1. On March 10 CBS This Morning interviewed two black authors. Near the end of the segment they put up a graphic of a list of words that start with black with the word black in bold
and the word racism in large letters in the background.
Teaching kids about the complicated history of racism
I did a search for the meanings and origins of these words and this is what I found.
Black Monday
"Black Monday is the name given to stock market crashes that occurred on four different Mondays.
They are Oct. 28, 1929, Oct. 19, 1987, the market correction of Aug. 24, 2015, and March 9, 2020."
Black Monday in 1929, 1987, 2015, and 2020
Black Sheep
"In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family.
The term stems from sheep whose fleece is colored black rather than the more common white; these sheep stand out in the flock and their wool was traditionally considered less valuable."
Black sheep - Wikipedia
Black Ball
"Late 18th century from the practice of registering an adverse vote by placing a black ball in a ballot box."
Blackball | Definition of Blackball by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Blackball
Nothing to do with race.
Here are the origins of the other words. Spoiler: Nothing to do with race.
https://www.history.com/news/where-did-the-word-blackmail-come-from
Blacklisting - Wikipedia
So is the word black racist now? It's hard to keep up.
2. "Instead of 'supremacy' use 'quantum advantage'" says the journal Nature.
"In our view, ‘supremacy’ has overtones of violence, neocolonialism and racism through its association with ‘white supremacy’.
Inherently violent language has crept into other branches of science as well — in human and robotic spaceflight, for example, terms such as ‘conquest’, ‘colonization’ and ‘settlement’ evoke the terra nullius arguments of settler colonialism and must be contextualized against ongoing issues of neocolonialism."
Instead of ‘supremacy’ use ‘quantum advantage’
Academics derided for claiming 'quantum supremacy' is a racist and colonialist term
So where do we draw the line? Do we change the titles of the Jason Bourne books and movies to The Bourne Advantage?
3. Alien and Predator Reinforce Anti-Black Racism.
How Hollywood's 'Alien' and 'Predator' movies reinforce anti-Black racism
"Black women have been portrayed in contemporary white social and political culture as super-fertile and indestructible breeders whose sexual reproduction must be controlled."
"Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise, with its vicious and endlessly breeding carbon black alien mother, came at the height of neoliberal experiment and in the U.S. especially, an all-out assault on Black people.
In the context of anti-Black culture, the film signifies the Black woman as an unkillable and ceaselessly breeding alien who threatened the body politic.
In terms set by historian Lothrop Stoddard’s white supremacist 1920 book The Rising Tide of Color, a Black woman’s sexual reproduction is imagined to signal the genetic extinction of the white republic."
Serious question. Who here has ever thought of black women as indestructable breeders or unkillable?
"In the context of racially charged white anxieties about immigration and social order, the historical demonization of Black men is a trope, a stereotype, that easily maps onto cinematic typecasting. The 1987 Hollywood film that launched the Predator franchise fits this pattern.
Predator depicted a Black, dreadlocked, large and super-virile male in a way that converged white art with white political history.
A white man once said he thought it was cool that I had dreadlocks like the Predator. This is not a compliment."
Who here watched the Predator killing soldiers (inculding black soldiers) with it's high-tech space weapons, and thought "That's just like black men"? The Predator isn't even black, it's just covered with black spots.
This is actually very disrespectful to the filmakers, because this article implies they delibrately put these tropes into the movie instead of just creating something to scare and entertain the audience.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more examples I have seen over the years and probably many more I don't know about that others have heard about or experienced for themselves. At this point it would be easier to list all the things that aren't racist.
This may come as a shock to a lot of these people, but in general, people who aren't racists or nazis don't like being accused of being racists or nazis. Here is CNN reporter Kirsten Powers
using the most obvious guilt by assossiation fallacy I've heard. "If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist. So, I just wanna establish that"
If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist
From what I remember, about 36 million people voted for Trump. That's a lot of racists walking around.
People also don't like the feeling of constantly walking on eggshells to avoid offending the easily offended.
Cotton plant on display is racist.
Woman says Hobby Lobby’s cotton decor is racist | Daily Mail Online
A professor suspended because he used a chinese word that sounded like the n word.
Investigation into US professor sparks debate over Chinese word
Photo of miners covered in soot is racist.
Everything is racist, coal miner edition
These reactions would make sense if they were seen out of context, but the context is right there and they were still offended. This is not normal.
The point I'm making is that these people are not helping race relations or the fight against racism, and in some instances they are even contribute to it.
For example, in 2017 users on a message-board decided to troll these type of people to see if they could make them believe something as mundane and innocuous as the okay hand sign was a racist, white supremacist symbol. Not suprisingly they fell for it. The troll worked too well and actual white supremacists took notice and started using it unironically. This basically became a self-fullfilling prophecy.
When the O.K. Sign Is No Longer O.K.
The troll worked so well even innocent people were being accused of being racist. A bunch of navy cadets were accused of making the racist hand sign even though they were clearly just playing the circle game. Even after there was an investigation that concluded what was obvious, the woke mob didn't believe it and implied the navy was covering for them.
A guy who was cracking his knuckles was fired after someone claimed he was making the hand sign.
Another example: A professor claimed that having a 'white nuclear family with children you want what's best for' is a form of white supremacy
CUNY professor says white families promote white supremacy | Daily Mail Online
Her tweets were the subject of a video by a white supremacist YouTube channel called RedIceTV (now banned from YouTube). She played right into their narrative. The woke crowd seem to have become useful idiots for white supremacists.
I think the election of Trump is also in part a self-fullfilling prophecy. The next most common reason I heard from people who voted for Trump besides "He wasn't Hillary" was "He isn't politically correct". When I hear people say "politically correct" these days they are almost always referring to incidents like the ones listed above.
When you have incidents going on like these going on constantly, you have to expect some pushback.
Here is Sam Harris basically saying the same thing in 2016:
WARNING: swear word at 2:07
Good video to listen to if you're on the left.
My main point is that the woke left exacerbate the very thing they claim to be fighting against. For the most part, from what I've seen, moderate left wingers usually just turn a blind eye, severely downplay these incidents or they will sometimes even defend these people either by directly defending them or by redirecting attention away from them, usually by using a whataboutism directed toward the right wing or they will attack the messanger, usually by using the poisoning the well fallacy. Only a few on the left like Sam Harris and Bill Maher seem willing to call these people out. Basically those who are too big to be "canceled". From what I've seen it's mostly those on the right that call them out.
Thought?
and the word racism in large letters in the background.
Teaching kids about the complicated history of racism
I did a search for the meanings and origins of these words and this is what I found.
Black Monday
"Black Monday is the name given to stock market crashes that occurred on four different Mondays.
They are Oct. 28, 1929, Oct. 19, 1987, the market correction of Aug. 24, 2015, and March 9, 2020."
Black Monday in 1929, 1987, 2015, and 2020
Black Sheep
"In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family.
The term stems from sheep whose fleece is colored black rather than the more common white; these sheep stand out in the flock and their wool was traditionally considered less valuable."
Black sheep - Wikipedia
Black Ball
"Late 18th century from the practice of registering an adverse vote by placing a black ball in a ballot box."
Blackball | Definition of Blackball by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Blackball
Nothing to do with race.
Here are the origins of the other words. Spoiler: Nothing to do with race.
https://www.history.com/news/where-did-the-word-blackmail-come-from
Blacklisting - Wikipedia
So is the word black racist now? It's hard to keep up.
2. "Instead of 'supremacy' use 'quantum advantage'" says the journal Nature.
"In our view, ‘supremacy’ has overtones of violence, neocolonialism and racism through its association with ‘white supremacy’.
Inherently violent language has crept into other branches of science as well — in human and robotic spaceflight, for example, terms such as ‘conquest’, ‘colonization’ and ‘settlement’ evoke the terra nullius arguments of settler colonialism and must be contextualized against ongoing issues of neocolonialism."
Instead of ‘supremacy’ use ‘quantum advantage’
Academics derided for claiming 'quantum supremacy' is a racist and colonialist term
So where do we draw the line? Do we change the titles of the Jason Bourne books and movies to The Bourne Advantage?
3. Alien and Predator Reinforce Anti-Black Racism.
How Hollywood's 'Alien' and 'Predator' movies reinforce anti-Black racism
"Black women have been portrayed in contemporary white social and political culture as super-fertile and indestructible breeders whose sexual reproduction must be controlled."
"Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise, with its vicious and endlessly breeding carbon black alien mother, came at the height of neoliberal experiment and in the U.S. especially, an all-out assault on Black people.
In the context of anti-Black culture, the film signifies the Black woman as an unkillable and ceaselessly breeding alien who threatened the body politic.
In terms set by historian Lothrop Stoddard’s white supremacist 1920 book The Rising Tide of Color, a Black woman’s sexual reproduction is imagined to signal the genetic extinction of the white republic."
Serious question. Who here has ever thought of black women as indestructable breeders or unkillable?
"In the context of racially charged white anxieties about immigration and social order, the historical demonization of Black men is a trope, a stereotype, that easily maps onto cinematic typecasting. The 1987 Hollywood film that launched the Predator franchise fits this pattern.
Predator depicted a Black, dreadlocked, large and super-virile male in a way that converged white art with white political history.
A white man once said he thought it was cool that I had dreadlocks like the Predator. This is not a compliment."
Who here watched the Predator killing soldiers (inculding black soldiers) with it's high-tech space weapons, and thought "That's just like black men"? The Predator isn't even black, it's just covered with black spots.
This is actually very disrespectful to the filmakers, because this article implies they delibrately put these tropes into the movie instead of just creating something to scare and entertain the audience.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more examples I have seen over the years and probably many more I don't know about that others have heard about or experienced for themselves. At this point it would be easier to list all the things that aren't racist.
This may come as a shock to a lot of these people, but in general, people who aren't racists or nazis don't like being accused of being racists or nazis. Here is CNN reporter Kirsten Powers
using the most obvious guilt by assossiation fallacy I've heard. "If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist. So, I just wanna establish that"
If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist
From what I remember, about 36 million people voted for Trump. That's a lot of racists walking around.
People also don't like the feeling of constantly walking on eggshells to avoid offending the easily offended.
Cotton plant on display is racist.
Woman says Hobby Lobby’s cotton decor is racist | Daily Mail Online
A professor suspended because he used a chinese word that sounded like the n word.
Investigation into US professor sparks debate over Chinese word
Photo of miners covered in soot is racist.
Everything is racist, coal miner edition
These reactions would make sense if they were seen out of context, but the context is right there and they were still offended. This is not normal.
The point I'm making is that these people are not helping race relations or the fight against racism, and in some instances they are even contribute to it.
For example, in 2017 users on a message-board decided to troll these type of people to see if they could make them believe something as mundane and innocuous as the okay hand sign was a racist, white supremacist symbol. Not suprisingly they fell for it. The troll worked too well and actual white supremacists took notice and started using it unironically. This basically became a self-fullfilling prophecy.
When the O.K. Sign Is No Longer O.K.
The troll worked so well even innocent people were being accused of being racist. A bunch of navy cadets were accused of making the racist hand sign even though they were clearly just playing the circle game. Even after there was an investigation that concluded what was obvious, the woke mob didn't believe it and implied the navy was covering for them.
A guy who was cracking his knuckles was fired after someone claimed he was making the hand sign.
Another example: A professor claimed that having a 'white nuclear family with children you want what's best for' is a form of white supremacy
CUNY professor says white families promote white supremacy | Daily Mail Online
Her tweets were the subject of a video by a white supremacist YouTube channel called RedIceTV (now banned from YouTube). She played right into their narrative. The woke crowd seem to have become useful idiots for white supremacists.
I think the election of Trump is also in part a self-fullfilling prophecy. The next most common reason I heard from people who voted for Trump besides "He wasn't Hillary" was "He isn't politically correct". When I hear people say "politically correct" these days they are almost always referring to incidents like the ones listed above.
When you have incidents going on like these going on constantly, you have to expect some pushback.
Here is Sam Harris basically saying the same thing in 2016:
Good video to listen to if you're on the left.
My main point is that the woke left exacerbate the very thing they claim to be fighting against. For the most part, from what I've seen, moderate left wingers usually just turn a blind eye, severely downplay these incidents or they will sometimes even defend these people either by directly defending them or by redirecting attention away from them, usually by using a whataboutism directed toward the right wing or they will attack the messanger, usually by using the poisoning the well fallacy. Only a few on the left like Sam Harris and Bill Maher seem willing to call these people out. Basically those who are too big to be "canceled". From what I've seen it's mostly those on the right that call them out.
Thought?
