Down here in south Texas we have a radio station (well, probably more than one) where the DJs are ignorant, stupid bastards. They play decent music some of the time, but I don't think I'll be listening to them any more. I think they must listen to right-wing talk radio in their off time, because back during the election they were allowing people on the air to propagate all the lies about Obama that were going around at the time, like he was Muslim and wasn't a citizen, etc. This isn't supposed to be a right-wing talk radio. It's supposed to play music from the "80's, 90's and today" but the DJs seem to like to inject their own political and religious persuations into what's supposed to just be music.
Now don't ask me why I continued to listen to the station after that. I guess because there just aren't any other stations that play music I like. Well from now on I'll go with the radio off before I listen to their stupid asses. The reason? Yesterday I read about some minority children that were asked by a private pool to leave. It sounded like they knew how many children there were, but when the members using the pool saw they were black and hispanic, they pulled their children out of the pool and went and complained. The people who ran the pool then refunded their money and asked them to never come back. They tried to say they didn't have the capacity to deal with that many kids. WHAT? You have got to be kidding me. I'm sure they knew how many kids were involved when they arranged for them to come. I'm sure the question was asked, "how many kids do you have?" I'll bet what wasn't asked was "what color are the kids?"
Now you may ask why I'm mad at the radio station? The DJs (who are white) dismissed this as being "overblown" and that there's no racism in the 21st century. Excuse me? I'm from western North Carolina, where there are still Klan up in the mountains. So what the fuck ever. You want to be so stupid and ignorant and think that, you can bite my ass. I know for a fact that country clubs discriminate against minorities, and find ways around laws so they don't have to accept minorities into them. So again, whatever. The DJs here are ignorant assholes and I pray they never know what it's like to be discriminated against. People are so quick to forget history. My mother, yes, my mother, went to a segregated school. She'll be sixty this year. That's not even very old. It wasn't even that long ago they were lynching black people in the south, in my mother's lifetime! And these DJs have the temerity, the cojones to dare to say that it's magically all gone? Fuck them.
You see, racism isn't gone. It's swept under the rug and that makes it more dangerous, because if we deny there's a problem, then there's never any justice. I believe there's an old adage, that sunlight is the best disinfectant. In 1955, when my mother was five years old, a fourteen year old boy by the name of Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman. His mother insisted on an open casket, so that the world might see the brutality of the killing. If we just sweep it all under the rug, if we don't take a stand and say, no, it's not right what you're doing, then we are just as guilty as the people who perpetrate the crime, whether it's discriminating from a job or beating someone or telling a group of elementary aged students they can't swim in the same pool as the rich white kids.
The greater crime here isn't the fact that the private pool kicked the poor minority kids out. The greater crime here is the ignorance that says there's not a problem.
Showing posts with label kkk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kkk. Show all posts
Friday, July 10, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Racism and the Grand Old Party
Okay, so not all Republicans are racist obviously. But for some strange reason, racists seem to flock to the party like geese to Canada in the summer. So it really comes as no surprise to me that a long time Republican activist, Rusty DePass of South Carolina, made the comment a few days ago that an escaped gorilla was one of Michelle Obama's ancestors. He then tried to cover his ass by saying that the First Lady had said herself that we were all descended from apes. Remember they hate evolution too. No one has found where the First Lady said this either, and I doubt that she said anything like it. And at any rate, in this case, this has nothing to do with evolution, but rather with a long standing tradition that black people are just one step above being a monkey, and are obviously not human.
This isn't the first time that rude, racist comments have been said, if you recall former Senator George Allen of Virginia, called a democrat volunteer of Indian descent "macaca" a clearly racist pejorative. He claimed he didn't know what it meant. Yeah right. At any rate, it destroyed his political career on the national stage. In the end he lost his seat, but not because he's a racist. Indeed, he was narrowly defeated by Webb who held a mere one third of one percent (0.3%) more votes than Allen. All of those people who voted for Allen didn't care that he was a racist, probably because most of them were racist as well.
Many people act like racism isn't a problem any more, that it's something that was a problem a long time ago but isn't now. Usually this view is espoused by the ones who are racist. They don't want a spotlight shown on their beliefs, so it serves them well if most people think that it really isn't a problem. Where I grew up in the south out in the countryside, there are still Klan. I knew plenty of people in high school who were virulently racist, and would say terrible things, like "the only good n____ is a dead n____." And they'd get away with saying things like that because the administration was probably racist too. I also recall a kid on the bus who told this other kid that there were probably black people in his family tree, and I remember the other kid getting really angry, and saying that there "ain't no n____ in my family!". He threatened to beat the kid up if he didn't take back the statement that he could have ancestors that were black. That was in the 90s, it hasn't been that long ago. These are things that I saw and heard first hand, so I know good and well the reality of it. And those people are still there, most of them have had a few children now, and are passing their hate on to them.
This isn't the first time that rude, racist comments have been said, if you recall former Senator George Allen of Virginia, called a democrat volunteer of Indian descent "macaca" a clearly racist pejorative. He claimed he didn't know what it meant. Yeah right. At any rate, it destroyed his political career on the national stage. In the end he lost his seat, but not because he's a racist. Indeed, he was narrowly defeated by Webb who held a mere one third of one percent (0.3%) more votes than Allen. All of those people who voted for Allen didn't care that he was a racist, probably because most of them were racist as well.
Many people act like racism isn't a problem any more, that it's something that was a problem a long time ago but isn't now. Usually this view is espoused by the ones who are racist. They don't want a spotlight shown on their beliefs, so it serves them well if most people think that it really isn't a problem. Where I grew up in the south out in the countryside, there are still Klan. I knew plenty of people in high school who were virulently racist, and would say terrible things, like "the only good n____ is a dead n____." And they'd get away with saying things like that because the administration was probably racist too. I also recall a kid on the bus who told this other kid that there were probably black people in his family tree, and I remember the other kid getting really angry, and saying that there "ain't no n____ in my family!". He threatened to beat the kid up if he didn't take back the statement that he could have ancestors that were black. That was in the 90s, it hasn't been that long ago. These are things that I saw and heard first hand, so I know good and well the reality of it. And those people are still there, most of them have had a few children now, and are passing their hate on to them.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Right-Wing Extremists a danger? Really?
What was that a few months back, when the Justice Department caught hell for warning about right wing wackos? What was that? Oh yeah, looks like they were correct in their reasoning, obviously, as anyone with half a brain would realize. I wonder who was pissed about that assessment? Could it be the right-wing wackos who seem to always be ranting at the top of their lungs? Quite a few people owe Janet Napolitano an apology.
By the way, Stephen T. Johns and the other guards who stopped this ignorant, poor excuse for a human being, are heroes. If it hadn't been for them, countless other innocent people would have died.
Oh, and James von Brunn isn't alone. Just look at the white supremacist forums if you dare. I came across one by accident in a Google search of his name. They're lauding him as a hero. I don't know how such sorry excuses for life can sleep at night. They obviously have no empathy and no conscience. That's the mark of a serial killer, the mark of a despot. People who would kill other human beings and not feel any remorse whatsoever, I don't even have any words for that sorta crap.
Alleged gunman charged in museum shootingThis guy, James von Brunn, who murdered the guard, he was also ranting online about how Obama wasn't born here, following the usual right-wing diatribe bullshit. You know, just like what Faux News was saying. Same shit. I know where he gets his news from.
By BRETT ZONGKER and CALVIN WOODWARD
Security Guard Dies After DC Museum Shooting
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An 88-year-old white supremacist has been charged with murder for killing the security guard who had opened the door to let him into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum, officials said Thursday...
In his car, officers found a notebook with a handwritten note saying, "You want my weapons - this is how you'll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews," according to a court affidavit...
By the way, Stephen T. Johns and the other guards who stopped this ignorant, poor excuse for a human being, are heroes. If it hadn't been for them, countless other innocent people would have died.
Oh, and James von Brunn isn't alone. Just look at the white supremacist forums if you dare. I came across one by accident in a Google search of his name. They're lauding him as a hero. I don't know how such sorry excuses for life can sleep at night. They obviously have no empathy and no conscience. That's the mark of a serial killer, the mark of a despot. People who would kill other human beings and not feel any remorse whatsoever, I don't even have any words for that sorta crap.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tom Tancredo and the Broken Window: A Tale from UNC-CH
Tancredo got run off from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, by a small, broken window pane. Apparently some students protested the fact that a Nazi-style club called "Youth for Western Civilization" invited him to come and give what amounts to a hate speech against illegal immigrants and their children receiving in-state tuition. You can see the video on the link to their site there. It's mostly boring, but worth watching I suppose, if only to see the persecution complex these people have.
Tancredo is an ass. He believes that immigrants should give up their culture, language and identity if they want to come live here and that they should forget their native language and speak English. Tom Tancredo, tu es un grand imbécile. Anyway, what makes this stupid and ironic, is that the first generation of his ancestors probably didn't do so. He isn't Native American, so I really don't know what his problem is. We are a nation of immigrants. Some of mine came here before there were laws concerning immigration, in 1638. The first generation of immigrants often don't learn the language, and they usually don't fully assimilate. It is possible, but not likely, unless they have means. The poor are typically disadvantaged in this area. They usually don't have the resources to spend on classes to learn English, nor do they have the time when they work to support themselves. The poor probably don't even have an education in their own language, so to expect them to learn English is a stretch, unless you're going to fund it, and help them with it. Now the second generation of immigrants are usually more at home here. Often by the third or fourth generation, they have no ties to the original country. As my father used to tell me, have some patience, things take time.
What this all boils down to is an underlying hatred of dark skinned people, or people of other religions. It used to be the Irish Catholics (no Irish need apply) that caught all sorts of discrimination when they immigrated here in the late 19th century, now it's mostly Catholic Hispanics from central and south America.
I am a firm supporter of education, and these people have already risked life itself in search of what we take for granted every day. I truly believe that this world would be a better place if people would put themselves into the shoes of others, if only for a moment, to think about the struggles they must have faced. To imagine for a moment, the shoe on the other foot. If a university wants to allow them to apply as residents because they have lived in the state for more than a year or for scholarships, they should let them. It should be up to the university, not up to racist demagogues.
Now, the protesters perhaps weren't as effective as they could have been. I'm assuming the window was broken on accident. It was reported that someone hit on it with their hand too hard, not that they threw anything through it. As much as it pains us, we have to let even racists bastards speak. Packing the room in silence wearing all black and carrying small signs would have gone further in my opinion.
As for the person who took the video comparing this to Kristallnacht. Shame on you, sir! Some stupid college student accidentally breaking a ten inch square window does not even begin to compare to thirty thousand Jews being rounded up and taken to concentration camps and having their property confiscated. And it's even more ironic that this person's organization promoting western "culture" rings of the rhetoric of the Hitler Youth. And their logo, an arm in black and white holding what looks like a war hammer, struck me as familiar in style and design. One of the Hitler Youth's flags was an eagle holding a hammer, also in black and white. Go figure. If that's the style they're going for, they've accomplished it.
As an aside, I'm from North Carolina. They don't mess around with racists down in Chapel Hill. Those of us from that area remember the race riots, and the Greensboro massacre. There's a ton of KKK and Christian Identity around there, who are violent and hate immigrants and blacks. All it takes is a single word to act as a spark to set everyone off. It's like screaming "FIRE" in a crowded theater. Tancredo should go and think hard on what he says. He should truly re-examine his life. I have an idea that he doesn't really believe what he says all that much, except that it wins him support and followers from the haters. If he truly was willing to fight for what he says he believes, a broken window wouldn't have deterred him.
Tancredo is an ass. He believes that immigrants should give up their culture, language and identity if they want to come live here and that they should forget their native language and speak English. Tom Tancredo, tu es un grand imbécile. Anyway, what makes this stupid and ironic, is that the first generation of his ancestors probably didn't do so. He isn't Native American, so I really don't know what his problem is. We are a nation of immigrants. Some of mine came here before there were laws concerning immigration, in 1638. The first generation of immigrants often don't learn the language, and they usually don't fully assimilate. It is possible, but not likely, unless they have means. The poor are typically disadvantaged in this area. They usually don't have the resources to spend on classes to learn English, nor do they have the time when they work to support themselves. The poor probably don't even have an education in their own language, so to expect them to learn English is a stretch, unless you're going to fund it, and help them with it. Now the second generation of immigrants are usually more at home here. Often by the third or fourth generation, they have no ties to the original country. As my father used to tell me, have some patience, things take time.
What this all boils down to is an underlying hatred of dark skinned people, or people of other religions. It used to be the Irish Catholics (no Irish need apply) that caught all sorts of discrimination when they immigrated here in the late 19th century, now it's mostly Catholic Hispanics from central and south America.
I am a firm supporter of education, and these people have already risked life itself in search of what we take for granted every day. I truly believe that this world would be a better place if people would put themselves into the shoes of others, if only for a moment, to think about the struggles they must have faced. To imagine for a moment, the shoe on the other foot. If a university wants to allow them to apply as residents because they have lived in the state for more than a year or for scholarships, they should let them. It should be up to the university, not up to racist demagogues.
Now, the protesters perhaps weren't as effective as they could have been. I'm assuming the window was broken on accident. It was reported that someone hit on it with their hand too hard, not that they threw anything through it. As much as it pains us, we have to let even racists bastards speak. Packing the room in silence wearing all black and carrying small signs would have gone further in my opinion.
As for the person who took the video comparing this to Kristallnacht. Shame on you, sir! Some stupid college student accidentally breaking a ten inch square window does not even begin to compare to thirty thousand Jews being rounded up and taken to concentration camps and having their property confiscated. And it's even more ironic that this person's organization promoting western "culture" rings of the rhetoric of the Hitler Youth. And their logo, an arm in black and white holding what looks like a war hammer, struck me as familiar in style and design. One of the Hitler Youth's flags was an eagle holding a hammer, also in black and white. Go figure. If that's the style they're going for, they've accomplished it.
As an aside, I'm from North Carolina. They don't mess around with racists down in Chapel Hill. Those of us from that area remember the race riots, and the Greensboro massacre. There's a ton of KKK and Christian Identity around there, who are violent and hate immigrants and blacks. All it takes is a single word to act as a spark to set everyone off. It's like screaming "FIRE" in a crowded theater. Tancredo should go and think hard on what he says. He should truly re-examine his life. I have an idea that he doesn't really believe what he says all that much, except that it wins him support and followers from the haters. If he truly was willing to fight for what he says he believes, a broken window wouldn't have deterred him.
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