Racism in America (with data)

[Little Raven]

If the BLM movement was given permission to paint the mural, where are the police stopping these people from painting over it.

I imagine the police are standing aside for the same reason they're standing aside as people tear down all sorts of stuff - safety. It's just not worth getting people hurt over stuff.

It's easy to fix a mural, or replace a statue. It's just a thing, right?

This calls for a citizen's arrest!

I really don't think we want to encourage brawling over public art installations. It didn't end well in Albuquerque, and it probably won't end well anywhere else.

[gilraen]

Counter statue incidents? I wonder if Trump will demand they receive 10-year prison sentences? Also, Rochester, NY was easily by leaps and bounds the most racist place I ever lived. It was open and everywhere. Black, hispanic, or Jew they hated them all. I literally heard 'white power' chants multiple times while I lived there. I had to throw a former roommate out of my house when he got in my face about the fact was grandfather was jewish. A lovely place.

Seems ironic, since there's actually a huge Jewish community in Rochester (with a considerable subset of them being 1st and 2nd generation Russian Jewish immigrants). A bunch of my relatives still live there.

[Skinypupy]

Christ, this statue thing is so stupid.

Trump campaign ads over the weekend vowed to protect a new statue: "Christ the Redeemer" in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

[malchior]

Counter statue incidents? I wonder if Trump will demand they receive 10-year prison sentences? Also, Rochester, NY was easily by leaps and bounds the most racist place I ever lived. It was open and everywhere. Black, hispanic, or Jew they hated them all. I literally heard 'white power' chants multiple times while I lived there. I had to throw a former roommate out of my house when he got in my face about the fact was grandfather was jewish. A lovely place.

Seems ironic, since there's actually a huge Jewish community in Rochester (with a considerable subset of them being 1st and 2nd generation Russian Jewish immigrants). A bunch of my relatives still live there.

I don't find it ironic. We have a lot of anti-Semites here in NY/NJ especially in areas bordering heavy Jewish areas such as Lakewood, NJ, Rockland County, NY, or Brooklyn. We had a town in north NJ that passed laws trying to ban eruv wire and park access. It was just in Rochester I saw it constantly to the point that I decided not to return to school there. It was a primary factor.

[malchior]

Mhm.

[Octavious]

I don't think going full racist isn't going to bring his polls back, but it seems like that's the only thing he can think of at this point. Especially if people start dropping like flies in a couple of weeks. He's got to bounce back to Mexico at some point. He hasn't really dug into that much lately.

[El Guapo]

So the Indians are also revisiting their name? Or just their mascot? My understanding is that "Indians" is not necessarily problematic (I think a lot of native groups use it), but that Chief Wahoo is obviously and incredibly racist.

[stessier]

So the Indians are also revisiting their name? Or just their mascot? My understanding is that "Indians" is not necessarily problematic (I think a lot of native groups use it), but that Chief Wahoo is obviously and incredibly racist.

Francona called for changing both and that's what I think they are looking at.

[LordMortis]

So the Indians are also revisiting their name? Or just their mascot? My understanding is that "Indians" is not necessarily problematic (I think a lot of native groups use it), but that Chief Wahoo is obviously and incredibly racist.

Radio said name, not just Mascot. They had some good quotes from Francona this morning....

Here we go

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/289 ... ve-forward

Francona explained that he used to say the franchise was "never trying to be disrespectful" when asked about the nickname in the past, but "I don't think that's a good enough answer today."

Nails it.

[hepcat]

He's got to bounce back to Mexico at some point. He hasn't really dug into that much lately.

What's he gonna say about Mexico? They built a wall to keep US out before he could build one to keep THEM out?

p.s. for folks talking about the Indians mascot, they stopped using Chief Wahoo back in 2018. They've just used the letter C as their logo since then. So I'm not sure what mascot they're talking about.

[ImLawBoy]

He's got to bounce back to Mexico at some point. He hasn't really dug into that much lately.

What's he gonna say about Mexico? They built a wall to keep US out before he could build one to keep THEM out?

p.s. for folks talking about the Indians mascot, they stopped using Chief Wahoo back in 2018. They've just used the letter C as their logo since then. So I'm not sure what mascot they're talking about.

They haven't completely stopped using Chief Wahoo, but I think they relegated it to alternate and historical contexts. I think they still sell some stuff with the Wahoo caricature on it.

[El Guapo]

Francona explained that he used to say the franchise was "never trying to be disrespectful" when asked about the nickname in the past, but "I don't think that's a good enough answer today."

Nails it.

Man, I wish the Red Sox could get a coach like that.

[Isgrimnur]

Bye bye, Chief Wahoo:

The Cleveland Indians will stop using the Chief Wahoo logo on their uniforms beginning in 2019, according to Major League Baseball, which said the popular symbol was no longer appropriate for use on the field.
...
[O]ver the past year the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred, has pressured Paul Dolan, Cleveland’s chairman and chief executive, to make a change.

Citing a goal of diversity and inclusion, Manfred said in a statement provided to The New York Times that the Indians organization “ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate Mr. Dolan’s acknowledgment that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course.”
...
Cleveland has been edging away from the logo in recent years and has used it less frequently, but beginning in 2019 it will not be seen at all on the team’s uniforms, or on banners and signs in Progressive Field, the team’s stadium. Consumers will still be able to purchase items with the logo on them at the team’s souvenir shops in the stadium and at retail outlets in the northern Ohio market, but those items will not be available for sale on M.L.B.’s website.
...
Although the Indians will stop using the logo on their uniforms, they will not relinquish the trademark and still will be able to profit off sales of merchandise bearing the logo at the stadium and in the Cleveland area. But by maintaining the trademark, the team, with the supervision of M.L.B., retains control of the proliferation of the logo. If it relinquished the trademark, or announced an intention to never claim its protections, another party could legally assume control of it and use the logo in other ways.
...
The Indians team name itself is supposedly derived from Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot nation in Maine, who played for a different Cleveland team in the National League from 1897-1899.

[Azza]

A large number of armed largely African American protesters marched to Stone Mountain State Park in Georgia, home to a large relief carving of Jefferson Davis, RE Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, with their leader daring the KKK to show up:



While I can appreciate the irony, I still am not in favor of any armed protesters, whether it is right wing "Re-Open" militias or left wing BLM groups. Either one is a stack of kindling just needing a spark for something terrible to happen.

I share that concern, for sure. But I also feel that the threat of "something terrible" happening creates the same tension that seems to be a prerequisite for American attention and willingness to consider perhaps addressing issues.

That isn't BLM, though. It's a separate organization known as the NFAC (literally, Not Fucking Around Coalition). It's important to make that distinction as the NFAC is a (much more) militant group, I guess in the vein of 60's era Blank Panthers, if not more so.

EX A:

[Skinypupy]

Mhm.

As always, there's a tweet for everything.

President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name-our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them,not nonsense

My college changed it's mascot from the Indians to the Thunderwolves (incredibly awful) back in 1994. I don't recall ever hearing a single complaint about it back then, but can only imagine the dust-up it would cause today.

[Isgrimnur]

CNN

The woman who was caught on video accusing a Central Park birdwatcher of threatening her will be prosecuted, the Manhattan district attorney said Monday.

Amy Cooper, the White woman who was filmed accusing a Black man of threatening her, faces a charge of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree, according to the DA.
...
Cooper has been issued a desk appearance ticket and is scheduled for arraignment October 14.

PDF of law

Under our law, a person is guilty of Falsely Reporting an Incident in the Third Degree when, knowing the information reported, conveyed or circulated to be false or baseless, he or she initiates or circulates a false report or warning of an alleged occurrence or impending occurrence of a crime, catastrophe or emergency under circumstances in which it is not unlikely that public alarm or inconvenience will result.

NY Senate

Falsely reporting an incident in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor.

NY Office of Mental Health

Upon conviction of a Class “A” misdemeanor, a court may sentence an individual to a maximum of one year in jail or three years probation. In addition, a fine of up to $1,000 or twice the amount of the individual’s gain from the crime may be imposed.

[Alefroth]

Look at these fools losing their minds. Scene: Martinez, CA. Background: BLM got permission to paint Black Lives Matters on the street in the front of the courthouse there.

Also, they've had an incident where someone pulled a gun on the activists.

Does this qualify for a 10 year prison sentence?

[Holman]

For those who don't know, Georgia's Stone Mountain isn't just any old Confederate monument.

It's a massive quartz dome on which this is carved:



Click on the image to see Jeff Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson in the largest high relief sculpture in the world.

Even before the sculpture was begun, Stone Mountain was the central most important location for the KKK. The "second Klan" was inaugurated in 1915 in a ceremony atop the dome, and there were annual cross-burnings for 50 years thereafter.

The sculpture was begun in the 1920s. (The original designer's next project was Mount Rushmore.)

The park featuring the sculpture was opened on April 14, 1965, which was the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination.

[LawBeefaroni]

Never saw that before. It is ugly as f. The actual carvings are OK (ignoring content) but area around it looks completely ridiculous. Vandalism.

[Skinypupy]

That is a seriously ugly-ass monument.

[Holman]

Never saw that before. It is ugly as f. The actual carvings are OK (ignoring content) but area around it looks completely ridiculous. Vandalism.

Yup. The back side is actually a very nice slope for hiking all the way to the top, where you get a spectacular view of the whole Atlanta area.

Too bad about the racist traitors, though.

[El Guapo]

Never saw that before. It is ugly as f. The actual carvings are OK (ignoring content) but area around it looks completely ridiculous. Vandalism.

Yup. The back side is actually a very nice slope for hiking all the way to the top, where you get a spectacular view of the whole Atlanta area.

Too bad about the racist traitors, though.

Really? I actually think the sculpture is pretty cool. Pretty well detailed at a massive size, plus it gives them kind of a ghostly (and therefore quasi-immortal) vibe. And that, plus being carved into stone, makes them semi-permanent (and the stone matches the whole "Stonewall" thing).

BUT it's still a pretty cool sculpture of horrifically bad people.

[Holman]

Never saw that before. It is ugly as f. The actual carvings are OK (ignoring content) but area around it looks completely ridiculous. Vandalism.

Yup. The back side is actually a very nice slope for hiking all the way to the top, where you get a spectacular view of the whole Atlanta area.

Too bad about the racist traitors, though.

Really? I actually think the sculpture is pretty cool. Pretty well detailed at a massive size, plus it gives them kind of a ghostly (and therefore quasi-immortal) vibe. And that, plus being carved into stone, makes them semi-permanent (and the stone matches the whole "Stonewall" thing).

BUT it's still a pretty cool sculpture of horrifically bad people.

The roughness around the figures wasn't intentional. I believe they ran out of money or something, because the original plan (conceived by the Mount Rushmore guy) was to have a background of hundreds of smaller figures. They wanted the whole Confederate Army up there.

I probably went half a dozen times when I was growing up (again, hiking up the back side was nice). The gift shop, as you can imagine, was a nightmare of Lost Cause kitsch.

[El Guapo]

Never saw that before. It is ugly as f. The actual carvings are OK (ignoring content) but area around it looks completely ridiculous. Vandalism.

Yup. The back side is actually a very nice slope for hiking all the way to the top, where you get a spectacular view of the whole Atlanta area.

Too bad about the racist traitors, though.

Really? I actually think the sculpture is pretty cool. Pretty well detailed at a massive size, plus it gives them kind of a ghostly (and therefore quasi-immortal) vibe. And that, plus being carved into stone, makes them semi-permanent (and the stone matches the whole "Stonewall" thing).

BUT it's still a pretty cool sculpture of horrifically bad people.

The roughness around the figures wasn't intentional. I believe they ran out of money or something, because the original plan (conceived by the Mount Rushmore guy) was to have a background of hundreds of smaller figures. They wanted the whole Confederate Army up there.

I probably went half a dozen times when I was growing up (again, hiking up the back side was nice). The gift shop, as you can imagine, was a nightmare of Lost Cause kitsch.

Oh, ok. The sculptures up there still look cool, though, even if that's not what they originally intended.

Maybe sort of like how they intended secession to preserve slavery forever, but instead it immediately ended it.

[Isgrimnur]

That is a seriously ugly-ass monument.

+1

[Kasey Chang]

Christ, this statue thing is so stupid.

Trump campaign ads over the weekend vowed to protect a new statue: "Christ the Redeemer" in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

That's about as dumb as US Senator tweeting a RUSSIAN cruiser to celebrate US Navy's Birthday. To be fair, he was Army.

[Kasey Chang]

The couple who defaced a BLM mural in Martinez, California have been interviewed by police. Charges *may* yet to be filed.

[El Guapo]

The couple who defaced a BLM mural in Martinez, California have been interviewed by police. Charges *may* yet to be filed.

I will say that I would rather they just be fined and made to pay (or do) the clean-up, and not face criminal charges. I realize that they would probably be more harshly treated if they weren't white, but this is one area where I would like to achieve equity by less criminal punishment than more.

[Kasey Chang]

The mural was already cleaned up, IIRC. Personally, I'd have left it uncleaned as a symbol of... resilience? Martyrdom? I dunno... Perseverance? Justice? What's the word here? Darn it...

[Zarathud]

If you watch James Baldwin debate William F Buckley at Cambridge, it becomes clear that Trump is racist even by 1965 conservative standards.

Mr. Buckley attempts to gloss over problems that still exist today, insisting on the "good nature, generousity, good wishes and decency" of the spirit of the American People will provide advancement. Counterpoint with Trump and the 2020 Republican Party. On the other hand, current research on implicit bias and examples support many of the arguments Mr. Baldwin makes including the moral bankruptcy of the racist's search for meaning in color. Fascinating.

[malchior]

What struck me about Buckley's speech is that the tactics of the Conservative intellectual have hardly changed in 55 years. What has changed is that there are so few conservative intellectuals left in the GOP.

Mr. Buckley attempts to gloss over problems that still exist today, insisting on the "good nature, generousity, good wishes and decency" of the spirit of the American People will provide advancement.

It isn't just glossing over. He embodied the system that undermined black progress. He pointed at Baldwin as an example of progress instead of acknowledging Baldwin was an anomaly in a statistical sense of the era. If Buckley was alive at the turn of the 20th century maybe he'd point at George Washington Carver as an example of black progress. It's absurd.

He also acknowledged that discrimination was a problem then he went on to talk about how the black population wasn't trying hard enough. The classic racist argument that we have heard for years. He made no effort to balance this or to realize what a sham that statement was on the whole. My takeaway was he laid the blueprint for the conservative intellectual brand of gas lighting about race we've dealt with our entire lives. And this was a good demonstration of it, up to and including not even bothering to directly discuss the question of the debate to just sell his wretched opinion about race issues.

[LordMortis]

If you watch James Baldwin debate William F Buckley at Cambridge, it becomes clear that Trump is racist even by 1965 conservative standards.

Mr. Buckley attempts to gloss over problems that still exist today, insisting on the "good nature, generousity, good wishes and decency" of the spirit of the American People will provide advancement. Counterpoint with Trump and the 2020 Republican Party. On the other hand, current research on implicit bias and examples support many of the arguments Mr. Baldwin makes including the moral bankruptcy of the racist's search for meaning in color. Fascinating.

An hour long, huh? I'm gonna have to bookmark and watch it later. I'm guessing it will be good learning lesson for me. I've become sort of enamored (for lack of finding a better word) with Baldwin since people started posting about him here and I used to be the sort of person who believed ignoring prejudice was the way to make it go away at a generational level. I'm not sure when I moved away from that belief.

[LawBeefaroni]

The mural was already cleaned up, IIRC. Personally, I'd have left it uncleaned as a symbol of... resilience? Martyrdom? I dunno... Perseverance? Justice? What's the word here? Darn it...

Resilience is good. Battle scars?

But they have to clean it or it will encourage others to deface it.

[Kasey Chang]

Costco Kent may be trying to provoke a "stand your ground" incident at Florida Costco after being asked about masking, by approaching people aggressively and screaming "I feel threatened!"

[Grifman]

Costco Kent may be trying to provoke a "stand your ground" incident at Florida Costco after being asked about masking, by approaching people aggressively and screaming "I feel threatened!"

His employer stood their ground and fired him today. Now he has plenty of time to go think about what he did. These people still don't' get it. Cameras are everywhere and filming misconduct is the first response of everyone. I've seen at least 6 different MAGA/no mask/racists identified on Twitter and fired in the last 48 hours due to their public conduct. They don't realize that companies don't care to defend their actions, it's just much easier to fire them than deal with the business impact. I'm sad to see this repeated type of conduct, sad to see even these people mess up their lives due to their idiocy, but happy to see that this type of conduct will not be tolerated.

[Isgrimnur]

If only they were wearing masks so they couldn't be identified...

[malchior]

That didn't take long. I don't condone the conduct but I'm not too excited by moments like this turned into live fire trial by twitter.

[hepcat]

Ditto. But I also worry that someone like that is also dangerous.



Hopefully he’ll get the help I suspect he needs at some point.

[malchior]

Ditto. But I also worry that someone like that is also dangerous. Hopefully he’ll get the help I suspect he needs at some point.

Sure and that is a fair concern. At the same time, this is 30 seconds of someone's life. He fucked up but 'we've' essentially said...to the pit of despair with you. No income. No health insurance. We don't know anything about that man other than what was shown to us in a moment. He gets dealt swift 'justice' and then we move on to the next one. This is the beginning of a rise of something that I don't think we understand the depths of yet.

[Isgrimnur]

Yeah, I tried to see if he was printing, but didn't spend too much time on it.