Sure but that was history you read about as a kid. MLK marched and showed non-violent protests was the right way to go, remember?

Also I think you're kind of missing the point. It's not the pervasive racism that is so depressing to me. It's how easy people who I may have otherwise respected and even loved will buy into literally anything, even if directly contradicting evidence is on tape in front of their faces.

I never thought we were in a post-racial society. But I also never experienced first-hand how trivially easy it is to turn convince a big chunk of the public to turn a blind eye or blame the victims. This includes my friends and family.

For a lot of that stuff you mentioned, seems like it would be pretty easy to avoid back when a newspaper that came out days later was the only source of news. The closest thing to modern society, with modern pervasive media, that you mentioned was My Lai. I knew what happened. I knew the army did everything to cover it up. But it my mind most of the public was aghast and only the RWNJ chiefsplanet types supported. Even before your post I've thought about it and now realize most of my family would probably be sympathetic to Calley and the rest.

*oh yeah Abu Graib. Had to look up Lynndie England. Yeah that was pretty terrible. I guess my family's reaction to that was "one off incident, media is blowing it up". I put it in the bad category for sure - but not trail of tears or systematic lynching.

Anyway until Trump I didn't think a Holocaust was possible in the US. Now I do. All it takes is a major recession or depression and some Muslims shooting up a white church. And once the camps get started, and surveillance and revenge apparatus state gets going - who knows where it could lead.

FWIW - there's basically a Holocaust agaisnt Muslims going on in Myanmar, right now, perpetrated by those oft-cited peaceful Buddhists: https://www.economist.com/news/asia/...e-led-massacre


And now you're gonna say "well yeah but blah blah you should have known I mean you're a reasonably intelligent woke guy blah blah", in a perfectly reasonable and polite way of course. Because you've never conceded a point in your life. And I will think - "no ****ing way man, no ****ing way you knew it could get this bad, no way you could see this clearly how another Holocaust could go down aided and abetted by people you loved". But I probably won't respond because essay wars are no fun.

But they were always like that yo. I mean I get that new information came to light and so you've had to assess the probabilities of stuff. I think it's very disingenuous if not dangerous to say Trump did it to your friends and family. Or Fox News did it. The apathy to downright gleeful reveling in racist, paranoid idiocy was inside your friends and family all along.

Stay vigilant. Even after Trump is gone from the scene.

I'm not saying Trump did it. I'm saying I can now see crystal clear that it was always there waiting for the right conditions. Hence "I can see now...".

This is a very dangerous position to take. You are not making some revelatory claim by pointing out America’s long history with racism. You are however, dangerously downplaying the role Trump and Fox has played in bringing that racism to the surface and allowing it to flourish. Simply google hate crime and you will see rates of both hate crimes and hate group membership are up significantly since Trump became thier poster boy. There is a very big difference between a world were racists hide in the shadows afraid of social stigma for showing thier true colours and one in which they are rewarded for them and praised by the president.

This is one thing that is downplayed far too much with Trump. Sure he has not really done anything substantive in terms of legislation or wars etc but what he has done is in many way much worse and will have a longer negative effect on America. He has change norms for the worse and that is very difficult to change back.

So when someone laments thier friends open racism the response is not “but they were always racist”. The concern is that they feel free to openly be racist without fear of legal or social repercussions.

Yeah the flip side is that racists need to be kept down and driven back to the shadows. Trump showed what was always there. But at least it was somewhat contained compared to today.

The Trump experience has also crystallized my position that the only way to deal with racism is to clamp it down with whatever means necessary whenever possible. Talking and coddling does absolutely nothing. Subdue subdue subdue. Don't let them gather strength in the open (literal or metaphorical open).

Not sure that's most effective. The way to deal with racism is educate young and old on tolerance and diversity. It's a slow process but it's better than subdue at all costs.

Cuomo one of the top anchors imo. Miles above Lemon party and Wolf cock.

lol

Case in point.

http://www.slate.com/articles/busine...travelers.html

Absolutely not, couldn't disagree more. The civil rights protests and forced integration were by far the best thing that could have happened.

Racism exists below reason. You can't educate it out of the system. You squelch it out of the system.

Plenty of people on my FB feed and chiefsplanet went to the same school system I did and got the same kumbaya MLK non-violence thank goodness USA is post-racial now education - K-12 and college for many. Apparently it takes about 30 minutes of FoxNews to undo all that for good.

And I couldn't disagree more with this. Once educated, always educated. You don't go from understanding science for example, to getting talked out of it. It's those that get squelched out of the system (or those you thought were) that FoxNews turns around in 30 minutes.

I'll sorta defend Americans on this take though. It's the nature of power. Rome committed atrocities, Spain, Britain, Germany, Japan, The US. Countries where the government was more powerful internally than externally like China and The USSR, concentrated their atrocities internally.

Who is innocent? Iceland?

The concentration of power is as dangerous as a concentration of plutonium.

Case in point there regarding power and the holocaust is that, and this isn't saying much, Germany was one of the least antisemitic places in continental Europe before Hitler.

Oh good, Lestat is here to lecture us about racial justice.

We are probably talking about he same thing. I mean, school integration is a part of education. Unless you create a diverse environment, you can't just hope kids grow up not racist. Thats your only hope ultimately. Yes, many states need more than just kumbaya about mlk obv.

That's more effective long term than trying to shut down or protest outside Fox News for example. But you do need to create a different avenue for the olds to get exposed to something other than the 8 o'clock cable anchor and their pastor.

And the news outlets and nightly variety shows that get viewers frothing at the mouth about Trump every day are lowering stress levels amirite?

The comedy at trumps expense lowers mine. He is a crazy mofo in charge of the most power nation on earth. You need to laugh so things dont kill you sometimes.

So as long as you hear a joke after being told Trump is an Aryan Russian spy it's all good!

No. Trump being a racists in not all good. But it helps to laugh at him. Not only with my own angst. But it helps delegitimize him. Which is good.

Well, this was just right in the wheelhouse of what I've been preaching since well before the election.

In other news, marketing works on the human brain!!! More at 11.

Suzzer, we don't still have lynchings. Yes, that's progress. Is that the end of it, no. Are there leagues still to go, yes. But let's not pretend that we've turned back the social clock just because the yahoos now feel like they can admit their lunacy openly.

The lesson here is that we do have these issues remaining in our society, that they had been forcibly repressed and not cured, and now they are remanifested.

Micro, Hitler didn't invent German antisemitism - he tapped into it and played it up, but it was already there, waiting to be exploited.

Are you serious? This happens all the time.

It is also way easier to keep your side fired up and voting every election when they are in a constant state of anger directed at the other party. As we've seen with democrats constant struggle with progressive apathy. It is far harder to constantly fire up voters and to keep them voting over the hard and long fought incremental policy improvements that benefit the middle and lower classes and society as a whole.

I see this with my older boomer relatives, they have been convinced that they are in a long term political war with the left/democrats - such that if they had their way they would keep raising their taxes, stealing their medicare and ss, and otherwise transferring their hard earned wealth and benefits to the poor/lazy/undeserving white resentment trigger words here. This long term political war framework means that it doesn't matter if GWB or Trump or republican congress is a complete **** up, doesn't matter if their side commits the occasional atrocities in battle, the big picture political war is still present and still keeps them eagerly voting R, and turning out at every election.