Rolling Thread on Race 2020

that's... one reading of it

maybe none of us rc

The man on the right isn’t Derek Chauvin. He isn’t a cop. He is Jonathan Lee Riches, a notorious con man, troll and prankster, not to mention the "world's most litigious man." Riches injects himself, indefensibly, into tragic news events, even if it means going to prison. https://t.co/Y66mXihrYB

— Luke O'Brien (@lukeobrien) May 27, 2020

sorry for introducing that into the thread. shit is bad enough without introducing whatever the hell is going on with that dude

(but thank you to symsymsym and frogbs for pointing it out)

iirc the old guy came up to the kid and the internet libs went crazy about a minor making a face that reminded them of bullies in high school. that incident imo was shameful

what the fuck is wrong with you

just credulously (I hope) repeating the 4chan/fox news line here

oh no don't cancel me plz mister

too late

did you get outraged over that scary muslim woman yelling at poor pregnant chelsea too

on a lighter (?) note, here's Christian Cooper's measured response following Amy Cooper's firing
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/nyregion/amy-cooper-dog-central-park.html

“I am one of the few male African-Americans who birds the Ramble regularly,” he said. “And I have always been aware that if I am crawling around behind a shrub trying to catch a glimpse of that rare bird, holding a metal object in my hands, I will be perceived differently than a white man if police come across that scene. I didn’t want to kowtow to that, I didn’t want to give it any power,” he added. “I am pretty adamant about not being a participant in my own dehumanization.”

“It’s a little bit of a frenzy, and I am uncomfortable with that,” he said. “If our goal is to change the underlying factors, I am not sure that this young woman having her life completely torn apart serves that goal.”

or, alternately, Damon Young's brief meditation on forgiveness

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/thoughts-on-forgiving-amy-cooper-aka-darth-karen-who-1843701476

^^^v thought-provoking and dignified piece

I have to admit I'm almost convinced by that.

enjoyed that quite a bit

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/black-parents-children-safety-talk-blake/index.html

WNYC putting David Brooks on to talk about moral leadership is odious

feel like wnyc has lost their way a bit

And I’ll just leave this here.

And not one of these other actors spoke up for me and the fact I was not on here, being as well known as most of them. pic.twitter.com/z3t3rXPBNy

— Noel Clarke (@NoelClarke) May 29, 2020

poor Mickey!
naw really that is lame

FYI: I’m not impressed with the violence. I’m not impressed with the looting… I am Fn Happy as Hell!! That the people finally Stood Up Nationally to the BS..

— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) May 31, 2020

Meanwhile, in Britain:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/uk-police-accused-of-targeting-black-people-during-lockdown

xp: I have never been so uncomfortable surrounded by NYPD as when I attended Ice-T's Body Count show in the '90s, which brought out extra "Cop Killer" Blue Wall ... not until OWS. It sort of crystallized my contempt for cops.

and i share that, but now is when the world needs cops like you would be, because still, imo.

Skai Jackson is spending the day on Twitter ruining the lives of racist high schoolers by identifying them along with their online racism and it's kind of hilarious

In more direct news, one of my coworkers is fundraising for the Black Lives Matter Foundation

https://www.gofundme.com/f/zdku77-black-lives-matter

Here is a weird one. my friend (who is white), just posted a graphic today of an exchange with a business owner, calling for boycott. one of his employees has a picture of a license plate that says Florida Cracker, and the friend claims that cracker means "slave owner", and thus this employee is bragging about being a slave owner. when she reported it tot he owner, he was confused, so she posted the conversation and asked us to boycott the business since he didn't terminate or discipline the employee.

I can't find any corroboration on the idea of cracker meaning "slave owner", as it was usually used to describe poor white people, plus it runs counter to what I've always been told about what 'cracker' mean, and I've always understood "Florida cracker" to be something completely different. Am I missing something?

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/01/197644761/word-watch-on-crackers

https://tampamagazines.com/florida-cracker-cowboys-history/

Yeah I think your friend is confused. They will feel pretty bad when they figure it out

In Florida, we don't leave crackers on the counter for fear of ants and roaches iirc

on the plus side, though, last week she did get an unrepentant, virulent FB racist who was saying some really vile shit fired from a local eatery after going to the owner and sharing the employee's dirty work with him so....I commend her for that.

lol Alfred

I always thought cracker = whip-cracker and def associated with slavery in that sense, like enforcer if not owner

in fact I never really gave it this much thought before but I wonder if it has an even more nuanced meaning, like the "cracker" is not the rich white slave owner, but the lower status white who takes the job as enforcer and deserves special contempt for taking the side of the oppressor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(term)

sounds like maybe all of the above

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(term)

xp lol, sorry man alive

just saw that.

compounding things even more is this person's plate clearly said Florida Cracker, which....is apparently its own separate thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker

ugh slang is so confusing

I suppose I assumed “cracker” came from crackers the food being uh. White-ish. And dry.

Good craic.

xpost i like that reading.

I think it's a good example of how multi-layered language can be. Like it may well be that certain southern whites were referred to as "crackers" for reasons having nothing to do with whip-cracking or being white and dry like a cracker, and that the same term was also repurposed for its double entendre.

ftr although I am white I am not dry, I’m quite oily

my pores are terrible lately.

pore whites

Cautiously optimistic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/lynching-federal-hate-crime.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR2TwOoJvvDHnyTejdeEq63cmIje3J0DcYQX4uESG1_lYduE5c55srfWCjk

that story's from 2018, I won't spoil things for you if you're not caught up yet

a point answered on another thread:

Raymond that appears to be from 2018?

― sleeve, Sunday, June 7, 2020 10:39 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah there was a Lynching bill that passed the Senate unanimously in 2018, but it expired because the House didn't pass it by the time Congress ended, and that's what the article is talking about. the current bill is a revised version of the 2018 bill, which is why Kamala Harris was incredulous that Rand Paul was objecting to it now.

― I am a free. I am not man. A number. (Neanderthal), Sunday, June 7, 2020 10:43 PM (forty-six minutes ago)

It's been really fascinating to watch my (soon to be former) neighborhood fb group wrestle with black lives matter and the protests. My neighborhood is sort of the crossroads of mainstream liberal professional nyc and conservative queens, with a small streak of leftism there as well, and it is also strikingly white and asian - it's about 15% hispanic and only 3% black. Someone today, a white BLM supporter who I think is new to the area, started a thread to ask about why the neighborhood has so few black people, and it was sort of refreshing to have someone just come right out and ask that question. Some people posted very good sources on historical discrimination, neighborhood opposition to low income housing, but of course many, many people tried to avoid the question -- most typically either by bringing up some *other* form of discrimination ("____ used to exclude Jews" "I got called [asian slur] by a lady on the bus") or with the classic "our neighborhood is diverse!" -- meaning it has white people, asians, and a slightly visible minority of hispanic people and a significant number of foreign born residents, but of course that wasn't the question, the question was why are there so few black people.

The lynching bill is a perfect example of Mitch McConnell using someone else as a shield to cover his own bullshit. If they stopped trying for a unanimous vote and just put it on the floor, it would pass and Paul's objection would be meaningless. However, because of the symbolism involved in getting a unanimous vote, McConnell can now just shrug and go "oh well, there's a holdout; let's see if we can change his mind, wink wink nudge nudge" and just let the bill die.