Racism is alive and well, Thanks Trump and his supporters!

[Athos_131]

Let the Gaslighting Commence: Covington Catholic High School Edition

Here’s how we should know that what this young man is asserting above is nothing more than a weak attempt at revisionist history at best, and classic gaslighting at worst:

I taught high school music for 10 years, and took more kids on more off-campus field trips, band and solo festivals, concerts, auditions, honor band weekends, football games, marching band competitions, jazz band festivals, musicals, all-counties, all-states, and other various and assorted events than I can remember.

Under no circumstances, if we had been confronted while on a school-sanctioned field trip by a group of protesters shouting derogatory comments at us, would I have allowed or encouraged my students to respond in kind by shouting “school spirit chants” back at the protesters. All that does is escalate a potentially dangerous situation. It’s basically “Field Trip 101”–when bad, strange, or potentially dangerous stuff starts happening, get out of there.

Any teacher or administrator worth their school lunch would have quickly hustled those kids out of that location, making sure that no knuckleheads in their group started doing exactly what this kid says he asked his “teacher chaperones for permission” to do. I’ve seen other groups of kids pull this kind of stunt while on trips, and it always backfires–raising tensions, inflaming emotions, and egging on individuals with little impulse control to indulge their worst instincts. And it always seems to come from groups of students from “privileged” schools–kids who were born on 3rd base but are convinced they’ve hit a triple.

I’m not saying the Covington Catholic teachers didn’t give the kids permission to start their chants, because there is clearly an appalling lack of good judgement at this school, and among the school’s teachers and administrators–as evidenced by the fact they were on this “field trip”–to protest women’s right to control their own bodies–in the first place. That’s bad enough–full stop.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

High School Whose Students Taunted Predominantly Black School With Trump Flag Dropped Out Of MLK Day Tourney

What a sad scary time to be a young, upper-class, white male. Thoughts and prayers.

#Resist

[_priapism]

Let the Gaslighting Commence: Covington Catholic High School Edition

Here’s how we should know that what this young man is asserting above is nothing more than a weak attempt at revisionist history at best, and classic gaslighting at worst:

I taught high school music for 10 years, and took more kids on more off-campus field trips, band and solo festivals, concerts, auditions, honor band weekends, football games, marching band competitions, jazz band festivals, musicals, all-counties, all-states, and other various and assorted events than I can remember.

Under no circumstances, if we had been confronted while on a school-sanctioned field trip by a group of protesters shouting derogatory comments at us, would I have allowed or encouraged my students to respond in kind by shouting “school spirit chants” back at the protesters. All that does is escalate a potentially dangerous situation. It’s basically “Field Trip 101”–when bad, strange, or potentially dangerous stuff starts happening, get out of there.

Any teacher or administrator worth their school lunch would have quickly hustled those kids out of that location, making sure that no knuckleheads in their group started doing exactly what this kid says he asked his “teacher chaperones for permission” to do. I’ve seen other groups of kids pull this kind of stunt while on trips, and it always backfires–raising tensions, inflaming emotions, and egging on individuals with little impulse control to indulge their worst instincts. And it always seems to come from groups of students from “privileged” schools–kids who were born on 3rd base but are convinced they’ve hit a triple.

I’m not saying the Covington Catholic teachers didn’t give the kids permission to start their chants, because there is clearly an appalling lack of good judgement at this school, and among the school’s teachers and administrators–as evidenced by the fact they were on this “field trip”–to protest women’s right to control their own bodies–in the first place. That’s bad enough–full stop.

#Resist

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[Athos_131]

Covington Catholic kids defend wearing blackface on Fox News: ‘It’s just showing school spirit’

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

‘It’s just showing school spirit’

So, the school colors are black, and blue?  Probably so the bruises don't show from all the bullying.  That kind of atmosphere of intolerance breeds violent abusers.  Once you get rid of all the "Homos" the bullies turn on anyone perceived to be a "Homo."  

[Athos_131]

Four charged with having explosives, plotting to attack Muslim community

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Is Trump a Racist?

King, who has a long history of making racist remarks — and who once claimed that some immigrants had “calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert” — wasn’t expelled from Congress after his comments were published by the Times, but was removed from all his committee seats in the House of Representatives. Other representatives are calling for his resignation.

But if King has been punished for his remarks, should Trump, who has also made racist comments, be punished as well? Can a president be punished in the same way as a lawmaker?

In a recent episode of “60 Minutes,” Anderson Cooper asked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman congresswoman from New York, if she thought Trump was a racist. Her answer was unequivocal: “Yeah, yeah. No question.”

Later, on Twitter, the 29-year-old representative — the youngest woman ever elected to the House — went into more detail: “The president defended neo-Nazis who murdered a woman in Charlottesville. The Department of Justice sued him for not renting to black tenants. He launched his campaign by calling Mexicans ‘rapists.’ He banned Muslims. The president is racist. And that should make you uncomfortable.”

Trump did indeed kick off his presidential campaign in June 2015 by focusing on Mexican immigrants. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

That is an openly racist remark.

But there’s more. In 2016, Trump suggested that Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge then presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University, could not be impartial due to his ethnicity. Trump said in a CNN interview then that the case represented a conflict of interest because Trump wanted to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and Curiel was “of Mexican heritage.”

Believing that someone cannot do their job well because of their racial or ethnic background is one of the worst manifestations of racism. And that’s the thinking Trump played into. (It should be clarified that Judge Curiel, whose parents are Mexican, was, in fact, born in the state of Indiana.)

The president doesn’t think he is racist. “I’m the least racist person that you’ve ever met,” he said in a TV interview with CNN’s Don Lemon in late 2015.

It’s impossible to get into Trump’s head. I don’t know what’s in there. But I am well aware of what has come out of his mouth. And what I’ve heard are racist remarks.

What kind of punishment does a president who has said such things deserve? The only thing worse than a politician who unashamedly voices his prejudices is a group that tolerates his views, cheers him on and emulates his behavior. We have known about Trump’s racism for a long time, yet some 62 million Americans still voted for him.

But King’s punishment indicates that a change may be coming. I hope it goes beyond that.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

I don't think there's any question at this point, except for racists who want to make excuses, so it's "Not racist."  More specifically, he's a White Nationalist, which is a particularly dangerous form of Racism.

[Athos_131]

The MAGA hat is not a statement of policy. It’s an inflammatory declaration of identity.

The bright red Make America Great Again baseball cap entered the popular culture as candidate Donald Trump’s political swag. It has transformed into an open wound, a firestorm of hate and a marker of societal atavism.

An aesthetically benign baseball cap is a 21st-century grotesquerie.

Has there been in recent memory any other item of clothing — so specific in design and color — that pits neighbors against each other, causes classroom altercations, sparks both rage and fear, and ultimately alludes to little more than a mirage?

Fashion has upset the populace before. Miniskirts were an affront to tradition and decorum. Baggy jeans and hoodies riled the establishment. “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts and pink pussy hats were created to send a message of political protest.

But the Make America Great Again hat is not a statement of policy. It’s a declaration of identity.

The MAGA hat. The acronym reads like a guttural cry. An angry roar. MAA-GAA! It calls out to a time — back in some sepia-tinged period — when America was greater than it is now, which for a lot of Americans means a time when this country still had a lot of work to do before it was even tolerant — let alone welcoming — of them and their kind. Some see an era of single-income families, picket fences and unlocked doors. Others see little more than the heartbreak of redlining, walkers and beards, and the “problem that has no name.”

The past was not greater; it is simply the past. It’s only the soft-focus, judicious edit that looks so perfect and sweet.

In the beginning, the MAGA hat had multiple meanings and nuance. It could reasonably be argued that it was about foreign policy or tax cuts, social conservatism, the working class or a celebration of small-town life. But the definition has evolved. The rosy nostalgia has turned specious and rank. There’s nothing banal or benign about the hat, no matter its wearer’s intent. It was weaponized by the punch-throwing Trump rallygoers, the Charlottesville white supremacists, Trump’s nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Kanye West and proponents of the wall, the wall, the wall.

The hat has become a symbol of us versus them, of exclusion and suspicion, of garrulous narcissism, of white male privilege, of violence and hate. For minorities and the disenfranchised, it can spark a kind of gut-level disgust that brings ancestral ghosts to the fore. And here, in 2019, their painful past is present.

The MAGA hat speaks to America’s greatness with lies of omission and contortion. To wear a MAGA hat is to wrap oneself in a Confederate flag. The look may be more modern and the fit more precise, but it’s just as woeful and ugly.

To wear the hat, is to take on history and divisiveness. Because whatever personal meaning might be attached to the hat, the new broader cultural meaning overrides. It is too late to save the hat from this fate. And it’s too soon to try to reclaim it and give it new life.

The hat figured prominently in the viral video of young Nick Sandmann’s eye-to-eye encounter with the elderly Native American drummer, Nathan Phillips, at the Lincoln Memorial. Sandmann stood his ground. He had every right to remain there, the high schooler said during an interview on “Today.” Sandmann did not seem to consider whether it was actually the right thing to do.

How drastically his appearance changed from the fateful moment on the Mall to his appearance on national television. The world met Sandmann when he was wearing a red MAGA hat and a quilted parka. His mouth was turned up in a thin, wide smile that occasionally expanded into a toothy one. When he appeared on television to defend himself against accusations of racism and disrespect, he wore a heather gray zip-front pullover and a button-down shirt. His short brown hair was shiny. His large eyes rarely blinked. His voice was flat. The MAGA hat was gone.

Journalist Savannah Guthrie asked him whether he thought the public outrage over his behavior might have been different were it not for the hat. “That’s possible,” Sandmann said, which was his most self-aware utterance of the interview.

Last year, Kanye West knew that he was tossing a hand grenade into the social media universe when he tweeted a photograph of himself wearing a MAGA hat. It was a contrarian moment, an attempt to get a rise out of people — and, of course, he did.

The hat is a provocation. Is its corrosiveness too much for high school students to understand? No. They have studied American history. They can sort through complex issues related to the Second Amendment, climate change and abortion to not only have an opinion but also organize to change the opinion of others. They are digital natives who understand the power of images. Armed with so much knowledge, it is, perhaps, a more jolting loss, a graver reality, when youth is wrecked by the acid hatred symbolized by a hat.

To deny the hat’s message is to be in denial — not about a misunderstanding or an unfortunate incident, but a familiar, festering truth.

#Resist

[Jed_]

I don't think there's any question at this point, except for racists who want to make excuses, so it's "Not racist."  More specifically, he's a White Nationalist, which is a particularly dangerous form of Racism.

Lindsey Graham sumed it up, ‘He wants people to like him.’  I’ll take it one step further, he wants people to idolize and adore him in every way possible.  To get that adoration, he’s willing to cater to them regardless of how reprehensible the base instincts of his, well base, are.

The racists idolize and adore him with their rabid frothing at the mouth cheering of him at rallies, and that’s what he wants.  So he’ll cater to their desires to continue to get his fix.  He doesn’t bother to parse if it’s wrong or right, such matters are in his mind not worthy of consideration or thought.  Only feeding his narcissism matters.

[psiberzerker]

‘He wants people to like him.’  I’ll take it one step further, he wants people to idolize and adore him in every way possible.  Only feeding his narcissism matters.

Okay, but Racial Nationalists are Megalomaniacs.  (A specific kind of Malignant Narcissist.)  He needs adoration, but the Malignant part of it is also needing Inferiors to stomp down, and build a podium out of their bodies.

[Athos_131]

Florida secretary of state resigns over blackface photos, ‘Katrina Victim’ T-shirt

#Resist

[Colin Piper]

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Saint Augustine

Everyone needs to take a step outside the country they live in for a while to get a sense of how the rest of the world sees it. This discussion amuses and horrifies me.

[Athos_131]

Tom Brokaw apologizes after saying 'Hispanics should work harder at assimilation’

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Police Investigating Attack on Jussie Smollett as Possible Hate Crime

Sources directly connected to Jussie tell TMZ, the actor arrived in Chicago from New York late Monday, and at around 2 AM he was hungry and went to a Subway. We’re told when he walked out, someone yelled, “Aren’t you that f***ot ‘Empire’ n*****?”

The 2 men — both white and wearing ski masks — viciously attacked Jussie as he fought back, but they beat him badly and fractured a rib. They put a rope around his neck, poured bleach on him and as they left they yelled, “This is MAGA country.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Exclusive: Clemson’s Black Players Refused to Accept Donald Trump’s Invitation to the McCookout

But The Root has learned that Clemson’s black players, some specifically citing racism and their disdain for Trump’s divisive politics, passed on the opportunity to hang out with the real-life Mayor McCheese.

The Root spoke with three black Clemson players who each separately confirmed that many players, both black and white, had no interest in making the trip. All three acknowledged that Donald Trump was the reason they chose not to attend. Even more telling, most of Clemson’s white players were in attendance while nearly three-fourths of the school’s black football players took a hard pass on the chance to eat cold fries with the president of people who eat salads from McDonald’s.

#Resist

[joan1984]

UmmHmm... sounds very Chicago, I am sure, to everyone... yep..

Police Investigating Attack on Jussie Smollett as Possible Hate Crime

Sources directly connected to Jussie tell TMZ, the actor arrived in Chicago from New York late Monday, and at around 2 AM he was hungry and went to a Subway. We’re told when he walked out, someone yelled, “Aren’t you that f***ot ‘Empire’ n*****?”

The 2 men — both white and wearing ski masks — viciously attacked Jussie as he fought back, but they beat him badly and fractured a rib. They put a rope around his neck, poured bleach on him and as they left they yelled, “This is MAGA country.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

UmmHmm... sounds very Chicago, I am sure, to everyone... yep..

Fuck off you racist shitbird.

#Resist

[joan1984]

EVERYONE knows white thugs in Chicago are MAGA enthusiasts, right, am I right? This is common knowledge in and about Chicago, or course.

Everyone knows this, and so no one will doubt the harebrained story Athos is pushing, that some random thugs, wearing ski masks (not MAGA hats) recognized a "star" from an obscure show, as they hung around a Subway sandwich store at 2AM, then beat him up... then yelled pro MAGA things at his broken, suffering, still alive... body, as it lay on the frozen street...

Did they tie his sneaker laces together and toss them over phone wires, too? Or is that too much of a NYC thing, not such a Windy City white thug thing...

Did the thugs steal his smartphone, or did he still have it to tweet about his bruised rib...? Must have missed it... I guess...

Did they steal his Subway sandwich? What sandwich did he order?

Does anything ring true about this FAKE NEWS story?

Inquiring minds want to know!

UmmHmm... sounds very Chicago, I am sure, to everyone... yep..

Fuck off you racist shitbird.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

I'm not surprised you are defending a police department that covered up the murder of a civilian by an officer shooting him 16 times, 9 in the back.

The funny thing is if it was gun violence you'd go back to your bullet scarred racist thread.

Don't you have a white sheet to wash before you go have sex with Richard Spencer?

#Resist