By David Futrelle
It’s Martin Luther King Jr. day here in the US. Our racist president “honored” King today by making an exceedingly brief visit to the MLK Memorial, where he told reporters, with his usual eloquence, that
It’s a great day. A beautiful day. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
Then he and VP Pence left. “Total trip time: about a minute or two,” Reuters’ White House Correspondent Jeff Mason noted in a tweet.
On Sunday, Pence himself honored the civil rights leader by comparing him to Trump, suggesting that his boss’ push for a wall to appease Ann Coulter and his racist base was basically the same as MLK’s historic campaign for civil rights, which ultimately led to him being assassinated by a guy who would, if he were still alive, be wearing a MAGA cap today.
Meanwhile, online and in a disturbing number of major media outlets, a veritable army of white people are concocting excuses for the Covington Catholic high school students’ miniature race riot after the so-called Walk for Life in DC.
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David,
Just popping in to link a comic in The Nib about the manosphere-alt-right-gateway. It cites a piece of yours in The Cut (though it gets the title confused with a different HuffPo piece). It’s a good introductory comic though.
https://thenib.com/how-pick-up-artists-morphed-into-the-alt-right
(Apologies if you’ve already seen this.)
Random link… At least they got this mass-murder-planning incel before he could actually hurt anyone…
Hippie Lady, don’t feel bad. You didn’t outright state your race but I’m going to guess your weight because you said it never occurred to you to judge your classmates differently on the color of their skin until you went to Virginia. I’m black biracial. Like I am almost exactly half Irish and half black I’ve got a touch of Native American but not enough to truly signify but at least I don’t have to worry it’s just a family myth, because there are pictures of my great great grandma Shana and some personal mementos.
But I lived a very sheltered life until I was about eighteen in a lot of ways. I grew up in the East Village in NYC in a upper middle-class household and was raised my white mom and black dad with five degrees between them who got engaged in 1979 and married a year later.
So I’m embarrassed by it now but I was completely skeptical and dismissive of the concept of institutionalized and systemic racism because it felt like it had never affected me even a tiny bit up to that point. I did better on IQ tests in my SATs in the specialized high school test then the great majority of my white peers well honestly than the great majority of my peers in general, male and female.
My thought process was if it was so pervasive then why had it never affected me? The answer to that it is class privilege and growing up in Manhattan and going to fancy nerd schools culminating and Stuyvesant High School and then NYU for a year but it was too expensive because they give you scholarships and they play tricks on you I have a lot of hostility there. They’re fucking business not a school and are responsible for a large part of the gentrification of both Greenwich Village and the East Village.
But then I started hanging out at Harlem and the difference in how I was treated hanging out downtown in Tribeca and Soho and the village with white friends and how I was treated hanging out with black friends and Harlem and the Bronx was so extreme it was literally obscene.
Like I literally kind of had culture shock I think that’s the right term because something(racism)I had thought was kind of a thing but it was mostly just assholes right you’re always going to have assholes that was my mindset back then but once I turned 18 and started having experiences at least weekly that literally defined systemic racism obviously I changed my mind because I’m not going to keep being willfully ignorant when something is literally punching my friend in the face till he bleeds and has to go to the hospital.
I’ve told this story here before but it was a huge turning point for me. Norman was supposedly resisting arrest because he flinched when a giant police officer was screaming in his face two inches from him and literally spitting on him.
He flinched back because that’s what anyone would do in that situation it was fucking terrifying and the cop just started beating the absolute shit out of him. I kind of had a nervous breakdown the week following. I also thought that type of thing was mostly over and things like that or outliers no hanging out in Harlem being a delinquent like I was I saw shit like that almost weekly until they at least slow down with the stop-and-frisk. I’m not sure exactly what my point was but yeah I’m black if I felt like it was over you shouldn’t feel bad for feeling like it was over also.
Like racism just wasn’t a thing in my high school. Sexism and misogyny and toxic masculinity sure, but racism not really. Like I just don’t ever recall anything but very mildly ignorant dumb shit like occasional microaggressions. But the people doing these things were true friends and truly had good intentions, sure intent isn’t magic but I feel intent is more important when you’re like 14, 15 and just don’t know any better.
And when I or someone else was like hey that’s a little fucked up this is why, they’d feel really bad about it and even that almost never happened. So yeah as a teenager I thought racism was kind of a thing of the past. I wish I had been right.
Also since this is the appropriate place and open thread I’m going to ask my final few questions and make a short summary of what my point has mutated to in the way that was requested very politely and explained very thoroughly to my intense gratitude.
But it’ll have to be after I do the chores my mom left on the list. I think most regular commenters know I live with my mom and if I don’t do the chores on the list before she wakes up for work she will be annoyed with good reason LOL.
I consider it a very good trade for being able to live in the village in New York City for free. I’ve had roommates in the past that we’re definitely much more annoying than living with my mother.
But shortly I’m going to attempt to post the picture if I can do it I will be so thrilled. Like I said previously, most computer style technology is just so counter-intuitive and foreign to me at this point it really does feel like magic almost when I type in a short series of words and letters and all of a sudden the picture appears. I don’t know, it’s magical to me LOL. Anyway hope everyone had a lovely Martin Luther King Day.
I grew up in Pittsburgh, and I’m still astonished how sanitized my education was on race relations. Letter from Birmingham Jail was mentioned, but not read. I was also taught that the evidence was unclear on the cause of the Civil War – maybe slavery, maybe agriculture vs industrialization, maybe state’s rights. No mention was made of the Cornerstone speech.
This was in an urban area in a Union state! It really bothers me how I was set up to be a class-not-race liberal – which wouldn’t be a positive outcome for people of color and other marginalized groups. Long story short, whitewashing MLK is a symptom of a deep sickness on the US.
In more fun times for all, a 27 year old man threatened to shoot up the Women’s March because he was “27 and never had a girlfriend.”
Gee, I wonder why. ;/
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/22/1828382/-Colorado-man-arrested-on-terrorism-charge-after-threatening-mass-shooting-at-Women-s-March
I don’t know how to react to that:
I fear that satire is unfortunatly realistic:
From a SciFiFanwriter about Trump shooting someone on the street. (Satire)
Mate posted this on twitter.
Searchable database of places providing mental health care in the USA – even if you can’t pay.
https://findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov/?zip=&radius=50&incrementalsearch=true
Might be of use to some here – recall a couple of people are having some trouble regarding insurance and care.
Sooo Michael Cohen is delaying his testimony, claiming threats to his family by Trump and Giuliani:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-michael-cohen-testimony-20190123-story.html
Again with witness intimidation and threatening people’s families. I swear, my loathing for this man and his cronies grows every day. He’s like a villain out of a bad superhero comic, just gleefully evil in every way he can manage. And his fellow Republicans are even more revolting to my eyes, for enabling his evil without question.