Charlottesville

[mjl]

What do I do now? How do I help in this fight? Charlottesville is keeping me up at night. I'm Jewish. My wife is Black. My kids are biracial. I'm pretty firmly anti-Nazi. But aside from the basic commitment to punch a Nazi if I see one, which feels unlikely in San Francisco, how do I make the bad guys not win? This doesn't feel like a "throw $50 the ACLU's way" thing, anyone in a position of power who's willing to listen to me already agrees with me, and I'm not going to arm an anti-Nazi militia in South Carolina even if that looks like the way things are going. I don't want to buy a gun but if I lived almost anywhere else I'd be considering it. If the President isn't willing to take sides here, if he's that committed to seeing both sides of the white supremacy issue, what can I do?

I'm willing to spend money and time on this, I just don't see how. Anyone?

[TranaGreg]

I don't have any answers but I'm sure a lot of people are asking similar questions.

Meanwhile, here's something I read last night that I thought was worth sharing... one person's idea of what the president might have said (per Ben Greenman) ...

[Redbirds Fan]

My son stopped by the house yesterday for a while, and we were watching the coverage on television. He asked me why the President can't just come out and say "F*ck Nazis. They're the worst." I couldn't think of a good answer.

Maybe that is something we can all do. When the situation calls for it, we stand up and say "Fuck Nazis. They're the worst."

[Sour Masher]

What do I do now? How do I help in this fight? Charlottesville is keeping me up at night. I'm Jewish. My wife is Black. My kids are biracial. I'm pretty firmly anti-Nazi. But aside from the basic commitment to punch a Nazi if I see one, which feels unlikely in San Francisco, how do I make the bad guys not win? This doesn't feel like a "throw $50 the ACLU's way" thing, anyone in a position of power who's willing to listen to me already agrees with me, and I'm not going to arm an anti-Nazi militia in South Carolina even if that looks like the way things are going. I don't want to buy a gun but if I lived almost anywhere else I'd be considering it. If the President isn't willing to take sides here, if he's that committed to seeing both sides of the white supremacy issue, what can I do?

I'm willing to spend money and time on this, I just don't see how. Anyone?

You and I have a lot in common. I have Jewish heritage, my wife is black, and my kids biracial. I share.your fears and concerns. Whatever we can do to make these vermin scurry back to their dark corners, we must. Trump's ascension has empowered these people, made them feel mainstream. They wear their hate openly and with pride. And I too feel helpless to curb these frightening sea changes.

My hope is all of those unmasked alt righters beating on women and ganging up on young men, all of them get found and prosecuted. I hope that we can make Republican voters who don't identify with these groups see this is who they are now in bed with by voting for trump. I hope we can make them see it is a false equivalency to suggest both sides of this clash are equally culpable. Trump suggesting they are is part of a larger stragegy of false equivalency we must all be prepared to challenge. Whether it be comparing violent hate groups to anti-hate protestors, or trying g to equate baseless or belief based opinion to scientific fact, my hope is that my attempts to engage those who support trump to see that these false equivalency are dangerous will make a difference. But l can't even make my own mother see these things, so I don't have much hope.

[Redbirds Fan]

You and I have a lot in common. I have Jewish heritage, my wife is black, and my kids biracial. I share.your fears and concerns. Whatever we can do to make these vermin scurry back to their dark corners, we must. Trump's ascension has empowered these people, made them feel mainstream. They wear their hate openly and with pride. And I too feel helpless to curb these frightening sea changes.

My hope is all of those unmasked alt righters beating on women and ganging up on young men, all of them get found and prosecuted. I hope that we can make Republican voters who don't identify with these groups see this is who they are now in bed with by voting for trump. I hope we can make them see it is a false equivalency to suggest both sides of this clash are equally culpable. Trump suggesting they are is part of a larger stragegy of false equivalency we must all be prepared to challenge. Whether it be comparing violent hate groups to anti-hate protestors, or trying g to equate baseless or belief based opinion to scientific fact, my hope is that my attempts to engage those who support trump to see that these false equivalency are dangerous will make a difference. But l can't even make my own mother see these things, so I don't have much hope.

This is something else my son and I talked about. We have never been the targets of institutionalized racism, the type of racism some on the far right say no longer exists. We cannot imagine having to face all that life throws at us, and then have to deal with discrimination and bigotry on top of that.

My personal goal has been for each generation of my family to be less racist than the previous one. I cannot claim to be free of racist tendencies, but I am certain my son and daughter are much better people in this regard.

It makes me sad for America. It hurts my heart every time I hear someone say they want to take their country back, or I hear the code words used to replace the epithets of the past.

And the media, supposedly a tool for the left, is complicit. Had this been a Muslim youth, we would have been subjected all day and night to speculation as to how and when he became "radicalized". I want to know when this 20-year old white kid became radicalized. His mother thought he was going to a pro-Trump rally. Was it a Trump speech that pushed him over the edge? Does he visit pro-Trump websites? Do he and his friends talk about how Trump will put the white man back on top and make America great again?

I also watched the police yesterday, as neo-Nazis physically confronted them, pushing and shoving them. I could not condemn the passive response of law enforcement, but I did not doubt it would have been more aggressive had they been struggling instead against a group of black teens instead.

And, to digress somewhat, I noted with personal humiliation the one a**hole who continued to show up on camera at the tiki torch march wearing an "Arkansas Engineering" tee shirt. The U of A has a pretty good department, so I hate to see them get this black eye to their recruiting program and another embarrassment to the State. I'm still waiting for Bill Clinton or the Huckster to weigh in on this one.

[Hornsby]

This is something else my son and I talked about. We have never been the targets of institutionalized racism, the type of racism some on the far right say no longer exists. We cannot imagine having to face all that life throws at us, and then have to deal with discrimination and bigotry on top of that.

My personal goal has been for each generation of my family to be less racist than the previous one. I cannot claim to be free of racist tendencies, but I am certain my son and daughter are much better people in this regard.

It makes me sad for America. It hurts my heart every time I hear someone say they want to take their country back, or I hear the code words used to replace the epithets of the past.

And the media, supposedly a tool for the left, is complicit. Had this been a Muslim youth, we would have been subjected all day and night to speculation as to how and when he became "radicalized". I want to know when this 20-year old white kid became radicalized. His mother thought he was going to a pro-Trump rally. Was it a Trump speech that pushed him over the edge? Does he visit pro-Trump websites? Do he and his friends talk about how Trump will put the white man back on top and make America great again?

I also watched the police yesterday, as neo-Nazis physically confronted them, pushing and shoving them. I could not condemn the passive response of law enforcement, but I did not doubt it would have been more aggressive had they been struggling instead against a group of black teens instead.

And, to digress somewhat, I noted with personal humiliation the one a**hole who continued to show up on camera at the tiki torch march wearing an "Arkansas Engineering" tee shirt. The U of A has a pretty good department, so I hate to see them get this black eye to their recruiting program and another embarrassment to the State. I'm still waiting for Bill Clinton or the Huckster to weigh in on this one.

I'm not sure who the Huckster is, but if you're referring to Mike Huckabee, he actually stepped up to the plate yesterday and said what every Republican needed to say.

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and father of the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, issued a strident tweet about white nationalism. “‘White supremacy’ crap is worst kind of racism – it’s EVIL and perversion of God’s truth to ever think our Creator values some above others,” Huckabee said on Twitter.

As much of a clown shill for the WH as he's been, him stepping up to the plate on this one, when his daughter may be impacted, was the right thing to do.

As far as what anyone elsewhere can do, just stay the course. It doesn't seem like much, but yes, GIVE the 50 buck to the ACLU, continue to resist, campaign and FIGHT for politicians who at least espouse what you believe. And above all, don't go to sleep on this type of thing, because that's all that the vermin need. Does it help to shout out on boards like this one, and twitter and facebook? Maybe, maybe not...but it let's people know where YOU stand, and what you're willing to do about things. So have the effect that you can, do the small things to move the needle in the right direction, and if you can't educate the people that surround you, and least let them know where you stand.

I also have children, and stepchildren who are black. I've got a darling grandchild who's black, white, and Asian..there's also Native American in her background as well. That's the future, that's what people will look like, and be, less than a century down the line. And that's what the Nazis are so frightened of, that they truly WILL become the minority in this country. So keep fighting the fight, keep shining a light on bigotry, and eventually, it'll be driven back underground where it belongs.

[Moonlight J]

https://twitter.com/gofundme/status/896762925381107712

[Teenwolf]

https://twitter.com/gofundme/status/896762925381107712

Would anybody take a bet that the scumbag who ran her over collects more money than her through crowdfunding? That's what happens in every one of these instances.

I'm living in one of the most racist cities in Canada (Thunder Bay, Ontario), where Indigenous teenagers are found drowned in the river, or beaten to death, and police declare "no foul play" as soon as they see the victims are Indigenous. I'm the 3rd guy in this thread married to a black woman, and seeing these racial attacks, and the public response shrugging them off, or worse (our newspaper is constantly pumping racist opinion pieces) up close on a regular basis makes it nearly impossible to engage with the community. We stay inside a lot more than we're used to.

One example: last fall, a woman was walking down the street when a passing car slowed down beside her and threw a trailer hitch at her. She suffered severe injuries, and spent 4 months in agonizing pain until she passed away. The hatred that is spewed about this woman, the devil's advocate responses of "you don't know that was racially motivated" despite the fact that the perpetrator yelled "I GOT ONE!"... how much more obvious of a hate crime could there be? But my community largely shrugs it off. My wife is unable to shake this off, and we'll definitely get the hell out when the kids are a bit older.

The most common response we hear in Thunder Bay is close to what Trump said. "I wish everybody could just get along." It's pathetic.

[Redbirds Fan]

I'm not sure who the Huckster is, but if you're referring to Mike Huckabee, he actually stepped up to the plate yesterday and said what every Republican needed to say.

Only his friends get to call him The Huckster. I spent a while on the same campaign trail, and my impression of him could be summed up by the word 'smarmy'.

In the same interview you quoted, he defended the President's failure to call out the neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.

Pirro asked Huckabee if the outrage over the president’s remarks are just “Trump haters” who ” will look for any reason to dump on” him.

“Well it seems like a lot of them are, I don’t know what they expect the president to do,” Huckabee responded.

[Redbirds Fan]

Jennifer Rubin bashes the myth of Southern Heritage:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/08/12/enough-of-the-confederate-statues-the-alt-right-heroes-and-trumps-moral-idiocy/?utm_term=.d8c12f8e0722

[revo]

There's a Twitter user -- Yes, You're Racist -- who is actively identifying anyone who was caught on camera at the rally.

He's already gotten one of the racist morons fired. Help out of you can!

[mjl]

He worked at a hot dog stand in Berkeley. Why does he live there and how did he decide to fly all the way across the country for that?

[Redbirds Fan]

There's a Twitter user -- Yes, You're Racist -- who is actively identifying anyone who was caught on camera at the rally.

He's already gotten one of the racist morons fired. Help out of you can!

I just saw this. I think it is "Yes, You're Racist".

They should have worn the masks this time.

[revo]

I just saw this. I think it is "Yes, You're Racist".

They should have worn the masks this time.

Ha, you're right. I'll change.

[Judge Jude]

There's a Twitter user -- Yes, You're Racist -- who is actively identifying anyone who was caught on camera at the rally.

He's already gotten one of the racist morons fired. Help out of you can!

as despicable as these people are - and they are - in the U.S., people are allowed to attend peaceful rallies of any sort. ID-ing people seems like a potentially very slippery slope, and similar to the violent reactions to speakers invited onto college campuses.

would anyone be ok with a Black Lives Matter protester getting fired when the 70-year-old white CEO finds out about it?

and don't get fooled by the "they're not the same thing." the groups are not.

but the results may be the same: get involved with anything that has a hint of controversy - whether justified or not - and someone will work hard to get you fired.

call me old-fashioned, but if we get rid of peaceful protests, we are taking a step backward.