Tag: Racism

Monument News–2020

Monuments dedicated to the ‘heroes’ of the Confederacy have been coming down at a steady pace…..even some vandalism as well…..even my state is coming into the 21st century….there will be a vote on removing the state flag that displays the Rebel battle standard……….Donald the Orange has been fuming over these assaults on ‘heritage’…..and watch he sees as disrespect…….and as he always does he has opened the bottomless pit he calls a mouth…..

President Trump called people who tear down or deface monuments “terrorists” on Thursday and promised there would be “retribution.” The president addressed the subject during a socially distanced town hall event in Wisconsin with Fox’s Sean Hannity, the Hill reports. “Every night we’re going to get tougher and tougher, and at some point there is going to be retribution because there has to be,” Trump said. “These people are vandals, but they’re agitators, but they’re really, they’re terrorists in a sense.” The president, who plans to sign a “very strong executive order” protecting monuments, said there would not have been unrest, including the toppling of a statue, in Madison this week if the state had elected a Republican governor in 2018.

Trump said people who want to have monuments like statues of Confederate leaders removed should go through the proper channels. “You know, we can take things down, too,” he said, per the AP. “I can understand certain things being taken down. But they ought to go through a process, legally. And then we take it down, in some cases put ’em in museums or wherever they may go.” The president spoke to Hannity in front of around 50 supporters and took questions from the audience for 30 minutes, the first of which was the softball: “What do you think is your greatest accomplishment, in your eyes?” CNN reports that Trump didn’t provide an answer when Hannity asked him what his top priority items for a second term are.

In a true racist way Donald has shown his true colors by signing an EO on the monuments thing…..

The order, which basically authorizes the attorney general to enforce the already existing Veterans’ Memorial Preservation Act, gives the AG the ability to “prioritize” within the DOJ cases involving the damaging of monuments, with a penalty “of up to 10 years’ imprisonment.” The order also notes that states and law enforcement agencies that don’t adequately protect statues and monuments risk losing federal grants.

“Jurisdictions’ recent abandonment of their law enforcement responsibilities with respect to public monuments, memorials, and statues casts doubt on their willingness to protect other public spaces and maintain the peace within them,” the order states, per the Wall Street Journal. After the signing, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the order signified that “President Trump will never allow violence to control our streets, rewrite our history, or harm the American way of life,” per CNN. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, talked to Wolf Blitzer on CNN Friday night and lamented the president’s focus, saying he thought Trump should be concentrating on recent spikes in coronavirus cases around the country. “I wish he cared more about living Americans instead of dead Confederates,” Inslee said, per Politico.

This is a waste of time and energy….those so-called monuments have seen their day and will be coming down….I do not agree with the destruction of them for that will do nothing to to erase their history.

Like it or not, Confederate symbols have been appropriated by white supremacists and now represent the most shameful part of our past — a past of slavery, lynching, Jim Crow and segregation. Those who argue differently need only to look at the words of Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, in which he stated that compared with the United States, “Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/what-to-do-with-relics-of-the-civil-war/2020/06/25/da78299c-b4aa-11ea-9a1d-d3db1cbe07ce_story.html

Give these statues a spot with disclaimers all around of who and what they are….I mean there is a museum for the Holocaust….history needs preserving even the shitty history of slavery and the Civil War.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

 

That Flag Thing Again

Closing Thought–22Jun20

I recently wrote about my city voting to take down the offensive Mississippi flag….and flag another state flag…..the Magnolia Flag……read my thoughts on this…..State Flag Is Gone! – In Saner Thought

Now the beleaguered state flag is under assault again….this time from the NCAA……

Mississippi is the only state in the nation to still feature the Confederate symbol, which consists of 13 stars and a blue cross, on its flag—and that hasn’t escaped the NCAA’s eye. Now, the college athletic organization’s Southeastern Conference is warning the state that if it doesn’t nix the symbol from the flag, it risks a big consequence. “It is past time for change to be made to the flag of the State of Mississippi,” reads a Thursday statement from SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, noting if that significant tweak isn’t made, the conference will mull keeping SEC championship events out of the Magnolia State. “Our students deserve an opportunity to learn and compete in environments that are inclusive and welcoming to all.”

ESPN notes there hasn’t been an SEC championship game held in Mississippi since 2016. In a 2001 referendum, voters in the state opted to keep the flag as is, but after the death of George Floyd and a resurgence of Black Lives Matters rallies, the outcry to change the flag was re-upped. Among those who’ve joined that call: the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University, both SEC members that say they’ve been lobbying for years for this change. “Mississippi needs a flag that represents the qualities about our state that unite us, not those that still divide us,” reads a statement from University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce and his vice chancellor for intercollegiate athletics, Keith Carter. A bipartisan proposal to change the flag has been submitted to the state’s Legislature.

We will see just how far a bi-partisan proposal will go n the “good old boys” club of Mississippi.

Before some unknowing dolt tries to give me heritage BS…the present flag was adopted in 1894….had more to do with post Civil War sentiments than anything historic…..read a book!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

GOP Answer To Police Violence

I have given all the stated solutions for the problems the police are having these days….from Trump and from the Dems…..and now the GOP has finally released their plan…..

For comparisons this is my previous post…..https://lobotero.com/2020/06/17/trump-on-police-reform/

Now the GOP ideas…..

South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will unveil the Senate GOP’s police reform bill on Wednesday morning.

CNN has obtained a copy of the proposed legislation, read it here:
 
All plans are good ideas….the problem is can any of it be actually enacted?
 
A typical delaying tactic is the appointing of commissions/investigations….these are used to delay the implementation of reforms with the hope they will wither and die on the vine of political games…..GOP/Dems are both experts at using this game ending tactic.
 
But don’t believe me….others see it as well….

“Now is not the time to think small or respond with superficial, bureaucratic proposals,” Sanders said on the Senate floor, referring to the bill introduced Wednesday by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). “Now is not the time for more studies. Now is the time to hold racist and corrupt police officers and police departments accountable for their actions.”

The Republican bill—which was immediately criticized as insufficient by civil rights groups—includes a narrow set of proposals to incentivize police departments to offer de-escalation training, establish a “museum curriculum to educate law enforcement personnel about the history of racism,” and restrict the use of chokeholds by officers.

Most of these sound more like reform over change….and reform is NEVER permanent.
 
I do not see a lot of hope for de-militarizing the police and that is where problems exist.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That White Privilege

The protests continue and for the most part are less violent (for now)….I did see a sign that states “All Life Matters”…..I look at that as the same as a white person saying “I have black friends”…a sure signal of a racist.

What is white privilege?

White privilege means your skin color offers you a certain measure of protection in our society—and that privilege can be used as a tool. That might mean stepping in with your voice when you witness injustice happening, knowing that a fellow white person or person in authority is more likely to listen to you than a person of color. Sometimes it means physically standing between a person of color and someone who is trying to harm them. We may not think it makes much of a difference, but it does. White folks are less likely to be viewed by other white folks as a threat or a suspect or a potential criminal, and we can physically disrupt racial injustice simply by placing our white self in front of it.

https://www.upworthy.com/white-americans-asking-what-can-i-do

I cannot wait for the retorts to start (mostly by whites)…..(I await the “All Lives Matter”…excuse)

So many of the incidents have involved traffic stops….but what about at night?

That is one of several examples of systematic bias that emerged from a five-year study that analyzed 95 million traffic stop records, filed by officers with 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police forces from 2011 to 2018.

The Stanford-led study also found that when drivers were pulled over, officers searched the cars of blacks and Hispanics more often than whites. The researchers also examined a subset of data from Washington and Colorado, two states that legalized marijuana, and found that while this change resulted in fewer searches overall, and thus fewer searches of blacks and Hispanics, minorities were still more likely than whites to have their cars searched after a pull-over.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507094621.htm

I have been saying for many years that all these “conversations” are not accomplishing anything at all….all it is a rehash of grievances and little about solutions other than a real conversation is needed.

A conversation that is never actually held.

And with all the protests and violence in the latest edition of “Racial Inequality” is another call for a ….you got it….a conversation.

Demands for systemic change in the U.S. grow louder by the day following the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man in Minneapolis.

Activists say white populations need to listen, but also take action in their own lives.

Those demanding change say in states such as Wisconsin, which is 83% white, it might be uncomfortable for some to openly discuss racial issues.

Tim Cordon, board president of the Wisconsin Network for Peace, Justice and Sustainability, says whites who feel guilt over the generational pain expressed during the protests shouldn’t worry about how they’re viewed in openly examining their contributions to that pain.

https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2020-06-04/housing-homelessness/wisconsin-group-time-to-peel-off-band-aid-discuss-race-openly/a70433-1

How about how the police feel about race issues they face?

In that survey, 67 percent of officers said they thought the deaths of black people in encounters with the police were isolated incidents, compared with 31 percent who said those deaths were part of a broader pattern. The public,

by comparison, had almost exactly the opposite reaction — only 39 percent of Americans said the police killings of black Americans were isolated incidents, while 60 percent said they were part of a broader pattern. (More recent surveys of the public also indicate that around 60 percent of Americans think that these incidents are part of a broader pattern.)

Just 35 percent of officers in the 2016 survey said they thought protests against the killings of black Americans were motivated at least in part by a “genuine desire to hold officers accountable” for their actions. In separate questions, almost all officers (92 percent) said that these protests reflected at least some long-standing bias against the police, and 86 percent said that the attention surrounding high-profile incidents of police killings of black men and the resulting protests has made their jobs harder.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-police-see-issues-of-race-and-policing/amp/

Time for America to have that conversation…..(a typical call I know…but it is time)….if we want to lead the world ever again then we need to step up….

The United States arguably has one of the most dynamic political systems in the world, with powerful legal protections for the news media and expansive freedom to associate and peacefully protest. Yet journalists covering the recent demonstrations have been harassed, assaulted, and arrested even as they identify themselves as reporters—a profound breach of constitutional guarantees. And the right to assemble is being denied, as militarized police forces tear-gas peaceful protesters in many cities. These immediate abuses must stop, but the nation must also come together to address the underlying problem.

Racial Injustice Remains the Great Weakness of American Democracy

One obstruction to a real talk on solutions is the media and its enabler social media….these influence the feelings of the masses….so are we seeing riots or resistance?

The general public’s opinions about protests and the social movements behind them are formed in large part by what they read or see in the media. This gives journalists a lot of power when it comes to driving the narrative of a demonstration.

They can emphasize the disruption protests cause or echo the dog whistles of politicians that label protesters as “thugs.” But they can also remind the public that at the heart of the protests is the unjust killing of another black person. This would take the emphasis away from the destruction of the protests and toward the issues of police impunity and the effects of racism in its many forms.

The role journalists play can be indispensable if movements are to gain legitimacy and make progress. And that puts a lot of pressure on journalists to get things right.

https://theconversation.com/riot-or-resistance-how-media-frames-unrest-in-minneapolis-will-shape-publics-view-of-protest-139713

I have never believe that the media was to help solve the problems…..they get too much traction out of reporting the problems….”If it bleeds it leads” is the motto of all media outlets.

What we are witnessing in real time is a fascist politics that believes in racial purity, social Darwinism, and supports the collapse of moral and political accountability. We see evidence of this in the viciousness of Trump’s everyday language, as for instance when he criticizes a reporter for wearing mask for being politically correct, when in actuality the journalist was being socially responsible–a notion Trump despises. We also see it in its more obvious toxic forms as when he states in the aftermath of the mass protests, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” All the while echoing a racist phrase by a former Miami Police Chief Walter Headley who liked to brag that he only hired white police officers and prided himself for using violence against Black people. There is nothing new about the police killing black people. Nor is there anything new about the United State engaging in state sponsored violence by way of a racially marked mass incarceration system.

Racial Domestic Terrorism and the Legacy of State Violence

I admit that I have no answers…..I will not pretend that I know what it is to be treated like so many black people…..and there is where I think the opposition comes from……they are afraid if they treat blacks as equal it will come back and bite them so they turn a blind eye at the problems and make up silly excuses for it happening…..and silly reasons why protesters get support….like they want to destroy our country (of course they do not say who “our” are (but we know)).

Seems everybody is afraid of being labeled on social media and we know what kind of damage that can do to one’s rep, right?

Be The Change You Want…a believe that is a paraphrase of a thought by Gandhi.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More Covid-19 Sad News

Not all the news around the Covid-19 is about the health and medical issues…..racism and conspiracies abound….

First the racism from days gone by…..

There’s been a surge in harassment toward Asian Americans in recent weeks: According to Stop AAPI Hate, an organization that’s been tracking self-reported incidents, more than 1,100 physical and verbal attacks against Asian Americans have been documented since late March.

The high number of reports, which have been submitted over just two weeks, is especially striking since people across the country have predominantly been sheltering in place. The incidents — logged through the Stop AAPI Hate website, which launched on March 19 — are wide-ranging.

In one, an Asian American child was pushed off her bike by a bystander at a park. In another, a family at a grocery store was spat on and accused of being responsible for the coronavirus. For some, including one Japanese restaurant owner, the harassment has come in the form of vandalism.

Among these reports, which come from 46 states, there are notable patterns: women were more likely than men to say they were targeted, several incidents involved children, and harassment was more likely to occur at retail stores and pharmacies now that people in most states are sheltering in place.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/4/21/21221007/anti-asian-racism-coronavirus

These idiots are the ones that listen to the moron in the White House when he calls it a China virus…..mental midgets echo this sentiment that has no validity…..a virus has NO nationality.

And the other thing are the conspiracies flowing around the Covid-19…….now it is dealing with the new 5G network……

The CCTV footage from a Dutch business park shows a man in a black cap pouring the contents of a white container at the base of a cellular radio tower. Flames burst out as the man jogs back to his Toyota to flee into the evening. It’s a scene that’s been repeated dozens of times in recent weeks in Europe, where conspiracy theories linking new 5G mobile networks and the coronavirus pandemic are fueling arson attacks on cell towers. Popular beliefs and conspiracy theories that wireless communications pose a threat have long been around, but the global spread of the virus at the same time that countries were rolling out fifth generation wireless technology has seen some of those false narratives amplified, reports the AP, which says the claims range from the coronavirus being a coverup for 5G deployment to 5G installations actually having created the virus.

Officials in Europe and the US are watching the situation closely and pushing back, concerned that attacks will undermine vital telecommunications links at a time they’re most needed to deal with the pandemic. Some 50 fires targeting cell towers and other equipment have been reported in Britain this month, leading to three arrests. Telecom engineers have been abused on the job 80 times, according to trade group Mobile UK, making the UK the nucleus of the attacks. Photos and videos documenting the attacks are often overlaid with false commentary about COVID-19. Some 16 have been torched in the Netherlands, with attacks also reported in Ireland, Cyprus, and Belgium.

I am sure that there are other idiots out there…if anyone has a story about them please share it with me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

STOP! Racism Is The Problem!

I keep waiting for someone….anyone….to start an actual conversation on race.

So far all we have is lip service.

Some great points have been made but a truly hard look at racism has never been spoken.

We should be honest….the United States is broken and has been for a very long time.

The coming ethnic storm has some scrambling to keep things the way they are today……

Almost three decades ago when Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. penned The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (1991), the threat of American white extremism was, if not quite unimagined, profoundly underestimated. Instead, Schlesinger lays the blame for what he calls the “decomposition of America” on the rise of “tribalism,” with Afrocentrism, “multiculturalists” and “ethnocentric separatist,” who in Schlesinger’s view see “the western tradition [as] inherently racist, sexist, ‘classist,’ hegemonic; irredeemably repressive, irredeemably oppressive,” presenting a clear and present danger. In some ways, the book presages Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations (1996), another in a long tradition of apocalyptic treatises on the rising tide of color, although this time penned by cold war liberals who offer a more palatable version lacking the overtly racist demagoguery of previous scribes. Like Huntington, Schlesinger envisions that the threat to western, specifically American values and institutions comes from an imagined Brown Peril of teeming dark-skinned others not from those who have historically rejected them – i.e., white racial narcissists. As Sam Tanenhaus wrote in his 2017 review of the book in The Atlantic, “though its critique of the ‘politics of identity’ and the ‘tribal antagonisms’ it bred should have included a harder look at his own privileged tribe, its delusions as well as its prejudices and presumptions.”

America’s White Problem Revisited

Can we explain the reason for these extreme right wing views?

Some have tried.

New research from Belgium provides evidence that deficits in emotion understanding and emotion management are related to right-wing and prejudiced attitudes. The study has been published in the journal Emotion.

“I have a lifelong interest in political psychology and in political ideology in particular. The observation that left-wing and right-wing adherents tend to differ on so many psychological characteristics is amazing,” said study author Alain Van Hiel, a professor at the University of Ghent.

“Many scholars have investigated the cognitive basis of ideology in general, and right-wing ideological attitudes in particular. In the present study, we wanted to investigate if a similar relationship would exist for emotional abilities.”

https://www.psypost.org/2019/09/people-with-lower-emotional-intelligence-are-more-likely-to-hold-right-wing-views-study-finds-54369

I do not understand……people who pretend that the Constitution is all important set about violate the tenets set forth by our Founders…..or they violate the teachings of something they hold on to for dear life….Christianity.

America has a serious white-supremacy problem, which is helping fuel a rise in hate crimes, violence, and domestic terrorism, and it’s time for Congress to do something to combat this growing threat to our nation.

https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-white-supremacist-terrorism-violence-trump-opinion-2019-9

Divisions destroy unity.

Ignorance is NOT strength……Ignorance is slavery!

Learn Stuff!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

That Race Talk!

Okay we are having this conversation about race….it is not a conversation it is only pundits giving what they think them country is all about…..the way we believe…..but let’s be real….they are making shit up.

We are having that talk again……https://lobotero.com/2013/08/26/my-thoughts-on-the-bigger-race-issue/

One pundit tells us about how the street they grew up on is multi-national, multi-ethnic, etc etc…..that is the way it is in this country….our better angels sort of thing (whatever that fucking means)……then another tells us about his district and what the people are feeling….(how would they know this since most of their time is spent with high dollar donors?)

Racism is everywhere….racism has always been everywhere…..and yet these high paid pundits talk about the race issue as if they know the answers…..they have NO answers.

Let us take a good grasp on reality.

Just how many hours inn the last 50 years have been spent on looking at, analyzing and then reporting on the racist acts of the nation?  We have had lots of promise about the debate that is needed….but yet we still wait for the break out moment….and we wait.

Apparently this racism thingy we are trying to deal with these days is the “NORM”….. about 35% of the electorate supporters Donald Trump….so that means that 35% have no problem with the screaming racism of our president.

Pundits can look the other way but in the long run it will not go away until we accept the fact that 35% of the American people hold racist feelings….in other words actually talk about racism instead to giving it lip service with accusations and slogans hoping it will go away.

I have had push back from my ideas…..but then I ask if it is not about color then why has a new study found the opposite?

A study published by New Zealand’s University of Canterbury reported that humans tend to apply their racial biases to white and black robots. 

The study, “Robots and Racism,” conducted by New Zealand’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory, indicated people ascribe racial backgrounds to human-like robots and apply racial stereotypes accordingly.

If proliferation of robots increases, this association could present a serious issue, according to the study.

“If robots are supposed to function as teachers, friends, or carers, for instance, then it will be a serious problem if all of these roles are only ever occupied by robots that are racialized as White,” it states.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/455832-study-finds-humans-apply-racial-stereotypes-to-white-and-black

Before we as Americans can have the debate on race that all the pundits hype we have to admit that our biases are real and do make a difference…..without that we will be spin our wheels as we have been doing for over 50 years.

I know I am a racist and I fight it everyday.  But the nation as a whole does not have the courage to face their racism and until they do this situation will continue unabated.

Pundits talk about American’s better angels…..seriously?  Americans have NO better angels when it comes to race or bigotry.

Watch this…..explanation no one wants to hear.

Blaming Trump is too easy: This is us. msnbc.com/deadline-white… via
@msnbc
 
In closing…just how much delusion can one individual possess?
 

President Trump on Wednesday rejected assertions that his racist, divisive rhetoric is divisive, instead claiming it “brings people together.”

When a reporter asked if his rhetoric divides Americans, Trump responded, “I don’t think my rhetoric does at all. My rhetoric is very—it brings people together,” Trump said before deflecting to say the United States is doing better than China.

Learn Stuff!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Saturday Thoughts

Once again the weekend has broken and I had nothing unusual on which to post……so scramble was on to find that certain special post.

Racism has been in the news quiet often……but how far does our thoughts on color actually go?

It seems that we would apply our racial stereotypes to robots as well……

A study published by New Zealand’s University of Canterbury reported that humans tend to apply their racial biases to white and black robots. 

The study, “Robots and Racism,” conducted by New Zealand’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory, indicated people ascribe racial backgrounds to human-like robots and apply racial stereotypes accordingly.

If proliferation of robots increases, this association could present a serious issue, according to the study.

“If robots are supposed to function as teachers, friends, or carers, for instance, then it will be a serious problem if all of these roles are only ever occupied by robots that are racialized as White,” it states.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/455832-study-finds-humans-apply-racial-stereotypes-to-white-and-black

And people say it is getting better on the racial front…..reality says no way……

How about those brains?

I knew all along that I was special…..

Which river passes through Madrid? What year did the Spanish Civil War end? Some people seem to have the answer to every trivia question you throw at them. What sets these people apart from others, though? Not all that surprisingly, it has to do with their brains. A new study found that people with great general knowledge also have efficiently wired brains.

“Although we can precisely measure the general knowledge of people and this wealth of knowledge is very important for an individual’s journey through life, we currently know little about the links between general knowledge and the characteristics of the brain,” says Dr. Erhan Genç from the Department of Biopsychology in Bochum.

Genç and colleagues performed brain scans on 324 volunteers using a special technique called diffusion tensor imaging, which reconstructs the pathways of nerve fibers. Imagine your brain as a tangled network of roads and highways; this method can provide a map of this network.

The brains of people with excellent general knowledge are more efficiently wired

Time for me to give MoMo the attention she demands…..have a good day and a better tomorrow.

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Closing Thought–01Aug19

We know just how racist this president can be…..right?

His picking on people of color…his naming countries as “Sh*t Holes”……etc etc….

I have said for years that the GOP was where racist go to appear mainstream….I have been called out and I still hold that position and Trump does nothing to change my mind….

Then I read about the “god” of the GOP Reagan and his use of a slur for blacks……..

A racist statement made by Ronald Reagan in October 1971 is now grabbing headlines thanks to a piece for the Atlantic written by Tim Naftali, and the words are explosive: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Reagan said in a phone call the then-California governor had with President Richard Nixon, who laughed. (You can hear it here.) Now a clinical associate professor of history at NYU, Naftali explains he was the Nixon Presidential Library’s first director, holding the post from 2007 to 2011, and he provides context for the call. The United Nations had, the day prior, voted to recognize China and boot Taiwan, a move that spurred joyous dancing from the Tanzanian delegation; the US was opposed to the move, and Reagan’s comment was made in reference to those who didn’t align with America.

Naftali explains that when the tape was released by the National Archives in 2000, Reagan’s words were excluded in an apparent move for privacy; his 2004 death negated the need for that, and Naftali last year requested a re-review of taped conversations involving Reagan. The full version was released two weeks ago. Naftali provides a deep and historical dive into what the line, and the conversations that ensued, signify. “Had the story stopped there, it would have been bad enough,” Naftali writes. “But what happened next showed the dynamic power of racism when it finds enablers.” He details how Nixon “used Reagan’s call as an excuse to adapt his language to make the same point to others,” first calling Secretary of State William Rogers to talk about Reagan’s distaste for the “cannibals” (Nixon’s word), which he described as a “typical” American reaction. (Read the full piece for much more.)

History has shown Nixon to be a racist and now the other GOPer is as well…..

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

 

Closing Thought–29Jul19

I know that this dude in the White House has made many many racist comments…..but when he uses terms like “infested” it smacks of Germany in the 1930s…….

Once again Trump has let his bigotry and racism come to the forefront…..

President Trump on Saturday denigrated a majority-black district represented by a congressional nemesis as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” broadening a campaign against prominent critics of his administration that has exacerbated racial tensions, the AP reports. Trump lashed out in tweets against Rep. Elijah Cummings, the powerful House Oversight Committee chairman, claiming his Baltimore-area district is “considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States.” It was the president’s latest assault on a prominent lawmaker, and the people he represents, two weeks after he sparked nationwide controversy with racist tweets directed at four congresswomen of color.

His comments against Cummings, who leads multiple investigations of the president’s governmental dealings, drew swift condemnation from Democrats, including would-be presidential rivals. Trump called Cummings a “brutal bully” after his public tongue-lashing of top Homeland Security officials over conditions for migrants detained along the southern border. “As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded,” Trump tweeted. “Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.” Cummings replied directly to Trump on Twitter, saying, “Mr. President, I go home to my district daily … It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.”

This rhetoric has allowed the worthless lumps of manure that are the racists get more exposure than they deserve…..

Even the racism Trump embraces makes it into the world of retail sales……

Shoppers at a New Jersey store will no longer find black dolls with eye-popping instructions waiting on the shelves, NJ.com reports. The One Dollar Zone in Bayonne pulled the “Feel Better Doll” Monday after Assembleywoman Angela McKnight visited to confirm what she’d seen on social media. A description on the product—which is made from black fabric with multi-colored yarn hair, white smile, and white eyes—tells buyers to “find a wall to slam the doll.” McKnight didn’t hold back: “This doll is offensive and disturbing on so many levels,” she says. “It is clearly made in an inappropriate representation of a black person and instructs people to ‘slam’ and ‘whack’ her. Racism has no place in the world and I will not tolerate it, especially not in this district.”

A message written on the dolls tells buyers that “Whenever things don’t go well / and you want to hit the wall and yell … Just grab it firmly by the legs and find a / wall to small the doll, and as you wack / the ‘feel good doll’ do not forget to yell / I FEEL GOOD, I FEEL GOOD.” One Dollar Zone President Ricky Shah expressed remorse for selling the product and says it arrived with a big shipment of merchandise, largely with “I Love NY” labels, the AP reports. “This somehow slipped through the cracks,” he says. Reporters couldn’t reach the doll’s manufacturer, the Harvey Hutter Co., which is located in Croton-on-Hudson, about 30 miles north of New York City. A supplier says the company has gone out of business

This is NO way for a country to behave……it is definitely NO way for the leader of the so-called “Free World” to behave……but then I expect this from a small petty man that is prone to insults and bullying.

Not to be outdone His Majesty Trump took to Twitter again…this time calling Cummings a racist…..seriously……

Upping a feud with an influential black lawmaker, President Trump on Sunday assailed Rep. Elijah Cummings as a “racist” over the “rodent-infested mess” in his district while White House aides sought to downplay his comments as frustration over Democrats’ unrelenting investigations, the AP reports. In a series of tweets, Trump insisted that his comments Saturday referring to Cummings’ majority-black district as a disgusting mess where “no human being would want to live” were not racist. On the contrary, Trump argued, “if racist Elijah Cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership.” Trump added, “His radical ‘oversight’ is a joke!”

His comments capped a weekend of attacks on Cummings, the latest rhetorical shots against non-white lawmakers since Trump posted racist tweets directed at four Democratic congresswomen of color two weeks ago. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney insisted in two national television interviews Sunday that Trump was not making racist comments. Mulvaney said Trump’s words were exaggerated for effect—”Does the president speak hyperbolically? Absolutely”—and meant to draw attention to Democratic-backed investigations of the Republican president and his team in Washington. “Instead of helping people back home, they’re focusing on scandal in Washington, DC, which is the exact opposite of what they said they would do when they ran for election in 2018,” Mulvaney said.

Mulvaney then stated that Trump was just fact checking Cummings….really!  That would be a first.

Trump lies and then has toadies like Mulvaney to add more manure to the pile left by His Majesty.

Trump has spoken!  Thus spake the Clown Prince Of Idiocracy…

“Lego Ergo Scribo”