Let's talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and how unbelievably fucked up this all is

I read it! But im a fan of the war on punctuation.

the internal gop civil war has started and is over

the worse guys won

don't know if this was posted but a cop's anonymous take on the verdict and zimmerman vigilante types:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/14/1223459/-A-Cop-s-take-on-the-Verdict?detail=email

― adrian "stanky" legg (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, July 16, 2013 12:07 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is really good

never read it in its book-length form, but instinctively i don't buy the judis and texiera argument. nothing is inevitable. gay marriage came out of nowhere (not nowhere but you can see what i mean). i can see a few different right wing ideas taking hold of the consensus just as swiftly.

I haven't figured out a way to explain to racist relatives that "black racism towards white" doesn't exist. They don't want to hear it.

the remark I return to was dropped into McCain's concession speech in 2008: the faintly hectoring way in which he reminded the audience that I don't wanna hear you whine about racism and possibilities for black youth anymore; you got your black president. This sentiment undergirds a lot of the racism I hear.

never read it in its book-length form, but instinctively i don't buy the judis and texiera argument. nothing is inevitable. gay marriage came out of nowhere (not nowhere but you can see what i mean). i can see a few different right wing ideas taking hold of the consensus just as swiftly.

eh demographics are inevitable. but America is the a place where hispanics can turn into right-wing gun-toting 'white people' faster than some people might expect.

i get the sick feeling that this trial represents a surrogate victory over obama in some peoples' minds.

Or a victory for dumbfuckery like this.

i mean, yeah, the enter key is our friend, but i agree with the sentiment. i think the internal GOP civil war hasn't even started yet, and between your dad's country club republicanism and the really dark dark shit i'm not optimistic on the winner.

also slotted into your observations somewhere is that the only people i've seen openly hoping for rioting have been white creeps, and i've seen it a LOT.

― goole, Tuesday, July 16, 2013 2:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, there seemed to be a group of those crepey white folk who were almost wanting to will riots into existence, as if it would give them an opportunity to say "SEE?!!!" in some kind of gotcha moment. For all the talk of 'riot' fears in Sanford, nothing really came of it (at least, nothing unusual for that area). There were demonstrations, but peaceable from the accounts I've heard.

A black friend of mine did express a desire for riots. It was heartbreaking because of who this statement came from. This wasn't someone prone to rage expressing a logical extension of that rage upon the verdict. This is a peaceable guy, one of the friendliest I know. Someone who actually managed to laugh off a clueless group of white power/separatist assholes who for some reason, were allowed to have a merch booth at the Rockstar Mayhem festival. But this trial...broke him. Several people tried to console him, but without much luck. Mostly because you can't say "things will get better" without being dishonest and patronizing in this situation. When assholes are celebrating and setting off fireworks at the verdict, it's hard to say with any level of confidence that things will get better anytime soon :/.

xpost ugh that link is ugggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh

I unfriended family members on FB this week who were complaining about "Obama using the Zimmerman trial to push for more gun control."

i read an article like that, and then see how old its author is and am thankful that he will likely be dead in a decade. fuck that guy

gay marriage came out of nowhere (not nowhere but you can see what i mean). i can see a few different right wing ideas taking hold of the consensus just as swiftly.

― goole, Tuesday, July 16, 2013 2:49 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wouldn't call the decades-long gay rights struggle, of which the fight for gay marriage was a (and, at various points, the) key part, "swiftly."

great post balls

yeah. frightening, but really on point.

as a half-hispanic guy who can easily pass for white, i've struggled to find a place in the discourse over zimmerman & his/the trial's relationship to racism & white supremacy. a friend of mine wrote something i found helpful in locating a place to plant my feet. i wonder if it might help someone else like me.

http://t.co/lb3eaKXi0D

i'm not extremely well read on american politics

but, to me, the thing that seems to drive so much of america today, especially the ugly stuff, is that somewhere along the line the right was able to convince a lot of white males that, although by any reasonable measure they still hold the lion's share of power, wealth, and decision-making in this country, they are somehow "oppressed" by the people LOWER than them on the socioeconomic food chain.

i mean i know this is a fairly obvious observation but i assume it wasn't always like this and does anyone know when this started and how it became so?

reagan

reagan specifically or just that era in general?

they are oppressed because uneducated white males used to have (some) social/economic/etc. power that isn't (always, immediately) allotted to them today. so as minorities and women gained rights in the 20th century, white males did 'lose something'. you mighta been poor and dumb but at least you weren't the one sitting at the back of the bus. etc.

there's a lot on that subject in stayin alive: the 1970s and the last days of the working class--iirc nixon's efforts to snare white working class votes away from the george wallace wing of the party involved attempts to bring the union bosses that hated mcgovern over to the right. eventually he gave up on trying to horse trade with the likes of george meany and tried to make appeals to the resentments of the white working class a direct part of the election strategy.

wow @ at that richard cohen article. just...wow.

i guess you really can be as racist as you want in print as long as you remember to couch it in "i'm not racist, but..." terms.

"you used to have all these nice union jobs and pensions to yourself, now you have to share them with the black man and the mexican man and before you know it, the gay man will be coming for your job"

xp

nixon established this, and the gop hasn't really changed the tune since.

that Kos article was great

"I think what we have in George Zimmerman is a person who very likely has tried to be a police officer many, many, many times but couldn't for some very good reasons. He has probably tried to apply to police departments and could not pass the entry requirements. Now from the surface you would say this is because of his size. You may surmise that he probably couldn't meet the weight or fitness standard. But I disagree. I would wager that Mr. Zimmerman has probably never gotten past the psyche evaluation. I'm sure laws prohibit the release of applicant information but I would bet that he has applied to at least 2 or more sheriff or police departments in the area and has been declined. You see even in a big city it's a relatively small community. Once you begin applying and fail a polygraph or fail a psych, that follows you. Chances are he's failed a few and has likely been blacklisted. Judging from his demeanor and some of the witness statements he may have some delusions as well. As many voter purges as FL has done it is amazing that this man was able to purchase a weapon after an altercation with police and a DV but I assume that is what having a father in law enforcement will get you. Just from the 30,000 foot view Zimmerman probably never should have been able to purchase a gun. Zimmerman never should have held the job that he did. And Zimmerman never should have been able to get away with murder but he did."

xp thanks for that article big hoos (white Latino here)

I wonder if Zimmerman would have been near-universally referred to as white if his last name had been Gonzales

re: nixon and working class votes

a similar theme has played out in the UK too, and i don't think it's just a case of individual political calculations - white working class men won concessions from employers and government in the era immediately before civil rights started to gain traction. white working class men have always been vulnerable to threats of competition from "outsiders" - this goes back to the 19th century in Europe and the US i think

for example Trade Unions historically have been just as concerned with keeping certain kinds of employee out of their trade as they have been with improving workers rights within it

yep

nixon's 'southern strategy' gets way too much talk. what would have happened if Nixon died suddenly before that came into play? the same basic social structure and forces were there.

much <3 to Rev

multixps

white working class men have always been vulnerable to threats of competition from "outsiders" - this goes back to the 19th century in Europe and the US i think

yeah -- to go back even further much of the anti-slavery sentiment in the US in the 1850s was largely based on a perceived threat to free white labor, much more than any humanitarian sentiments.

stevie wonder telling it like it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3i9GSbwgvcQ

and i think likewise we can probably trace back a racial rhetoric exactly the same as today's rightwing hatemongering - if "we" don't keep "them" down then one day soon they're going to overrun us - this kind of race paranoia must easily be as old as slavery

xp the reverse was true too, w/ northerners, esp. in new york city, protesting lincoln and the abolitionists (supposedly) for fear that freed slaves would come north and take jobs

nixon's 'southern strategy' gets way too much talk. what would have happened if Nixon died suddenly before that came into play? the same basic social structure and forces were there.

― iatee, Tuesday, July 16, 2013 7:43 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sure. he wasn't even the primary guy in his own administration to recognize them.

I think Nixon's introduction of the "silent majority" as a concept was pretty influential.

the right was able to convince a lot of white males that, although by any reasonable measure they still hold the lion's share of power, wealth, and decision-making in this country, they are somehow "oppressed" by the people LOWER than them on the socioeconomic food chain.

This was very much in the zeitgeist in the early '70s -- you can see it dealt with on multiple episodes of All in the Family.

eg, Archie: "I didn't have nobody marching in the streets to get me my job."
Edith: "His uncle got it for him."

I also heard plenty of adults in my extended family in New Jersey griping about how blacks were working less, getting more, etc.

it's a central theme of Rabbit Redux iirc

I think it's important to be able to switch back and forth between a "bad as it ever was" historical understanding which sees these racist/othering tactics as predictable and common while also being able to marshall a more emotional and direct response to "right now." It's hard to hold both of those ideas in your mind at the same time but I think for the purposes of being hopeful, effective, and suitably desperate you need to keep them "open" to each other, as it were.

so yea theory and historical analysis risk quietude but I think that risk is sometimes worth running because its the means of figuring out more effective responses to oppression.

i think we can acknowledge that current versions of racist panic have long historical roots and still challenge their current versions, sure - in a way i find some small comfort in the fact that these ideas have existed before because it means they've also been challenged before

The phenomenon happened in Miami in the sixties. Just as blacks entered the low middle and middle class workforce suddenly they had to compete with a hundred thousand Cubans who not only took their jobs but advanced fairly quickly and in ten years had attracted the notice of the GOP. Joan Didion touches on the development in her Miami book.

Interesting piece comparing/contrasting the Zimmerman case w/ Bernard Goetz. The GUardian Angels guy who championed Bernard Goetz thinks Ziommerman is a whackjob.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/12/bernhard-goetz-on-george-zimmerman-the-same-thing-is-happening.html

White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proved by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor. Viewers are encouraged to feel sympathy for the white male home owner who made a mistake. The fact that this mistake led to the violent death of an innocent young man does not register; the narrative is worded in a manner that encourages viewers to identify with the one who made the mistake by doing what we are led to feel we might all do to “protect our property at all costs from any sense of perceived threat.” This is what the worship of death looks like. — bell hooks, All About Love

bell hooks OTM.

tbh the 'capitalism' one is not that unreasonable, the rest otm