'll respond, and my response is, look, i was raised in a racist and implicitly white supremacist system and that's limited what i'm able to understand and how i'm able to act. i'm pretty slow, and i'm pretty ignorant. i'm doing my best, but i simply don't think of myself as competent to engage with POC on issues of race, and frankly i'm not sure i'll ever be.

I 100% do not know how you are expecting me to respond to that so I'll just say: thanks?

you're welcome. you keep saying what needs to be said and i'll do my best to listen and to learn, and i will probably continue to misunderstand and screw up, but the teacher is not to blame if the student is poor. :)

Ilxors, keep on ilx-ing / cos it won't be too long

it's ok, I'm still trying to self-ban myself from posting on a couple threads where my comments are worthless and just read what's there, but the post button still works

rushomancy are you an american, out of curiosity?

well i'm not a dane :)

yeah, midwestern american, smack dab in the center of "we're not racist!" country :)

sup

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/texas-rejects-mexican-american-studies-textbook-seen-racist-n684881

The Texas State Board of Education, in a preliminary, but key vote, unanimously rejected a highly-criticized Mexican-American studies textbook that contained numerous errors and material that many saw as racist.

The book, titled "Mexican American Heritage," was considered by the Texas State Board of Education for Mexican-American studies classes that the state recently allowed as elective courses. The board rejected the textbook 14-0 on Wednesday in Austin, Texas.

Since its submission, the book had been blasted for passages that painted Mexican Americans as undocumented immigrants and claimed that illegal immigration has "caused a number of economic and security problems in the United States," including "poverty, non-assimilation, drugs, crime, and exploitation." The book also said Mexican laborers "were not reared to put in a full day's work so vigorously" and that they had a culture of "mañana."

im surprised that this was so well defeated, the tx board of ed must have improved sometime recently

they probably objected to the idea that exploitation of immigrants was going on

trigger warning: violence, graphic pictures

https://www.facebook.com/DontNvME/posts/10210023513771887

Jesus Christ

people are fucking horrible

Don't know what thread to put this in, but the Board of Ed for the Portland Public School system just sent out this resolution to all parents about dealing with any INS/ICE-types who want to come snooping around for undocumented schoolchildren:

http://www.pps.net/cms/lib8/OR01913224/Centricity/Domain/219/Immigration%20Resolution%203%20FINAL.pdf

Deportation has been a fucked-up thing even during the Obama Admin, and at least the election gave enough of a shock to people to realize that plans and processes and rules need to be explicitly laid out instead of some nebulous problem they didn't have to necessarily deal with immediately.

schoolchildren bullied in NYC http://www.brooklyndaily.com/stories/2016/48/all-teachers-bullying-immigrant-students-trump-election-2016-11-25-bk.html

Story Highlights: Wednesday night's York County Advisory Council meeting was overshadowed by racial overtones.

“I’m white power, to let you know,” Marsik said. “I’m white power. I belong to the white people that fought and died to set the black people free in this country, who fought and died to keep the freedoms in this country, who work hard, who pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, pay their taxes only to see them squandered, OK, by irrational types of behavior by certain communities."

http://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/local/2016/11/16/racial-tensions-threaten-boil-over-human-relations-meeting/93994464/

flush em out

Is there any reason at all at this point to assume that all police departments are not infested by, or controlled by, people like this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3953602/Alabama-police-officer-fired-racist-Facebook-post-saying-Michelle-Obama-fluent-ghetto.html

xxp the subtext is rapidly becoming text.

btw the aftermath on that Chili's story upthread:

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/restaurants/2016/11/13/man-got-free-veterans-day-meal-cedar-hill-chilis-manager-took-away

you guys

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/i-voted-for-trump-so-there-white-shopper-melts-down-after-black-workers-ask-her-to-pay-for-bag/

lol

"You standing there with your baby thinking that’s okay”

WITH YOUR BABY

LITERALLY thinking that's ok

The best I can ask of the racist dystopia my country is hell-bent on being is that it makes me laugh really fucking hard as it works its way around to oppressing me.

“You’re a liar, I don’t care, because I’m a consumer,” she shouts at an employee.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune publishes story about Mall of America's first black Santa, the predictable happens: https://twitter.com/stribgillespie/status/804532412613087232

Good suggestions in the replies to that tweet - only let paid subscribers comments online, but make them visible to everyone.

lol ulysses

Three years since Megyn Kelly's "And by the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white."

remember when she was as bad as it got? 2014 seems very very far away now.

i don't know if this belongs here but i know that if the guy that CONFESSED to the shooting was black he sure as hell would not have been released .

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/joe-mcknight-shooter-released-charged-article-1.2895977

WHAT THE FUCK. I can't even find any explanation or attempted justification for releasing him.

If you'd like more information on the investigation (feel free to disseminate far and fucking wide):
Jefferson Parrish Sheriff's Office Homicide Division - 504-364-5300
Colonel John N. Fortunato, Commander, Public Information Office - 504-363-5521

first words out of the sheriff's mouth at the press conference are the he will arrest and imprison protesters .

what a fucking dick this sheriff is . strange vibe to this thing

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/12/watch_live_sheriff_normand_pre.html

wtf does social media have to do with anything and why is he even talking about that?