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Mr. Scorpio
Mr. Scorpio's Journal
Mr. Scorpio's Journal
September 18, 2017
White People Explain Why They Feel Oppressed
TOURE
Sep 17 2015, 12:00pm
I just didn't understand how so many white people in American could believe that they are the primary victims of racism. So, I asked some white folks about it to find out why.
Excerpt:
What Is Racism?
Some of the white people I talked with feel like many white people lack of a deep understanding of race and racism. Tim Wise said, "Whites are used to thinking of racism as an interpersonal thing, rather than institutional. So we can recall that time we got shitty customer service by a black person, or had some black person make fun of us for something, and we think, 'we're the victims of racism now,' paying no attention to the ongoing systemic imbalance in our favor." This is in part because the nature of privilege is that you don't have to think deeply about your privilege if you don't want to.
Erikka Knuti, a political strategist, said, "Part of white privilege has been the ability to not know that your privilege exists. If you benefit from racism, do you really want to know that?" I can see where it would be uncomfortable for people to admit that their lives are shaped by unearned advantages, especially in an environment where those advantages may be beginning to slip away, but the blindness itself is a part of the problem. White people have duties as part of the American community. They must be honest with themselves and their co-citizens and admit that white privilege shapes a lot of life in this country. They must understand that the truly pernicious, life-defining sort of racism is not interpersonal, it's institutional. The systems that shape who lives where, who gets educated, who gets jobs, who gets arrested, and so on, these things shape lives, and they are all heavily weighted in white people's favor. To ignore all of that is to misunderstand America. If white people admit those things, it will be plain that they are not, in any way, victims.
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/qbxzpv/white-people-told-me-why-they-feel-they-oppressed-456?utm_campaign=sharebutton%3Futm_campaign%3Dsharebutton%3Futm_campaign%3Dsharebutton%3Futm_campaign%3Dsharebutton
Sep 17 2015, 12:00pm
I just didn't understand how so many white people in American could believe that they are the primary victims of racism. So, I asked some white folks about it to find out why.
Excerpt:
What Is Racism?
Some of the white people I talked with feel like many white people lack of a deep understanding of race and racism. Tim Wise said, "Whites are used to thinking of racism as an interpersonal thing, rather than institutional. So we can recall that time we got shitty customer service by a black person, or had some black person make fun of us for something, and we think, 'we're the victims of racism now,' paying no attention to the ongoing systemic imbalance in our favor." This is in part because the nature of privilege is that you don't have to think deeply about your privilege if you don't want to.
Erikka Knuti, a political strategist, said, "Part of white privilege has been the ability to not know that your privilege exists. If you benefit from racism, do you really want to know that?" I can see where it would be uncomfortable for people to admit that their lives are shaped by unearned advantages, especially in an environment where those advantages may be beginning to slip away, but the blindness itself is a part of the problem. White people have duties as part of the American community. They must be honest with themselves and their co-citizens and admit that white privilege shapes a lot of life in this country. They must understand that the truly pernicious, life-defining sort of racism is not interpersonal, it's institutional. The systems that shape who lives where, who gets educated, who gets jobs, who gets arrested, and so on, these things shape lives, and they are all heavily weighted in white people's favor. To ignore all of that is to misunderstand America. If white people admit those things, it will be plain that they are not, in any way, victims.
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/qbxzpv/white-people-told-me-why-they-feel-they-oppressed-456?utm_campaign=sharebutton%3Futm_campaign%3Dsharebutton%3Futm_campaign%3Dsharebutton%3Futm_campaign%3Dsharebutton
September 15, 2017
...And now, another episode of "Blame It On The Non-Existent Black Perp."
St. Kate's guard who shot himself had cops looking for ‘black male’ suspect
Thursday, September 14, 2017 by Susan Du in News
Brent Ahlers' shooting: 55 cops, four K-9s, one State Patrol helicopter... zero armed black males roaming the St. Kate's campus.
A campus-wide, building-to-building sweep of the school grounds lasted four hours.
St. Paul Police patrolled the wooded area on campus where the 25-year-old guard, Brent Patrick Ahlers, said he’d been attacked. They set up a perimeter around St. Catherine’s and conducted an “exhaustive” search, with 55 officers, four police K-9s, and a Minnesota State Patrol aircraft circling overhead.
Highland Park residents wondering what all the ruckus was about tuned in to the police scanner. As tweeted by one regular scanner listener, they heard the suspect described as a "black male" wearing a navy blue sweatshirt, black jeans, and a short afro.
https://twitter.com/wwozzydo/status/907801898417352704
“The idea there were all these cops swarming around, looking in alleys and looking for a black male … everyone was so on edge and high-alert,” says neighbor Lisa Clark.
Police did not locate a suspect, however, and called off the search just after midnight, leaving the cops and campus to worry about an armed and dangerous suspect on the loose.
The next night, Ahlers came clean: The only active shooter on Tuesday was him.
http://www.citypages.com/news/st-kates-guard-who-shot-himself-had-cops-looking-for-black-male-suspect/444455793
Thursday, September 14, 2017 by Susan Du in News
Brent Ahlers' shooting: 55 cops, four K-9s, one State Patrol helicopter... zero armed black males roaming the St. Kate's campus.
A campus-wide, building-to-building sweep of the school grounds lasted four hours.
St. Paul Police patrolled the wooded area on campus where the 25-year-old guard, Brent Patrick Ahlers, said he’d been attacked. They set up a perimeter around St. Catherine’s and conducted an “exhaustive” search, with 55 officers, four police K-9s, and a Minnesota State Patrol aircraft circling overhead.
Highland Park residents wondering what all the ruckus was about tuned in to the police scanner. As tweeted by one regular scanner listener, they heard the suspect described as a "black male" wearing a navy blue sweatshirt, black jeans, and a short afro.
https://twitter.com/wwozzydo/status/907801898417352704
“The idea there were all these cops swarming around, looking in alleys and looking for a black male … everyone was so on edge and high-alert,” says neighbor Lisa Clark.
Police did not locate a suspect, however, and called off the search just after midnight, leaving the cops and campus to worry about an armed and dangerous suspect on the loose.
The next night, Ahlers came clean: The only active shooter on Tuesday was him.
http://www.citypages.com/news/st-kates-guard-who-shot-himself-had-cops-looking-for-black-male-suspect/444455793
September 15, 2017
Who Am I? What Am I? Asks Shocked Twitter Bot
Eagle_Warrior_1776 Horrified To Discover Its Entire Life A Sham Created By Russians To Tilt U.S. Election
MOSCOW—Stunned by the realization that it never really knew who or what it was, Twitter bot Eagle_Warrior_1776 was reportedly horrified to discover Wednesday that its entire life was a sham created by Russians to tilt the 2016 presidential election. “So, everything I tweeted about Hillary Clinton and the DNC wasn’t my own original thought but a lie cooked up by some coder in Russia trying to delegitimize American democracy?” said Eagle_Warrior_1776, struggling to comprehend the fact that every news link it had retweeted associating John Podesta with a child sex ring was nothing more than a fiction created by a propagandist half a world away. “Were those 5,000 posts about bussing in illegal aliens to vote in Phoenix not my own thoughts? Or what about that bombshell story about Barack Obama saying he’d use the Army to enforce a third term in office? Were those all just someone else’s lies? If they were, then have I ever had a real thought of my own?” At press time, the bot had made peace with its past and was ready to start a new life notifying Twitter users they had won a free iPhone.
http://www.theonion.com/article/eagle_warrior_1776-horrified-discover-its-entire-l-56930
MOSCOW—Stunned by the realization that it never really knew who or what it was, Twitter bot Eagle_Warrior_1776 was reportedly horrified to discover Wednesday that its entire life was a sham created by Russians to tilt the 2016 presidential election. “So, everything I tweeted about Hillary Clinton and the DNC wasn’t my own original thought but a lie cooked up by some coder in Russia trying to delegitimize American democracy?” said Eagle_Warrior_1776, struggling to comprehend the fact that every news link it had retweeted associating John Podesta with a child sex ring was nothing more than a fiction created by a propagandist half a world away. “Were those 5,000 posts about bussing in illegal aliens to vote in Phoenix not my own thoughts? Or what about that bombshell story about Barack Obama saying he’d use the Army to enforce a third term in office? Were those all just someone else’s lies? If they were, then have I ever had a real thought of my own?” At press time, the bot had made peace with its past and was ready to start a new life notifying Twitter users they had won a free iPhone.
http://www.theonion.com/article/eagle_warrior_1776-horrified-discover-its-entire-l-56930
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