Tag Archives: bigotry

Black to the Oscars

Well readers, it was exactly one week ago that actress Jada Pinkett Smith announced her decision not to attend this year’s Academy Awards, citing a distinct lack of diversity in the nominees. In a brief video [embedded below], Pinkett Smith expressed her frustration at the apparent exclusion of people of color in the “mainstream”, and declared that “…begging for acknowledgement, or even asking, diminishes dignity.”


Upon hearing this, the nation has since had a moment of quiet reflection over the issues Miss Pinkett Smith has brought up, calmly and honestly discussing the root issues facing the representation of-

Nah, I’m just kidding. People went ape****.

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Cue the torrent of self-righteous indignation as folks started positively shrieking about reverse-racism, hypocrisy, and entitlement. And as more and more figures have come out in support of (or at least, sympathy with) Pinkett Smith’s cause, the outrage has only grown with it. It seems that you can’t go anywhere online without running into something like this:

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Or this:

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Or this:

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For the record, the stats on this lead to incorrect conclusions- but we can talk about that later.

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Bigotry, Borders, and Beyond

Let’s try a little exercise here-

What’s the first image that pops into your head when I say the word “refugee”?

For many, it will be that of displaced African villagers, perhaps with stomachs bloated from hunger, listlessly waiting in line for water in some desecrated wasteland.

For others, it might be more recent images: those of shivering, terrified Syrians, crammed into boats as they prepare to make a perilous voyage across the Mediterranean.

But how many would think of scenes like this?

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No, that’s not the Balkans or Turkey or Darfour. That’s the Congregational Church of Austin in Texas, barely over a thousand miles from where I’m writing these very words.

The “American Immigration Crisis” has been quietly brewing since 2014, when a sudden surge of migrants- most of them young children– attempted to cross into the US from countries in Central America.

The response by many, as you can probably guess, was less than welcoming-

Across the Southwest (and the country at large), outrage was expressed over these “illegals”, the town of Murietta, CA perhaps serving as the best example. In July of 2014  buses carrying migrant families were protested in a manner that can only be described as repulsive- but I’ll let you watch for yourself and decide:

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Benjamin Netenyahu: Holocaust Denier

Readers, we interrupt your regular horror-themed post to bring you news from the Middle East- where, for anyone not keeping up, things have started heating up (even in this cold October).

Past weeks have seen a surge of violence on the streets of Jerusalem, as a spate of stabbings has left 8 Israelis and 56 Palestinians dead. Tensions continue to rise in a cycle of attacks and brutal retaliations, leading many to question if the region will see a 3rd Intifada in the coming days and weeks. With the looming threat of an all-out uprising, many within the region and internally have urgently called for peace.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netenyahu has not been among them.

Speaking at the World Zionist Convention this past Tuesday, Netenyahu proclaimed to his rapt audience that (and I quote):

Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time – he wanted to expel the Jews.”

-BBC World News (I’d link you to the YouTube clip, but I don’t want to give those racists the hits)

Netenyahu would go on to claim that it was only after meeting Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti (high-ranking Islamic religious scholar) of Jerusalem, that the “final solution” was implemented- Netenyahu claiming that Hitler only began the holocaust at the behest of the mufti.

And that is…

…just so ****ing stupid that I don’t even know where to begin.

I mean that every single word of that is wrong. And not just wrong but so obviously and categorically wrong. The wholesale murder of Jews/Roma/homosexuals/the disabled/communists/etc. was already well (as in years) underway by the time the mufti met with Hitler. Historians both within Israel and without, and across the full political spectrum, have poured their collective derision on Netenyahu’s barefaced lie.

-Everyone on the planet.

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Bernie Sanders VS. Black Lives Matter: How Is This Helping?

I haven’t been this depressed about writing a post since the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Even as my fingers move across my keyboard I can feel my willpower just oozing right out of me. And it’s not that the issues here aren’t worth talking about- they absolutely are. It’s just that the whole affair has been so…

pointless.

Let me just hit you with the hard facts before we jump into this morass of stupidity and futility.

This Saturday in Seattle Democratic-Socialist and presidential-hopeful Bernie Sanders was holding a political rally for his campaign. Shortly after beginning, a pair of protestors from Black Lives Matter (a nation-wide movement speaking out against police violence towards African Americans) climbed up on stage. The two protestors, for some twenty minutes, recounted grievances of the local black community and scolded Sanders for not having been vocal enough about police violence towards minorities. “…Join us now in holding Bernie Sanders accountable…” stated Marissa Johnson, one of the protestors.

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When Life Gives You Don Lemon II: The Lemoning

Don Lemon.

Our more dedicated readers will remember we wrote about the CNN news anchor back in November, and by “wrote about him”, I of course mean “launched into a detailed tirade about what an spineless, amoral sleazebag the guy is“.

Yeah, we weren’t gentle with that one…

Now as we’ve said before, there’s plenty of folks out in the news who lack integrity. Those folks- your Piers Morgans, your Glenn Becks, your Keith Olbermanns- are plenty nasty, don’t get me wrong, but they’re at least motivated by some agenda. You can generally count on ’em to focus their bile in a precise direction or at specific targets.

No such luxury with Don Lemon.

Don Lemon- as he himself would tell you- isn’t tied down to any one perspective or set of politics. One day, he’s speculating to whether or not a black hole was the cause of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Or one day, he’s asking one of Cosby’s alleged rape victims why she didn’t just bite the guy’s penis. Or he’s endorsing the patently racist and unconstitutional practice of “stop-and-frisk”, and telling folks they have to choose between dignity and security. There’s really no rhyme or reason to it. The dude’s got the earnestness of Walter Cronkite and the journalistic ethics of the Daily Mirror.

You stay classy, Great Britain…

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The Internet and Mob Justice

On January 16th, a pet supply worker was fired for a racist tirade on a blog. On the 13th of the same month, Iron Mountain Daily News blacklisted a freelance writer after she was revealed using racial slurs. On the 11th of this month, a juvenile justice employ in Kentucky was fired for racist and violent postings on his Facebook wall.

Nothing surprising at first glance.

With ever-increasing social consciousness and public focus on modern-day racism in the past year, it’s nothing shocking that a person would be fired for getting caught making bigoted claims. Only these folks weren’t caught– they were exposed.

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