Posted on 08/15/2017 7:43:51 AM PDT by onyx
The country is reeling from the events that took place in Charlottesville this weekend. Violence at a white supremacist rally in the town one complete with marchers using Nazi slogans and salutes has left three people dead, one the victim of a white supremacist who drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Both Republicans and Democrats have publicly condemned the hate spewed at the event, with Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan calling the white supremacists' views "repugnant" on Twitter and Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeting, "Of course we condemn ALL that hate stands for." While President Trump seems unable to call the violence what it is, issuing a statement laying the blame for Saturday's violence on "many sides," many others in and outside the government have recognized what happened as an act of domestic terrorism.
It felt to me like the country has perhaps reached a turning point; maybe, I thought, this will be the thing that drives systemic change, the thing that finally puts institutional racism front and center in our culture.
And then, like clockwork, it happened: the good white people showed up. They announced their arrival with calls for kindness and colorblind humanity, and I, as a person of color, realized this may not be a turning point at all.
There have been many takes on the events in Charlottesville, but none more frustrating than good white people exclaiming that "This Is Not America," epitomized by the hashtag #ThisIsNotUs.
Since being publicized on Saturday by Lady Gaga as a hashtag to be used "to tweet positive messages," #ThisIsNotUs has become the source of some controversy. On Twitter and Facebook, the hashtag, initially used by many white people to proclaim that the white supremacist violence at Charlottesville did not reflect their views, is now filled with people of color calling out the issues they have with the idea that white supremacist terrorism is "not us," and rightfully so as the criticisms below and beyond point out, this is very much us; the violence at Charlottesville is America as it has always been.People are saying #thisisnotus. Of course it is. Refusing to grapple with that fact how we got here in the first place. #charlottesville— jelani cobb (@jelani9) August 13, 2017
#ThisIsNotUs? You sure? — Britni Danielle (@BritniDWrites) August 13, 2017
#ThisIsNotUs forgets that the United States was built through the genocide of Indigenous Americans and the slavery of black people. #ThisIsNotUs ignores the fact that in earlier versions of our constitution, a black individual was only considered three-fifths of a human. To say this is not us is to forget that the statue the white supremacists gathered around stands as a tribute to Robert E. Lee, a Southern Confederate hero whose rumored abolitionist leanings have largely been proven to be false. To exclaim that this is not us is to ignore the reality that the majority of the acts of terrorism in the United States in the last eight years have been committed by white supremacists and right-wing extremists. One doesnt have to rewind history very far to see how wrong #ThisIsNotUs is.
If #ThisIsNotUs, explain:
-Genocide of Natives
-Slavery
-Jim Crow
-Chinese Exclusion Act
-War on Terror
-Muslim Bans...
I could go on— Khaled Beydoun (@KhaledBeydoun) August 13, 2017The list of reasons the hashtag is wrong goes on and on, and many people have pointed out the vast number of problems with the sentiment.
But one question remains: why do so many good white people interact with, identify with, and defend this extremely problematic concept?
At this point #thisisnotus is still more about the white supremacists than the targeted, than the casualties WHY IS IT ABOUT YOU AGAIN?— Sydette (@Blackamazon) August 13, 2017
A cursory glance at the hashtag shows again, a surprise to no person of color that saying This Is Not America and #ThisIsNotUs is more about absolving the good white people than it is about actually standing in solidarity with people of color. But this issue does not end with the hashtag it's an example of a much larger problem.
To see how this works, look no further than the statement from the governor of Virginia.
CNN on YouTubeHe rightfully calls out the white supremacists on their hate, but immediately pivots to imply they are outside agitators, then tells them all to "go home and never come back" because they do not represent the people of Virginia and "are not wanted" in the state. The disconnect continues as he mentions George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as true patriots, describing them as people "who brought our country together," conveniently forgetting that they were slaveowners who did not believe black people to be full human beings.
By being a 'good white person,' they get to condemn without sacrificing their privilege.This is how good white people operate; they other racism, pretending that the conversation is about individual white supremacists, not white supremacy in America, a system which privileges white people above all others. And by doing this, they get to absolve themselves from enjoying the benefits that white supremacy has given them; by being a good white person, they believe that they get to condemn without sacrificing their privilege.
That is not an acceptable option.
This practice allows its practitioners to return every conversation to a status quo where whiteness is always centered. This can be seen in the attempt by "good white people" to co-opt the hashtag #SayHerName to honor Heather Heyer, who was killed after an alleged white supremacist drove a car through a crowd of protesters at the Charlottesville protests.
#SayHerName is a social movement created by the African American Policy Forum to combat the erasure of black women whose stories of injustice often get ignored. From Sandra Bland to Rekia Boyd, the movement seeks to ensure that these womens stories are remembered.
Heyer died while fighting hate and her life should be honored. But it's not OK to co-opt #SayHerName in order to do it. Despite numerous calls by black women people to stop using the hashtag in reference to Heyer, many continue to do so. By using #SayHerName to discuss the death of a white woman, good white people are doing exactly the thing that the hashtag was created to stop: erasing black women.
I know this s hard to hear, but...
White supremacy benefits all white people.
Including the ones with no torches. Thats why it survives.— Brittany Packnett (@MsPackyetti) August 12, 2017In the end, what remains is a hard truth for some to swallow. As pointed out by activist Brittany Packnett, not every white person is a white supremacist but white supremacy benefits all white people. Including the ones with no torches. Thats why it survives. To pretend otherwise is to be complicit in the systemic subjugation of minorities in this country.
So as the many counter-protests in solidarity against racism occur around the country, Ill end with a message directly to good white people. The country doesnt actually need good white people. What it needs are actual allies; allies who listen to people of color, allies who dont speak over people of color, allies who do not need to be told that they are good, allies that do not center their activism around whiteness, allies who are not colorblind. If this is too much to ask, if you grow defensive when challenged, if your first instinct is to lash out, maybe you were never actually truly a good white person to begin with.
Yes, and the reason slaves were counted as 3/5 was to REDUCE the representation from slave states in the House, which, if slaves had been counted as 1.0 instead of 0.6 would have been that much greater.
In 1790, the slave states had 30/69 seats in the House. Had their slaves been counted as 1.0, even though they could not vote and were not citizens, they could well have commanded a majority.
The 3/5 clause was an anti-slavery measure.
Ding-ding, you are correct.
Real people across the country care about jobs and crime, not two groups of idiots fighting one another.
Any person, of any color, who dares tell me I am not allowed my own opinion (including voicing it) because I don’t have the “right” skin color can expect resistance from me - starting with logical speech, but with nearly no upper limit, depending on how stupid they want to be.
Bottom line: You don’t have to be a genius, paranoid, or a “Nazi” (there aren’t actually any real ones btw) to realize that THERE IS A WAR ON WHITE PEOPLE being waged by the Media, the Government, the Educational system and Hollywood.
Now, we are either supposed to lie down and take it or stand up and tell the world you’re not going to create an environment where our children grow up as targets for the hate currently being farmed by the Left.
We are at the point where everything to the Right of Fidel Castro is being called “Nazi” so it doesn’t really matter.
The Right will NEVER change the current Media, so it is time to create NEW Media and support those who support *gasp* equality, love and freedom which is what REAL Conservatism is all about.
Bottom line: The Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s was about equality and justice, the Un-Civil Rights Movement of today is about hatred and revenge.
If non-whites are always the victims in America, explain
-Why black Americans enjoy a standard of living much higher than they enjoy anywhere in Africa.
-Why there are disproportionately more Asians in elite universities (especially in the sciences) than there are whites.
-Why blacks murder whites at about 20 times the rate at which whites murder blacks.
THIS^
I find Paul Ryan’s obstructionist views “repugnant”.
KKK? Really? What abunch of suckers.
There are probably no more than a few hundred (or at most low thousands) actual Klansmen and Nazis in America, and they have zero political clout. To listen to the Left (and some more politically correct Republicans) talk, you'd think there were millions of them and that they were on the brink of taking over the country.
In contrast, Antifa and BLMers are numerous, organized, and unlike Klansmen and Neo-Nazis, they have the blessing and support of most of the mass media and many prominent political figures, even when they engage in violent or criminal acts. Conservatives who complain about imaginary Klansmen under the bed while BLMers and Antifas burn our cities to the ground are just useful idiots to the Left.
There's plenty of knee-jerk virtue signalling on the right, too.
"I am NOT a NAZI or Klansman!!"
Embarrassing.
more Charlottesville violence - bump for later....
Shouldn’t this person tackle their own ignint self before trying to improve us?
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