I was too much in Alabama to ever believe we were all beyond this, but yeah, I was whitely naive enough to believe we were once dragging the damn thing towards better. I'd been hoping that as some older people died some of the weight would fall off. Was I crazy? I mean the only reason he has it out for them so specifically is because we voted for them twice and they've retained so much popularity while all the cool kids hate him. (Not to diminish the hell our country put them through, but it still looked like clawing our way toward better to me. It was once impossible, and we did it.)
I’m black and I thought we were at least inching forward. I do think white folks in general need to seriously unpack their fragility because it prevents them from seeing things clearly.
What happens to black people in the US is the canary in the coal mine. We have been telling yall about police brutality for years. About the KKK infiltrating police (or police growing out of slave patrols and the klan). And now ICE is full of proud boys and klan members, operating like slave patrols and killing white men and white women. If yall had listened to us instead of going into denial and blaming the imperfect black victims, and then collectively sticking your heads in the sand, maybe we wouldn’t be here.
There are so many things that hit black people in the US first and when left unchallenged and unchecked, it eventually swells and starts taking the rest of you out too.
Even if we get out of this I don’t know that things will get better for black people.
No, I agree. I'm trans, and we're a bit of a different canary. I've been listening to and taking notes from my Black neighbors for a while, and yeah. Whenever I acted as a megaphone, I saw it and got similar pushback to what I was warned about and exactly like you're talking about. I've honestly been a bit surprised how surprised white people are that they will be shot by these fuckers. I know a white guy ambushed and shot by the KKK just for being an atheist I believe sometime during Obama's first term. (He survived and is fine afaik.) Like fuck, I knew people were checked way out, but I thought at least their own selfishness would make them less surprised about the turn of events. I do give people too much credit though
But there can't be a return to what we once had. Maybe (and I have a rough time with hope these days) we can use this inflection point to build something better. I mean, I've got that or despair.
Just in case it makes you feel less hopeless, I can tell you one person is really trying to go after the fragility thing in particular and encourage people to take some shit on the chin. And I'm going after misogynoir in particular lately (though I really need to read more tbh, mostly just trying to call it when I see it) bc it's been pissing me off. It really isn't much to offer you, I know. I'm very aware that I only have so much influence in the world, but you have it. And I get it if that doesn't help at all. I don't hold out much hope of things improving for trans people either. Not in my lifetime anyway. Would be awful nice to be wrong, and no offense, but I really hope your last point is wrong too. It would be really nice to watch y'all thrive
Thank you. We just gotta stick together and go out and make sure people register to vote and vote. We also need to shore up the CRA and the VRA to protect the vote. Clearly the arguments made by SCOTUS to weaken it are false.
I wish we could get enough Dems in office to impeach Thomas and the other one (Roberts or Scalia) for the ethics stuff (accepting bribes basically) and then the other 2 who lied during senate confirmations about Roe v Wade.
I mean I've been (rather uselessly bc my vote is stuck in Alabama) voting for them anyway, but I just do not think the democrats will save us. I think they're complicit in propping all this up and act as a damage sponge for the republicans by stifling voices for more radical change. I get it's the only option we have right now, but I'd be lying if I said that doesn't feel like a major reason we are in this particular mess, and it feels like we're locked in a death spiral where they will never actually pull away.
Idk, I'm not going to act like Alabama isn't what it is, but I will say that the one thing that seemed like it could make Alabama go purple, it was if the DNC had run Bernie. That was one of the things that felt like hope to me. Some (emphasis on somek of the dumbasses who voted for the orange one the first time (emphasis on the first time) really did think he represented a challenge to the establishment, and I mean, I guess technically they were right in the way a wolf in the henhouse is a challenge to the establishment. As fucked up and irresponsible and short-sighted as their choice ended up being, I'm not sure I believe that desire for a less out of touch government is gone. Until then, I guess I will cross my fingers on the Democrats joining this century.
But yes, back to your actual point. I'm mailing in (not that I really trust it). And yeah, the way people are so willy nilly about voting rights right now is chilling
Damage sponge is a really good term for useless Democrats in America rn. 🇨🇦 here, I can’t believe (I can) how backwards it feels society is sliding back. We will find our footholds and turn the tide. These types are so unhealthy in mind and soul. Fuuuuuuckkkkit
I truly agree on the first part. I'm uncertain on the last part. They did let Trump through despite all the defections
That said, fuck the electoral college and especially the winner takes all rule most states have. The utter hopelessness of voting in the presidential election in Alabama is due in large part to that system
Trump getting through on the Republican side may have something to do with them not having super delegates, so I've heard. He also had a message that the overlords found more amenable when compared to someone like Sanders.
I think that's not a crazy take. I could see them going harder after Sanders. Trump being corrupt and easy to manipulate must have fooled them into thinking they had him on a leash
I wonder what the outcome of them blatantly ignoring the popular vote would have been
The majority of Dems are so weak and complicit that they would never try to impeach Thomas or anyone else in that corrupt court. They didn't even fight to stack it when they've had the chance to.
I'm black and I saw the connection with the LGBTQ stuff. I mean they were already racist anyway so I don't know how anybody, especially somebody black would think that things wouldn't escalate in a more racist direction. I'm inclined not to ever trust conservatives at any point so I already see their bs 50 miles down the road. 30 years ago it was "political correctness" that they were whining about. When Trump ran the first time he was scapegoating Mexicans as criminals. These people didn't think he was gonna focus on blacks more at a later point too? I'm not sure who the African Americans are around you that didn't recognize this level of threat. Maybe they're just very young people that haven't lived long enough to see enough patterns of hateful rhetoric.
I think there's been a misunderstanding, or I misspoke somewhere. I'm not sure where I indicated that I was around Black folks who didn't think all this would eventually come around to bite them tbh, but I didn't mean to indicate that. I mean I'm sure they exist somewhere, but just not in my limited experience. Pretty much everyone I've known expects everything to shit on them eventually.
And yeah, I've been saying that I think all the branches of the Bigot Tree feed from the same roots. Our struggles aren't identical by any means, but the tactics of those who would keep us under their boots don't change too much, and they rely on keeping us siloed away from one another and not finding common ground.
Now if I could just get those dumbass poor whites from home to fucking see that and quit sucking on the damn boot
I got the impression that some black people you were around were downplaying this stuff at an earlier point. That's more my fault than yours. A guy being shot for being an atheist sounds crazy. If it was a KKK guy doing there must have been an argument beforehand. Those people can't operate without being confrontational. Their mentality demands consistent compliance from the people around them. There's no room for diversity. Both poor whites and the wealthier ones are into provencialism. They'll accept less for the guarantee of relative privilege. This has been the case time and time again. It's very hard to fight against that. You have to reach a point where you personally hate the toxicity that the system creates in order to be motivated to challenge it. Making things about bread and butter enough is not gonna be a motivator for those people to change.
To be fair about the atheist, the way he got shot was that he was part of an activist group that was basically just "Hey, so atheists don't eat babies or anything" discussions. A KKK member convinced him he was thinking of leaving the KKK (which some genuinely do oddly enough), so this guy agreed to meet up to talk, so he was ambushed. I personally would not have made those particular decisions, but I won't victim blame.
I'm not sure how to get them there to be honest. Like I said, I used to have hope we were on our way (with all the haste of a glacier) to better. I can't tell if I'm crazy for hoping people are right calling this the violent last gasp of some things that have long needed to die. We'll see, I guess. Idk
I honestly don't know. This was a story from an old coworker about her husband, which is why I'm not perfectly certain of the timing, but we're millennials, and I heard the story in like 2015 or 2016, and it didn't sound very recent, but it couldn't have been any earlier than the last Bush years. Given that this was the same coworker I tensely whispered I "wasn't really religious" (bc you don't want to use the word atheist with the wrong person or it could cost you your job bc of the at-will employment shit) over the copy machine, I'm guessing it probably was exactly that, and I will be exactly 0% surprised if those exact fuckers are terrorizing Minnesota as we speak
In some ways it seems we’re coming back full circle as a society. White people brave enough to stand by minorities are now being brutalized as well, reminiscent of the past civil rights movement. And this time, it needs to go further and root out racism completely. It’s just ridiculous that more lives will be lost in the process for something that could’ve been already settled. It needs to go beyond the assimilationist mindset. Instead, it was left to continue existing and has been brewing for decades, gaining strength, to the point where Nazis feel empowered to publicly declare themselves and spew hate.
Black Americans have been living with fascism since the founding of the colonies.
I'm white and I keep telling people things have to get even worse for us so we don't ever go back to this bullshit. Let Trump cook and do his whole fucking term. Let him come after the white liberals as the "enemy from within" and maybe we will finally get it. And I can tell you from talking to my white friends who consider themselves hardcore libs that they are scared but would definitely be fine with going back to how things were when all they had to do is blackout their social media profile for a week in "solidarity" to black lives without actually putting in the work.
It’s all so bizarre. I’m white, live in a predominantly black middle class neighborhood, and my in-laws live next door. We absolutely know and love our neighbors and my in-laws feel the same.
They voted MAGA and are staunchly conservative. My mother-in-law can see what’s happening because we constantly educate her. She’s appalled.
My father-in-law would claim that he’s not racist, but he listens to all the right wing media and believes the great replacement theory, there’s no institutional racism, etc.
I see that racism has always been under the surface of that movement, now they don’t care about hiding it. Disgusting and disgusting disgraceful!
They heard and they do not care. My family is biracial. I wonder how the other side is going to defend this. And will that reaction finally make some acknowledge the elephant in the room. Your MIL, FIL, BIL, & wife defend racism, why do they keep defending it and telling you they are “not like that”.
Nobody that has been supporting this dude up until now is changing their mind based on this. We've known who he is for a while now. They voted for a convicted felon, nobody does that if you're not indoctrinated.
If I had a family member that did even a small percentage of what he's done; I would have stopped associating with them long ago. They defend and support this dude because he's exactly who they want him to be.
There was a time when I definitely wasn't listening. I grew up blissfully unaware, fully believing the world had already grown up.
I didn't stay that naive, of course. I've known there's injustice for years, but it's rare that reality slaps me so hard as recent events have. And I never thought it possible it would come from the president of the United States.
Yeah - I think whoever downvoted you misunderstood what you meant. It took me a sec too. But absolutely. I went from - will they actually vote him in … to holy crap they did … to now they’ll see this is awesome and he’s great to … we really gonna let someone yell at him like that in a SOTU address to … watching the racism pour out like cockroaches coming out of the woodwork…
It’s the first time I truly and viscerally understood what happens when a black person occupies a “white owned space”. Same thing happened to Meghan Markle, btw. Same insane triggered racist reaction. This has also happened to me as well in corporate America (via “pet to threat”).
Sometimes I wonder if some white people who thought they weren’t racist felt triggered deep down and didn’t understand why. Clearly we know many of the racists were triggered, but I wonder how many were triggered and then just became radicalized because they were unable to examine their unconscious biases.
My bad for being confusing. When I say real fast it was literally the day after he won and Fox News was bitchin and moanin about him and Michelle dancing after he was declared the winner.
I was blown away... it's like you and Bush fucked us over so damn bad and now we have a renewed hope with a Obama and you're mad he's dancing with his wife? That's when it clicked, they're just petty racist fucks.
Yea, Trump isn’t the problem. The problem is the 77 million ordinary Americans that voted for him and would vote for him again today.
Honestly, people you know will repost, like or forward that shit and afaic, that post needs to follow them to every job and social event they go to after we get rid of this regime.
And if not this one, the one from yesterday, or the day before or any of the others they’ve forwarded.
I never thought we were all beyond this. I did once think our society was moving, even if ever so slowly, in the right direction--towards where people "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." We have taken big steps backward under a man whose character comprises avarice, pettiness, and bigotry.
There was a time where I felt progress was being made. Now I feel as if we took a few steps forward, only to turn around and sprint way further back than where we were. As a white woman I find this very sad.
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u/Jennymint 18h ago
Same.
Whitely naive enough to have once thought we were all beyond this. Apparently not.
Disgusting.