Plan B Forum

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/04/23/wa ... l-silence/

• The shooting at a Tennessee Waffle House and its aftermath, say everything about this Presidency:
  

  • A white shooter.
    People of color brutally murdered.
    A black, gunless hero saving strangers.
    A silent white President.

  
  
  It’s all been on full display:
  

  • No calls by FoxNews to ban angry young white guys.
    No white evangelical televangelists taking to social media to condemn the evils of racism and the danger of gun proliferation.
    Nothing about the victims of color.
    Not a damn word from GOP leaders.
    Barely even any cursory “thoughts and prayers” for the dead.
    No Presidential praise for the black man who saved countless lives without a weapon.

  
  
  (By the way , his name is James Shaw Jr, Mr Trump.)
  
  All of this, a week after the arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks, within hours of a Neo-Nazi rally in Georgia, and just days before the manufactured racist holiday, “Confederate Memorial Day.
  
  This week is a microcosm of Trump’s America:
  

  • Contempt for people brown skin, by white people specifically emboldened.
    White privilege expressed in violent rage, with a weapon far too easily procured.
    A refusal to hold white, homegrown criminals accountable for the terrors they inflict—and to name them as terrorism.
    A purposeful Right silence in the face of people whose lives dispense with their preferred false narrative about people of color and the dangers in the world.
    A mass murder where none of the GOP tropes fit, and so there is no high horse to mount, no soapbox to stand upon, no pulpit to pound—and instead, only silence and hiding.

  
  
  This week brings many fresh reminders.
  
  It reminds us of the goodness within all people; of the similar selflessness that resides in disparate humanity, regardless of its pigmentation or orientation or nation of origin; of the incredible courage we are equally capable of.
  
  It reminds us that people like James Shaw Jr are precisely what is making America great, and that we are called at all times to be prepared to stand up to the monsters when they appear—whether wielding weapons or legislation or bully pulpits.
  
  It reminds us that white people rarely get painted as the villains here, even when they easily earn such titles—and that people of color have rarely received a hero’s welcome, even when clearly being heroic.
  
  It reminds us how far we have to go until Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness really are accessible to everyone.
  
  It reminds us that we can’t rely on our elected officials and our paid clergy to champion diversity and equality; that we the people will have to do do that; repeatedly, loudly, passionately.
  
  It also reminds us that our nation is not going to be made great because of this President and those like him—but in spite of them.
  
  This week we are seeing who we are, America.
  
  And we’re seeing who we could be—if more good people move and more good people speak.

Baghdad Sarah did have a one sentence statement of praise for Shaw at her daily disinformation briefing, but imagine how Trump would be blowing up twitter if the shooter had been an illegal alien or a Mideastern refugee...

And Shaw would be on his way to the White House to receive the personal congratulations of the President...

Instead nothing, zip, nada:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref ... r%5Eauthor

Total silence. Not even praise for the cops for catching this dirt bag...

Yet another illustration of the point I made a while back, about how Il Boobce never uses to Twitter to say anything that wouldn't be welcome by his hardcore racist, nativist base...

Econoline wrote:https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/04/23/wa ... l-silence/

• The shooting at a Tennessee Waffle House and its aftermath, say everything about this Presidency:
  

  • A white shooter.
    People of color brutally murdered.
    A black, gunless hero saving strangers.
    A silent white President.

  
  
  It’s all been on full display:
  

  • No calls by FoxNews to ban angry young white guys.
    No white evangelical televangelists taking to social media to condemn the evils of racism and the danger of gun proliferation.
    Nothing about the victims of color.
    Not a damn word from GOP leaders.
    Barely even any cursory “thoughts and prayers” for the dead.
    No Presidential praise for the black man who saved countless lives without a weapon.

  
  
  (By the way , his name is James Shaw Jr, Mr Trump.)
  
  All of this, a week after the arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks, within hours of a Neo-Nazi rally in Georgia, and just days before the manufactured racist holiday, “Confederate Memorial Day.
  
  This week is a microcosm of Trump’s America:
  

  • Contempt for people brown skin, by white people specifically emboldened.
    White privilege expressed in violent rage, with a weapon far too easily procured.
    A refusal to hold white, homegrown criminals accountable for the terrors they inflict—and to name them as terrorism.
    A purposeful Right silence in the face of people whose lives dispense with their preferred false narrative about people of color and the dangers in the world.
    A mass murder where none of the GOP tropes fit, and so there is no high horse to mount, no soapbox to stand upon, no pulpit to pound—and instead, only silence and hiding.

  
  
  This week brings many fresh reminders.
  
  It reminds us of the goodness within all people; of the similar selflessness that resides in disparate humanity, regardless of its pigmentation or orientation or nation of origin; of the incredible courage we are equally capable of.
  
  It reminds us that people like James Shaw Jr are precisely what is making America great, and that we are called at all times to be prepared to stand up to the monsters when they appear—whether wielding weapons or legislation or bully pulpits.
  
  It reminds us that white people rarely get painted as the villains here, even when they easily earn such titles—and that people of color have rarely received a hero’s welcome, even when clearly being heroic.
  
  It reminds us how far we have to go until Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness really are accessible to everyone.
  
  It reminds us that we can’t rely on our elected officials and our paid clergy to champion diversity and equality; that we the people will have to do do that; repeatedly, loudly, passionately.
  
  It also reminds us that our nation is not going to be made great because of this President and those like him—but in spite of them.
  
  This week we are seeing who we are, America.
  
  And we’re seeing who we could be—if more good people move and more good people speak.

Sound like you are seeing racism. How do you know it was a racist attack maybe the guy is just a nut? It does happen you know. Were these murders racially motivated just because the shooter was white and the victims black? What about when it is the other around and the victim is white and the shooter is black are those murders racially motivated?

Mr. Liberty, I (and Econoline and Lord Jim) do not know that this was an attack with the victims chosen because of their race.

But the RESPONSE by POTUS and Fox news, and other generally right wing publicists, compared to other shootings, certainly looks racist.

snailgate.

I'd have to agree with that; racism or, in the case of the perpetrator, a lack of a shooter who could be pigeonholed on account of race or ethnicity. Jim is exactly right there.

• Burning Petard wrote:Mr. Liberty, I (and Econoline and Lord Jim) do not know that this was an attack with the victims chosen because of their race.
  
  But the RESPONSE by POTUS and Fox news, and other generally right wing publicists, compared to other shootings, certainly looks racist.
  
  snailgate.

Exactly.

liberty's "This is the left" post was about the reaction of one (previously unknown) wacko "leftist" to something in the news. The blog post I shared above was about the reaction of many, many (very prominent) "conservative"/"right-wing" "human beings"—from Fox News talking heads, to evangelical televangelists, all the way up to the POTUS—to something else in the news.

You can lead the dim to electricity but you can't make 'em shine. Of course lib cannot understand that the point was not racism in an attack but the SILENCE of racists in response to the attack.

I posted a portion of that piece on FB and one immediate response from a good, faithful Christian couple I've known (IRL) for years was that it was wrong to "blame Trump for mass killings".

Admittedly, that is even dimmer than lib's reaction

But were you surprised? One thing I have noticed about the Trump supporters I know IRL is that, just like this, they often twist the message to say that Trump is being treated unfairly. While you can see that in a variety of situations, it does seem like Trump supporters have followed his lead on this and made it into a knee jerk defense mechanism.

In their case, no I was not surprised. In fact, I left the long-time fellowship group of which they also were members because of the general tone of Trumpist "newspeak" (to not coin an expression) before the first primary; "they" statements of mild racism (not by these two though) of the kind that disguises a much, much deeper antipathy to the other.

No, I am not going to join your herd; I have never been subject to peer pressure and it is now too late to start. This is true now and it was true in my youth. When I was a boy it was common among my people to believe blacks were inferior, but early on I came to understand it wasn’t true.

In the town I lived we had a Veterinarian that was black. He was dismissed as just a vet, but I understood a veterinarian to be animal doctor and if a man could cure animals he cure people. If a man could be a veterinarian he could be a physician. I didn’t see that as inferior. My mama settle it; I asked her about it and she said the difference between blacks and white people is only skin deep. I now know that to be a little simplistic, but she was basically correct.

The point is I didn’t go along with group think then and I am not going to do it now.

A black veterinarian was a good man. So you judged all black people based on the actions of one.

I understood a veterinarian to be animal doctor

Joe Guy wrote:A black veterinarian was a good man. So you judged all black people based on the actions of one.

I don’t know what kind of man he was good, bad or whatever, but he was a veterinarian. To me at the time, it seemed like a big deal. It was a greater achievement than most of the whites around me had managed to do when I was a boy. The point is it didn’t match what I had been taught so I questioned the idea that blacks were inferior.

I am not sure about the particular 'group think' you say you don't go along with. I can agree n general with this self-assessment statement.

snailgate.