Shithole Racism

Shithole. Trump's racist word of the day is shithole.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said of Haiti, and many African nations, according sources speaking to the Washington Post.

The racism is not simply about Trump calling places shitholes. Substituting the names of places in place of shithole actually makes the racism more visible.

We could spot the problem immediately if Trump instead said; Why are we letting people from Haiti, and Africa into the United States?

The offense is Trump saying regions where the the residents are primarily black or Hispanic are substandard to be American.

That is at best racist.

The fact that Trump said yet one more racist thing or appropriated a non-racist word to a racist meaning is no shocker. The fact that so many people still defend him as not racist is what shocks.

Trump has targeted people of color from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and the United States. He defended the character of public, outspoken, white supremacists.

It is no longer acceptable to pretend to not notice his racism. We now are to the point that saying you don't see the racism is at best a choice to make yourself comfortable with the choice of voting for him and at worst a strategy to further the agenda of white supremacy. 

If you are choosing to comfort yourself - stop. The right to be comfortable with racism is one of the most corrupting forms of white privilege. America needs you to get uncomfortable and have to live with the emotional repercussion consequences of your choices.

Trump is Inspiring a Cult of Personality Election

Republicans are running for Senate to support Trump and his ideas.

They are not running to further their own goal, or to further their own ideology, or their party's platform, they are running to support a leader.

Joe Arpaio, an Arizona sheriff pardoned of his conviction for criminal contempt of court after he refused to stop race-based policing by President Trump, is running for Senate in Arizona.

He stated a reason for his run as to, "support the agenda and policies of President Donald Trump".

 Even when candidates are running with policy ideas, they are giving credit and those policy ideas to Trump.

Danny Tarkanian is running in the primary elections for Senate in Nevada. He said of his run, "I am a conservative Republican who supports the policies of President Trump to repeal Obamacare and end illegal immigration. I will continue to support President Trump's policies that have led to a 20 percent increase in the stock market in just six months."

Essentially, the veracity of ideas are validated because they come from the leader. This is voting to support a leader, not citizens, or ideas. It is nothing less than cult of personality elections.

Alabama: I Have Never Been So Glad to be Wrong

Alabama: I was certain you would let us down. I was sure we would have to deal with your human garbage contaminating our legislature.

I had no doubt that you would elect the man glamorizing slavery days as wholesome family time over the man who went after KKK members who murdered children sitting in a church.

I am so glad I was wrong.

Thank you for not letting us down. You did the right damned thing.

Welcome to dignity, morality, and basic human decency.

Hysterial Responses to #metoo

I keep hearing that #metoo has gone too far too fast. It is just hysteria, the things men have been fired for are too minor.

When I ask which claim is a hysterical minority - rape, groping, sexual harassment, asking women to have babies and then holding them back at work when they say no, locking women in rooms so a man could expose his dick, a man having his penis groped in public - the conversation changes.
It refocuses on the concern that in the future men might not get due process or will be innocently removed from their jobs. 

This argument is basically, "Stop while it is working and no wrongdoing has happened so that men are protected from losing their jobs innocently."

We don't have to stop doing the right thing because the wrong thing might happen in the future. We can talk about the overreach when someone overreaches.

I think the real fear here is that men feel accountable for the first time and they are afraid. They are afraid they might say the wrong thing and upset a woman's feelings and get fired.

Men are finally starting to feel what women have been feeling since the beginning of time. If we aren't nice enough - we are bitches. If we are nice, some men think we are signaling sexual attraction. If we don't signal attraction, we cannot get promoted. If we signal attraction, men hit on us.
We are not hitting some over reach, we are hitting a balance; a time when men feel as afraid of the sexual misunderstandings or interests of their workmates as women do.

I would like to remind people that women innocently lose their jobs because they cannot negotiate men's sexual feelings at work. To demand that women give up on a safe workspace in order to make sure men stay safe is to assert that men are more important than women, work is their space and women are the visitors at work. Men are entitled to work, women are not.

That is sexism and it's male privilege. A man demanding he not be held to the same work conditions as women because it is unfair is just fragility.

Everyone should be able to go to work without having to protect a man's fragile sexual ego or his privilege.

Net Neutrality and Civil Rights

Net neutrality is not just about Nextflix. It is about not letting Time Warner (and all other ISPs) decide which political opinions you should be allowed access to or to share.

Net neutrality a civil rights issue. Pay attention to it.

He Created Three Ophans When He Murdered His Wife and Killed Himself and the Community Defended Him

A man well known in a community if which I am a member killed his wife after she served him with divorce papers. Then he killed himself,  orphaning his three children.

This sort of selfish, entitled, behavior is nothing new. However, I have been disgusted by the number of people demanding compassion for the murderer, expressing regretful dismay at his death, and imploring us to consider consider his depression. 

No.

From what we know, he murdered his wife because he she dared to think she was not his object and had the right to leave the marriage if she wanted.

Women are at very high risk of murder in the year after they leave their husband or partner. And rarely do men go from zero abuse to murder.

We should spend our time and worry on those kids, on the families left behind (even his), and call attention to the fact that women are most likely to be murdered by their partners and that is totally unacceptable - even if he is depressed.

The Perplexing Defense of Al Franken

My dismay grows ever deeper when I hear the defenses of Al Franken. They all really boil down to the same thing - she did some kind of sex work, so she is not credible but even if it is true, a worthless woman like her should not be able to bring a valuable man like him down.

I have even seen grown adults saying that because she did nude modeling, she cannot feel emotional effects of sexual assault or sexual harassment – so she is exaggerating her claims of distress.
Even more boggling is the argument that this is a Republican hit job. 

Sex workers get raped, sexually assaulted, and suffer all manner of sexual abuses. Selling sex, or sexual fantasy does not relinquish your right to consenting to sexual activity. It does not make you immune to the effects of sexual violence and abuse.

Franken admitted to the incidents, and there are pictures of the incidents. If he says it happened, and there are pictures that it happened, her credibility should not be the issue but it is still.

Her credibility is so bad, her negative actually outweighs Franken's positive credibility? That no matter what she says, no matter how it is confirmed, the fact that she said it means it is not true?
Credibility, the likelihood that she is telling the truth, is not what it is about. Credibility is being used as a placeholder term for value.

Sexual chastity is so closely tied to a woman's value that if she dares to have a sexual identity or worse - use it to get money - she is considered fair game for abuse.

We can know she is honest and truthful but our society values her so little that no act is bad enough that a man should be punished for it.

The police and prosecutors actually have a term for it, NHI. NHI stands for No Humans Involved. It is an informal category of crimes which fall to the lowest priority and often are not investigated at all. NHI crimes include crimes against prostitutes, sex workers, drug addicts, drug dealers, and police informants.

While the term NHI may be falling out of use, the category still exists. Serial killers target prostitutes at such a high rate because no one cares to investigate.

As for hit being a hit job - he admitted to it. He did it. So the question is even if the Republicans brought her forward, how does that absolve him of his responsibility?