Good Morning!
(I am grimly soldiering on, despite the horrifying Red Sox loss to the Yankees last night. Duty calls...)
1 From the “Facts don’t matter to Trump, and facts don’t matter to Trump enemies” files:
1) The New York The Times reported that Secretary of State Pompeo was absent from Washington when Trump announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear deal with Iran, and framed it as a gaffe, headlining the story, “At a Key Moment, Trump’s Top Diplomat Is Again Thousands of Miles Away.” The paper knew why Pompeo was absent, though: he was heading to North Korea make sure that three imprisoned Americans got released and returned home without a hitch. The story under the accusatory headline said so. Pompeo also went to North Korea to arrange a date and venue for Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un. And, of course, Pompeo arriving with some of the benefits of Trump’s tough policy toward North Korea was an excellent backdrop for the Iran announcement.
Ethics verdict: bias and misrepresentation.
2) Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti included transactions by one or more Michael Cohens who have nothing to do with Donald Trump in a report Avenatti released about the President’s personal fixer’s alleged banking transactions. There are already questions being raised about how the lawyer acquired any banking records before legal discovery, but this is just rank incompetence.
3) Yesterday the President tweeted,
“The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success w”e are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?
Wow. What a mess that tweet is!
- Yes, fake news IS working overtime, but
- A recent study showing that 90% (not 91%—jeez, how hard is it to get the figure right?) of Trump’s coverage is negative comes from the Media Research Center, which has a strong conservative bias. The figure sounds plausible, and whether the President’s coverage is 91%. 90% or 80% negative, the bias is unethical and obvious. However “positive” and “negative” are subjective judgments. I’ll wait for the next Pew study, thanks.
- The tweet suggests that “negative” and “fake” are indistinguishable to President Trump. Naturally, his critics jumped all over this, and rightly so. Does he really believe that only positive reporting is accurate, and that all criticism is “fake”? Who knows? Whatever he meant, it was a stupid thing to tweet.
- “Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt?” is a perfectly legitimate question. There is no reason for the White House to be cooperative with news organizations who have announced themselves as practitioners of partisan politics rather than ethical journalism.
- In extreme cases—April Ryan and Jim Accosta come to mind—pulling press credentials could be justified, but not worth the uproar and backlash it would cause politically. If news organizations had proper concern for the health of their own industry and wanted to win back the public trust it has forfeited in the last few years, they should be the ones to ditch hacks like Ryan and Accosta. Trump was trolling, as usual.
4) In yet another tweet a week ago, the President wrote,
“As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail. Stay tuned!”
Stealth Democratic Party organ Snopes was on this like a shot, pointing out that two of the three hostages were arrested after Trump’s term began, so in fact the Obama administration was unable to free only one American from North Korea. Oh. Good catch. Nevertheless, the President’s point is valid even if his facts, as usual, are wrong: Obama couldn’t free an American hostage, and Trump could. Presumably if he couldn’t help one, he couldn’t help three.
This is the perfect Trump tweet controversy, perhaps the best I’ve ever seen. His foes scream, “See? He lies about everything!” and have the facts to prove it. His supporters say, “Oh, so what? He freed the Americans, and did what Obama wouldn’t or couldn’t.” They aren’t wrong.
2. Invitation ethics and ethics zugswang. Before it decided to invite Bill Clinton to its annual philanthropic summit, held yesterday, Town & Country magazine invited Monica Lewinsky. Once it was confirmed that Clinton was attending, Monica was disinvited, prompting this tweet from the ex-President’s ex-sex toy:
dear world:
please don’t invite me to an event (esp one about social change) and ―then after i’ve accepted― uninvite me because bill clinton then decided to attend/was invited.
it’s 2018.
emily post would def not approve.
(Monica is apparently morphing into ee cummings…)
Actually, I’m not sure what Emily would have said. Inviting both Bill and Monica was a gaffe. Having them both at the conference would have been a massive distraction and would also have undermined the purpose of the conference. Obviously having Clinton there was more important to the conference than having Monica. Clinton’s camp claims that Bill never knew Monica was coming and never insisted that she be disinvited. I believe that: I think that once Clinton accepted, the decision was made internally that Lewinsky had to go, and indeed she did have to go.
This was ethics zugswang, with any move being unethical, and not moving at all an unavailable option. The magazine issued an apology on Thursday morning, writing in a tweet, “We apologize to Ms. Lewinsky and regret the way the situation was handled.” In truth, there was no other way to handle it.
It is unfair and tragic that Monica still suffers because a President of the United States abused his power and position for sexual jollies, but the real villain in this case, and always, is Bill Clinton, not Town & Country. It’s high time I designate the Monica Lewinsky scandal an ethics train wreck, because it’s still rolling, and still picking up passengers.
3. ‘We hate you and it doesn’t matter what you do!’ A young African American twitter user called Channn announced,
“So my dads tire blew up on the freeway and this dude, with a confederate flag tattoo, wearing a confederate flag t-shirt, with confederate flag car stickers, stopped and changed our tire. My mind is blown, don’t judge a book by its cover y’all.”
The accompanying photo:
The Horror! Good social justice warriors are supposed to judge books by their covers, people by their tattoos, and citizens by their choice of attire! Thus Tariq Nasheed, film producer, author and racist, tweeted out to 206, 000 followers,
“This here is why parents should teach their children about how white supremacy works at a young age. Just because a SWS does a good deed for an INDIVIDUAL Black person, that doesn’t mean he is not going to stop maintaining SYSTEMATIC white supremacy.”
Got that? The only thing Channn or Nasheed know about this man is that he came to a stranger’s aid in a crisis, but Nasheed, a leader in the black community, concludes that what matters is his skin color. The producer’s prescription for African Americans: teach your children not to trust whites. Even when they are rescuing you.
This is societal poison, and Nashid is far from the only one dumping it into our culture, with predictable results.
Ethics Alarms 
3. From the looks of it, the white dude could be of mixed race. Who knows?
He does look part Irish…
He might even look like what Barack Obama’s son would look like, if he had one.
Stopping to help change a tire of a stranger is no small sacrifice either.
It is, however, cultural appropriation that is totally unacceptable – well, that is, presumed (therefore, truth) cultural appropriation by a “SWS” because, after all, SWSs would NEVER do what the drive-by helper did for the indicated beneficiary (or, “POC-in-need”).
Wait, what does SWS stand for? I found nothing relevant on Urban Dictionary.
I assume the reference is to the Solid Wood Soldiers, a Texas-based white supremacist prison gang, though I didn’t see any SWS symbols in that photo. Or maybe Tariq thinks all whites are secretly members. Or it COULD mean,
SWS Slow Wave Sleep
SWS Sociologists for Women in Society (Kingston, RI)
SWS Safety Warning System
SWS Sturge-Weber Syndrome (birthmark)
SWS Short Wavelength Spectrometer
SWS Stadtwerke Speyer GmbH (Germany)
SWS State Weather Summary
SWS Sniper Weapon System (US Army)
SWS Social Weather Station
SWS Silly Window Syndrome (RFC 813)
SWS Space Warning Squadron
SWS Social Work Services (US Army)
SWS Student Web Service
SWS Safe Water System
SWS Seann William Scott (actor)
SWS Sentient World Simulation
SWS Sour Water Stripper (petrochemical)
SWS Salt Water Sportsman (magazine)
SWS Strategic Weapons System
SWS Software Specification
SWS Sun Web Server
SWS Stuve-Wiedemann Syndrome
SWS Slow Wave Structure
SWS Southern Women’s Show
SWS Special Workplace Statistics (UK)
SWS Solid Waste Section
SWS Scientific Workstation
SWS Sacramento Waldorf School (Fair Oaks, CA)
SWS Service Water System
SWS Soil and Water Sciences
SWS Search Web Service
SWS Semantic Web School
SWS Smokin’ with Superman (band)
SWS Saturn Workshop
SWS Super World of Sports (wrestling circuit; Japan)
SWS South Waziristan Scouts (Pakistan)
SWS Standard Workstation
SWS Sour Water System
SWS Sub-Woofer System
SWS Sliding-Window System
SWS Security Web Service
SWS Salt Water System
SWS Sun Water Systems, Inc (Fort Worth, TX)
SWS SONET WAN Switch (Cisco)
SWS Single Wound Sheet (plastics industry)
SwS Sneaky Weasel Studios (website)
SWS Submarine Warfare System
SWS Strategic Warning Staff
SWS Solar Wind Scintillation
SWS Small Window Syndrome (wireless communications)
SWS Sour Water Service
SWS Sliding Window Switch
SWS Submarine Weapons System
SWS Standard Work Second
SWS Surface Warfare Supervisor (US Navy)
SWS Surface-Wave Suppression
SWS Saltwater Sailing
SWS Smart Workstation
SWS Special Weapons System
SWS Society for Wilderness Stewardship
SWS Strafford Wind Symphony (Rochester, NH)
SWS Stormwind Stockades (gaming, World of Warcraft)
SWS Sustainable West Seattle (forum)
SWS Shear Wave Splitting
SWS Secure Website
SWS Southern Wine and Spirits (Florida)
SWS Social Work Society
SWS Stan Winston Studio (film)
SWS School of World Studies (Virginia Commonwealth University)
Lordy.
My thought was “Southern White Supremacist,” which would make Nashid’s tweet deeply unfair.
Chris, this looks right to me. I think you’ve got it.
Whoa. That’s a lot of meaning to take in one reading.
jvb
Systematic White Supremacists
I’m wrong… Nasheed (And I double checked it, I spelled his name correctly my first comment, the spelling in the post is incorrect) commonly calls everyone that disagrees with him *suspected* white supremacists. Because he suspects everyone is a white supremacist.
He also calls the police “race soldiers”, jails “slave plantations”, and white feminists “shea-butter feminists” fairly regularly. I find the guy hilarious… The people who take him seriously… Less so.
I want to be careful not to appropriate anyone’s culture here (let alone “diss” anyone’s culture) – and frankly, I don’t give a damn if I am ignorant about some things – but…I believe either “Nashid” or “Nasheed” is an acceptable alternative for Anglicized spelling of the same name. I have to admit, I become a little confused by it all, especially when speaking of that city in Tennessee, that “Music Mecca,” i.e., Nashville (N’ashveel? Na’ash-veal? Nash-fil?)
So he sounds a notch or two *less* intellectual than Ta-Nahisi Coates…
Yikes.
I mean… jenkies!
I got a smile from your choice of reaction, taking me back to the Scooby Doo days.
Have a good day, Chris.
SWS, by its context, evidently refers to Systemic White Supremacy (and Systemically White Supremacists). Which leaves me regretting (I’m being sarcastic): If only I could be Artificially white, too; then, along with being Systemically white, I just might make it to Whiter-Than-White! (WTW! Surely, there is a special status and privilege for THOSE whites!)
I don’t see how labeling an individual a systemic white supremacist makes any sense at all.
I would take it to mean “someone who promotes system etc etc”
Well, that just makes his argument circular.
You must not be familiar with Tariq Nasheed. Nothing he says makes sense.
I almost regret thanking you for paying enough attention to him (i.e., wasting your time) to be familiar enough with him to recognize his all-nonsense, all-the-time.
1.4)
This falls under the proverbial:
“Trump’s supporters take him seriously, but not literally. Trump’s detractors take him literally, but not seriously.”
That’s why this one is so perfect.
3. As I’ve asked before: So what exactly IS the way to fix “systemic racism?” What are people supposed to do? It seems like a problem without a solution. What’s a problem without a solution?
Finding a solution is not, and has never been a good faith objective. The strategy is to maintain the accusation forever, guaranteeing special dispensation from responsibility and accountability, and deriving power from white guilt.
I guess that about covers it.
The Horror! Good social justice warriors are supposed to judge books by their covers, people by their tattoos, and citizens by their choice of attire!
To be fair, these were values instilled in me by my church and my conservative elder relatives as well.
Thus Tariq Nashid, film producer, author and racist, tweeted out to 206, 000 followers,
“This here is why parents should teach their children about how white supremacy works at a young age. Just because a SWS does a good deed for an INDIVIDUAL Black person, that doesn’t mean he is not going to stop maintaining SYSTEMATIC white supremacy.”
Got that? The only thing Channn or Nashid know about this man is that he came to a stranger’s aid in a crisis, but Nashid, a leader in the black community, concludes that what matters is his skin color. The producer’s prescription for African Americans: teach your children not to trust whites. Even when they are rescuing you.
Wait, what? He isn’t saying what matters is the rescuer’s skin color. He is saying that what matters is that he’s wearing a giant confederate flag shirt.
And while I think his point is poorly articulated, I think he does have a point. He didn’t say anything like “don’t trust whites;” it’s more accurate to say he was spreading distrust against those who wear the Confederate flag. Since there’s a good case to be made that the Confederate flag is a *symbol* of white supremacy, it’s arguable that wearing it does promote white supremacy, even if that is not the intention.
But Nashid’s framing of this is all wrong. It would be much better to salute the man’s actions here and make clear the possibility that he, like many who wear the Confederate flag, have no idea what it represents to blacks, and if they are “maintaining white supremacy,” they do so with no intent or understanding that that’s what they’re doing. Instead his framing minimizes the man’s noble and ethical action to maximize what he sees as the larger social harm caused by the symbolism of his shirt. Personally, I think that’s a horrible and self-sabotaging strategy for social justice.
“Wait, what? He isn’t saying what matters is the rescuer’s skin color. He is saying that what matters is that he’s wearing a giant confederate flag shirt.”
Perhaps in this context… Sure, but Tariq Nashid calls anyone that doesn’t agree with him a white supremacist. I’m not kidding. If you asked him what his definition of a white supremacist was he would, and I promise you that for once I’m not joking even a little, tell you to look in a mirror.
I’m convinced Tariq suffers from mental health issues, but similarly to the elected official who thinks Jews control the weather to keep urban dwellers under their loafers and that the Warsaw Ghetto was a gated community, the soft bigotry of low expectations, coupled with the certifiable fact that he is hot, has elevated him to a position of leadership.
Doesn’t your suggestion that SWS stands for “Southern White Supremacist” sort of defeat this argument? I think we can all agree that the “W” in SWS stands for white, so your argument that skin color didn’t matter to Nashid looks…unconvincing, even if we assume the best possible spin on the rest of his comment.
I take your point, but it seems to me that black people taking offense to the symbols of the Confederacy aught to be their problem, not the problem of those wearing them.
It’s not my job, for instance, to ensure my black neighbors aren’t offended by my bumper stickers or yard signs. What if I had a Confederate flag bumper sticker, or a “Dixie-Land of Cotton” yard sign (I don’t have either, but just suppose). What right do they have to assail me because of the symbols I choose to display on my property? I mean, I’d get it if I had a “Go Ku Klux Klan!” or something overt like that, but Confederate symbols are a part of Southern culture generally. Do black people have an inherent right, by virtue of their historical suffering, to burden the First Amendment? I don’t think so.
I don’t think we can ever be free of racism as long as people insist that symbols are more important than actual, you know, actions, which is the ground Nashid appears to be occupying right now.
But that’s just me, I guess.
Doesn’t your suggestion that SWS stands for “Southern White Supremacist” sort of defeat this argument? I think we can all agree that the “W” in SWS stands for white, so your argument that skin color didn’t matter to Nashid looks…unconvincing, even if we assume the best possible spin on the rest of his comment.
My argument wasn’t that skin color doesn’t matter to Nashid, it was that his skin color alone wasn’t why Nashid accused him of promoting white supremacy. The Confederate shirt was the main reason, at least if I understood his tweet correctly. .
I’ve little doubt Nashid would argue that blacks can promote white supremacy as well.
I take your point, but it seems to me that black people taking offense to the symbols of the Confederacy aught to be their problem, not the problem of those wearing them.
If the Confederate flag can reasonably be taken as a symbol of white supremacy, then wearing it is unethical.
What right do they have to assail me because of the symbols I choose to display on my property?
Who said anything about “assailing” anybody? We are talking about criticism.
I mean, I’d get it if I had a “Go Ku Klux Klan!” or something overt like that, but Confederate symbols are a part of Southern culture generally. Do black people have an inherent right, by virtue of their historical suffering, to burden the First Amendment? I don’t think so.
Of course not. No one said anything about the First Amendment.
I don’t think we can ever be free of racism as long as people insist that symbols are more important than actual, you know, actions, which is the ground Nashid appears to be occupying right now.
But that’s just me, I guess.
As I said, Nashid is wrong to prioritize the symbol over the action here. That doesn’t invalidate his criticism of the symbol.
So he needs to understand and conform to the black communities view of the flag but his own view is not worthy of the SJW communities understanding?
The black community’s view of the flag is based on the verifiable fact that the Confederacy formed primarily out of fear that Abraham Lincoln was going to outlaw slavery.
Alternate views mostly fall into one of two categories:
1) No it didn’t
2) Ok, it did, but also states’ rights and Southern heritage and so on
I find the black community’s view more compelling.
Having lived in the south for years I can tell you that the flag is flown by the majority as a symbol of their rebellious nature, individuality, and their American spirit.
The lefts opinion is that flying it is a symbol of racism.
These are irreconcilable positions with one group is trying to stifle free speech and the other trying to exercise their rights.
I know why they fly it. That doesn’t change what the Confederacy did and why they existed in the first place.
I’ve explained why the left’s opinion is that the flag is a racist symbol, and you did not engage with that rationale.
While parts of the left are certainly trying to stifle free speech in other ways, I am unaware of how that relates to the Confederate flag issue. Can you explain? Who has proposed banning the display of this flag by individuals?
Heartily agreed. It seems like too many people are willing to acknowledge the possibility for offense to be given innocently- that something I do, with no ill intent, might be something you find very unpleasant.
In an ideal world I’d be informed of this, and have it explained in a way that helps me understand why you find my innocent actions upsetting. I’d then likely take steps to minimize your discomfort.
In the real world, I would generally be accused of being a horrible person who set out to cause you offense. If I said I didn’t mean anything offensive, I’d be called a liar. If I said I didn’t understand how you could find it offensive, “It’s not our job to educate you” is the stock response. Of course, none of this actually helps solve the problem, and leaves me with the feeling that you and your friends are a bunch of crazy jerks who have nothing but the worst intentions about me.
That is why the answer to SJWs is ‘Bite Me’
While that’s satisfying, I do my best to not escalate it further- “Bite Me” just serves to make them sure you’re a horrible person and redouble their efforts. I’d sooner ignore them.
3. I guess no good deed goes unpunished. At least a middle finger earns you your contempt.
I suspect that many, like the man who changed the tire, wears the shirt out of a sense of culture and not for what it once stood for (slavery).
As is the problem with all types of organizations. It is impossible to identify as conservative without some people holding me responsible for the members of the alt-right, Christian without being responsible for the members of the Westbro or Catholic priest incidents, male without being sexist or misogynist, white without being racist, and maybe even heterosexual without being sexual-phobic.
When the Confederate battle flag first started blowing up as a big controversial issue a couple years back, I distinctly remember many people (including myself, although not here) being called liars, racists, and/or fools for saying “Hey, maybe for some people it’s not about racism. If they say that they like it for historical/cultural reasons or as a general ‘stick it to the man’ symbol, maybe we should believe them.”
Not so, was the consensus. WE say it’s about being a racist, and if they say otherwise they’re lying to cover their racism. Evidence to the contrary- such as this- must simply be redefined to be proof. If we allow that this guy likes the flag but isn’t a racist, then we must admit that it is POSSIBLE to like the flag and not be racist, and therefore we cannot decry every instance of the flag as proof of racism. So we must claim that this proves he IS a racist, just a more secret kind.
Can you link to some of those previous discussions? That is not my recollection of the discussions I saw here regarding Confederate flags and icons, but maybe we participated in different threads, or perhaps you’re referring to discussions prior to my engagement here.
It didn’t happen here, it was more among the less rarified comment threads of Facebook and other social media.
Ah, I completely misread your comment. Reading it over again, you did make that clear initially. My apologies.
Nah, no worries. I may generally disagree with your politics but I’ve no interest in shredding you over a misunderstood comment.
The feeling is mutual.
Nashid obviously doesn’t share a key aspiration that MLK spoke about.
Gawd, I hate trumped-up “triggers,” like stars-and-bars flags have become. On the other hand, I am now similarly triggered by “rainbow” flags – and June is coming, so, soon I will have to make my annual purchase for ritual burning. I thank the left for both my sensitivity and my radicalization.
Where do you purchase your Carbon Credit for said burning? I am certain that someone of your commitment to clear air would not burn without one.
I wove a lot of sarcasm and mock hate into my comment, so I neglected to mention how my Carbon Credit Exemption would work; I’ll just keep that a secret, like any good leftist would. (Ultimately, I would invoke the Fifth.)
You get an exception for burning a Rainbow flag. They are made of non GMO low cholesterol Unicorn farts, fairy dust, and, of course, naturally grown fair trade rainbows.
They do not pollute when burned.
SHHHHHHH!!!
This may sound terrible but I’d straight up wear a confederate flag tee shirt before a rainbow one any day. June makes me want to punch a unicorn in the face.
I love you more and more, Mrs. Q! (That’s straight-up, too.)
”June makes me want to punch a unicorn in the face.”
Make it a hook, uppercut, or a roundhouse, a jab or right cross’ll impale yer paw.
My cab driver this morning was listening to the radio. The news at the top of the hour came on. The news announcer’s first words were (I think this is an almost verbatim quote), “President Trump today is claiming credit for the release of three American prisoners in Korea. But many are wondering what his cancellation of the Iran treaty will mean for American prisoners in Iran and for gas prices here at home.” And then they cut to a reporter who played sound bites from various Trump haters.
Seems like Confederate battle flag guy is guilty of appropriating Samaritan culture…
That’s a good one.
Touche’, and it’s about time!
I meant, it’s about time someone appropriated Samaritan culture.
Jack, I feel your pain over that unimportant baseball game last night, and I truly am glad you soldiered on with another great blog post. But, I urge you, even at the risk of being banned from EA, do yourself a favor, give yourself a break, do not watch the game tonight. After all, it is just a game. And, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter if the Yankees throttle the Red Sox yet again (Go Yankees!!!). So, give yourself the night off. Maybe watch C-span reruns, or something equally relaxing. You just don’t need all that stress.
Oops, sorry. That ‘Go Yankees’ thing just slipped in there. Word Press or autocorrect or something.
Yeah, kind of like when Linda Blair shouts “Your mother suck cocks in hell.” Out of her control.
Jack, I hope you’re feeling well (surprised to read you quoting Pazuzu).
Oh, I collect Pazuzu quotes. “Help an old altarboy, Fadda?” “Dimmy! Why you do this to me Dimmy?”
Oh, no. I didn’t take a break when the Sox lost 4 straight games to NY in the “Boston Massacre” on the way to blowing a 14.5 game lead in 1978, or the previous year, when they lost a crucial 1-0 game in Yankee Stadium after Rice, Fisk, Scott and Hobson all hit drives to the left field wall that would have been out of every other baseball park in the US. I cane back after Tony C, my hero, took one in the face, and that same year, after the Impossible Dream season seemed dead when the Sox lost two straight to Cleveland in the last week. And I didn’t take a break in 1989, when the Sox had a 10-0 lead in the 7th and lost the game 13-11. And, of course, when the Red Sox were slaughtered by the Yankees in Fenway to go down 0-3 in the ALCS, and no team had ever come back from that deficit, I not only came back for the next game, but promised mt friends, family and fellow fans that the 2004 team would be the first to come back and win. In 50 years of trauma and disappointment, I never ducked, and that is why, when the Red Sox finally won the Series after 86 years, I got phone calls from friends I hadn’t heard from in years. They knew I had paid my dues.
I yield. You are a much more dedicated fan than I, but I do love these Sox-Yankees series.
Last night – classic of a classic.
Yeah, I’d agree with that. The whole series, really. If those games had been in a World Series, it would be a legend in the making.
I yield. You are a much more dedicated fan than I, but I do love these Sox-Yankees series.
The guy wearing the confederate flag sucks at being a racist.
The guy whose tyres he changed sucks at being a bigot too.
Both succeed at being decent human beings.
May their tribes increase.
I would like to believe that the two guys could sit next to each other at a Red Sox-Yankees baseball game, each rooting for different contestants, and still walk out of the ballpark arm-in-arm and misty-eyed.
”May their tribes increase.”
Copy that, add in the Cajun Navy of Hurricanes Katrina & Harvey fame.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/27/cajun-navy-heads-texas-aid-rescues/606883001/
Reminds me of the line from “Starman” as Starman (Jeff Bridges) says to Mark Shermin (Charles Martin Smith) as he prepares to depart:
“You are a strange species. Not like any other. And you’d be surprised how many there are. Intelligent but savage. Shall I tell you what I find beautiful about you? [Shermin nods]
“You are at your very best when things are worst.
What they are calling systemic is simply a function of culture of the majority in a society.
In an Asian country, there will be systemic injustices for those not of the racial/national majority. (Anyone who thinks otherwise should visit one sometime!) The same in an African country, to a lesser extent (I suspect European colonization had an impact). This is a function (a feature, if you will) of culture itself.
Note this does not make it right. It DOES make it normal, as in ‘status quo.’
We can debate attempts to change injustices in good faith (okay, that sentence made me guffaw, too, but in theory, anyway…) but the things we as a society are being castigated about are normal around the world. They will be normal again once any such ‘revolutionary’ change to our culture and society, as the new majority settles in and years pass. This is human nature.
White guilt is bullshit. See a problem, work to fix it, fine. But painting an entire race with one brush is simply racism and bias. The race impacted will resent it at best, revolt violently at worst, while the new favored race will become what they sought to correct.
Liberals ARE the dominant political and media culture for much of the nation. They have acted as what they always painted ‘The Man’ as being since coming into such power. Human nature again. They systematically repress views they disagree with. They use the full force of the government to illegally and unethically spy on political opponents and unmask Americans incidentally caught up in their National Intelligence net. They use the law to oppress. They favor and disfavor certain races, certain religions, certain political views, and certain gender(s).
They have become what they despised for so many years.
I think this conflates culture with race, which in America is not a rule (though the Left is desperately trying to ossify people into cultures based on race).
That being said, it is NOT wrong for the dominant *culture* of America…that is *American* culture to expect non-American culture to conform and assimilate.
That being said, it is NOT wrong for the dominant *culture* of America…that is *American* culture to expect non-American culture to conform and assimilate.
And yet, some people still fly the Confederate flag.
Didn’t read this.
As long as you’re in a mood to walk back from hot headed red lines about leaving the blog, then you can also walk back from your comment about me being mealy-mouthed.
Until then, don’t expect interaction from me.
What is wrong with that?
The notion that people should conform and assimilate to the dominant culture in America doesn’t comport with the notion that people waving the flag of a treasonous government that fought the United States so that they could hold on to a pretty awful aspect of their own culture aren’t deserving of criticism.
Fair hypothesis. However, it does depend on where you grew up, i.e. your culture. In many places in the South, that flag is just a flag… or was until busybodies started telling other people how they should live. Now it is a ‘fuck you and your fake outrage’ to the busybodies.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and one’s fake outrage over events that no one living’s grandfather witnessed will not impact my behavior one bit. This is known as ‘freedom of speech’ and is falling out of vogue with the progressives these days
PS: In my drive through rural South Texas and along the coast, I saw a great many of these flags, more than in any year in the past. A positive resurgence, if you will. I think this is a reaction to the anti-trump resistance.
also, “…people waving the flag of a treasonous government that fought the United States so that they could hold on to a pretty awful aspect of their own culture…”
Geez, way to have the vapors over ancient history.
“Did you know that Rome actually sacked Jerusalem and razed it almost to the ground!?! Speaking Latin is anti Semitic!”
also, not ‘treasonous’ The states were well within their rights to withdraw from the Union: read the Constitution. The Union were conquerors who forced them back.
When I drove through Mississippi I saw a black man and his son (I assume, based on the age difference) driving in a pick up truck with a big confederate flag sticker in the rear windshield.
“The states were well within their rights to withdraw from the Union”
This has been demonstrated time and again…how can anyone even bring this up as an argument anymore?
It’s bad enough the South departed, within the rights understood to be enshrined in the Constitution, to preserve Slavery…there’s no need to try to pile on the argument by claiming they were engaging in treason.
“I think this is a reaction to the anti-trump resistance.”
Symbols of rebellion are perennial favorites in America. The further in time each generation gets from particular nefarious behavior, the less the nefarious behavior matters and the more the symbolic rebellion is glommed onto.
Who would have ever thought in the 1600 and 1700s that 200-300 years later Pirates would be romanticized and glorified…yet here we are. The same is going for the Confederate battle flag.
On a side note:
There are even dummies who glom onto idols like Che Guevara because he was a “rebel”. The real danger there is that the ideology Che fought for is increasingly mainstream in many increasingly prominent circles. That danger does not exist for the ideology of Pirates or the Confederacy.
T-shirts sold by “capitalist pigs” STILL glorify Che Guevara – just WEIRD.
Hive-minded appropriation of Che’s ideology is a danger, indeed.
For the record, I think the idiot liberals sporting Che Guevara icons are just as bad as, if not worse than, the Confederate flag-wavers.
Even if this was not the case the ‘Stars and Bars’ is a BATTLE FLAG. It was originally adopted after the First Battle of Bull Run. The CSA National flag and the Stars and Stripes looked enough alike in the still air to prompt MANY ‘Friendly Fire” episodes. The CSA adopted the battle flag in an effort to reduce those. The CSA ‘National Flag, in all of its iterations is, in fact, banned as ‘treasonous’…the Battle Flag, not being a National Flag, is NOT banned as it does not represent a government, treasonous or otherwise, but was meant to identify an armed force.
“I think this conflates culture with race”
That is a feature and not a bug. The two are intertwined in most nations, and have been since the Tower of Babel. While this is less apparent in America, the majority of the population has historically been what we would consider ‘white.’
But in America, what some call “white” culture and therefore exclusive to “whites” is NOT. It is “American” culture and therefore available to Americans.