So “Hamilton” has gotten pretty much unanimous praise from critics and those lucky (or rich) enough to score themselves tickets to it. Even Mike Pence, despite that thing that happened when he attended the show Friday night, declared on Fox News Sunday that “Hamilton’ is just an incredible production, incredibly talented people. It was a real joy to be there.”
The Trump-loving, Muslim-hating racist behind the blog Diversity Macht Frei begs to differ. As he sees it, Hamilton is basically an act of “white genocide” set to music. In Hamilton, you see, all the Founding Fathers are played by people of color, a deliberate choice by the show’s creator designed to make the cast “look … like America looks now.”
Well, Mr. Macht Frei is having none of it.
This entire spectacle is simply white genocide turned into entertainment. It retells American history with the roles historically played by European Americans instead performed by brown-skinned people of varied ancestry, the whole thing set to music of a style typically associated with those of African race. This is racial appropriation. One race is written out of history, replaced by another. Europeans are being asked to celebrate their own demise, their own effacament from America’s story.
I’m going to let Nathan Fillion take this one:
The blogger continues:
Imagine if someone made a musical about Zulus and all the Zulus were played by Europeans, played to Mozart-like music. You can imagine the outrage that would provoke. But, somehow, when it happens to Europeans, this racial usurpation is OK? No, it’s not OK. In the age of Trump, maybe white people need to establish a new political correctness of their own.
Yeah, it’s not as if white actors have ever played the parts of non-white characters in movies and TV and Broadway spectacles. (Oh, wait.) It’s not as if Jesus, a middle-eastern Hebrew, is ever depicted like some blue-eyed, dirty-blond-haired, white-skinned surfer dude. (Oh, wait.) It’s not as if Fox News anchors have ever worked themselves into a frenzy insisting that Santa Claus — who I am told is not even a real person — is white. (Oh wait.)
It’s not as if a horde of white Harry Potter fans threw a fit when a black actress was chosen to play Hermione in a London theatrical production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — even after JK Rowling declared that the complainers were racist “idiots” and that “Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm.” Oh, wait.
It’s not as if the casting of Hamilton is a conscious response to this long tradition of whitewashing people of color out of history and culture.
Oh wait.
Anyhoo, Mr. Macht Frei goes on to demand the inevitable phony boycott of this allegedly white-hating play.
We need people to picket, protest and boycott this so-called musical. There can be no place in modern America for racially inflammatory spectacles masquerading as entertainment. And don’t give me the argument that this is free speech. This isn’t free speech. It’s hate speech. And hate speech doesn’t cease to be hate speech just because it’s set to music. Especially when that style of music is rap*.
Now, Mr. Macht Frei follows up this post with a wry little “disclaimer” suggesting that maybe he’s just trolling, ha ha — which would presumably make his post a sort of parody of the things those evil SJWs say when they object to white people playing people of color.
But the point of his post, if we assume it’s meant seriously, is pretty much identical with the stated aim of his blog — “chronicling the Genocide of the European peoples, the greatest crime in all of history.” If that’s not meant as a joke — and there’s no indication that it is — then it’s pretty much impossible for me to believe that his Hamilton post was meant as a joke.
Tellingly, when The Daily Stormer’s Andrew Anglin reposted Diversity Macht Frei’s post on his site, he left off the disclaimer. And his commenters don’t seem to be in on any joke.
“All of the Founding Fathers are played by n***ers while the “bad guy”, King George III, of course remains white,”one Daily Stormer commenter complains. (Asterisks mine.)
“The tide is turning , all can see the black nightmare that is all around us,’ writes another, using the logo of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) as his avatar.
Destroying one city after another. We are going to win but it will cost many lives because of cowards.
Yeah, kind of hard to see the joke here.
My heart breaks at the thought of it, @PreusFox. It really does continue to this day. I hope that the upswell of protest and attention that Standing Rock has caused will continue, and will bring real change along with it.
@Axe:
Not to diminish the fact that there are millions of bigots in the US, as an image posted by (I believe) Scildfreja a little while ago pointed out, the number of people who actively voted for Trump was just under 19% of the country.
I don’t believe it would be entirely fair to say that the 36% who didn’t or couldn’t vote and the 24% who were too young to vote are definitely bigots.
was it this one?
I bet it was this one.
http://trofire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/pizza-pie-chart.png
Having said that, 60 million is still far larger a number than it should be with regards to supporting Trump, and it really frustrates me to see the support for him outside of the States as well (currently in Nova Scotia for university, and my TA for my Lit class is leaving because he is a “libertarian” who doesn’t agree with academia and doesn’t get along with all of the “social justice-y” other TAs, and wants to move to America because he hopes Trump is going to help turn it into an anarchist libertarian utopia and so he can buy guns).
@dslucia
1)Hiya, buddy 😀
2)Kids don’t count
3)People who voted Trump are the floor not the whole set
4)Fair enough, over 25% (Trump’s percentage of eligible voters) are bigots. Tho, I’d still argue that’s a conservative (puns) estimate indeed
@Axe ‘Danger’ Calibur:
Howdy. You know, it’s been a real adventure moving to a new country to attend uni. I’ve been sure to keep lurking around and reading as much as I can when I’ve got the time (generally late at night…).
I certainly don’t disagree with your overall point, I’m just an obnoxious pedant.
@Scildfreja:
Hah, unfortunately not.
@PreuxFox
I am indeed aware of this, and it enrages me. I hold that at a bare minimum, the U.S. owes the surviving First Nations trillions of dollars in reparations.* There are certain practical difficulties to returning to the 1851 treaty boundaries, but I really feel that as a nation, the U.S. should at least make an effort.
@Axe
As would I. A considerable number of Clinton voters are shockingly bigoted, but either a)don’t value it (as high)** above their economic well being, and/or b)prefer their bigotry more subtle, so they can still pretend to be good people.
*Entirely separate from what we owe to Black America, which is also a staggering sum. **
**I maintain that the aforementioned reparations would create the biggest economic boom this country has ever seen, leaving questions of justice, fair play, and international law entirely aside.
@dslucia
Join the club 🙂
@Dali
Might I ask for more info on what those borders look like? Also, the feds have a lot of land holdings out west, so the old Israeli/Palestine standby of ‘mutually agreed upon land swaps’ makes this totally doable should the political will to do so coalesce
No doubt. As with most things, it’s a difference in scale rather than kind. I’ll take it tho
@Axe
I honestly only said 1851 because the Fort Laramie Treaty was signed with the Lakota that year, and that covers Standing Rock and a largish chunk the the Dakotas, along with parts of Montana and Nebraska. Which, in fact, we could give back with minimal difficulty. There are a ton of treaties that are theoretically still in force, dating from the 1780s to the 1880s, that delineate land boundaries. Leaving aside treaties to whom the other signatories no longer exist, and the fact that a lot of the treaties were signed at the point of a gun, that leaves Georgia and Arkansas being divvied up among the Cherokee, Creek and Chickasaw, much of Oregon and Washington (which, as you note, have a lot of federal land anyway) to the Paiute (who’re also owed a chunk of Nevada), the Walla Walla, Cayuse, and Umatilla, etc. I can’t easily find what’s owing in the Northeast, but there’s seriously a lot of land under discussion.
Well, given the alternative, yeah.
@Dali
Aight! That makes sense and is totally doable. Maybe not fully, but worth a try
You’ve never been to (Far) North Georgia. Lemme tell ya, the Cherokee can have it back. Outside of maybe Rome and Athens, the whole region is basically time lapsed in 1851 anyway. Or at least 1951. We won’t miss it. And it’s really pretty to look at, so tourism money!
@ HPSJ
“The white people who voted for Donald Dump probably deeply care about identity politics, that is, they only vote Republican, wouldn’t vote in a woman and probably don’t care about anyone else than white people.”
THIS. THIS SO FUCKING MUCH.
With that being said…
@Otrame
“White women voted for the fucker. How can they even… WHERE THE HELL DID ALL THE EVENS GO?!!?!!!”
Not that surprising. I’m a white working class woman from the rusting industrial northeast. It’s hard to care about feminism when your factory job has packed up, your husband’s is under threat of moving to Thailand, your health insurance is unaffordable, your child care costs more than the tuition of a public university or that of your already absurd rent, and so on, unless you can be convinced that feminism will help solve some of those problems. (Which it will).
So, in short, everyone who says things like “fuck your economic anxiety” are just as responsible for Trump as the Republicans are. Flies aren’t caught with vinegar. If we want people to believe that we can help them, we need to take their concerns seriously.
@mrex
1stly, hiya! How do you pronounce your nym?
2ndly, the following contains hypertonic concentrations of snark and thinly veiled sarcastic rage.
Counterpoint: nah
As a point of fact, the Republican Party could have made it literally impossible for him to run as their party’s candidate literally anytime. Running as a major party candidate guarantees ~40% of the vote. Any responsibility I and people like me may hold does not add up to ~40%. So… nah
Beyond that, don’t bring that weak shit here. Cos that’s some weak shit if I’ve ever seen it. I mean, if I’m at fault for the next 4 years of fascist rule cos I didn’t gather round the campfire and indulge bigoted white people’s entitled feelings, then I’ll hold that L. Fine. But you gotta tell me when I can stop feigning sympathy for people for whom “it’s hard to care about” me and mine. Lemme know when I can stop coddling people who either hate me or don’t care much for my wellbeing. Cos I’m letting ya know right now, I ain’t gonna last long ?
I pronounce it as “Egocentric White Feminist™ asswipe who’s never posted anything that wasn’t shitty on some or all levels.” But that might be a bit too long for a nickname.
@SFHC
Shots fired! But furreal tho. I mean, I’m assuming she’s not ‘mister ex’…
The people who want us to sympathize with Trump voters always seem to operate on the,assumption that we’ve never calmly and rationally made the case for progressive policy being the better cure for the economic woes of the white working class. I used to work for a group funded by a major union that is dedicated to doing exactly that.
We’ve done it. Ad nauseum. They’d rather cling to guns, God, and scapegoating than listen to reason. People are angry at them in part because we’re tired of trying to placate them only to be spat on again and again. At some point, these people,are going to have to adapt and realize they’re in the 21st century and no amount of racism and xenophobia is going to make the economic conditions white people had in 50s and 60s return.
Fun story. I had a fruit fly infestation in my kitchen one time that I needed to take care of, so I started making vinegar traps. Then I remembered the saying that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar and I decided to set up a honey trap and a vinegar trap to see which caught more flies. Turns out fruit flies don’t give a single fuck about honey but they’ll drown themselves in vinegar every time. It makes sense, too, since what fruit flies are attracted to is decomposing fruit, which is basically what vinegar is and honey doesn’t decompose.
I guess my point is you’re as wrong about flies as you are about Trump supporters. You assume they’re attracted to the same thing you would be, but they’re not. They’re just racist.
Hello; I’ve been lurking here a while. I’ve posted a couple of times but very seldom.
I’d love to be a regular, here. I love this site and support fighting misogyny and bigotry in general.
Anyway; I try to stay hopeful and try to see the silver-lining. Despite the upswing of wingnuttery all over the world, I still think that humanity is not curtains yet.
Same for the USA.
I realize that, to get ahead, politically, Progressives need to study and learn from the Regressive’s playbook. We haven’t been doing that.
Also, I feel that both mrex and those who disagree with mrex both have valid points. Sometimes the truth’s in the middle.
Sometimes it’s not always black & white. Yes; bigots will always be bigots but SOME are bigots because they turned to bigotry to explain their malaise and economic fears.
True; Some of it is entitlement and being spoiled. However; for some, there are some legit concerns and insecurities. Sadly; These folks are too ignorant to realize what’s really going on and are taught to “blame the POC person/LGBTA person/etc.”
The sad fact is is that Progressives need to find a way to reach “White Middle America” as much as everyone else. We can still keep Identity Politics but we also need to speak to “Joe & Jane Q. Sixpack, Bill & Barb Bluecollar and Farmer Brown”…..since they are a massive bulk of American voters.
Again; We need to copy what they do. We need to create Counter-Hate sites to get the young (stuff like ADL & SPLC isn’t enough. We need sites modeled after the Hate Sites that teach love instead). We need Progressive Religious Revivals and Televangelists preaching a Socially Progressive Gospel (let’s face it, much of the success of the Right is due to religion and Churches), we need Progressives running for LOCAL office in droves (it’s easier to change things from the bottom-up)!
It is important to counter things on many levels, to be pragmatic, strategic and try to unite as much as we can and to appeal to many as possible.
Finally; Progressives need a loud counter-voice. Yes; I’m aware that the media often blocks it….but there are alternatives. We need folks on the streets, we can use the internet. There can be a whole Cyberspace media behemoth built based on Progressivism.
We also need to teach people not to keep on falling for the fear-based tactics of the “Higher-Ups” over and over again.
I wonder if it’s possible to use nutrition to shrink amygdalas? Perhaps we can encourage the consumption of certain nutrients so people won’t have brains so darn prone to fear, hate and paranoia. Wingnuts have huge, overactive amygdalas.
This is my first post in a long while. I would love to start fresh and be a regular, here. I’d love to be a friend and I truly want to see a peaceful, Progressive, open-minded, non-bigoted future.
So many people DO “get it”. So many humans DO learn from history and DO know a better way. The problem is is that they’re the ones seldom in charge.
Bigotry is learned. Bigotry can be unlearned.
@SpukiKitty
I’m sorry, it’s hard to take you seriously when you’re advocating brain damage to mold people into thinking more like you.
Also, I’m really, really tired of being told there’s a middle ground here. When it comes to, “Do these groups of people deserve equal rights?”, we CANNOT give a middle ground.
Hi @SpukiKitty! Welcome, and thank you.
First, I’ll get this one out of the way fast, ’cause it’s easy – brains don’t work that way. Neuron growth is partially hormonal, partially environmental. All changing nutrition’s gonna do is increase adrenaline production and make them more angry / unreasonable.
Second, the “middle ground” thing. I understand what you’re saying! We need to do something, and it’s sort of hubris to think that the reason for their behaviour is “They’re dumber/more emotional/less rational than we are”. They do have reasons for what they do (which often recess back to inherent racism and sexism). We need to discover those reasons and put a crowbar in. No “giving ground” as @kupo talks about, but a firm rejection of the awfulness combined with actual help for the reasons that are so large in their mind that they are willing to overlook the racism and sexism and bigotry.
It’s easy to think that they’ll always be there, and there’s always going to be a problem with fascists bubbling out of the ground. And that’s true, certainly. But at the same time, the bar for what’s acceptable and what isn’t has raised, significantly – even with the rampant hate and bigotry that’s surfacing right now. We won’t ever beat this, but we can, should, and will push it back further and further from the morals of society.
Vi Hart posted a video today. I don’t agree with everything she says in it, but she makes a very strong case that the major determining factor for the election wasn’t “economic anxiety”, or “fear of terrorism”, or even racism and sexism. Those were all factors, but not defining ones.
I won’t give away the punchline to it, I’ll let Vi say. She’s good.
@kupo
“You assume they’re attracted to the same thing you would be, but they’re not. They’re just racist.”
I would say that you’re not incorrect. I didn’t agree with Jack up above for show. I think white identity politics played a very large part in Trump’s win. BUT…
This issue is deeply nuanced. Racism is not a stable value over time, it can become weaker or stronger due to stress; particularly economic stress. I’m not making this up.
Just doing a quick google search…
“Of course, past studies have also shown that scarcity and resource competition fosters distrust between groups. The ingroup/outgroup cognitive bias theory holds that we prefer people who resemble us. But this research suggests that financial strain can cause the very definition of the “out” group to change, as well, by nudging us to view people of other races as even more dissimilar to ourselves.”– Yeah.
Economic stress makes people more racist, and less likely to confront and “unlearn” their biases.
@Spuck
“I realize that, to get ahead, politically, Progressives need to study and learn from the Regressive’s playbook. We haven’t been doing that.
Yes, THIS.
“The sad fact is is that Progressives need to find a way to reach “White Middle America” as much as everyone else. We can still keep Identity Politics but we also need to speak to “Joe & Jane Q. Sixpack, Bill & Barb Bluecollar and Farmer Brown”…..since they are a massive bulk of American voters.”
I’m not sure why this is a “sad fact”, but yes. Ignoring the white working class is just politically stupid. Obama rode promises made to the white working class to victory. So did Trump. Trump was likely to carry traditionally blue places whenever they were in economic decline. Clinton won the super economies focused in the largest cities.
People, particularly parents, will always care about things like the economy more than anything else. Food, shelter, and a decent edcation for our kids always come first; the most basic of needs. After that, THEN we can care about things like women’s rights and religious freedom.
Sad fact; Hilary could’ve won if she focused more on how Trump’s policies will hurt the working class. Instead, she was the privileged, rich, white woman, and focused on Trump being a nazi. Because that’s what was most important to her.
“True; Some of it is entitlement and being spoiled.”
Please expand what you mean by “entitlement” and “being spoiled”, because it sounds suspiciously like when FOX news declares that black people don’t need welfare because they own microwaves.
@Axe
“1stly, hiya! How do you pronounce your nym?”
It’s pronounced M-Rex. Two words. Yes I know there’s no space. 😉
The rest of your post, I already answered it, yeah?
@WWTH
“The people who want us to sympathize with Trump voters always seem to operate on the,assumption that we’ve never calmly and rationally made the case for progressive policy being the better cure for the economic woes of the white working class. I used to work for a group funded by a major union that is dedicated to doing exactly that.”
Wrong. I know progressives, and you specifically, have done just that. I do it myself. I want you to keep doing that. I want to keep doing it as well, as I’ve manged to change some minds over time, by being sympathetic. It was only possible not by being a privlege-blinded elite. (And you white, childless, educated women do realize that you are very economically privileged over white working-class parents, right?)
@SFHC
“I pronounce it as “Egocentric White Feminist™ asswipe who’s never posted anything that wasn’t shitty on some or all levels.” ‘
Ahhh, there you are. I suppose you would know the worth of what I post, when you don’t read them and all.
I wouldn’t [tm] feminist on me when you’re the one that confused my stories of my ex using my children to economically abuse me with “complains about caring for her kids”. Much feminism.
Ug typos, I see you.
I think the neighbour’s dog just started barking.
I missed that bit, sort of glossed over the details to read the larger gist of it. My mistake.
Speakin as a midwestern ruralite,
Stuff the “Joe & Jane Q Sixpack, Bill & Barb Bluecollar, Farmer Brown” tropes. That’s three ways of saying “plebians are stupid, you need to appeal to their baser natures.” People from the city ain’t smarter, and you don’t need to dumb it down to reach Farmer Brown – Farmer Brown runs a small business with multi-million investments in his land and his farm equipment. He’s smart.
Let me take a position here which I don’t like, but which is probably true. It’s not stupidity that makes people vote conservative; they aren’t voting against their better interest. Case in point: Trump is going to bring work to the rust belt. He’s going to bring jobs to the rust belt by greatly expanding coal extraction, increasing fracking, and opening the national parks to industrial exploitation. It’s shitty, and it’s going to mean long-term, possibly-irreversible damage to both America and the world at large, but it’s what they voted for. They were willing to say “fuck the planet, fuck the liberals, fuck the [people-of-colour]” for those jobs, and it’s likely they’re gonna get’em.
I don’t know how to get past that. It’s stupid, pedestrian, everyday arrogance that’s doing this – I want the thing, I think of a mess of reasons for why I should have the thing, and I’m right because I could think of those reasons. Step one is natural. Step two is normal, faulty, everyday non-logic. Step three is infuriating. That step three is what we need to break, and I have no idea how.
EDIT: The case above is what I’m scared of most of all. For the repercussions, certainly, but moreso, because it’ll give the racists, the rapists, the fascists and the monsters leverage. I desperately hope that I’m wrong on all of that, but I can’t see how the Republicans could miss such an obvious path to victory.
@SFHC
“I think the neighbour’s dog just started barking.”
And what would you call them?
Is making ad hominem attacks just your thing?
Hillary Clinton promised not to cut social security benefits. She talked about student loan debt relief. She talked about raising the minimum wage.
Donald Trump refused to promise not to cut social security, he’s known for stiffing workers, he wants to freeze hiring on government jobs and his tax plan will increase taxes on single parents by not allowing them to declare as head of household anymore. His entire economic plan is tax cuts for the rich. There is no way someone who truly cares about the economy first and foremost could compare the two and come to the conclusion that he’s better for their pocketbook.
Also, millenials voted for Hillary Clinton by large margins so I’m not buying this bullshit that working class parents came out for Trump.