I have mixed emotions. It would be horrible to ruin someone's life because they were mis-identified.

I am more concerned about someone's actions than their thoughts - thus some of the violent antifa people are more of a concern than some idiot who thinks he is superior because he is white.

I think people who violently shut down free speech are a greater danger to us than a racist (if there is no action to their racism).

On the other hand, if they're going to publicly side with those groups - then they should accept the consequences of being outed.

I went to Yahoo news after posting my last post and lo and behold there was a link to this article about the antifacists.

http://thefederalist.com/...ing-charlottesville/

The ironic thing about the one "neo-fascist" that was identified is that he was from Berkeley, CA. Yes, that hotbed of neo-fascist thought, Berzerkeley CA, home of one of the most liberal colleges in America.

I agree with every word of your post. That article, however...



Talk about a whitewashing of Trump's relationship (such that it is) with the radical right. He "pushed against" them like he pushed against Putin, which is to say he's been dragged kicking and screaming to say a negative word about them by name. That's not to say he's colluding with either (he's not), but his conspicuous self-interest-driven tiptoeing around those issues, even when pressed, has been far louder than his condemnation of either.

Though the author wasn't wrong about Hillary and the left's coddling of their own shitbags.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Speaking of authors I read this book a short time ago and I was amazed by what I learned:

"Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are"


"In my work with Google search data, the single most telling fact I have found regarding hate on the internet is the popularity of the word “nigger”.
Either singular or in its plural form, the word is included in 7m American searches every year. (Again, the word used in rap songs is almost always “nigga”, not “nigger”, so there’s no significant impact from hip-hop lyrics to account for.) Searches for “nigger jokes” are 17 times more common than searches for “kike jokes”, “gook jokes”, “spic jokes”, “chink jokes”, and “fag jokes” combined. When are these searches most common? Whenever African Americans are in the news. Among the periods when such searches were highest was the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when television and newspapers showed images of desperate black people in New Orleans struggling for their survival. They also shot up during Obama’s first election. And searches rose on average about 30% on Martin Luther King Jr Day."

And then there is the phenomenon of Donald Trump’s candidacy. When Nate Silver, the polling guru, looked for the geographic variable that correlated most strongly with support in the 2016 Republican primary for Trump, he found it in the map of racism I had developed. (bold mine) To be provocative and to encourage more research in this area, let me put forth the following conjecture, ready to be tested by scholars across a range of fields. The primary explanation for discrimination against African Americans today is not the fact that the people who agree to participate in lab experiments make subconscious associations between negative words and black people; it is the fact that millions of white Americans continue to do things like search for “nigger jokes”.


I think that many of us would like to believe that racism is dwindling and people are more tolerant today. Sadly, I don't think much has changed during my life except people are less open about their racism and can now covertly be their racists selves from the comfort of their home computer.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

I responded to this in the other thread.

But my take is that when you march in a public space in a publicly permitted event specifically intended to market an idea, you waive all expectation of privacy.

You can't have it both ways. You can't market the your ideas openly in public spaces and receive all the benefits of marketing, but then expect to be insulated from all the (legal) negative effects.

There's a reason the KKK wears hoods and some antifa wear face bandannas, right? Because they understand there is no expectation of privacy when acting in public, and they prepare appropriately.

If I recognized someone with certainty clearly participating actively, I'd absolutely call them out. If they were my employee, I'd fire them.

Serious question - Why? I'm the Plant Manager here, so I have hire-fire over a lot of people, many with political views that I find extreme, if not concerning. However, what they do on the weekend is their own business. As long as they keep it out of the workplace (within reason) and otherwise act in good faith with the company's values there is no reason to get involved.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

What if they were just protesting? You would fire them for being racist?

I can see not letting them protest or use your establishment in their beliefs, but I find it wrong to fire them just for being racist out of work.

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"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix

Yeah, so fucking what? You seem unduly fixated on this. I live in a left-leaning college town, but it's certainly not w/o a schminkling of MAGA bumper stickers running around too. Likewise I have a few Prius-driving friends who've moved away and ended up in deep red-state territory, cuz that's where the next job was that they decided was worth it; pretty sure they're smart enough to avoid being 'outed' at any high-profile BLM rallies, though.

Protesting what? The march wasn't a protest. It was more of a call to arms, "Take back America," etc.

But yeah, I'd fire someone for being hardcore racist out of work. Sure. I'd have pretty broad ideological tolerance. I wouldn't fire anyone on this site, even Old Hickory , et al, (though he'd quit first!). But marching with Nazi symbols and the KKK crosses a line. There are certain ideas that deserve no quarter. Nazism is one of those ideas.

Post #11. Certain ideas deserve no quarter. ISIS-grade Islamism, Nazism. Take this letter from a parent of one of them in North Dakota. The kid, according to the parent, said, "The thing about us fascists is, it’s not that we don’t believe in freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. We’ll just throw you in an oven."

I'm not employing that kid. You can bring all the labor lawyers you want after me. I'll huddle up in Panera Bread with my own.

This march wasn't. This was handled wrong form the beginning and the I hold the police chief partly responsible for the cluster fuck that ensued.

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"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix

How about if you are pro-choice? Is it ok if I fire your participation in pro choice rally? You won't know that's the reason, I just decided you are over qualified and I need less senior skill level person in your position.

And do you think making a pariah of someone helps them incorporate new ideas and perhaps change their minds? Or lets fire them all, let them stew on that and only find work with others who think similarly.

I wouldn't fire someone who was pro-life, and marched in pro-life rallies. That doesn't cross my personal line.

Can you fire me? Sure. I don't want to work somewhere where I'm not wanted by my boss. If you fired me because I'm white, and only because I'm white, I might sue you though. :)

I 100% agree. To speak of the kind of blatant, hate-filled racism & rhetoric of the Charlottesville folks and their ilk as if it's just another ideological difference is ridiculous. This isn't a part of nuance; it's 100% hate speech, which is why Melania's tweet pissed me off. "Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence."

At its very core, white nationalism & white supremacy speech is hate speech. It cannot be communicated without coming from a place of hate and without an expression of hate. That cannot be conflated with counter protests against it. Which is not to say that violence started from the counter protesters is tolerable since it should be denounced harshly. It is to say that 100% of the white supremacy & white nationalism protestors and demonstrators are coming from a place of hatred and attempting to incite hate, intimidation, and speech that leads to violence, whereas counter protest against that is overwhelmingly ideologically driven against a bad idea with only a small number of those people being dumbass idiots who participate in violence in-kind. The "free speech" of any of the supremacists & nationalists should absolutely come with the consequences that using freedom of speech brings. This is not an ideological policy debate like how to best deliver health care or tax policies; it's at a core of how every human interaction takes place. Anything short of a firm distance and cutting ties altogether with the most vehement, dangerous ideological fringes is still to embrace and normalize that ideology.

I graduated and started full-time employment in 1978. Yes I'm old, get over it. I have lived all but 9 years of my adult life in south-central PA. It has been said for decades that PA is comprised of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Alabama in the middle. When I first started at a manufacturing company here, there were virtually no non-whites in any professional job, and damned few women. It was quite common to hear disparaging comments and jokes, principally about African Americans (Hispanics weren't even a thing here back then), and I was aware of that at school from probably 4th grade or so.

Ever so gradually, more and more women and minorities were hired, and at a slower rate moved into management positions. A certain portion of the old guard clearly weren't happy about it, but they age out and a more diverse work environment becomes the new normal. The same is somewhat true of housing. There were neighborhoods and entire communities that were lily white into the 90's, but again ever so gradually the ability to afford a neighborhood takes precedence over other attributes. Although we're in the middle of a large rural area; and as far as I can see, that's still almost exclusively white.

The net result is that the vast majority of people here interact with minorities and women on a daily basis. They might be serving you fajitas, but there's also a good chance they're your physician or work colleague or supervisor, etc. Familiarity breeds - some higher level of acceptance?

How deep that permeates into the soul I can't say. I'm sure I'd be stunned if real names were attached to hateful posts on the internet. But I believe it has changed and will continue to change, albeit more slowly than it should.

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Brian

Gonna buy a fast car, put on my lead boots, take a long, long drive
I may end up spending all my money, but I'll still be alive

I don't have time to read all the responses, so my apologies if this has been covered:

The political ethos appears to be zero sum now. "Either you're with us or you're against us." Anyone recall that line that was so roundly booed by the speaker's political opponents? Those political opponents are now the beneficiaries of the exact same extremism.

As to the outing: I feel badly for the parents and families such as those of the kid in Fargo. The kid was outed (the kid's a known friggin' douchebag), but his family quickly became targets of Internet social vigilantes. I find the kid's dad's open letter disowning the kid to be credible - the kid spun off into the radical right on his own, not because of his family's beliefs. Despite that, the family's become a target too. There's just no standard to protect innocent families such as that one (or to restore their pre-outing lives) and THAT's where the danger lies, in my opinion.

In a social and political sense, it's the equivalent of the Israelis' bulldozing of the homes of suicide bombers' families.

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War is god

as a person of color, seeing such a great rise in white supremacy is quite scary. not literally, but figuratively.

not literally because:
though being a person of color, i'm quite privileged (i do triathlons, duhhhh). i'm well educated, earn a comfortable income, and i live in MA, i'm protected in my little bubble. it's not without incident (been called a racial slur 4x since trump has been elected, 0 times during obama's 2 terms, once during W)

figuratively because:
when it's all said and done, these white supremacists go home and they are safe and protected. they are the people that pull me over, come grab me if my house is on fire, they are my nurses, my ER doctors, my attorneys, my loan officers, my employers, my co-workers, my customers. etc etc etc.

a overwhelming majority of my friends are white. i'm going to guess something like 90%, so i'm fortunate to know that "white people" are not all racists. but it's scary to think that there are people out there, likely gathered in communities (just like how mine is non racists, it's safe to say that the kkk/neo nazi/etc probably live in communities where there are others like them), oppressing others around them.

frightening for my brothers and sisters in other communities, who could possibly be given poor ER care, pulled over unjustly, given longer prison sentences, be poorly represented, or denied loans, because of their skin color, or ethnic background.

racism is alive and well, it's just (was) concealed better.

This is a serious question, when do you think it was concealed better? It may be publicized more these days and the virulent racists have a microphone and people encourage them by reacting, but racism was much more open in the past. I think we hear a lot more about the virulent racists because I think the everyday open "moderate" racists are a dying or dead breed so the only thing left to point to, to prove racism still exists, are the virulent racists who have always existed and were marginalized since no one listened to them. Is there some everyday run of the mill racism, sure, is it anything like the past hell no.

Today I was sitting outside a grocery store waiting for my kid to come out. I saw a black woman and her young son pass by. I thought to myself what must she be thinking today and everyday? She's an easy target for racists. She's got a son and I am sure she wants him to grow up and be safe and have opportunities. Is every white person suspect? How awful to have to live in fear of violence, or verbal abuse or discrimination.

My family watched the events of this weekend together. We were horrified. As a parent I don't know what to do other than to try and be a role model to my kids. To instill in them that everyone should be treated fairly. That justice for all means exactly what it says. That you don't judge a person until you know them. I'm curious what other parents have told their kids?

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Technology allows fellow travelers to come together, be it for their interest in racism or triathlon. So then there's a support group. I think another part of it is that economic insecurity makes people susceptible to looking for scapegoats.

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“Read the transcript.”

Crank wrote:

The political ethos appears to be zero sum now.

Yes, but in certain cases it should be zero sum. Everyone should be against Nazis. This isn't Godwin's law Hitler analogies. Actual neo-Nazis. Quote from Godwin himself today:

Quote:

By all means, compare these shitheads to the Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you.

Though I've been arguing that it's OK to use social isolation, loss of employment to retaliate against identified participants, I agree that Internet vigilantism can easily go too far. It can mis-dentify people, screw up intent (maybe mistaking a counter-protester for a protester), or plain just go too far - after family members like you point out. I was referring to unambiguously identified direct participants. Like the guy from North Dakota. Or the guy from UNR who's backpedaling like Michael Jackson.

Be that as it may, racism is less prevalent today than in the past.

thank you for the sincere question, i will try to clarify. yes, overall, violent racism has reduced. we're not lynching people, hanging people, and blasting people with fire hoses anymore, that's good. but racism is very real in certain parts of the country. people who were once openly racists, are now hiding that racism and oppressing via other means than violence. the racist that once lynched black men, is now denying bank loans, and sentencing people to longer jail terms. not literally the same man, he's really really old, or dead, but his son, or grandson.

i have friends who are die hard yankee fans, despite being born and raised in boston. the reason? their father, and grandfather, were die hard yankee fans. if that doesn't die in 1-2 generations, do you think deep hatred, lynching, and racism dies? there used to be NO consequences for racism, there is now, thus they find ways to eliminate the consequences.

i'll provide some insight. she's probably not thinking about it as much as you think. even though i am a POC, an overwhelming majority of my friends are white. i don't know the exact numbers, but i would say 80-90%. part of that is from spending my high school years in the suburbs, part of it is because the hobbies i do (triathlon and ice climbing.... you just don't see a lot of minorities in these sports).

i have grown up, and i con't to be surrounded by white people who fight the good fight just like i do. they despise racism, they denounce bigotry, and they demonstrate daily (to me) that i am no different from them. i'm fortunate, because of these people, when i see a racist, or experience racism, i don't think "all white people are racist". i do however feel "most racists are white" often when i experience racism. why? well, i've been called a racial slur ONCE by people of color. a group of young kids, (under 12-13 years old). i stopped counting the time i've been called a racial slur by a white person.

I don't believe for a second that most racists are white. As a white male that has friends of all races and religions I have experienced racism from all people. I had a really good black friend in college and he invited me to a party where I was the only white person there. Being my normal self I start talking to people and immediately I notice that everyone there is giving me the cold shoulder. I see my friend over talking to some other people and they are all pissed, he walks over and says lets get out of here. Basically his black fiends didn't want a white kid at their party. This was in 1997 at a college in Illinois. Another time in Chicago I am out running all 6 feet 150 lbs of me and a car of Puerto Ricans pull up next to me and say you better run whitey because we are going to get you. They stop at the next light and 3 big guys get out of the car and start to give chase. I think they were just messing with me but at the time I was scared. I married a Chinese girl and I can't tell you how many times I have gotten ugly looks from other Chinese people or heard them say something about me because they don't think I understand Mandarin. I could go on but I think I made my point. Racism isn't a white problem. Whites are not more racist than other races. Most people aren't racist and some of the nicest most welcoming people I have ever met are POC. If we are going to move past this stuff as a society we need to stop separating people by their race and just look at people for who they are.

Where are you that you are being called racial slurs?

I know some racist people but I don't know anybody, nor heard of anyone (I'll give you a couple exceptions below) call another person a racial slur to their face.

Exceptions...

1. I have a lot of Mexican friends and a couple black friends and many of my Mexican friends have insulted black people with slurs (but these are hard dudes who have been in prison). Also I've heard it the other way (blacks insulting Mexicans). It seems blacks and Mexicans sometimes don't get along.

2. I train jiu jitsu at a racially diverse academy and we smack talk each other quite a bit. Racially based smack talk is part of that. However, that one word that rhymes with "bigger" is off limits.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

But the teachings in vogue at the moment are that only the race that's on top (white, according to most) can be "racist" and therefore suffer the moral opprobrium that comes with the "ism" that's being practiced. All other races are merely responding to the racism that's been flowing downhill to them (thus the lack of a discussion of a double standard in race relations).

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War is god

http://www.npr.org/...-on-twitter-as-a-rac

Remember when Spike Lee retweeted the wrong home address for George Zimmerman? The people who lived at the address he retweeted sued him and the case settled, but what recourse is there when the mistaken ID is made by some random yuck on the Internet?

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War is god

I'm pretty sure that when you protest in public you give up your right to privacy. Not only would I be fine giving up a Nazi/White Supremist that I recognized, but I'd also love to turn in BLM and AntiFA people that I recognized.

Unfortunately since I don't really run in those circles, it's probably not going to happen.

But the truth is that any deplorable people (Left or Right) doing deplorable things in public deserve to lose whatever they lose.