If their president can be a racist in the Whitehouse, why can’t they be racist in Pennsylvania? This particular racist was so angry that ‘Black Lives Matter’ protesters want to live freely in the land of the free and the home of the brave, that she just couldn’t suppress her racism.
Who would have thought that wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt in New York is an invitation for racists to approach you to within inches to show their ugliness? But that is exactly what happened to a Yale Ph.D. student.
A black student filmed a middle-aged white woman who launched into a vile racist tirade on a Manhattan street — repeatedly using the N-word and calling her an “ape.”
Yale PhD student Kathryn Graves, 27, was walking in Midtown in her Black Lives Matter T-shirt when the woman began shouting at her, prompting her to turn down the music in her headphones.
“Obama’s f—ing d–k right next to his ape f—ing wife,” the unidentified woman rants at Graves, according to the footage posted to Instagram Sunday.
After making monkey-like noises at the Brown University grad, the woman — clutching a case of Natural Ice beer — appears to come just inches away from her as she repeatedly calls her a “n—er ape.”
“What’s the matter, you n—er ape, you got time to f—ing do your hair?” the woman continues to rant.
“What’s the matter, you got time to do your f—ing pink a– f—ing hair, you n—er Obama f—ing ape,” she says, before turning to finally cross Third Avenue.
“This skin turns people off,” said Winfred Rembert, the celebrated African American artist based in New Haven.
“I don’t know why. Out of all the skins in the world when it comes to black skin, people are turned off, and they’ll do things to black skin that they wouldn’t do to any other skin.
“Why is that? Why is it so easy to pull the trigger on a black man? Why is it so easy to tase a black man when he hasn’t done a damn thing? Why is it so easy to do that? Why is it so easy to slap his face and knock him to the ground and mistreat him just because his skin is black? Not just in the streets. I mean in corporate America. It’s the same thing.”
The racism is real folks.
Coronavirus protection or not, this officer at a Walmart in Illinois was not going to sit by and allow these two black men to follow the CDC’s recommendation of wearing masks to protect against contracting Covid-19.
Watch as these men are escorted out of the store for the crime of…. protecting yourself while being black.
Wood River, Illinois.
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) April 7, 2020
Two black men were kicked out of Walmart, escorted out by a cop who had his hand on the gun…FOR WEARING MASKS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES
Are you kidding me?
This is America! Where black lives don't matter.
BLACK LIVES MATTER! pic.twitter.com/VU6cgWBUp8
Welcome to the club.
And there’s more to come.
This is all being driven by the sworn enemies of functioning democracy: Fear, suspicion, accusations of being an “other” or anti-whatever the fear-mongers want to define as their normal, anxiety, and loss of a way of life.
Immigration might be behind much of the problem, but there’s more. We are two or three generations removed from the horrors of World War Two and worlds removed from the Great War of a hundred years ago. People forget, then the new students never learn, or don’t learn well enough of the dangers that led to those catastrophes. Nationalism. Imperialism. Militarism. Shifting alliances with weak or no oversight.
We are living is similar, but also vastly different times. Nationalism is rising and many countries have drawn sharp lines between who is acceptable and who is not. International tensions are rising because leaders like Xi, Kim, Duterte, Orban, Modi, Putin and Trump are feeding the fear and the uncertainty rather than trying to find common ground and common solutions.
I would be surprised if the Congress votes on, and passes, meaningful gun legislation that would require background checks and taking guns away from those who are deemed dangerous to themselves or society. I hope it happens, but we’ve all seen this before. There’s a great outrage, then the defenders of unlimited gun rights turn to their favorite causes; metal illness and video games.
I’ve read the posts on social media and they make sense. Why is it that the vast majority of mass shootings are done by white males? Don’t video games affect other ethnic groups. If so, why aren’t they as affected as whites? If not, what the heck is wrong with white males? And why aren’t we looking at the mental health of suspected foreign terrorists? Why just throw them is Guantanamo if the real problem is much deeper than that they simply hate America?
And, of course, there’s the old standby: None of the proposed legislation would have prevented whatever massacre has just occurred. So let’s do nothing. That’s the trick.
Meanwhile, Hispanics are feeling targeted, and with good reason. The president’s rhetoric since he started his campaign has labeled them as everything negative, from dealing drugs to joining gangs to fomenting crime to taking our jobs to marrying our women. He can’t escape that and he certainly can’t deny that his words have created an atmosphere that allows and encourages those people who can’t process the nuances to take action.
This is what happens when politically correct speech is stripped away. People can say what they truly believe and, unfortunately, we’ve realized that there are a whole lot of racists out there who’ve been holding their words. In a way, it’s good to know who they are. In a worse way, it’s terrible to know that they are our neighbors, our friends, and our elected leaders.
If you want this to change, then the change begins with us. Speak out. March. Post. Get involved with a community group. Vote. For different people.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
“As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Watch this racist white man repeatedly call this black female police officer the N-word trying to invoke a reaction. She stands unfazed and unbothered.
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) September 14, 2018
What a QUEEN!
Salute
RETWEET THIS! pic.twitter.com/BAwJsRw6Xa
More than 2,500 were from Afghanistan, a terrorist haven, the president complained.
Haiti had sent 15,000 people. They “all have AIDS,” he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.
Forty thousand had come from Nigeria, Mr. Trump added. Once they had seen the United States, they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa, recalled the two officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive conversation in the Oval Office.
Terrorists. AIDS victims. Hut dwellers.
This is the President of the United States deciding policy.
His thought process? Bigoted. Uninformed. Under-educated. Judgmental. Ignorant.
What’s worse is that he is dragging down the reputation of the United States with him.
It’s clear that the president is not just protecting the United States from predatory foreign companies or workers who come here and take jobs that American citizens want. He believes, according to the article, that immigration is bad for the country and that foreign ideas are inferior to American ones. His nationalism is small because it rests on the incorrect assumption that our culture is superior to all others.
It’s president Archie Bunker at your service.
I suppose the good news is that much of the rest of the world ignores this nativist babble for the racism that it is, and that an interconnected, sharing world is a safer one both economically and militarily. Even allowing Internet service providers the ability to block, throttle or slow down sites will not stop people from blurring borders and searching for the best price, the highest wage, and people they can work with. A minority of voters in the United sates voted for fear, suspicion and moral relativity. I am optimistic that the majority sees through his blather and negativity.
And with that, I wish you a happy holiday, a Happy New Year and all of the other happiness that all humans so richly deserve.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Steve Bannon, leader of the conservative right, and most recently known as the man who whispered in Donald Trump’s ear as his Chief Adviser, explained his feelings on DACA – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – and the Catholic church.
In a recently published interview, Bannon told CBS that Trump’s recent decision to end DACA – which would lead to the deportation of children and young adults who were brought to this country at by their parents – would not go over good with Catholics. Not because the decision is a terrible and insensitive one, but because the church need “illegal aliens” to fill their pews.
Steve Bannon tells CBS Catholic Bishops are opposed to what’s happening on DACA because “they need illegal aliens to fill the churches.” pic.twitter.com/WYSyXQYUhJ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 7, 2017
New school years always bring new challenges for children, parents and teachers. This school year, though, promises to be much trickier, because we are now debating United States History.
Remember history? That’s the class that isn’t tested at the end of the year by the great national testing monopoly, Pearson. The PARCC tests focus on non-fiction readings, which allows for more use of historical documents on the test, but there’s no real history or context that a student has to master in order to answer the questions.
For decades we’ve focused on language arts and mathematics as the key components of K-12 education, relentlessly testing students in those subjects. And what has your school district likely spent a good deal of money on over the last few years? STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) or STEAM (ibid., but add Arts). Coding classes are now part of the curriculum in many states as required business and personal finance courses. They get lots of press. And, yes, United States History is required in all states, but far too many of them require only one year of it. And with no summary test, save for a final exam at the end of the class, history has lost a good deal of influence in the curriculum.
We are now paying the price.
As this new school year begins, teachers will be asked to address the explosive issues that are daily in the media concerning our history and what it means. How should we treat Confederate statues and monuments? What place do hate groups such as the KKK and the American Nazi Party have in a country with a strong First Amendment? What should we do about immigration and children who were brought here by undocumented parents? And of course, we seem to be debating President Trump’s behavior, tweets and spur-of-the-moment policy declarations on a minute-by-minute basis, not to mention his speculative knowledge of historical events.
This is the environment in which America’s school teachers must operate this academic year. We are the ones who will be the first point of contact for many children who are feeling the anxiety and divisiveness that has taken hold in our society. Remember that as much as any adult is trying to make sense of what’s happening in our society, children experience these events on a magnified scale. They have less of the emotional regulation necessary to confront explosive debates that adults have and they have little context by which to weigh the consequences of what they’re learning. Great teachers recognize these deficits and conduct their classes so as to support students, to teach them civil behavior, to make sure students respect differences, and to calmly appeal to their students’ intelligence, humanity, and sense of justice.
Of course, some would argue that if teachers had done this in the past, then we wouldn’t be at this place in our history where there is so much disagreement and division. This would be a tragic conclusion. Did any of your teachers teach you to hate? To insult your classmates? To steal? To plagiarize? Of course not.
The simple truth is that teachers can only be as effective as the communities in which we teach, and if a community, or the country, is dysfunctional, then that will be reflected in the schools. We see students for only a portion of the day. The media, social and otherwise, takes over from there. Together with parents, teachers can only plant the seeds of knowledge; society and common sense have to do the rest.
That’s why this school year will be more of a challenge than most years, but I have no doubt that America’s school teachers will do their best, keep their emotions in check, teach from the heart and the head, advocate for every one of their students, and proudly represent themselves as doing one of the most important and difficult jobs in this country.
I wish all of my fellow teachers a happy new school year full of joy and wonder. May we learn as much about our students as they learn from us.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
In the Trump Administration’s best approximation of Friday Night Lights, the president (shudder) treated two of his main constituencies to a Shabbat treat. First by throwing civil rights and equal opportunity to the floor when he banned transgender Americans from serving their country in the armed forces, and then when he pardoned convict Joe Arpaio, a move that sent a solid message to those who believe that medieval treatment of prisoners is not just for the 14th century.
Trump’s defense? That Joe was following the law. We should note that Joe was convicted of contempt for not following the law
The silver lining is that in order to receive a pardon, the person has to admit that they committed a crime. So Arpaio is now an admitted crook. Just the kind of guy that Trump admires.
These actions would be bad in any administration, but for one that is committed to really turning the clock back to 1946, before the armed forces were desegregated, these new twists are simply the method by which this country, ruled by white men, informed by white men, and acculturated by white sensibilities, will be…returned to white men.
Pardon my confusion as we slowly twist in the wind.
While the media focuses on the president’s foibles and twitter follies, he and his minions have done real and present damage to the country. They have sent the message that it’s fine to exclude people from participating in and benefiting from our democracy, opened up public land for economic exploitation, set us back at least 75 years as far as pollution and the environment are concerned, rolled back civil rights protections, and essentially made us a non-player in world affairs. And they’ve shown that they have no shame in perpetrating these policies. In fact, if it’s what the ultra-conservative base of the Republican Party wants, then Trump is eager to give it to them.
I would expect more pardons, more executive orders and more erratic and unpresidential behavior in the weeks and months to come. President Trump’s approval ratings are low enough that he doesn’t have to care about what the opposition thinks. After all, how much worse can things get?
Exactly my point.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Finally, the president has united much of the country. Unfortunately for him, most of the country opposes what he stands for.
Yes, there are still many people who support the president and believe that his equating violence on both sides was appropriate, but a larger majority sees the danger in his saying that the Nazis and the counter-protesters in Charlottesville were morally similar. That the opposition to his words came from around the world and across the political spectrum tells you that this was no victory for Trump. And his decision to stay away from the Kennedy Center Honors program this year is not just a tactical retreat; it’s a rout. He’s not the first president to skip the ceremony, but the reason is different from why other presidents didn’t go: because his appearance would be a major distraction.
At this point, the president has been rebuked by corporate leaders, members of his arts council, and even James Murdoch, who is so afraid that American Jews, and even Israel, will see the president’s words as doing major damage, that he threw a million dollars at the Anti-Defamation League to stanch the bleeding. And where is Benjamin Netanyahu? The right-wing protector of Israeli and Jewish values has been remarkably silent on Trump’s atrocious choice of words. The company you keep, you know.
The point is that Charlottesville will likely be one of those turning points in our history. It will lead to major changes across the political spectrum and in the way that ordinary people view and talk about race. They will have to do this without moral leadership from the White House unless Trump decides that he needs to be more magnanimous and makes a prime-time speech calling for a more united country. OK, I’ll wait until you stop laughing. But I do really wish it would happen.
It is clear that we cannot expect President Trump to act presidential or to stand up and defend all of the citizens of this great country. In such a leadership vacuum, we run the risk that other noxious voices will try to fill the silence. And we also run the risk that violence will be seen as the tactic of choice.
Don’t let that happen. Be the moral voice that says the right words, the courageous words, the words that embrace instead of repel. Do not equivocate. And of course, agitate, agitate, agitate.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Former Republican president, George W. Bush and his wife were interviewed in their home by PEOPLE magazine. Asked for his thoughts on his republican counterpart, Donald Trump, Bush answered the only way he could, by referencing the obvious racist factor of the Trump’s presidency.
“I don’t like the racism and I don’t like the name-calling and I don’t like the people feeling alienated,” Bush, 70, tells PEOPLE in an interview for the new issue of the magazine on newsstands Friday.
“Nobody likes that.”
The former president, joined by his wife Laura, spoke with PEOPLE in the third-floor painting studio of their Dallas home to launch his first art book, Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors. The collection of portraits of the wounded warriors of America’s war on terror aims to raise awareness and funds for the post-9/11 veterans’ health care and employment programs of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.
