When another trustee asked Dungan if she personally objected to an illustration of cross-racial friendship, she demurred, simply declaring that she was just trying to avoid "situations like that." Situations like what, exactly? She didn't say. Dungan's behavior is a perfect illustration of the "anti-woke" tap dance. The person alleging nefarious wokeness never admits to their own bigotry, instead pretending that they're reacting to "woke" people who are "pushing" an agenda, in this case through innocuous poster art. Of course, the entire premise of the argument is rooted in bigotry, as this example shows. It presumes that the feelings of real or imagined bigots who might take umbrage at such an image are of paramount importance, and that everyone else's freedoms must be curtailed to appease them.
Fucking thank you, Amanda Marcotte. Nail on the head.
And thank you for using the word “innocuous” because my god it’s a picture of people holding hands in a school. It probably had something like “teamwork makes the dream work” on it because holy fuck these people probably boil their eyeballs in piss before they stick them in their sockets.
Yeah, it's good to see reporters actually pressing back on these blatant trolls with their well understood tactics. It's a shame, however, that the more centrist media is rarely willing to do the same. It's a common trap that people think you must give equal time to both sides in order to be fair. Reality is that some sides are so dumb and inconsequential that they don't deserve any air time.
It's stupid that the school district even moved the kid to a different class. They never should have caved an inch. That just empowers these maniacs to keep doing this racist, time wasting drivel.
It presumes that the feelings of real or imagined bigots who might take umbrage at such an image are of paramount importance, and that everyone else's freedoms must be curtailed to appease them.
I don't know why this made it click in my head but yeah, they think their imagined hurt feelings are more important than everyone else.
According to ABC 13 Eyewitness News in Houston, things started when school trustee Melissa Dungan declared that she had spoken to parents who were upset about "displays of personal ideologies in classrooms." When pressed for an example, according to the news report, "Dungan referred to a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races, that they transferred classrooms."
…
Some other members of the school board did, in fact, argue that there was nothing objectionable about such a poster. But Dungan was backed up by another trustee, Misty Odenweller, who insisted that the depiction of uh, race-mixing was in some way a "violation of the law." The two women are part of "Mama Bears Rising," a secretive far-right group fueling the book-banning mania in Conroe and the surrounding area. At least 59 books have been banned due to their efforts.
If we're not socialized with other races while young, then we grow up thinking of other races as "them" instead of "us". It's instincts from when we lived in tribes and anyone that you didn't grow up around was the enemy. But the same as a dog needing to be exposed to other animals while young so they're used to them as an adult.
Which is why adult racists have an issue with non-segregated schools.
They want kids to grow up and be racist like they are. They want the next generation to only look as deep as skin color to determine if someone is friend or foe.
Same reason Alabama banned Sesame Street long after PBS had it in every other state.
The individual racists probably don't understand it, but the ones leading the mobs understand the psychology behind this shit. Like how in American History X Ed Norton didn't understand what he was doing, but the old asshole in charge was playing chess. Dont discount racists as idiots that don't know any better. Some are actually smart and manipulating the mob of uneducated idiots.
Same reason Alabama banned Sesame Street long after PBS had it in every other state.
My mother would edit our episodes on VCR with all the spanish parts and visiting other countries out. So we could only watch that show on tape, never off the TV itself.
There is a reason why I have never felt the need to introduce her to her grandchildern.
I firmly believe that lack of exposure to people of different cultures or races leads people to be racist and not necessarily realize it. If you're never around X, how can you know you have an inappropriate reaction to X?
To illustrate this, I didn't know about my escalator phobia until I moved away for college. I entered the mall, saw these moving stair-things, and felt a deep fear in the pit of my stomach. I hadn't seen an escalator since I was a toddler and, if you'd asked me on high school, I'd have denied having a phobia.
(I've successfully worked on my phobia over the last decade, showing that changing inappropriate reactions is possible)
Yes. My experience has been that nobody is as racist as Northern men who move to Florida. My ex said he went to "the white school" in Michigan, up north is segregated for real. We had enforced school integration but as a kid I was not aware of it, just went to school with school kids - it still got sort of segregated but not really, and my kids even less so, it does work.
But then those guys move down here and are not prepared for how diverse our population is. And they react badly.
Pretty much the same in any country with a majority ethnic population. They lived in an area for hundreds, sometimes fighting wars for it, and so it's not easy to have them give away their lands to people who are completely different down to the religion and imagine a completely different future. America is being pushed to have a civil war over it though likely to other countries interest. One that is very ethnically populated mind you.
The two women are part of "Mama Bears Rising," a secretive far-right group fueling the book-banning mania in Conroe and the surrounding area.
Do these idiots seriously not have something better to do than to worry about other people reading books. Good god, if I spent my whole life so worried about what other people would doing I don't think I'd ever live.
Been racist actually takes effort, the lazy thing to do is to accept everyone equally. Because who cares?
Dungan's behavior is a perfect illustration of the "anti-woke" tap dance. The person alleging nefarious wokeness never admits to their own bigotry, instead pretending that they're reacting to "woke" people who are "pushing" an agenda, in this case through innocuous poster art.
That is a very good take.
Also: it's always projection. Conservatives push an agenda, so they assume everyone else does too.
I really want people to learn the actual meaning of the word - it really says it all. And normally I argue for lingual drift and accepting the changed meaning of words, but in this case most people don't know the definition, but aside from a racial/identity implication, they're using it mostly correctly
Woke means looking at the system critically, not believing the things politicians and public officials tell you at face value, seeing how it's all designed to turn us against each other so we never attempt meaningful change.
In a phrase, it means "wake up to the lies and think for yourself"
Next step? They're already doing it. You don't need to be overtly racist to segregate communities fyi, income brackets and gerrymandering do a wonderful job at promoting racial segregation without the need to be outwardly bigoted
this is how it is for some people when there are non-white characters in movies, they consider it "pushing an agenda" when there's nothing like that happening. it's like they think people of other races just.. don't exist? therefore they should not be in movies? i don't really get it
Because there is nothing to get besides racism. The very very few edge cases out there where race mattered and was miscast never get mentioned because usually the person who did it wrong says sorry and there is no story. You are giving the enemy too much credit.
And yes I don't think she was miscast in Annihilation. The second book came out after they started making the movie (which is when that one line about her facial features was put in) and the fact that she had partial Asian ancestry wasn't plot important in any of the 3 books.
My problem is the race switching. It is so stupid and is done in stories already told. There are tons of stories that have not been told about the race you are race swapping with. Why can't we tell their stories instead.
Or when they put random people of colour in historical dramas. I get that they need to somehow include actors of all origins, but I can't help but feel like it's also a kind of white washing? Like, sorry but a black person would not be a noble at the Louis XIV court, how about you actually talk about what history was like from that perspective rather than just shoehorning the actors and pretend like everything was fine and dandy for people of colour in those days.
It is now woke to be in the same room as another race.
Add it to the list.
Hey, can we start calling things they like woke? Like Jesus Trump and church and flags n stuff? I bet we can destroy this word by just stealing it back.
They are definitely turning on Jesus and have been for quite some time now. There is an interesting statement from the former head of SBC wherein he states churchgoers are finding Jesus' supposed teachings as being too woke and part of a liberal agenda. Can't make this up. It was only a matter of time.
But Jesus also didn't like mixing. That is why he instructed the apostles and other adherents to never teach gentiles and Samaritans. That was retconned years later by the church because they said people had visions of a resurrected jesus commanding them to mix with gentiles. But for a while there it was very much a racial/ethno in-group only. That is why Jesus supposedly stated he taught in parables; so gentiles wouldnt understand what he was talking about and find salvation. That is what Matthew 13:11-17 is about.
People need to stop characterizing Jesus as some socialists woke advocate like I see in this thread. His character wasn't. He didn't preach universal love and compassion, and he taught contradictory messages about pacifism probably because dozens of people created this character over centuries.
I honestly think people want to think the religion can't be that bad and that the adherents are just awful.
Even disregarding all bigotry and racism that this screams of, it's dumb af because kids can be friends with FUCKING rocks. It's pretty much their superpower.
I mean, some of them are. Many of them are nazi-lite. They get upset if you point it out, though. A lot of them probably believe they are fine upstanding patriots. A few can be talked to, and some can even change, but most just dig in deeper, so the problem doesn't seem likely to go away; it seems to be getting worse.
“As we say in Germany, if there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis.”
I think when you tell me “I’m still friends with this racist because we need to know what they think.” You know what? We don’t. They haven’t thought anything “new” in 2,000 years. When you break bread with a Nazi, you tell them that they’re a member of society. They’re not. They don’t deserve to be. And they should know their hatreds make them unfit to be around decent people.
thats not new at all, I remember there being traces of that still in everyday interactions as a kid. Theres nothing new about the hate they are spewing, thats what makes it extra vile to me.
it is just a lot more in the open now. And sadly most of people I know genuinely side with right most out of believe that it is the more neutral or agenda free stance.
My wife tells me she thinks that I am being over dramatic when I say we need to start thinking about exit strategies for fleeing the US, and then stuff like this pops up.
You’re not being overdramatic. I’ve been thinking about an exit since 2020. I plan to have it figured out in advance of the next election so that I can flip a switch and go. Don’t wait for disaster. Have an exit decided and hope you don’t need it.
This is my favorite part about racists worrying about white people becoming a minority. It's only because they don't consider mixed kids as their progeny. Your "white" genes aren't being murdered by "black" genes inside your grandaughter. They're both just kinda in there and that's fine.
I was born in the Philippines. My best friend is from Grenada. My wife is Vietnamese. Her best friend is from South Korea. I don't understand what people find threatening about multiculturalism.
It is THE national pattern. Race was invented by the society that colonized this land and setup this nation. The concept of the white race was invented right here in settler colonies before the USA even existed. It's not just a national pattern, it's literally the fabric of the nation.
Race was invented by the society that colonized this land and setup this nation. The concept of the white race was invented right here in settler colonies before the USA even existed. It’s not just a national pattern, it’s literally the fabric of the nation.
What?
You think racism didn't exist until Europeans settled America?
Fucking India had a legal caste system based on amount of skin pigment centuries before that, and "you look different so you're an enemy" has been a part of human history long before we even knew how to write shit down.
Quick edit:
Nevermind just saw the lemmygrad.ml, that explains your comment.
It sucks even tho I block all communities on there I still see comments from that shitshow
The concept of whiteness as being a distinct and unifying factor among people from a variety of countries led to the field of scientific racism, which went on for around 2 centuries. This is where terms like "Caucasian" came from. Scientific racism was used as a reason by the Nazis to murder millions of Jews. Now in the 21st century, we know it is pseudoscience even though its terminology lingers.
This doesn't mean that people were blind to skin color before 17th century colonialism, as you pointed out with the Indian caste system that dates back as far as 3300BC. You can see in ancient Egyptian art a wide array of colored skin as well. From Egyptian literature, there aren't signs they really obsessed over it the way society does now.
I think we can all agree that things didn't go too well for non-white people after the invention of whiteness. The concept was founded in oppression and helps perpetuate oppression.
Racism is not the same as personal bigotry. Whether Columbus was "racist" or not is irrelevant. European society was still developing racism as a system back in the 1400s. The concept of blood quantums, however, was developed around the same time Columbus was alive. So yes, there was systemic racism in Europe during Columbus's time, but there wasn't a "white race" concept at the time. It was mostly smaller races of different countries and what bound them all together was Christianity. White was explicitly codified as a concept in law in the Americas.
I think it's important to exercise some intellectual humility and be open to other sources and be willing to question information that we agree with if it's coming from a single source - especially if that source has an open bias.
Hope y'all realize this is just rage bait. Like when conservative bloggers pass of a couple of tweets from tankies as the official stance for every Democrat and left wing movement.