#WhitePrivilegeMeans
Posted by Michelle Moquin on July 25th, 2016
Good morning.
In light of yesterday’s comments on the shooting of another black man.
From the Huff Po:
13 Tweets Explain The Deadly Impact White Privilege Has On Black People
“#WhitePrivilegeMeans always getting the benefit of the doubt.”
Since last week, we’ve learned the names of several black men who were killed by cops across the country including Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Alva Braziel and Delrawn Small. The details and implications have been tough to process. One thing that can’t be ignored, however, is that if these men were white, they would very likely still be alive today.
On Friday, Twitter user Matt Edelstein revived the hashtag #WhitePrivilegeMeans(first tweeted in 2014) to educate and call out the ugly realities that people of color deal with every day that white people don’t have to.
“I decided to resurrect the tag while the topic was being made hot by the Alton, Philando and Dallas horrors,” Edelstein told Mic. “I felt it was a splendid teaching moment and that tag simply had to be resurrected right now, while the topic was very germane. Especially since the Dallas shooting was giving the #bluelivesmatter crackpot police apologists a chance to seize the narrative.”
Other tweeters, both white and people of color, followed suit uncovering the struggles people of color face that white people are immune, and sometimes blind, to. Their tweets are chillingly accurate.
*****
Readers: “White privilege means getting away with murdering black men.” White privilege means being able to run down the street without a cop stopping you thinking you did something bad.” “White privilege means not needing a reason to shoot a black man.” #WhitePrivilegeMeans.
What are you tweeting?
Blog me.
Tim: I know exactly what she’ll do if she becomes president. All I know is she will be president of this United States…..way!!!Deal with it.
Reza: Ahaha! Every time I read these Melania quotes I start cracking up. Yours was no different. Thanks.
Helena 1: Always nice to see you here. I echo your words. Thanks.
Hilary: Thanks for posting about our Hillary. I’m thrilled too.
Bill: I couldn’t agree with you more. Love the Warriors. Can’t wait till the season begins!
Dafne: Love it. Madaline came to mind as I watched the trailer. She was a kick ass Girlz just like Wonder Woman. I sure miss her and her cadre. I look forward to seeing it on the big screen. Thanks for posting.
Carlos: That news doesn’t surprise me. Sickening to protect the murderers. It may mean we need to spread the word through social media, and hope the videos go viral if the media opts to censor. I’ll do my best to post it here.
✌🏽& ❤️
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:
Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129
Thank you for your loyal support!
All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016
“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream
" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"
July 25th, 2016 at 9:19 am
That was mind expanding info Mike, TM, thank you for the info.
The Wonder Woman trailer was excellent, great lines in there…can’t wait to see it.
Igon, I’m not sure why your sister didn’t write in herself but please tell her this girlZ said hello
… and there’s ample evidence over the years that the Bushes, Clintons and Trump have been ‘in bed’ with house of saud, and other super wealthy ‘relatives’ in the region, that’s not to say that that alone would be a factor to eliminate candidates bc deals are made all the time in world politics (read Mike TM’s comment for a great example of what’s goes on while you’re sleeping).
Whenever I read world political news and commentary I try to imagine what the ‘backstory’ might really be bc nothing is just at face value and most media outlets not only show their bias openly but they also leave out much needed details that they likely cannot print due to its inflammatory and confidential nature.
Just my opinion…so read between the lines of all news commentary carefully.
Luv, Zen Lill
July 25th, 2016 at 3:37 pm
Anon #34, I wouldn’t have given you that information if I would have know you would have given that asshole a shout out. Don’t look to me for any more info or help.
July 25th, 2016 at 8:34 pm
Good job Bernie.
I applause – nice to see/hear some truths being told on the TV for a change. I appreciate how he’s really made voters think and rally on social issues that are very important for us all during the campaigning. I think he did a good job steering his fan base over towards Hillary.
Lets all do what we can to ensure the Lady gets the House and the dems take over the Hall!
/SB
July 26th, 2016 at 6:24 am
Anonymous#2, not being aware of the circumstances is your position. But the more important issue is that you would suggest that information which could save lives should be bartered on a quid pro quo basis.
Why would we not expect that of you?
July 26th, 2016 at 6:29 am
I agree with you Social Butterfly#3. I am from a group of 300 plus who worked hard to get Bernie that nomination. It was difficult to accept that he lost. Learning the mean spirited way he was treated was even worst.
But like he said, this election is bigger than just the candidates it is about a philosophy and though we thought he exemplified it best, it is still in play with the candidate that won.
July 26th, 2016 at 6:38 am
My mother is a white judge. She says it was difficult for her to get into the private parties and clubs reserved for white male judges.
Before she got into them we had a difficult time living our old life style. But the one it improved into was amazing. I could write a book on the secret life of judges. If you think cops get benefits wait till the public learns how the rich and powerful court our judges
I was a 11 when my mother became a judge. I was a young teen when she “cracked” the “benefits” of the judicial system. The payola is enormous. A judge only has to pick how much she is willing to compromise her integrity to receive them.
Even in graft OTWs are mostly squeezed out by white privilege.
July 26th, 2016 at 6:49 am
Zen Lill, my space cadet minded brother doesn’t have a clue what I think, nor does he have my permission to speak for me or the GirlZ of ZL.
I introduced him to Michelle’s blog because I felt he needed some direction when it came to understanding the women he was constantly complaining about.
To his credit he has picked an understanding of the discrimination we go through. But like the males in your country, he takes it all back to his narcissistic male ego.
When I tell him it is necessary for women to band together to support each other because of the discriminatory circumstance under which we as women face every day of our lives he just shrugs and says if women can do it so should men.
Which brings me to Michelle’s topic today. White privilege in America is maintained by white americans who pretend to not know they are benefiting from the color of their skins. The wink they share with each other with this lie is a silent communication saying “yeah and intend to continue receiving that privilege until you “pry it away from our cold dead hands.”
July 26th, 2016 at 6:59 am
Social Butterfly#3, I agree Bernie did his Hilary imitation when she lost to Obama. That is what should be done when the battle is over and the battle was more about who could better carry the message a party is offering to the people it solicits.
So why did we have to make this so special that a man did what a woman before him did. That is white male privilege. We assume that it takes more for a man to do what is right than a woman.
To those Bernie fans: Bernie did what he was supposed to do. The Election is about more that personalities or egos. The female ego is bruised less than a man’s. Hilary handled her bruised ego when she lost to Obama.
Fuck you if you think for one moment, I’m giving anything special to a man, Bernie, because you think his ego is entitled to special consideration because …….
Social Butterfly gave you the best advice get out and vote to give Hilary the win and coattails.
If you don’t then, shut the fuck up if those bought and paid for republicans continue to make your life and the lives of your relatives and friends miserable.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:07 am
I was going to leave out the part about my mother’s racism, but my conscious is forcing me to say this. My mother was as racist as it comes when it comes to beliefs that OTWs are not as civilized as whites.
She honestly believes that it is the responsibility of whites to civilize them, especially “the naturally barbaric negro.” her words not mine.
It seems her biggest beef with white men was that they discriminated against her because of her sex because she was the “right” color.
As an adult who got into an ivy league university because of those connections she made. Because she was allowed into a club that accepted benefits to judge the way she did, I got an opportunity to be the kind of lawyer I am today.
White privilege exist and we know it.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:10 am
Yes White privilege exist unless there is a different explanation for this:
1. African American women are more likely than women of other races to go to prison during their lifetimes. According to a 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics special report, 1 in every 18 African American women will go to prison during their lifetime if incarceration rates continue at the same rate. This is far greater than the rates for white women and Latinas—1 in 111 women and 1 in 45 women, respectively.
2. African American women are significantly overrepresented in state and federal prison populations. According to a 2014 Bureau of Justice Statistics report, the incarceration rate of African American women was more than double the incarceration rate of white women. More specifically, 109 out of every 100,000 African American women in the United States were sentenced to state or federal prison by the end of 2014, compared with 53 out of every 100,000 white women.
3. The war on drugs has negatively affected women of color. Women are more likely than men to be incarcerated for a drug offense. Furthermore, research has shown that although all women use and sell drugs at the same rate, women of color—particularly African American women and Latinas—have a higher likelihood of becoming involved in the criminal justice system for a drug offense. Generally, women involved in the drug trade have scant knowledge or say over actual drug dealing operations, which gives them little leverage in negotiating shorter sentences.
4. Incarcerated women are likely to be victims of abuse, have a history of substance abuse, and/or suffer from mental health issues. A 2007 study found that nearly all incarcerated women have experienced a “traumatic event”—with 71 percent reporting that they were “exposed to domestic violence.” According to a 2008 study, 73 percent of women in state prisons and 47 percent of women in federal prisons used drugs prior to going to prison. Additionally, approximately 73 percent of women in state prisons and 75 percent of women in local jails have signs of mental health disorders, compared with only 12 percent of women in the general U.S. population.
5. Approximately 12,000 pregnant women, or approximately 6 percent of incarcerated women, are incarcerated each year. Many of these women are subjected to the dehumanizing and dangerous practice of shackling during childbirth. This practice is not only dangerous to the mother—limiting her mobility to manage the pain of childbirth—but it also puts the child at risk, reducing physicians’ ability to safely deliver the baby. Unfortunately, 28 states have no laws prohibiting the practice.
6. African American and American Indian girls have higher rates of placement in juvenile residential detention facilities than those of other racial and/or ethnic groups. African American girls are also more likely than other girls to face school suspensions. African American and American Indian female juveniles were placed in residential detention facilities at rates—1.7 times and more than 4 times, respectively—higher than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. Additionally, African American and American Indian female juveniles were placed in these facilities at rates of 113 per every 100,000 girls and 167 per every 100,000 girls, respectively, while non-Hispanic white female juveniles were held in these facilities at a rate of 35 per every 100,000 girls.
The legacy of the nation’s broken criminal justice system has affected all Americans, particularly women of color. Women are the fastest-growing portion of the U.S. prison population, and data show that women of color are disproportionately affected by the system. Criminal justice reform is essential to make sure that these women have the opportunity to succeed once they have paid their debts to society.
======================
Ego allows the whites in America to deny that they are and always have been America’s chief Affirmative Action beneficiaries.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:15 am
I remember this and saved it from your blog Michelle. It something I quote often when my white friends claim that they are not affirmative action beneficiaries.
“I have and was even an affirmative action officer at one point in my career. What a con game. The stats are totally rigged, the people considered recipients of it are harassed ungodly even though, if they are black they will have all kinds of advanced degrees just to be able to hold a job that a white individual who has a high school diploma has – and the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women – which largely benefitted white peoples as it caused a drastic increase in white wealth overall. These are true facts regarding Affirmative Action. Stay informed if you intend to speak truthfully about it.”
——————–
When I am finished most just smile and walk away.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:21 am
Whites in America use every opportunity to beat down their OTW brethren. From insulting lies in their history books to outright lies about who invented what or contribute to this country’s growth.
Email was invented by a 14 year old Indian immigrant.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/email-shiva-ayyadurai_n_5731606.html
1. this type of history rewriting is how the non-whites continue to feel inferior to the white race. In turn the white race continues to feel superior to the non-whites. This type of superior/inferior rewriting is what is taught to our impressionable children in school; subliminally teaching and perpetuating racism in this country.SlyHerrera Jr.
=================================
All we hear as OTWs is what the white man has done for this country. Well a black man is POTUS and he pulled this country and the World away from a financial melt down created by the greed of the white man.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:23 am
I hear you Helena 1@11. I use this one I also got from Michelle’s blog when I am confronted by pretentious whites.
——————————
Affirmative Action is government using its power to give another race or sex preferential treatment. Let’s see how that has worked out for who.
Since the beginning of this nation the U.S. government on all levels, federal, state and municipal started with laws that allowed only WHITE MALES to hold positions in government.
For almost 200 years white males were ALL the POTUS, SCOTUS, and both Houses of Congress. They were all the doctors, lawyers, judges, cops, postmen, heads of all the businesses and the only ones who could own a patent or any position of leadership.
That is one helluva set of ADVANTAGES to white males. But who’s counting.
However you score it that makes white males America’s Affirmative Action Beneficiaries.
Whatever lead white males have they owe to government. As soon as OTWs got even a smidgeon of opportunity they excelled. But of course their accomplishments were hidden from the records because — Oh yeah, Affirmative Action allowed only WHITE MALES to control how history was recorded or what could be taught to the masses. So even a black author like Alexander Dumas was portrayed as white less blacks begin to believe that they too could be great writers.
America’s Affirmative Action Beneficiaries continue to benefit from government action in the form of government permission to allow voter suppression, ID laws, curtailing early voting, etc, SCOTUS decisions placing the burden upon the plaintiff to prove job discrimination, “Citizens United” allowing the rich to buy elections and politicians.
All these things benefit white males They are the true Affirmative Action Beneficiaries in America. The Constitution may have said “We the people…” but it only meant white males. The rest were slaves or chattel.
=========================
Shuts them right up.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:33 am
Part of a racist attack on Black communities is to kill the man and sexually exploit the woman. Think “Monster’s Ball.” Strom Thurmond, Justin Volpe, are perfect examples of this. (Google them) The Jim Crow Ferris Museum website shows that these stereotypes called “Mammy” and “Jezebel” started in minstrel shows to hide the fact that White men raped Black women during slavery. They felt that by telling people that Black women were either undesirable, or loose, would convince everyone that it was not possible for a White man to want them sexually or could justify raping them.
The stereotypes against Black women also exist to make them feel uncomfortable that they are strong, and that they set their own standard of beauty. I am glad that Black women don’t usually conform, despite aggressive advertisements, to the anorexic, skeletal standard of beauty and submissiveness. Those who try it look like they are losing their souls and becoming mannequins.
Black women are far too sophisticated for that kind of thing. They have powerful souls, well-defined curves rather than flat dimensions, beautiful hair and voices, firm rather than flabby bodies mostly despite their build, deep expressive eyes, and the nicest skin. Regardless of their build, they look exceptionally gorgeous.
However, when Black people possess a good trait, White people typically try to pretend it is not good until someone of another race possesses the trait. For example, look at the big deal they make of Angelina Jolie’s full lips after several plastic surgeries. Most Black women are born with full lips. Not to mention, Lopez’s so-called curves after numerous surgeries. Even Beyonce is given props because she is light skinned.
It is not popular for White people to praise the beauty of Black people out loud. White people who are racist do everything to possess the traits they make Black people feel uncomfortable with. It is just like when someone is jealous of something you are wearing, and does everything they can to make you feel uncomfortable with it. The irony is that as we get rid of our good traits, they take them as they did with our music.
The problem is the racial caste system. Most people who are brainwashed by White media’s stereotypes believe that the closer one is to being White, the more good looking he or she is. Others who know that this is BS pretend to think it is true.
When traveling with my fiance, I see other women of other races looking at her angrily as if she has something that belongs to them. It is because she looks good, and they believe that she is too Black to look good.
Then I see White men with their wives looking at her, and sometimes try to sneak in subtle comments to make her feel like I am beneath her because they believe the most beautiful minority women should be their mistresses. Well, we can take this up another time.
Ebony magazine exposed the fact that recently, Black models are meeting resistance from designers and are disappearing from the scene. Not to mention the fact that many magazines lighten the skin of their models in real life or in the photos, or destroy their hair. Moreover, companies market products like skin creams and weaves to help create, feed, and profit from an insecurity.
White men who choose Black women and believe they are beneath them do so because they know that they can exploit and abuse a woman who feels she is less than him, and she will not leave him. In fact, back in the day, they set up Quadroon Balls and practiced placage.
White men who no White women wanted went to these dances to find a light-skinned social climber with no career alternatives to be his mistress. (Thomas Jefferson had a mixed race mistress named Sally Hemmings, Alexander Hamilton also had one and yet both argued over the percentage of Black blood that contaminates a person).
Darker Black women were more often raped secretly because it was a stigma to desire Black women openly. Anyway, placage continues not only in today’s movies, but in places like Forrest Hills, Queens. You can see old White men and White men no White woman would give a second look walking with young and gorgeous Black, Asian, Latino, and Indian women.
And no, they are not with him because of his personality. Anyway, if I was there when that crackpot said that, I would have busted his mouth and asked that arrogant fool where he came from because life began in Africa.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:35 am
Michelle I copied this from one of our blogs. It is still pertinent.
———————————
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DkFrXQJJlo
Notice in this conversation the whites see this black man’s humiliation as a form of amusement. There is no movement by white america to do something about this degrading behavior by white cops. There is not even a hint of the implications being that if this is happening to a rich black man what must the average black person be suffering at the whims of racist cops.
Hence until blacks rose up against that white oppression, NOTHING was done. Even today white males use this type of oppression to make themselves feel they are better than a people they can’t compete with if those people are given the same advantages to compete that white privilege gives them.
Image what Miles Davis could have accomplished if he didn’t have to put up with the racism and humiliation from white america on a daily basis.
Image where America would be today scientifically, economically, and in world respect and leadership if the white man had given OTWs equal access to the education system and the opportunities the country has to offer. Instead they limited the brain pool to their white male abilities. The result a trip to the moon.
Rather than merely having landed on the moon, by now they would be living on it. People like George Washington Carver prove this point. Image what he could have done with the peanut if he had been given an equal opportunity to the education that the white men in his country took for granted? Of course they wouldn’t then or now do that because white males couldn’t compete academically with OTWS if they did.
Mother Nature put the BEST minds in the BEST bodies, and there is no doubt who on this planet has the BEST bodies.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:36 am
If you come from a race that it is impossible to believe could produce a loving god, then you have to steal someone else’s. White gods, Odin, Zeus, etc, are fornicating, raping, mean, evil gods who prey on their creations or demand tribute.
I thought you’d be interested in this story from the New York Post
Met accused of whitewashing baby Jesus
http://nypost.com/2015/12/06/lawsuit-claims-jesus-is-too-white-in-met-paintings/
For more on the New York Post and to download our apps, visit https://thenypost.wordpress.com
July 26th, 2016 at 7:37 am
Next Time Someone Says ‘White Privilege Isn’t Real,’ Show Them This
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/21/upward-mobility-race_n_6016154.html
July 26th, 2016 at 7:38 am
I like this from one of your blogs Michelle. So much proof of white privilege un acknowledged.
——————————
Nixon Aide Reportedly Admitted Drug War Was Meant To Target Black People/Jc
This is the real fear white males have of OTWs or white women occupying the office of POTUS. They are fully aware that the 43 white men who occupied the office did so with the expressed purpose of retaining the special privileges and entitlements that the original white men who founded this country gave them.
This is but one incidence that has come to light about how those 43 white men used the office of POTUS to terrorize or keep OTWs or white women from obtaining equality with white men.
That’s why some white people feared a black man in the White House. They know how the office has been used by white men to terrorize OTW americans. They just assumed a black man would be as low, evil, and conniving as they were.
Nixon Aide Reportedly Admitted Drug War Was Meant To Target Black People
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nixon-drug-war-racist_us_56f16a0ae4b03a640a6bbda1
July 26th, 2016 at 7:39 am
Those that stick to the original definition can (and do) equate racism to a bad day. Where as those of us who believe the updated definition is the most accurate, equate racism to a negative impact on our entire lives based solely on the color of our skin.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:42 am
Michelle, you stay true to your beliefs and those beliefs reflect what is needed to make this world a little bit better for us all. I save this one from one of your blogs to show settle a family argument over white privilege a while back. It is still good today.
———————————–
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/13/redneck-dixon-white_n_7059414.html
A self-described “redneck” is taking the Internet by storm with his call for white Americans to stand up against racism, take responsibility for it and acknowledge that they’ve benefitted from it whether they’ve wanted to or not.
“This country was built for white people and it’s time us Americans — us white Americans — came to terms with that and realize we’re benefitting from that,” the man who goes by the pseudonym Dixon White says in the clips, which contain some NSFW language.
“We created a culture and a system of white supremacy that has benefitted us for 400 years,” White says with a thick southern drawl in a clip recorded from the cab of his Ford pickup truck. “I think maybe it’s about time we stop being lazy as white people and take some fucking responsibility.”
In the video titled, “I’m a redneck and I love America,” he says:
“There’s a new south and a new America and it’s called white racial responsibility and it’s time we all took some y’all. Let’s take a little bit of white racial responsibility. Let’s start by standing up against it, let’s recognize that in every American institution, in education, financial, healthcare, justice — for God’s sake it’s in justice — in the police departments and our police officers, many of them.
And when I talk I’m not talking about all. I’m ain’t saying all white people are bad I’m saying we’ve got an evil called white supremacy in this culture. Stop being defensive. Get off your fucking ass and do something about it. Speak up, don’t ever ignore racism. If you hear something racist, fucking stand as a white American, take some fucking responsibility. It’s the inaction that has always destroyed other people and other nations.”
Dixon says in the clip, spotted last week by The Daily Dot, that he was once a white supremacist himself.
“Yeah I’m redneck. I always have been — but this redneck’s reformed,” says White, who wrote on Facebook that he has a white mother and Cuban father. “Many years I was a racist and I didn’t like blacks, used to call ‘em the N word and what not.”
White told The Root that going to college, where he had a black roommate, helped to change his point of view. So did suffering from abuse due to prejudice.
“Once I understood (prejudice), it made me open to not being a product of it and not participating in it,” he told the website. “I learned through suffering that I was going to fight against racism. I made an oath to myself and God that I would fight against racism and put it behind me.”
White said he had written some articles, but when they didn’t get as much attention as he hoped he turned to video. Now he’s getting attention in a big way. In less than 10 days, his most popular video has received some 800,000 views on YouTube and has been shared across social media.
The actor and filmmaker, who hopes to make a movie about white supremacy, has since released a few more clips, including a call for others to join him. White is asking Americans to post their own clips “owning up to and taking responsibility racially.” He wants the videos to “address our culture and systems of white supremacy without a ‘but’ in it and without denial and defense of it.”
Already a number of people — white and black — have answered the call. And on Facebook, Dixon said he’s hoping a celebrity will join the movement and record a video.
Despite all the attention, one thing hasn’t changed: White is still a redneck, a label he wears as a badge of honor.
“I’m still a redneck. I boat, fish, hunt, whatever the fuck I want to do. I drink a beer, I eat too much pork, barbecue, you can tell looking at me. My point is yeah you can call me fat and I don’t give a damn.”
July 26th, 2016 at 7:45 am
Gwen#9, your mother is in good racist company. I don’t know if you remember this article from one of Michelle’s blogs. But as a lawyer it is worth remembering.
==============================
Antonin Scalia, who died this month, after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, devoted his professional life to making the United States a less fair, less tolerant, and less admirable democracy. Fortunately, he mostly failed. Belligerent with his colleagues, dismissive of his critics, nostalgic for a world where outsiders knew their place and stayed there, Scalia represents a perfect model for everything that President Obama should avoid in a successor. The great Justices of the Supreme Court have always looked forward; their words both anticipated and helped shape the nation that the United States was becoming. Chief Justice John Marshall read the new Constitution to allow for a vibrant and progressive federal government. Louis Brandeis understood the need for that government to regulate an industrializing economy. Earl Warren saw that segregation was poison in the modern world. Scalia, in contrast, looked backward.
His revulsion toward homosexuality, a touchstone of his world view, appeared straight out of his sheltered, nineteen-forties boyhood. When, in 2003, the Court ruled that gay people could no longer be thrown in prison for having consensual sex, Scalia dissented, and wrote, “Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.” He went on, “Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a life style that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”
But it was in his jurisprudence that Scalia most self-consciously looked to the past. He pioneered “originalism,” a theory holding that the Constitution should be interpreted in line with the beliefs of the white men, many of them slave owners, who ratified it in the late eighteenth century. During Scalia’s first two decades as a Justice, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist rarely gave him important constitutional cases to write for the Court; the Chief feared that Scalia’s extreme views would repel Sandra Day O’Connor, the Court’s swing vote, who had a toxic relationship with him during their early days as colleagues. (Scalia’s clashes with O’Connor were far more significant than his much chronicled friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.) It was not until 2008, after John G. Roberts, Jr., had succeeded Rehnquist, that Scalia finally got a blockbuster: District of Columbia v. Heller, about the Second Amendment. Scalia spent thousands of words plumbing the psyches of the Framers, to conclude (wrongly, as John Paul Stevens pointed out in his dissent) that they had meant that individuals, not just members of “well-regulated” state militias, had the right to own handguns. Even Scalia’s ideological allies recognized the folly of trying to divine the “intent” of the authors of the Constitution concerning questions that those bewigged worthies could never have anticipated. During the oral argument of a challenge to a California law that required, among other things, warning labels on violent video games, Justice Samuel Alito interrupted Scalia’s harangue of a lawyer by quipping, “I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?”
Scalia described himself as an advocate of judicial restraint, who believed that the courts should defer to the democratically elected branches of government. In reality, he lunged at opportunities to overrule the work of Presidents and of legislators, especially Democrats. Scalia helped gut the Voting Rights Act, overturn McCain-Feingold and other campaign-finance rules, and, in his last official act, block President Obama’s climate-change regulations. Scalia’s reputation, like the Supreme Court’s, is also stained by his role in the majority in Bush v. Gore. His oft-repeated advice to critics of the decision was “Get over it.”
Not long ago, Scalia told an interviewer that he had cancelled his subscription to the Washington Post and received his news from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times (owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church), and conservative talk radio. In this, as in his jurisprudence, he showed that he lived within the sealed bubble of contemporary conservative thought. That bubble also helps explain the Republican response to the new vacancy on the Court. Within hours of Scalia’s death, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, announced that the Senate will refuse even to allow a vote on Obama’s nominee, regardless of who he or she turns out to be. Though other Republican senators have indicated that they might be a little more flexible, at least on hearing out a nominee, the chances of a confirmation before the end of Obama’s term appear to be close to nil.
This Republican intransigence is a sign of panic, not of power. The Court now consists of four liberals (Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan) and three hard-core conservatives (Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Alito), plus Anthony Kennedy, who usually but not always sides with the conservatives. With Scalia’s death, there is a realistic possibility of a liberal majority for the first time in two generations, since the last days of the Warren Court. A Democratic victory in November will all but assure this transformation. Republicans are heading to the barricades; Democrats were apparently too blindsided to recognize good news when they got it.
Like Nick Carraway, Scalia “wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever.” The world didn’t coöperate. Scalia won a great deal more than he lost, and he and his allies succeeded in transforming American politics into a cash bazaar, with seats all but put up for bidding. But even though Scalia led a conservative majority on the Court for virtually his entire tenure, he never achieved his fondest hopes—thanks first to O’Connor and then to Kennedy. Roe v. Wade endures. Affirmative action survives. Obamacare lives. Gay rights are ascendant; the death penalty is not. (These positions are contingent, of course, and cases this year may weaken the Court’s resolve.) For all that Presidents shape the Court, the Justices rarely stray too far from public opinion. And, on the social issues where the Court has the final word, the real problem for Scalia’s heirs is that they are out of step with the rest of the nation. The public wants diversity, not intolerance; more marriages and fewer executions; less money in politics, not more. Justice Scalia’s views—passionately felt and pungently expressed though they were—now seem like so many boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. ♦
============================
He was a real piece of racist s**t.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:49 am
Yes, Michelle, you have covered this topic well in the past, yet, it continues to be a denial whites use to make themselves feel superior. I like this from one of your blogs.
=============================
The phrase “all men are created equal and we have inalienable rights” does not appear in the Constitution, although a very similar phrase does appear in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, the Constitution, at least as it stood before the Civil War, had very different things to say about the subject of human equality. It provided, for example, that “[n]o person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” The original Constitution also contained explicit language prohibiting Congress from banning the importation of new slaves until 1808.
Nevertheless, DeMint is technically correct that “the reason that the slaves were eventually freed was the Constitution.” That’s because the Thirteenth Amendment provides that “[n]either slavery nor involuntary servitude. . . shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The Thirteenth Amendment did not, however, simply come into being because Abraham Lincoln had a “love in his heart that comes from God.” Rather, it happened because Lincoln led the nation in a massive big government program known as the “Civil War“.
During this war, the United States raised an army of over two million service members who clashed with a Confederate army of about half that size. Moreover, the war effort increased federal spending nearly 25 times. As the leader of a centralized government in Washington, DC, Lincoln also issued a document known as the “Emancipation Proclamation,” which ordered slaves in the Confederate states freed.
Notably, while the Thirteenth Amendment ended the legal practice of human chattel slavery, state laws such as the Black Codes and the Jim Crow laws were enacted in the South to maintain the inferior status of former slaves and their descendants. These laws were eventually eradicated by big government as well, primarily through legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
It’s also worth noting that the Confederate system of government differed from the Union’s system in that it placed far less power in a strong central government. While the United States Constitution, permits the federal government to “lay and collect taxes . . . and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” for example, the Confederate Constitution excluded the power to “provide for the general welfare.” Thus, the United States Constitution permits major national spending programs such as Medicare or Social Security, while these programs would have been unconstitutional in the Confederacy. Similarly, the Confederate Constitution includes a rigid limit on national infrastructure spending — forbidding its congress from “appropriat[ing] money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce” — a limit that does not appear in the United States Constitution.
So Jim DeMint is correct that there was a belligerent during the American Civil War that rejected “big government.” He’s just wrong about which side that was.
=========================
Today’s blog has given me others to copy and save for those times when all I want to do is smack the white idiot who claims he is what he is because of his work ethic rather than the privileges he gets because of the color of his skin.
July 26th, 2016 at 7:51 am
I have plenty of white girl friends who have much less education(some don’t even have a high school diploma) who make more money than I do with a college degree in accounting.
July 26th, 2016 at 8:56 am
In keeping with the theme of the blog today, I wanted to share Tim Wise. He makes a great statement on white privilege and why race and class politics are what they are in the US. It’s a good video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pufqZHMG9Oc
/SB
July 27th, 2016 at 10:02 am
[…] thank you Social Butterfly for posting that short video of Tim Wise. I thought everyone should watch it if they haven’t. […]
July 30th, 2016 at 11:02 am
[…] Josie: I’ve read stats on black men being incarcerated but not much on the women. Much of what you posted was all new news to me. Thank you for enlightening me. […]