You want me to look at myself and find racism? Maybe some of you should look at yourself and wonder if you ever think for yourself or just keep following the conventional liberal position of the moment. Ask yourself why you give yourself permission to hate white men on such a grand scale and only apply the "look for the goodness in everyone" as @Fineline was saying she does, to people like George Floyd and never to a Turner or God forbid a Chauvin?
Why am I being quoted here out of context? Link? I thought I said everyone was a mix of good and bad. I don't, by the way, look for the good in literally everyone, as I don't know everyone, and wouldn't have time to look for good in them all even if I did, as there are billions of people in the world. I look for good in people I have to deal with, as a way of connecting positively with them, but also observe their flaws and failings and bad aspects, and adjust my dealings with them accordingly. I also speak out against bad I see. Looking for good in people does not mean condoning racism, nor failing to look at one's own motivations with a critical eye, and observing one's own prejudices. Please don't use me to support what you are saying here, Twilight, as I think you've kind of got it skewed.
Sorry @Fineline it wasn't an exact quote so I shouldn't have used them and I wasn't using you for support, I was using you as an example of (very nice) people in general who say they won't hear a word against Floyd because no one's perfect, we all have faults, etc. Maybe that's not what you meant.
I was arguing against that since I think when it's a criminal case the usual rule of "don't speak ill of the dead' has to be exempted.
@Twilight, among the things that always stick with me about the Brock Turner case is the way that his daddy sniveled that poor little Brockie was suffering far too much for "20 minutes of action," and didn't enjoy eating his favorite steaks anymore. If Turner was unable to consummate his "20 minutes of action," that's almost certainly due to his own drunkenness; in any case, he certainly deserves no sympathy. Thank God those grad students came along when they did, or Chanel Miller could have died of his brutality. The whole thing is absolutely inexcusable, and I am appalled that you think otherwise.
What woman has ever died from drunken fumbling fingers? Turner was fully dressed, he wasn't even trying to have intercourse, much less do anything "brutal" he was necking and petting with a fellow drunk student. No one knows anything about the time the couple was there, his father was guessing. At some point she passed out and he didn't realize it. Maybe it had been a minute maybe only seconds. When the two students walked up and said, "Dude! She's passed out!" He was horrified, jumped up, ran to the bushes and vomited. Then the police came.
Of course men should never have sex with unconscious women but if the unconscious part happens suddenly in the middle of things I don't think we should string them up for it. Where there's heavy drinking it probably happens more than we know.
It's interesting that the first thing you think of with his case is his father's insensitive and stupid letter. I think a lot of people think of that first and other people think first of Chanel Miller's long essay about her pain.
What I don't think is right is to convict people of crimes based on the writing skills of others and I think that's exactly what happened here.
Ah, okay, @Twilight - thanks for the clarification. I was just surprised to see myself being tagged in a thread I hadn't taken part in. I would be surprised if people here were arguing that no one could mention Floyd's faults in any context - I haven't been keeping up with threads for a few days, but from what I'd seen earlier, in other threads, the argument seemed more to be that when a white person is unfairly killed, there doesn't seem to be a digging into their criminal history as there has been with Floyd. So many (elswhere - not so much on the Ship) are pointing to his criminal history as if that justified him being killed.
I think I pointed out at one point that when privileged, rich, young white males are up in court for rape, there is a big focus on not wanting them to be prosecuted, because they have such a flourishing future ahead of them, and this will spoil it, and tarnish their reputation for life. This is not the case for black males, whose skin colour in itself seems to be a tarnish on their reputation from birth. Not that it should be the case for anyone, as rape should be taken seriously for the crime it is, regardless of skin colour and privilege. Equally, skin colour itself should not be a tarnish on someone's reputation. To me, the issue we need to focus on with George Floyd is not his individual crimes but the far bigger issue of systematic unfairness with regard to how black and white people are treated by the police, and in general.
I'd also like to take issue with this part of @jbohn's OP:
I say to you, unreservedly, get fucked with a rusty implement of your choosing.
Assuming the photo in the profile is you, using sexually violent language like this towards a woman doesn't help your case however wrong-headed you think she is. It's time the rusty farm implement followed the statue of Edward Colston into the river. And, unlike the statue, stayed there.
It is, albeit from a few years back. Much more grey in that beard, now.
I take your point - perhaps that particular Ship-ism has passed its sell-by date. Mea culpa.
Side note re: Colston - I did love the remark I read somewhere to the effect of "we tried the 'proper channels' for years - now 'e's in the proper channel."
....
Both blacks and women worked hard to be treated like strong equals who could handle any sort of position. Lately, it seems like all our hard work has been undermined by attitudes of, "Oh the poor girl, she isn't responsible for getting herself to a party and back." and, "Oh the poor African American he can't get through life unless white people give him handouts and make excuses for him."
No, what happened was women and people of colour and other minorities discovered that equality on paper was just that. Equality on paper is not equity in the real world.
This.
Twilight, I can't even. I don't care which year(s) you dated who, and I don't give a fuck if some of your best friends are black. Or what you think of Chanel Miller's writing skills.
Raping women behind a dumpster is evil, and those who do it should rot in jail.
Killing people is wrong, and it's downright evil when it happens because of the color of their skin (not only black men, but they make up a LARGE number if the victims)/religion/sexual orientation/whathaveyou. Those who do it should rot in jail.
I can't figure out if you're just trolling, or if you actually Just. Can't. Help. Siding. With. The. Oppressor.
Either way, whatever. Continue to blather on with your bullshit, and I'll continue treating you like the old racist uncle in the corner at the holidays. Because, well, you are.
I can't figure out if you're just trolling, or if you actually Just. Can't. Help. Siding. With. The. Oppressor.
Twilight in my experience does not troll. She's not here to stir the shit - she's saying what she's thinking. The incredible thing is how frequently she perceives the oppressor to be the underdog.
I can't figure out if you're just trolling, or if you actually Just. Can't. Help. Siding. With. The. Oppressor.
Twilight in my experience does not troll. She's not here to stir the shit - she's saying what she's thinking. The incredible thing is how frequently she perceives the oppressor to be the underdog.
This. There's nary a trolling bone in Twilight's body, which makes her Don Quixote modality tiring in an entirely different way.
I think Twilight, like a good many students I've encountered over 25 years of teaching, confuses several concepts in her approach to what is, after all, an incredibly fraught and difficult issue -- the racism (and a boatload of other -isms) which bedevils US society.
Without going into exhaustive detail about the history, whys, and wherefores, what this mindset actually boils down to is this:
"I'm all in favor of equality, especially for me, because I've taken a lot of guff over the years as a (choose your poison) poor / uneducated / disabled / neglected / blue-collar / add-you-own-label kid. Just don't expect me to share whatever scraps and bits I've struggled to scrabble together with those people."
IOW, the view boils down to "I've earned mine; they're just being handed theirs."
I sort of agree Ohher. But Twilight also causes me to think again, because she is so up front and genuine. I could criticise her for being aggressive, or for allowing the outrageous nature of her shock troop examples to get in the way of communication, but that would be the pot calling the kettle black.
I am thinking again, not about the need for reform, not about the need for accountability in the form of charges that stick, but in how I am reacting to the police violence that is being shown to me on Australian TV. I find the 4 v 1 situations where the cops pile in on someone hugely off-putting and it looks to me like overkill. But as I hinted at in the Policing the Police thread, the tactic is so common in policing and in prison settings that it must be a trained response. My google searches this morning have proved unsatisfactory. If anybody can dig up something on it, I'd appreciate it. It could even be about providing a safe system of work for the coppers. I don't know.
But yeah. Thanks for challenging me again @Twilight .
What woman has ever died from drunken fumbling fingers?
Wow, that is an incredibly disgusting, insensitive thing to say about a young woman who was the victim of a sexual assault. Sure, maybe no woman has died, directly, from the very graphic type of assault you're describing. But it may well have led to psychological issues -- perhaps even suicide -- later in life. Especially when people tried, and continue to try, to downplay an assault by trying to make it sound like it was no more serious than Dick Van Dyke's pratfall over the ottoman.
I think Twilight, like a good many students I've encountered over 25 years of teaching, confuses several concepts in her approach to what is, after all, an incredibly fraught and difficult issue -- the racism (and a boatload of other -isms) which bedevils US society.
Without going into exhaustive detail about the history, whys, and wherefores, what this mindset actually boils down to is this:
"I'm all in favor of equality, especially for me, because I've taken a lot of guff over the years as a (choose your poison) poor / uneducated / disabled / neglected / blue-collar / add-you-own-label kid. Just don't expect me to share whatever scraps and bits I've struggled to scrabble together with those people."
IOW, the view boils down to "I've earned mine; they're just being handed theirs."
My it must be fun to package people up in tidy little packages that you can look down on without knowing the first thing about them. Did you do that to your students?
When have I ever complained about my own circumstances or said wanted to deny anyone anything? I didn't grow up poor, disabled, blue color or uneducated, my father was a brilliant man who owned his own business and a successful artist with an eclectic group of friends of all races and religions. What a total snob you are to have pegged me with all those labels to explain me just because I don't agree with you.
As for not wanting anyone else to have anything, I was a charter member of my town's chapter of NOW and worked hard for greater opportunities for women, we actually managed to get the school board and a few businesses to make changes. I've always voted yes on every school tax levy, affirmative action, welfare and prison reforms. I've volunteered in two schools to help with reading and language for children of immigrants. I'm unable to volunteer much these days but my husband gives five free days a week to the local food pantry and homeless shelter, (where I got him started) and where most of the clients are African American.
...and I can't believe you've reduced me to bragging in this way but the very idea of you summing up me like that with your superior holier than thou judgments just makes me want to vomit.
Your vision of me is so awful, I'd rather be jbohn's uncle at Christmas having to listen to him strum Christmas carols on his guitar.
My experience of Twilight is that she's very kind and sweet, and I find her defense of these people in this situation to be unexpected. That being said, she defends them well and shows that she has thought about the issues. I'm unwilling to dismiss her as a racist or -ist of whatever sort.
She defends herself competently and completely. I disagree with her interpretation of events, but I admire her ability to state her case competently and completely. Although I disagree with her, I think writing her off does a disservice to the positions she's arguing against.
What woman has ever died from drunken fumbling fingers? Turner was fully dressed, he wasn't even trying to have intercourse, much less do anything "brutal" he was necking and petting with a fellow drunk student. ...
According to the well-sourced Wikipedia article, << ...At the hospital, the victim was found to have abrasions and erythema (reddening) on her skin. One nurse who administered a sexual assault response team examination at the hospital determined that she had experienced significant trauma (physical injury, bruising, etc.) and penetrating trauma (piercing and cutting injuries). ...>>
That's a lot more than "necking and petting." I think "brutal" describes what happened to Miller pretty well. Because of the lack of genital penetration, the charges of two counts of rape were dropped, leaving two counts of penetration, and one count of assault with intent to rape. He served just three months of his (very lenient) six-month sentence.
...What I don't think is right is to convict people of crimes based on the writing skills of others and I think that's exactly what happened here.
And I disagree completely with your analysis. I think that he got off pretty lightly. But fear not; there's always the possibility that his fellow pussy-grabber Donald Trump will pardon the little shit.
What the actual fuck, Twilight?
You posted something that's racist. Period. That doesn't make you a racist, by itself. Stop overreacting and trying to kitchen-sink your defense in your need to "Always Face Against The Majority". Your bravery is as undeniable as your willingness to be an idiot about it.
Exactly. Admit it, apologise, accept the life lesson and vow to do better next time. Admitting to yourself that you said the bad thing isn't a nice feeling, but it's better than doubling down and refusing to admit it at all.
I also love the fact that you will always speak up for the underdog. I just wish you'd pick your underdog more carefully.
Having a hard time seeing how laying out the faults of a murder victim is "speaking u for the underdog." Just not seein' it.
I think Twilight, like a good many students I've encountered over 25 years of teaching, confuses several concepts in her approach to what is, after all, an incredibly fraught and difficult issue -- the racism (and a boatload of other -isms) which bedevils US society.
When have I ever complained about my own circumstances or said wanted to deny anyone anything? I didn't grow up poor, disabled, blue color or uneducated, my father was a brilliant man who owned his own business and a successful artist with an eclectic group of friends of all races and religions. What a total snob you are to have pegged me with all those labels to explain me just because I don't agree with you.
Please forgive Ohher for mistaking you for one of those folks. I must say, this does kind of explain the privileged rapist sympathizing. Thanks for that.
As for not wanting anyone else to have anything, I was a charter member of my town's chapter of NOW and worked hard for greater opportunities for women, we actually managed to get the school board and a few businesses to make changes. I've always voted yes on every school tax levy, affirmative action, welfare and prison reforms. I've volunteered in two schools to help with reading and language for children of immigrants. I'm unable to volunteer much these days but my husband gives five free days a week to the local food pantry and homeless shelter, (where I got him started) and where most of the clients are African American.
Blah, blah, blah - "I'm a good little liberal", with a side of "white savior". Got it.
...and I can't believe you've reduced me to bragging in this way but the very idea of you summing up me like that with your superior holier than thou judgments just makes me want to vomit.
I apologise to @Arethosemyfeet for my posts. I am least sensitive or responsive when I think I'm being funny. Of course you are right. At least part of me is homophobic, perhaps casually homophobic. I do listen to and try to hear and learn from the stories of LGBTQI people,particularly on the ship. I also try to not hold back about my own occasional same sex attraction, and my love of having a go at English cricketers.
I should also fucking grow up and stop using the c-word.
I apologise to @Arethosemyfeet for my posts. I am least sensitive or responsive when I think I'm being funny. Of course you are right. At least part of me is homophobic, perhaps casually homophobic. I do listen to and try to hear and learn from the stories of LGBTQI people,particularly on the ship. I also try to not hold back about my own occasional same sex attraction, and my love of having a go at English cricketers.
I should also fucking grow up and stop using the c-word.
If it's any consolation, my sensitivity to homophobia is in part atonement for my own past transgressions in that regard.
Twilight in my experience does not troll. She's not here to stir the shit - she's saying what she's thinking.
Yes
The incredible thing is how frequently she perceives the oppressor to be the underdog.
That's not quite it. My reading is that Twilight doesn't parse the world into oppressors and underdogs in quite the same way you do.
Twilight believes that colourblind is the opposite of racist. (Which it is, for some meanings of the r-word).
Twilight hasn't made up her mind about who's the underdog before she's even learnt what's happened. She's just as strongly against rapists and murderers and cops who think they're above the law as anyone else is. She's someone I'd trust to feel the same way if a black cop murdered a white criminal.
Wish I could say the same of you. Maybe you would...
I read her posts as being about social media culture - the Twitterati egging each other on to ever-greater levels of outrage and belief in the importance of their outrage. And then turning their anger on those who don't express enough outrage or sympathy for the victim or belief in the significance of the whole affair.
jbohn wrote: Please forgive Ohher for mistaking you for one of those folks.
I, myself, think those folk are just fine. I told her how wrong she was in my case, to demonstrate how bad she is at making such assumptions about people. I feel sorry for her students over the years whom she has disliked and so decided for her own snobbish satisfaction they must be "poor / uneducated / disabled / neglected / blue-collar /" and therefore racist and grudging, because according to her they all are.
Russ wrote: I read her posts as being about social media culture - the Twitterati egging each other on to ever-greater levels of outrage and belief in the importance of their outrage. And then turning their anger on those who don't express enough outrage or sympathy for the victim or belief in the significance of the whole affair.
Yes, exactly. I've been getting a lot of "No one has said that!" and it's right, no one on the ship has said a lot of what I'm arguing against I just see it everywhere else. Although we do get a few very good examples of that...
What woman has ever died from drunken fumbling fingers?
Wow, that is an incredibly disgusting, insensitive thing to say about a young woman who was the victim of a sexual assault.
I was talking about the likelihood of death through fingering in general, not Chanel Miller in particular, but I'm sure the 1000 or so supportive reviews she has on Amazon for her book will offset my obscure remark.
But, I'm not sure it's safe for you to read this thread. There's been a good bit of discussion about the legal definitions of rape vs sexual assault, all of which might be triggering and cause post traumatic stress to someone like yourself, after that horrific experience at the grocery.
Your last paragraph to windsofchange is venomous, over the line, and totally uncalled for. Stop it.
Your continued nastiness toward Chanel Miller and ardent defense of Brock Turner is awful, and makes *you* look awful. Especially minimizing what happened to her.
You're missing, IMHO, a couple of important points about the way several posters have addressed you on this thread:
--There's a certain amount of (respect, admiration, caring) behind what they're saying Otherwise, they would likely feel free to totally trash you. You've been around long enough to see severe trashing in Hell.
--Several of them are trying to give you a chance to explain where you're coming from, if you care to, and to explore where they're coming from, if you choose to.
--Some have actually complimented you.
You're entitled to your opinions and beliefs, just like everyone else. You may well have experiences of friends being wrongly blamed/punished. And maybe they're people who are usually considered privileged, and therefore are assumed to be guilty by people who aren't privileged. Maybe there were injustices done.
Truth and injustice and justice are sometimes very hard to see, let alone understand. They can show up where you (gen.) don't expect them, and can shape the way you receive stories of other people's experiences, and whether you do/can believe them.
I wonder if there's some of that going on here? Possibly on both sides of this discussion? People are reacting out of what they know/believe the world to be, and--on the surface, anyway--all of that is clashing.
Your last paragraph to windsofchange is venomous, over the line, and totally uncalled for. Stop it.
Seriously? I ignored her whole 'Look at me! I was mean to a lonely old man who had made up a joke!" thread, but she came to this thread out of the blue, to join in the dog pile. I ignored her first post but thought her second was really harsh so I responded with sarcasm. Not venom.
Other women (myself included) posted on her thread about similar experiences. Maybe you've never had that kind of experience and/or that kind of reaction to it. But many women have.
Your last paragraph to windsofchange is venomous, over the line, and totally uncalled for. Stop it.
Seriously? I ignored her whole 'Look at me! I was mean to a lonely old man who had made up a joke!" thread, but she came to this thread out of the blue, to join in the dog pile. I ignored her first post but thought her second was really harsh so I responded with sarcasm. Not venom.
There you go Twilight. You've got Russ on your side. That's how far you've gone down the rabbit hole.
I get the feeling that Twilight is one of those people who was the equivalent of "woke" in the 60s but hasn't evolved since. She wouldn't know intersectionality if she ran into it at a traffic light. Her notion of equality goes back to the individualism of the Enlightenment, and in that view, the great accomplishment of the various civil rights movements was that the "equality" and "freedom" wealthy white men enjoyed was extended to everybody else. Woo hoo, we're all equal and free now! Yay! We all have the same opportunities and are free to make the best decisions! Twilight is rightfully proud of having surfed the first wave, but seems to be satisfied to rest on those laurels.
If she's locked into thinking everyone is already the equal of a rich white man, then naturally any talk of structural or systemic disadvantage sounds to her like well-meaning liberals making paternalistic excuses for women or people of colour or people with disabilities or sexual or gender minorities who all just need to take responsibility for their choices and try harder. That's why she thinks the efforts to address inequity are demeaning handouts from Lady Bountiful - she thinks it's an insult to try to help people who are already equal.
And yes, while Twilight does deserve credit for being sceptical and giving accused criminals the benefit of the doubt, she has never extended that sort of understanding or compassion to the victims, who, of course, cannot tell their side of the story. Twilight is always certain the victims are at least partly responsible for their fate ("she went with him") and always believes whatever the criminal says ("he was horrified"). Having been on a criminal jury, I can assure you a big part of our work was trying to figure out who was lying about what, including the accused. "Benefit of the doubt" does not mean "believe everything the accused says."
It's possible what Twilight is exhibiting is simply an intellectual bias in favour of notorious criminals - who just happen to be mostly white men - and not actual racism or sexism. I've seen many people who, like Twilight, profess to be unprejudiced, but when faced with these clearly racist crimes, default to "those people should have never been there in the first place." Whatever is behind her vigorous defense of these criminals, it has the same appearance and impact on the victims and survivors as real racism and sexism. It also doesn't seem to be doing Twilight any favours in the eyes of some readers.
I ignored her first post but thought her second was really harsh so I responded with sarcasm. Not venom.
Also, I only posted once in this thread before your venomous sarcastic response, so whoever's second post you responded to with sarcasm, it wasn't mine.
Y'all just go ahead and talk among yourselves, I'm enjoying the story. I knew ageism would rear it's wrinkled head once I let on how old I was. I guess I haven't read any books or seen any movies since the 1960's, but then we don't get the electricity up here in the holler where Ohher has me sitting in front of my shack with my shotgun across my knees, watching for any strangers sneaking up trying to get some of my stuff.
I'm done here (really done, not like windsofchange done.)
If she's locked into thinking everyone is already the equal of a rich white man, then naturally any talk of structural or systemic disadvantage sounds to her like well-meaning liberals making paternalistic excuses for women or people of colour or people with disabilities or sexual or gender minorities who all just need to take responsibility for their choices and try harder. That's why she thinks the efforts to address inequity are demeaning handouts from Lady Bountiful - she thinks it's an insult to try to help people who are already equal.
I don't think that's a good reading of Twilight at all (and to be clear, I don't agree with the rest of your post about her either). I read her as saying that we need to recognise that paternal approaches (and that's deliberate) to addressing inequality don't give sufficient weight to the autonomy of people who fall into the category under discussion. I read her as saying that making generalisations about people within a particular group that highlight their inequality can actually be harmful and not helpful.
I have heard a bit of speculation about why Clarence Thomas, student black power activist became Clarence Thomas, arch-Conservative Supreme Court Judge. My views are based on an interview with the author of his biography, which is reviewed by the NYT here. The book is on my list. I'm not saying Thomas is anything other than an arsehole. Essentially, Thomas believes that all white people are racists, and that conservatives are easier to deal with because they know they are racist, and are up front about it. He thinks that welfare has robbed black men of their leadership position in the community because it has robbed them of their vitality and autonomy. He is a massive sexist.
Aboriginal activists in Australia also say things that echo my interpretation of Twilight's views on the point. They want to be helped, but the kind of help they have received over the last 50 years or so is problematic, in part because many people don't get a sense of helping themselves. That doesn't mean stop financial support of Aborigines. I think people here are working through what are the consequences, and that Aboriginals are trying out different ways of financing themselves with the support of the majority community. This line of thinking comes in part from African American thinking.
missed edit window: Brave Harold Yarwood from Yorkshire didn't captain the English Test team, even though he was the most feared fast bowler of his day. No. It was the ponce Jardine, with the judgement of a pineapple, who got the nod and almost caused a riot at the Adelaide Oval.
Yarwood was from Nottinghamshire. Jardine's tactics were unusal but he kept Bradsman to an average of only 50 and easily won the series.
... He [Clarence Thomas] thinks that welfare has robbed black men of their leadership position in the community because it has robbed them of their vitality and autonomy. ...
Aboriginal activists in Australia also say things that echo my interpretation of Twilight's views on the point. They want to be helped, but the kind of help they have received over the last 50 years or so is problematic, in part because many people don't get a sense of helping themselves. ...
Thanks for contributing two more examples of completely missing the forest for a chance to piss on a favourite tree.
Clarence Thomas has the audacity to blame "welfare" and ignores the war on drugs, the school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, and the prison-industrial complex. That is what is taking black boys and men away from their families and communities, often permanently. Black people aren't killed by "welfare".
The "help" Indigenous people on several continents have "received" from colonizers - and for far longer than the last 50 years - was the theft of their land and destruction of their culture, language, families and communities; naturally they don't want any more of that kind of "help". They want justice.
It takes a special kind of historical ignorance to enjoy the profits gained from completely fucking a bunch of people over and then prescribe self-determination as a remedy.
missed edit window: Brave Harold Yarwood from Yorkshire didn't captain the English Test team, even though he was the most feared fast bowler of his day. No. It was the ponce Jardine, with the judgement of a pineapple, who got the nod and almost caused a riot at the Adelaide Oval.
Yarwood was from Nottinghamshire. Jardine's tactics were unusal but he kept Bradsman to an average of only 50 and easily won the series.
AAAArg! (lol) I love arguing about the cricket. Jardine's tactics were lethal in an era where batsmen wore cloth caps and pads that I used to wear in under 12's.
... He [Clarence Thomas] thinks that welfare has robbed black men of their leadership position in the community because it has robbed them of their vitality and autonomy. ...
Aboriginal activists in Australia also say things that echo my interpretation of Twilight's views on the point. They want to be helped, but the kind of help they have received over the last 50 years or so is problematic, in part because many people don't get a sense of helping themselves. ...
Thanks for contributing two more examples of completely missing the forest for a chance to piss on a favourite tree.
Clarence Thomas has the audacity to blame "welfare" and ignores the war on drugs, the school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, and the prison-industrial complex. That is what is taking black boys and men away from their families and communities, often permanently. Black people aren't killed by "welfare".
The "help" Indigenous people on several continents have "received" from colonizers - and for far longer than the last 50 years - was the theft of their land and destruction of their culture, language, families and communities; naturally they don't want any more of that kind of "help". They want justice.
It takes a special kind of historical ignorance to enjoy the profits gained from completely fucking a bunch of people over and then prescribe self-determination as a remedy.
Your attack on Thomas is beside the point. His views as interpreted by his biographer are used as an illustration of the kind of point that I think Twilight is making and you fail to see.
I don't believe that you are as ignorant of what indigenous people are saying themselves about welfare as you pretend, but I could be wrong about you. And I specifically talked about the last 50 years because that was when liberal reform to address those injustices really became mainstream, at least in Australia.
Where are you from Soror? If you are from Britain, you can be excused for not being on top of what indigenous people are saying, I suppose. But you are commenting on it quite passionately and without the modesty that your ignorance should engender. If you are living in a post-colonial country, then you should be ashamed of your ignorance and go and listen to indigenous people. Their issues are similar to African Americans, but not the same.
So I shall give you some resources to help you bone up on the topic. I need to bone up too. It's a continuing process. I see Noel Pearson has a new quarterly essay out. It is out of stock for the paperback. But if you really are interested in fair dinkum equality for indigenous people, he is one bloke to read. He can be controversial. He doesn't take shit, and gets a bad press sometimes for that. But he is one of the foremost thinkers in my country, and he has always been 100% for his people of Arnhem Land.
Here is a link to the Uluru Statement of the Heart that comes out of the National Constitutional Convention three years ago. This is a result of collective effort by indigenous people and is a one page statement. It truly is a statement from the heart. Here is the bit that focuses directly on what I interpret as what Twilight is saying in a different context.
These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.
We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own
country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in
two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between
governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
Another person to read is Marcia Langton. She's an historian, but also active in indigenous affairs. How could she not be, as a smart and successful Aboriginal academic? Here is a link to her 2012 Boyer Lecture, discussing the economic links between Aboriginal people and the mining industry. Here's a relevant quote from her introduction:
My hope is that my interpretation of the economic impacts of the mining boom and some facts about our economic history are introduced into the national conversation about Aboriginal people, and thereby encourage a more sophisticated view than the archetypal one of the native as perpetual victim with no hope.'
Australian Aboriginal leaders are calling for autonomy, not welfare. That does NOT mean abandoning financial support. That means treating them as fully equal in every way. What I can do, as a white, rich, male educated to within an inch of my life is to respectfully listen and try to promote others respectfully listening too. With advocates like Pearson and Langton, I have great hopes for the future of my country as an fair and just place for everyone.
Please listen to the indigenous people of Australia.
I'd also like to take issue with this part of @jbohn's OP:
I say to you, unreservedly, get fucked with a rusty implement of your choosing.
Assuming the photo in the profile is you, using sexually violent language like this towards a woman doesn't help your case however wrong-headed you think she is. It's time the rusty farm implement followed the statue of Edward Colston into the river. And, unlike the statue, stayed there.
It is, albeit from a few years back. Much more grey in that beard, now.
I take your point - perhaps that particular Ship-ism has passed its sell-by date. Mea culpa.
Side note re: Colston - I did love the remark I read somewhere to the effect of "we tried the 'proper channels' for years - now 'e's in the proper channel."
Thank you so much for the apology and the Colston remark. Hadn't heard that one.
I note that @Twilight has said she is no longer posting so this thread is closed.
Comments
Sorry @Fineline it wasn't an exact quote so I shouldn't have used them and I wasn't using you for support, I was using you as an example of (very nice) people in general who say they won't hear a word against Floyd because no one's perfect, we all have faults, etc. Maybe that's not what you meant.
I was arguing against that since I think when it's a criminal case the usual rule of "don't speak ill of the dead' has to be exempted.
What woman has ever died from drunken fumbling fingers? Turner was fully dressed, he wasn't even trying to have intercourse, much less do anything "brutal" he was necking and petting with a fellow drunk student. No one knows anything about the time the couple was there, his father was guessing. At some point she passed out and he didn't realize it. Maybe it had been a minute maybe only seconds. When the two students walked up and said, "Dude! She's passed out!" He was horrified, jumped up, ran to the bushes and vomited. Then the police came.
Of course men should never have sex with unconscious women but if the unconscious part happens suddenly in the middle of things I don't think we should string them up for it. Where there's heavy drinking it probably happens more than we know.
It's interesting that the first thing you think of with his case is his father's insensitive and stupid letter. I think a lot of people think of that first and other people think first of Chanel Miller's long essay about her pain.
What I don't think is right is to convict people of crimes based on the writing skills of others and I think that's exactly what happened here.
I think I pointed out at one point that when privileged, rich, young white males are up in court for rape, there is a big focus on not wanting them to be prosecuted, because they have such a flourishing future ahead of them, and this will spoil it, and tarnish their reputation for life. This is not the case for black males, whose skin colour in itself seems to be a tarnish on their reputation from birth. Not that it should be the case for anyone, as rape should be taken seriously for the crime it is, regardless of skin colour and privilege. Equally, skin colour itself should not be a tarnish on someone's reputation. To me, the issue we need to focus on with George Floyd is not his individual crimes but the far bigger issue of systematic unfairness with regard to how black and white people are treated by the police, and in general.
It is, albeit from a few years back. Much more grey in that beard, now.
I take your point - perhaps that particular Ship-ism has passed its sell-by date. Mea culpa.
Side note re: Colston - I did love the remark I read somewhere to the effect of "we tried the 'proper channels' for years - now 'e's in the proper channel."
This.
Twilight, I can't even. I don't care which year(s) you dated who, and I don't give a fuck if some of your best friends are black. Or what you think of Chanel Miller's writing skills.
Raping women behind a dumpster is evil, and those who do it should rot in jail.
Killing people is wrong, and it's downright evil when it happens because of the color of their skin (not only black men, but they make up a LARGE number if the victims)/religion/sexual orientation/whathaveyou. Those who do it should rot in jail.
I can't figure out if you're just trolling, or if you actually Just. Can't. Help. Siding. With. The. Oppressor.
Either way, whatever. Continue to blather on with your bullshit, and I'll continue treating you like the old racist uncle in the corner at the holidays. Because, well, you are.
Twilight in my experience does not troll. She's not here to stir the shit - she's saying what she's thinking. The incredible thing is how frequently she perceives the oppressor to be the underdog.
This. There's nary a trolling bone in Twilight's body, which makes her Don Quixote modality tiring in an entirely different way.
Don't you like cricket? I love it.
Call me on the weekend.
I think Twilight, like a good many students I've encountered over 25 years of teaching, confuses several concepts in her approach to what is, after all, an incredibly fraught and difficult issue -- the racism (and a boatload of other -isms) which bedevils US society.
Without going into exhaustive detail about the history, whys, and wherefores, what this mindset actually boils down to is this:
"I'm all in favor of equality, especially for me, because I've taken a lot of guff over the years as a (choose your poison) poor / uneducated / disabled / neglected / blue-collar / add-you-own-label kid. Just don't expect me to share whatever scraps and bits I've struggled to scrabble together with those people."
IOW, the view boils down to "I've earned mine; they're just being handed theirs."
I am thinking again, not about the need for reform, not about the need for accountability in the form of charges that stick, but in how I am reacting to the police violence that is being shown to me on Australian TV. I find the 4 v 1 situations where the cops pile in on someone hugely off-putting and it looks to me like overkill. But as I hinted at in the Policing the Police thread, the tactic is so common in policing and in prison settings that it must be a trained response. My google searches this morning have proved unsatisfactory. If anybody can dig up something on it, I'd appreciate it. It could even be about providing a safe system of work for the coppers. I don't know.
But yeah. Thanks for challenging me again @Twilight .
Wow, that is an incredibly disgusting, insensitive thing to say about a young woman who was the victim of a sexual assault. Sure, maybe no woman has died, directly, from the very graphic type of assault you're describing. But it may well have led to psychological issues -- perhaps even suicide -- later in life. Especially when people tried, and continue to try, to downplay an assault by trying to make it sound like it was no more serious than Dick Van Dyke's pratfall over the ottoman.
When have I ever complained about my own circumstances or said wanted to deny anyone anything? I didn't grow up poor, disabled, blue color or uneducated, my father was a brilliant man who owned his own business and a successful artist with an eclectic group of friends of all races and religions. What a total snob you are to have pegged me with all those labels to explain me just because I don't agree with you.
As for not wanting anyone else to have anything, I was a charter member of my town's chapter of NOW and worked hard for greater opportunities for women, we actually managed to get the school board and a few businesses to make changes. I've always voted yes on every school tax levy, affirmative action, welfare and prison reforms. I've volunteered in two schools to help with reading and language for children of immigrants. I'm unable to volunteer much these days but my husband gives five free days a week to the local food pantry and homeless shelter, (where I got him started) and where most of the clients are African American.
...and I can't believe you've reduced me to bragging in this way but the very idea of you summing up me like that with your superior holier than thou judgments just makes me want to vomit.
Your vision of me is so awful, I'd rather be jbohn's uncle at Christmas having to listen to him strum Christmas carols on his guitar.
She defends herself competently and completely. I disagree with her interpretation of events, but I admire her ability to state her case competently and completely. Although I disagree with her, I think writing her off does a disservice to the positions she's arguing against.
That's a lot more than "necking and petting." I think "brutal" describes what happened to Miller pretty well. Because of the lack of genital penetration, the charges of two counts of rape were dropped, leaving two counts of penetration, and one count of assault with intent to rape. He served just three months of his (very lenient) six-month sentence.
And I disagree completely with your analysis. I think that he got off pretty lightly. But fear not; there's always the possibility that his fellow pussy-grabber Donald Trump will pardon the little shit.
Having a hard time seeing how laying out the faults of a murder victim is "speaking u for the underdog." Just not seein' it.
Please forgive Ohher for mistaking you for one of those folks. I must say, this does kind of explain the privileged rapist sympathizing. Thanks for that.
Blah, blah, blah - "I'm a good little liberal", with a side of "white savior". Got it.
You embarrass us with your humility.
You should be so lucky. Not much of a carols guy, really. More blues and rock. But thanks for playing.
I apologise to @Arethosemyfeet for my posts. I am least sensitive or responsive when I think I'm being funny. Of course you are right. At least part of me is homophobic, perhaps casually homophobic. I do listen to and try to hear and learn from the stories of LGBTQI people,particularly on the ship. I also try to not hold back about my own occasional same sex attraction, and my love of having a go at English cricketers.
I should also fucking grow up and stop using the c-word.
If it's any consolation, my sensitivity to homophobia is in part atonement for my own past transgressions in that regard.
I think many of us come within that category.
Twilight believes that colourblind is the opposite of racist. (Which it is, for some meanings of the r-word).
Twilight hasn't made up her mind about who's the underdog before she's even learnt what's happened. She's just as strongly against rapists and murderers and cops who think they're above the law as anyone else is. She's someone I'd trust to feel the same way if a black cop murdered a white criminal.
Wish I could say the same of you. Maybe you would...
I read her posts as being about social media culture - the Twitterati egging each other on to ever-greater levels of outrage and belief in the importance of their outrage. And then turning their anger on those who don't express enough outrage or sympathy for the victim or belief in the significance of the whole affair.
I, myself, think those folk are just fine. I told her how wrong she was in my case, to demonstrate how bad she is at making such assumptions about people. I feel sorry for her students over the years whom she has disliked and so decided for her own snobbish satisfaction they must be "poor / uneducated / disabled / neglected / blue-collar /" and therefore racist and grudging, because according to her they all are.
Yes, exactly. I've been getting a lot of "No one has said that!" and it's right, no one on the ship has said a lot of what I'm arguing against I just see it everywhere else. Although we do get a few very good examples of that...
I was talking about the likelihood of death through fingering in general, not Chanel Miller in particular, but I'm sure the 1000 or so supportive reviews she has on Amazon for her book will offset my obscure remark.
But, I'm not sure it's safe for you to read this thread. There's been a good bit of discussion about the legal definitions of rape vs sexual assault, all of which might be triggering and cause post traumatic stress to someone like yourself, after that horrific experience at the grocery.
Your last paragraph to windsofchange is venomous, over the line, and totally uncalled for. Stop it.
Your continued nastiness toward Chanel Miller and ardent defense of Brock Turner is awful, and makes *you* look awful. Especially minimizing what happened to her.
You're missing, IMHO, a couple of important points about the way several posters have addressed you on this thread:
--There's a certain amount of (respect, admiration, caring) behind what they're saying Otherwise, they would likely feel free to totally trash you. You've been around long enough to see severe trashing in Hell.
--Several of them are trying to give you a chance to explain where you're coming from, if you care to, and to explore where they're coming from, if you choose to.
--Some have actually complimented you.
You're entitled to your opinions and beliefs, just like everyone else. You may well have experiences of friends being wrongly blamed/punished. And maybe they're people who are usually considered privileged, and therefore are assumed to be guilty by people who aren't privileged. Maybe there were injustices done.
Truth and injustice and justice are sometimes very hard to see, let alone understand. They can show up where you (gen.) don't expect them, and can shape the way you receive stories of other people's experiences, and whether you do/can believe them.
I wonder if there's some of that going on here? Possibly on both sides of this discussion? People are reacting out of what they know/believe the world to be, and--on the surface, anyway--all of that is clashing.
FWIW, YMMV.
Seriously? I ignored her whole 'Look at me! I was mean to a lonely old man who had made up a joke!" thread, but she came to this thread out of the blue, to join in the dog pile. I ignored her first post but thought her second was really harsh so I responded with sarcasm. Not venom.
Other women (myself included) posted on her thread about similar experiences. Maybe you've never had that kind of experience and/or that kind of reaction to it. But many women have.
BTW: sarcasm can have venom.
OK, I'm done with you then.
I get the feeling that Twilight is one of those people who was the equivalent of "woke" in the 60s but hasn't evolved since. She wouldn't know intersectionality if she ran into it at a traffic light. Her notion of equality goes back to the individualism of the Enlightenment, and in that view, the great accomplishment of the various civil rights movements was that the "equality" and "freedom" wealthy white men enjoyed was extended to everybody else. Woo hoo, we're all equal and free now! Yay! We all have the same opportunities and are free to make the best decisions! Twilight is rightfully proud of having surfed the first wave, but seems to be satisfied to rest on those laurels.
If she's locked into thinking everyone is already the equal of a rich white man, then naturally any talk of structural or systemic disadvantage sounds to her like well-meaning liberals making paternalistic excuses for women or people of colour or people with disabilities or sexual or gender minorities who all just need to take responsibility for their choices and try harder. That's why she thinks the efforts to address inequity are demeaning handouts from Lady Bountiful - she thinks it's an insult to try to help people who are already equal.
And yes, while Twilight does deserve credit for being sceptical and giving accused criminals the benefit of the doubt, she has never extended that sort of understanding or compassion to the victims, who, of course, cannot tell their side of the story. Twilight is always certain the victims are at least partly responsible for their fate ("she went with him") and always believes whatever the criminal says ("he was horrified"). Having been on a criminal jury, I can assure you a big part of our work was trying to figure out who was lying about what, including the accused. "Benefit of the doubt" does not mean "believe everything the accused says."
It's possible what Twilight is exhibiting is simply an intellectual bias in favour of notorious criminals - who just happen to be mostly white men - and not actual racism or sexism. I've seen many people who, like Twilight, profess to be unprejudiced, but when faced with these clearly racist crimes, default to "those people should have never been there in the first place." Whatever is behind her vigorous defense of these criminals, it has the same appearance and impact on the victims and survivors as real racism and sexism. It also doesn't seem to be doing Twilight any favours in the eyes of some readers.
Also, I only posted once in this thread before your venomous sarcastic response, so whoever's second post you responded to with sarcasm, it wasn't mine.
Quotes file.
I'm done here (really done, not like windsofchange done.)
I don't think that's a good reading of Twilight at all (and to be clear, I don't agree with the rest of your post about her either). I read her as saying that we need to recognise that paternal approaches (and that's deliberate) to addressing inequality don't give sufficient weight to the autonomy of people who fall into the category under discussion. I read her as saying that making generalisations about people within a particular group that highlight their inequality can actually be harmful and not helpful.
I have heard a bit of speculation about why Clarence Thomas, student black power activist became Clarence Thomas, arch-Conservative Supreme Court Judge. My views are based on an interview with the author of his biography, which is reviewed by the NYT here. The book is on my list. I'm not saying Thomas is anything other than an arsehole. Essentially, Thomas believes that all white people are racists, and that conservatives are easier to deal with because they know they are racist, and are up front about it. He thinks that welfare has robbed black men of their leadership position in the community because it has robbed them of their vitality and autonomy. He is a massive sexist.
Aboriginal activists in Australia also say things that echo my interpretation of Twilight's views on the point. They want to be helped, but the kind of help they have received over the last 50 years or so is problematic, in part because many people don't get a sense of helping themselves. That doesn't mean stop financial support of Aborigines. I think people here are working through what are the consequences, and that Aboriginals are trying out different ways of financing themselves with the support of the majority community. This line of thinking comes in part from African American thinking.
Yarwood was from Nottinghamshire. Jardine's tactics were unusal but he kept Bradsman to an average of only 50 and easily won the series.
Thanks for contributing two more examples of completely missing the forest for a chance to piss on a favourite tree.
Clarence Thomas has the audacity to blame "welfare" and ignores the war on drugs, the school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, and the prison-industrial complex. That is what is taking black boys and men away from their families and communities, often permanently. Black people aren't killed by "welfare".
The "help" Indigenous people on several continents have "received" from colonizers - and for far longer than the last 50 years - was the theft of their land and destruction of their culture, language, families and communities; naturally they don't want any more of that kind of "help". They want justice.
It takes a special kind of historical ignorance to enjoy the profits gained from completely fucking a bunch of people over and then prescribe self-determination as a remedy.
AAAArg! (lol) I love arguing about the cricket. Jardine's tactics were lethal in an era where batsmen wore cloth caps and pads that I used to wear in under 12's.
Your attack on Thomas is beside the point. His views as interpreted by his biographer are used as an illustration of the kind of point that I think Twilight is making and you fail to see.
I don't believe that you are as ignorant of what indigenous people are saying themselves about welfare as you pretend, but I could be wrong about you. And I specifically talked about the last 50 years because that was when liberal reform to address those injustices really became mainstream, at least in Australia.
Where are you from Soror? If you are from Britain, you can be excused for not being on top of what indigenous people are saying, I suppose. But you are commenting on it quite passionately and without the modesty that your ignorance should engender. If you are living in a post-colonial country, then you should be ashamed of your ignorance and go and listen to indigenous people. Their issues are similar to African Americans, but not the same.
So I shall give you some resources to help you bone up on the topic. I need to bone up too. It's a continuing process. I see Noel Pearson has a new quarterly essay out. It is out of stock for the paperback. But if you really are interested in fair dinkum equality for indigenous people, he is one bloke to read. He can be controversial. He doesn't take shit, and gets a bad press sometimes for that. But he is one of the foremost thinkers in my country, and he has always been 100% for his people of Arnhem Land.
Here is a link to the Uluru Statement of the Heart that comes out of the National Constitutional Convention three years ago. This is a result of collective effort by indigenous people and is a one page statement. It truly is a statement from the heart. Here is the bit that focuses directly on what I interpret as what Twilight is saying in a different context.
Another person to read is Marcia Langton. She's an historian, but also active in indigenous affairs. How could she not be, as a smart and successful Aboriginal academic? Here is a link to her 2012 Boyer Lecture, discussing the economic links between Aboriginal people and the mining industry. Here's a relevant quote from her introduction:
Australian Aboriginal leaders are calling for autonomy, not welfare. That does NOT mean abandoning financial support. That means treating them as fully equal in every way. What I can do, as a white, rich, male educated to within an inch of my life is to respectfully listen and try to promote others respectfully listening too. With advocates like Pearson and Langton, I have great hopes for the future of my country as an fair and just place for everyone.
Please listen to the indigenous people of Australia.
Thank you so much for the apology and the Colston remark. Hadn't heard that one.
I note that @Twilight has said she is no longer posting so this thread is closed.