Why are all these activists so fucking stupid?

oh yeah, the public school system.

Yeah, man, she was just playing a merry tune on her dogwhistle, not saying something ACTUALLY racist, amirite?

Five stars for the first comment being from Bort and for being yet another tired fucking defense of Hillary and appeal for us all to just fucking settle and roll over and die.


FIVE. FOR. EVIL.

Yes, she's stupid.

In defense of the insanity of the BLM movement, none of these people have ever felt a moment of importance or legitimacy in their entire lives. Every single moment of their lives is a footnote to somebody else's success story. Their lives literally do not matter. It's hard to imagine what that feels like, because your opinions do matter. Your history is important, your skills are important, and your garbage gets picked up every week.

Yes, they are pathetic and crazy. They have absolutely no guidance at all. They are doomed as OWS was doomed, but then again, none or very few of you guys grew up in a community (community, not neighborhood) where 25% of the dads of the people you knew were in prison, or where the functional male unemployment rate had been lingering between 20-40% for decades.

I try to consider this before I excuse these people as nothing but angry agitators. There's never been an outlet to these opinions, so it ends up coming out as "We are slaves! Nothing has changed since Selma! Pay attention to me now!" If you could feel the level of delegitimacy they've been required to face, it starts to make sense. This isn't a bunch of rednecks who are angry that the government owns a bunch of nice ranchland next to their "ancestral" property, this is a bunch of young people who really are dispossessed at every level.

Also consider that for 20 years people in the black community have been saying this at varying volumes, and then finally, after all the damage had been done by this reactionary incarceration policy, they are finally legitimized by the facts and widespread condemnation: (1) the essential social science "statistics" that had been used by the white establishment to send all these young people to prison for decades beyond what they deserved were completely fabricated, and (2) there are glaring disparities in the way whites and blacks are sentenced, and it took a black activist elected to the White House to point this out.

What ends up getting news? Some kids mug a war hero and the BLM comes up, causing conniptions among the conservative blogosphere.

Why shouldn't they be pissed off.

Bobonne: gang violence was an actual big problem in the 80s and 90s, and while the "superpredator" notion looks foolish in retrospect, back then we didn't really know what was causing the heavy gang activity (which has since largely died down). The context was gangs, and you know what the distinguishing feature of gangs is? THEY'RE NOT THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY. You really, really want it to be a dogwhistle but it was not.

kingarthur: you still think Jill Stein is a good idea. You lose.

baleen: I don't think BLM is stupid or misguided in general; they've got a legit cause and there are no shortage of questions our politicians should answer (including Hillary). But if you're going to go to all this trouble to get access to Hillary and ask her questions on camera, don't lie about shit.

Those pesky... holy shit baleen totally did not say anything like I thought he was going to say.

I'm sorry, baleen, five stars. You're a good guy.

Bort: I can understand the "we didn't know any better" argument from white people. After all, it was a savage time, the 1990s, and we wanted to enjoy the fruits of the .com boom without getting mugged.

I grew up in South Seattle in the 80s and 90s, at a time when crack cocaine was ravaging the community. Garbage was everywhere, crackheads would ask me if I wanted blowjobs on the street, and angry black kids fucked with me all the time to the point that I preferred to stay inside whenever I was in my own hood.

This is really only a slice of the story though. When you look closer at why things turned out this way for these communities, it almost justifies the anger of the ghetto. Here's Chicago as an example:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/the-ghetto -is-public-policy/274147/

South Seattle had a similar problem, but in microscopic terms. Columbia City absorbed the black population during the post-war industrial boom and the triumph of Boeing, but fell victim to redlining like so many other urban populations. The change was sudden. What was once a center of music, bustling commerce, high employment among blacks, had been turned into a miniature Flint, and it was this environment that I moved into in 1988.

The fact that this national story doesn't translate the same between races is a conversation that we really, really, really need to have.

"The fact that this national story doesn't translate the same between races is a conversation that we really, really, really need to have."

This is probably the smartest thing anyone's said about this that I've encountered.

Why are all these activists so fucking stupid?

oh yeah, the Internet.

I'm torn on this one, though. I don't think the "superpredators" quote was so much overt racism as it was just plain ignorance. She didn't invent the term and I don't expect she really understood quite what she was saying at the time.

Everyone who grew up in the USA has internalized some flavor of racism, it's an integral part of our culture and it's in all of us in some form, whether we know it or not. And that's a problem, especially when you're a public figure, but it's also incorrect and counterproductive to act like that is directly equivalent to overt, conscious, ideological racism or even plain bigotry.


On the other hand, the quote is really fucking bad.

Also, in general, I think Black Lives Matter is a positive thing.

"where 25% of the dads of the people you knew were in prison, or where the functional male unemployment rate had been lingering between 20-40% for decades. "

Also I think these numbers may actually be a little low.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0uCrA7ePno

"Bring them to heel." "No conscience; No empathy."

Real 'Mask Off' moment if you ask me...

"Keep on sayin' 'go slow'...to do things gradually would bring more tragedy. Why don't you see it? Why don't you feel it? I don't know, I don't know. You don't have to live next to me, just give me my equality!" - Nina Simone

Anyone who doesn't sympathise for that protestor lacks a heart. Anyone who casts a vote against Hillary lacks a brain.

☆☆☆☆☆ - Great quote.

"Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill." - Wesley Snipes

That's my problem with Clinton on everything. She only wants change provided it's not an inconvenience to people who would be affected by the change.

Wall Street reform? Well, you know, a lot of people make a lot of money from Wall Street, so don't interrupt their cash flow.

Immigration reform? Well, you know, a lot of businesses need cheap labor so don't disrupt that.

Environmental protection reform? Well, you know, new regulations might cut into some businesses' bottom lines.

A Hillary Clinton Presidency would be an endless stream of her handling problems by getting everyone to calm down, promising to fix things then doing nothing.

The big problem remains Congress, and don't believe for a second Sanders can do a thing about that. A Sanders presidency would be an endless stream of an old man shaking his podium angrily, and impotently, while McConnell and Ryan smile smugly on.