We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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An article on the Thug Trump's Threats of violence or as North Korea said his Gangster Diplomacy being used at home. Threats just like his buddies the Mob Bosses used.
Last weekend, on the Fox News program "Sunday Morning Futures," President Donald Trump struck a new note in his constant authoritarian posturing. He vowed that his supporters would retaliate against Democrats and any others who dare to disagree with him. Given the increase in right-wing political violence in the United States since Trump began his presidential campaign three years ago, this is not an idle threat. This is what the president told the Fox News audience:

You know, there’s probably never been a base in the history of politics in this country like my base. I hope the other side realizes that they better just take it easy. They better just take it easy because some of the language used, some of the words used, even some of the radical ideas, I really think they are very bad for the country. I think they're actually very dangerous for the country.

This is only the most recent example of Trump's violent inclinations. We could list all the threats he has made against immigrants, protesters, political opponents and members of the press. Last week, Trump appeared to threaten Rep. Maxine Waters, a long-serving Democrat from California, attacking her on Twitter:

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!

Trump found an audience: After receiving specific threats of harm -- including references to lynching -- Waters canceled several public appearances.

Perhaps even more disturbing was Trump's event at the White House the previous Friday. The president honored his "angel families" by sharing autographed pictures of people (mostly white people) who had allegedly been murdered by "illegal immigrants." This was more than another example of Donald Trump's malignant narcissism: It was a macabre ritual in which Trump, the authoritarian strongman, made a blood pact of revenge with his public.

Despite dishonest claims to the contrary, Donald Trump feels no real concern for those Americans who have been victims of crime. He has neither hosted nor attended rallies or other events to condemn the numerous mass shootings committed by white men during his time in office. But the obsessive scorn and rage he expresses towards Latino "illegal immigrants" who commit violent crimes give him tremendous power over his racially resentful, nativist supporters.

"We're gathered today to hear from the American victims of illegal immigration. You know, you hear the other side. You never hear this side," Trump told his audience at that event. "These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones. The word 'permanently' being the word that you have to think about. Permanently -- they're not separated for a day or two days, these are permanently separated because they were killed by criminal illegal aliens."

This a continuation of Trump's eliminationist language towards nonwhites -- especially Latino and Muslim immigrants -- he has frequently employed, both during his 2016 campaign and as president. For Trump and his supporters, black and brown people and Muslims come with a vast array of negative epithets. They come from "shithole countries." They are "rapists," "criminals," "snakes" and "vermin." They "infest" the United States, like a horde of insects or a viral epidemic. By Trump and his allies' logic, Democrats and others who oppose his policies are aiding and abetting this human poison. By implication, they are guilty of betraying the United States and should be punished accordingly.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis also called attention to real or alleged Jewish criminals as a means of legitimating widespread and systematic violence against the Jewish people as a whole.

Trump's eliminationist language and resulting policies have already hurt people. The children of migrants and refugees have been torn from their families and put into de facto concentration and prison camps. They are likely to suffer lifelong negative emotional and physical health consequences. Some children have reportedly attempted suicide or become the victims of abuse.

Some people who have been deported because of Trump's "soft" ethnic cleansing campaign have reportedly been killed in their countries of origin. At least one father took his own life in custody after his child was stolen from him. ICE officers and other enforcers have been involved in numerous incidents which have directly resulted in migrants, refugees and undocumented residents suffering grievous bodily harm and even death.

As documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other watchdog groups, there has been a large increase in hate crimes -- including assault and murder -- committed by white supremacists and others who identify with the white-supremacist "alt-right."

On a larger scale, Trump's efforts to close America's borders to refugees and other immigrants are likely to serve as a literal death sentence for an unknowable number of people.

We find ourselves in a situation where the president of the United States is both directly encouraging and indirectly participating in ethnic violence against nonwhites. The Republican Party has done nothing to oppose these efforts and largely supports them. Trump's voters are positively enthusiastic about his campaign of ethnic cleansing. They share collective responsibility for Trump's cruelty and his crimes against human decency and international law.

None of this should be a surprise. Donald Trump previewed his twisted and malevolent version of America's past, present and future in his infamous acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention and again in his "American carnage" inaugural address.

Yet in the face of this blatant contempt for human decency, democracy and civil rights, many liberals and moderates insist on enforcing imaginary standards of civil discourse: We must be "respectful" and "polite" when confronting Trump and his corrupt regime.

But the famous Michelle Obama mantra -- "When they go low we go high" -- is a recipe for defeat when facing fascists and other authoritarians. Kindness will not defeat the cruelty that the Trump administration and its allies and supporters revel in. In their hands, the concept of civility becomes a weapon to use against their enemies, allowing them to claim that civil disobedience and self-defense are "rude," unfair or unjust.

History has many lessons for those who believe that civility and kindness are an effective response to those who advocate eliminationist policies and other forms of political violence.

As reported by the Jewish Telegraph Agency and The New York Times in June 1934, Henry Cadbury, who was chairman of the American Friends Service Committee -- an honorable Quaker organization -- spoke at the 45th annual convention of the Central Conference of American Reform Rabbis. He cautioned the Jewish people against resisting Hitler in angry or forceful fashion:

Persecution of the Jews in Germany by Hitler and his Nazis can be ended not by the hate that the Jews may display but by the good will which they should show. By hating him and trying to fight him, you will only help make him worse in his attack on the Jews. But if the Jews the world over would try to convey to Hitler and the people of Germany their ideals and appeal to their conscious sense of justice, the problem would be solved much sooner.

History would suggest that Cadbury's advice was tragically and spectacularly misguided. When we hear today's versions of Cadbury urging us to be civil, considerate and polite toward Donald Trump and his supporters, we should bear that in mind.
https://www.salon.com/2018/07/03/forget ... -too-late/
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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Regrettably and historically there are limited Ways with which one might deal with Fascists.

Mussolini's end comes to mind. I'm tired of the Fascist Cat and Mouse game now. If they are coming for the Leftists best they start at the top and work their way down but basically Trump and his Fascists are cowards and will start with the poor and defenseless...probably attack the old and the ill prepared or weak people first to make an example of them so the rest of US can cower.

Gaad, please come to my neighborhood (mostly Social Democrats and disenchanted Democrats) and threaten young working mens families with your Fascist Bully Bullshit. Please. That a President of our Nation should act this way and threaten and posture this way is literally treason to me. I'm disgusted.

FDT and all his kind.

VooDoo
Tyrants disarm the people they intend to oppress.

I am sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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But the famous Michelle Obama mantra -- "When they go low we go high" -- is a recipe for defeat when facing fascists and other authoritarians. Kindness will not defeat the cruelty that the Trump administration and its allies and supporters revel in. In their hands, the concept of civility becomes a weapon to use against their enemies, allowing them to claim that civil disobedience and self-defense are "rude," unfair or unjust.
I'm not to the point of wanting to see him hanging upside down from a lamp post. I am, however, to the point of wanting to take the House and Senate, then investigate the holy crap out of him and his, and prevent him from doing anything beyond EO's, exposing him as the impotent schlub he is.

I have confronted a MAGA or two. They crumple when shown facts when they sputter and bluster. They're not worth a bullet: they're ignorant cowards and deserve to live while shamed completely.

Vote, and get others to vote as well.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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Some already are.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/09/us/mexic ... index.html
Tears glistened on the black and purple bruises covering 91-year-old Rodolfo Rodriguez's face as he described being attacked by a group of people while going for a walk on the Fourth of July.

"I can't walk anymore," Rodriguez said in Spanish. "I'm in so much pain."

He'll be turning 92 in September, Rodriguez said, and he's never been hurt like this before, in a life working the fields with cattle and corn.

He had traveled from Michoacan, Mexico, to visit his family in Willowbrook, California, a city in Los Angeles County, his grandson Erik Mendoza said.

He makes the trip about twice a year, and takes a walk through the neighborhood every day after lunch, Mendoza said. "Everyone in the neighborhood knows him already," he said.

Rodriguez said he was walking to a nearby park on Wednesday when he passed a woman and a little girl. Without warning, the woman assaulted him, he said, hitting him with a concrete block and enlisting a group of men to join in beating him.

"I didn't even bump into her kid," Rodriguez said. "I just passed her and she pushed me and she hit me until she was done."
Image


FDT and the horses asses he rode in on.

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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Note the cowardice that these bullies display. Did they wait for some 20 year old guy who may have the ability to defend himself and give some in return? No, they actually chose their victim fearing a fight.

I believe there is a special place in hell reserved for cowards. A specially sadistic kind of hell. And it involves very large pickles.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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If we turn out this year like it was a presidential election year, then we will win in a phenomenal landslide. You must vote like your life depends on it, because it could, if you’re a woman that might need an abortion. It could, if you’re a Latino. It could, if you’re a young black man where shootings can now essentially be written off with a rubber stamp.
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-polit ... ter1094135

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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CDFingers wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:35 am
If we turn out this year like it was a presidential election year, then we will win in a phenomenal landslide. You must vote like your life depends on it, because it could, if you’re a woman that might need an abortion. It could, if you’re a Latino. It could, if you’re a young black man where shootings can now essentially be written off with a rubber stamp.
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-polit ... ter1094135

CDFingers
Or if your anybody that relies on any form of government assistance such as SNAP, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits or other services. Also any other religions or non religious beside fundie Evangelical Christians.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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AndyH wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:24 pm Some already are.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/09/us/mexic ... index.html

Trump is certainly pushing the edge and more people are acting out with violence. Pretty sure this story isn't trumpsters though.

Willowbrook, CA is in, or right next to, the area formerly known as South Central. A predominately black area of town. I thought it was Congresswomans Maxine Waters District but it isn't. It's right next to it. The largest park in Willowbrook is Majic Johnson Park, the hospital there is MLK.

He was told to go back to Mexico, so there is a racial element there. The others joined in when the woman told them he was trying to take her daughter. :blink:

I think this story has more to do with the mom than some ripple Trump affect.

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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It happened around 2016 the election in Boston MA,
Two Boston brothers who beat and urinated on a homeless Mexican man, then told police "Donald Trump was right: All these illegals need to be deported," were sentenced to prison on Monday.

Scott Leader, 38, and Steve Leader, 30, had previously pleaded guilty to indictments charging them with causing bodily injury while committing a civil rights violation, as well as assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, among other charges.

Scott Leader was sentenced to three years in prison and Steve Leader was sentenced to one and a half years, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said in a statement. The pair will also be on probation for three years after their prison sentences end.

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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It happened around 2016 the election in Boston MA,
Two Boston brothers who beat and urinated on a homeless Mexican man, then told police "Donald Trump was right: All these illegals need to be deported," were sentenced to prison on Monday.

Scott Leader, 38, and Steve Leader, 30, had previously pleaded guilty to indictments charging them with causing bodily injury while committing a civil rights violation, as well as assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, among other charges.

Scott Leader was sentenced to three years in prison and Steve Leader was sentenced to one and a half years, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said in a statement. The pair will also be on probation for three years after their prison sentences end.
And then people dare to tell me tyranny is not possible.

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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I saw a really interesting video, maybe on Facebook, pointing out the parallels between Trump's demonization and scapegoating of immigrants (and other minorities) and the rhetoric he uses (infest, overrun, low IQ, criminal) and the Nazi propaganda against the Jews. Of course I can't find the video now. Either Trump is following the Nazi playbook or this is a mindset that repeats itself over and over in human history.
"When and if fascism comes to America... it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'." - Halford Luccock
"Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
— Mikhail Bakunin

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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This writer makes the same point.

The scapegoating of Latinos has a fascist echo
By JONATHAN P. BAIRD

"As a Jewish person, I have had an uneasy feeling of deja vu. What Trump is saying about Latinos is reminiscent of the kind of things Nazis said about German Jews in the early 1930s. Trump has been saying these things since the day he announced for president.

After the escalator ride down, who can forget these immortal words: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you, they’re not sending you. They’re sending people who have lots of problems, and they’re bringing their problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I guess, are good people.”

Right from the start, Trump has tried to correlate crime with Latino immigrants. In the Nazi case, they tried to associate crime with Jews.

From 1923 on, even long before the Nazis came to power, demonization of Jews was integral. it wasn’t just the use of anti-Jewish stereotypes about the Rothschilds and rich Jews. The Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer ran a regular column called “Letter Box” which featured readers’ accounts of Jewish crimes. Letter Box editors encouraged the reporting of alleged Jewish crimes.

The Nazis publicized phony, manufactured Jewish crime statistics, a sort of early day fake news. The effort was designed to whip up anti-Semitism and build a sense of community identity against a stigmatized group. The Nazi Ministry of Justice ordered prosecutors to forward every criminal indictment against a Jew to the ministry’s press office so it could be publicized. The singling-out of Jewish crime was part of the Nazi hate-building strategy.

Trump has similarly singled out crimes committed by undocumented immigrants as a way to unite his base against a despised out-group. He has consistently said that because of “people that should’ve never been allowed to come over the border, crime is going through the roof.”

Trump has even created a government office to stir up outrage against these immigrants. The office is called Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE). Trump himself has frequently highlighted the immigration records of violent offenders.

At the February 2017 joint session of Congress address, Trump introduced three guests he had invited whose family members had been killed by immigrants living in the United States illegally.

Never before in my lifetime has a leader of our government separated out the crimes of one group (undocumented immigrants) for special denunciation.

You would never know that there is no data that proves undocumented immigrants are a demographic group intrinsically prone to crime. The Washington Post has written that first-generation immigrants are actually predisposed to lower crime rates than native-born Americans. The reason is not too hard to figure. Undocumented immigrants have stronger incentives than native-born Americans to stay out of trouble with the law. If they want to stay in the U.S. and work, brushing up against the law is a kiss of death.

Trump’s stereotyping of Latino immigrants is a propaganda ploy designed to bolster the view that Americans are threatened by a foreign horde. The propaganda is a means to justify speeded-up deportations, mass raids, the misuse of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the shredding of due process.

There is no shortage of troubling administration actions to match their propaganda. Here is my list:

ICE deporting and wrecking the families of many immigrants with lengthy good records.

Immigration officials at the Southern border separating more than 700 children from adults since last October, with more than 100 of these under the age of four.

The Department of Justice imposing absurd numerical quotas on immigration judges that make due process a virtual impossibility.

U.S. Custom and Border Protection officers failing to consider legitimate asylum claims, returning would-be immigrants to great danger and possible death.

The un-American and insecurity-inducing treatment of 800,000 young people with DACA protection even though they innocently came to this country as children.

The unjust pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a racial profiler, who a federal court found guilty of criminal contempt of a court order.

It is hardly surprising that hate crimes have spiked against Latinos and Muslims since Trump’s election. That is no accident. It is the result of the racial resentment Trump has unleashed."

http://www.concordmonitor.com/Scapegoat ... o-17127505
"When and if fascism comes to America... it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'." - Halford Luccock
"Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
— Mikhail Bakunin

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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SilasSoule wrote: Wed Jul 11, 2018 3:12 am I saw a really interesting video, maybe on Facebook, pointing out the parallels between Trump's demonization and scapegoating of immigrants (and other minorities) and the rhetoric he uses (infest, overrun, low IQ, criminal) and the Nazi propaganda against the Jews. Of course I can't find the video now. Either Trump is following the Nazi playbook or this is a mindset that repeats itself over and over in human history.
During the election it was said that he kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches at his bedside for nighttime reading. I really doubt that as he doesn’t read books. So he must have gathered the ideas from CliffNotes or the AHC, American Hitler Channel on cable TV.

The Trumpian followers by their actions are very munch playing the part of the SA Storm Trooppers. They just have their made in china MAGA hats rather than Brown Shirts. I see them as an evolving blend of the earlier Koch financed Tea Party and the Racist Right Wing.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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The fascist we really need to be concerned about is Pootin. Pootin has 2 guides. One is Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Putin, Solzhenitsyn said in an interview shortly before his death in 2007 at age 88, had brought “a slow and gradual restoration” to Russia.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... syn-115088

Enough said there. His other guide is Ivan Ilyin.
Western proponents of Ilyin’s “guru” status point out that Putin consecrated his grave in 2009 (see below), and that the 150-minute documentary film aired to celebrate Putin’s fifteen years in power in 2015 devoted several minutes specifically to Ilyin. Here, too, a closer look evidences not Putin’s identification with Ilyin, but another, more complex trend. Putin is an arbitrator among different stakeholders, as well as between different ideological factions, and, as the personification of the Russian state, he secures equilibrium among them. One of these ideological factions—one among several—pushes for rehabilitating Ilyin and making him a martyr of the White emigration, on equal status with White General Anton Denikin (1872–1947). This faction comprises the Moscow Patriarchate and some of its most political personalities, such as Father Tikhon, Orthodox businessmen such as Vladimir Yakunin and Konstantin Malofeev and a group of pro-monarchy intellectuals such as Nikita Mikhalkov, who directed the Putin documentary. The Church was the driving force behind the repatriation of Ilyin’s remains and his reburial at the Donskoy Monastery in 2005, at the same time as Denikin’s and his spouse’s.
http://intersectionproject.eu/article/p ... hilosopher

So is Pootin his own man? I'm sure he'd like everyone to believe that but in his heart of hearts he is probably just another cruel fascist asshole like our Donald.

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harriss wrote: Wed Jul 11, 2018 1:34 pm So is Pootin his own man? I'm sure he'd like everyone to believe that but in his heart of hearts he is probably just another cruel fascist asshole like our Donald.
Let's remember Pootin was trained by the KGB. The KGB made the CIA cowboys look like Cub Scouts. when came to ruthless actions. They have the same results as the German Gestapo of the Nazi era just not as crude in their actions.

Pootin is the master of manipulation. Unlike Turnip potion is smart and cunning. He thinks well ahead of his adversaries both within and without Russia. He would be a great chest player. In fiction writing he is Mario Puzo -The Godfather. He also seems to have that Russian paranoia and the streak of I will get revenge. He epitomizes the Chinese Proverb "Revenge is sweetest when it is the coldest." He was a KGB officer during the collapse of the Soviet Empire, when we "won"the Cold War. We screwed up by not helping rebuild Russia and working with them to become an ally. Instead Our Reptilian Government gloated and strutted about how we won and how much better we were than the Russians. We basically rubbed their noses in it, not a good thing to do with anybody especially the Russians.

We are now paying for it with the election of the Orange stink blob and his actions that are driving a wedge between us and our defense allies and trading partners.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

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LA Sheriff's detectives arrested a women in connection with the assault on 91 year old Rodolfo Rodriguez.
Authorities have arrested a woman alleged to be involved in the assault of a 91-year-old man on the Fourth of July. Detectives arrested Laquisha Jones at 10 p.m. Tuesday, near 60th Street and Crenshaw Avenue, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Jones, 30, was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. Rodolfo Rodriguez had gone out for a walk in Willowbrook about 7 p.m. on July 4 when he was assaulted, according to a GoFundMe campaign set up by his family. Rodriguez has a broken cheekbone and bruises on his face.

His family said that a woman confronted Rodriguez, after he reportedly bumped into a little girl who was with her. Rodriguez was then struck from behind and “as he fell on the ground, he blacked out,” according to sheriff’s Det. Matt Luna. Misbel Borjas, who lives near Rodriguez, was passing by in a car when she saw Rodriguez walking and trying to pass a woman and a girl. Then, Borjas said, she saw the woman push Rodriguez and start to hit him with a block of cement. “She was yelling at him, ‘Go back to your country,’ or ‘Go back to Mexico,’” Borjas recalled. “It was racist.”

Rodriguez’s daughter, Aurelia Rodriguez, said her father recalls the woman screaming at him, but he didn’t understand what she was saying because he doesn’t speak or understand English. Borjas was able to snap a photo of the woman, who began to walk away. Borjas said as she was on the phone with 911, a few men returned to assault Rodriguez while he was on the ground. Investigators are still determining if there are more people involved, according to the Sheriff’s Department. The investigation is ongoing and a motive for the assault “is unknown at this time,” the Sheriff’s Department said. A weapon has not been located.

Rodriguez was released from the hospital and has been recovering at home with his family. Over the last few days, he has been up and walking around, Aurelia Rodriguez said. Her father, who is originally from Michoacán, Mexico, is a lawful permanent resident. In the evenings, Rodriguez likes to walk to a nearby park and sit on the benches, in his long-settled routine in the neighborhood. Rodriguez had planned to visit family in Mexico at the end of the week, but the trip has been canceled, his daughter said. n “We just ask that there’s justice,” Aurelia Rodriguez said. “A judge is going to decide what she will pay for what she did. I hope people know that they can’t just hit someone, insult someone, threaten someone — that if someone does something like this, they’re going to pay for it.”

The Sheriff’s Department obtained an arrest and search warrant for Jones. “Due to working every angle and lead in the case, it ultimately resulted in the arrest,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. Jones is being held in lieu of $200,000 bail. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact the department’s Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500. “We want to thank the local residents for all of their kindness and support while Mr. Rodriguez recovers,” the Sheriff’s Department said.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

All racists aren't white males, every race has them.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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Well, she is a xenophobic bigot but not racist because she's not white and doesn't benefit from our white-anglo system. I can say the same thing as a racist says but will not be labled a racist because I am also not white.

It's no good to be a xenophobic bigot especially if you are black in this country... the racists' policy of divide and conquer works only for the benefit of those with power.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

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"Racism" has two definitions, and Black thinkers and radical activists made a point of NOT differentiating between the two. I'm not sure what their point was because it didn't work. Back in the 80's or 90's they began insisting Black people COULDN'T be racist no matter how they acted nor what they said. So if they called a White person the H-work, or a Jew the K-word, they "got a pass" from these spokesmen (Spike Lee, the director, was one of them). To most others, this was absurd because to us, using racist terms, discriminating, and even assaulting someone was racist.

Here in NJ, in June of 2014, a young man named Brendan Tevlin, was murdered by a total stranger named Ali Muhammad Brown.
New Jersey Patch wrote:Brown claimed that he killed Tevlin and three other men as an act of retribution for lives lost in the military conflicts in the Middle East. In his statement to the court made Tuesday, Brown admitted that the killings were a part of a "jihad," prosecutors said.
My son went to school with Brendan Tevlin through middle school and knew him fairly well and was friendly with him. Brown was sentenced to life without parole.

This wasn't an act of racism? Targeting a random young White man for death solely because he was White? How is this not just as bad as cops shooting unarmed Black men and teens and making up BULLSHIT about how they felt "threatened"? In both it's thugs deciding to end a total stranger's life just because they don't like the color of his skin.

So what ARE the two definitions?
1) The classic, as has been understood by White, Black, Brown, Asian et al: The acts by an individual including slurs, discrimination, and violence based on another's race, religion, or, now, sexual orientation.
2) The totally variant one used by those I described, which can best be called "Institutional Racism". This is just that: The ruling powers that be (in our case, Whites, particularly White Christian Males) set up and maintain a societal system including protocols, precedents and laws, to keep themselves exclusively on top, with all the power, the wealth and the "walls" to keep others out.

I don't deny that "Institutional Racism" doesn't exist. It does, it's cancerously epidemic and surging again in America. But to claim that an individual SOMEHOW has a "Get out of Jail Free" card on the charge of Racism because of the color of his or her skin is as inane as my having "White Privilege", which I recognize as very, very real, that I have, and that I, and nobody else, deserve.

But both definitions of Racism are out there, so when someone claims they can't be racist, they need to make clear they are talking about Definition 2, not Definition 1.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

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Hey YT, I'm glad someone with your knowledge and record for being passionate about social justice posed this question to force me to explore why I accept that Institutional Racism is the only definition that matters. Let me start by posting this article I read this morning:
Black Americans’ Median Wealth Could Disappear in One Generation
https://truthout.org/articles/black-ame ... eneration/

There is no doubt we live in a racist society where one group benefits over all others. There is also no doubt that the woman, Leticia, who was arrested for the horrific attack also spewed racially charged xenophobic epithets. But what is racially based bigotry without socio-economic benefit? -It is merely ignorance. The inherent evil in actual racism exists in the economic and social power/authority/justification it gives to steal the future from all people outside of one benefitting group (in terms of education, opportunities, and monies). To equate racism to mere ignorance based on race (without such powers) is somewhat akin to saying All Lives Matter in response to BLM protests; it dilutes the charge of injustice in racism and implies all races complicit where only one group actually benefits.

So in my mind, there is only one definition for racism and it seems most schools and universities are sticking to that one definition in order to clarify and address the strong social/economic injustice we all face in America. After all, if we don't agree on definitions and facts, we start down the rabbit hole of "alternative facts," "fake news," et al. Because there are those who specifically use words to confuse and deflect from the issue to support the racist status quo.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

23
We need not look at this through the lens of "racism". Instead, we can acknowledge that there are hierarchies of power and oppression. Straight, white, Christian men sit at the top in our society, with straight, white, Christian women just beneath them. Black people are lower down, with black men above black women. This woman Leticia places herself above Hispanics, apparently. In turn many Hispanics look down on gay people, though in other contexts white, gay people might be above Hispanics. Down at the bottom of the hierarchies you find people like black, lesbian, atheist, trans-woman sex workers.

Almost without exception, everyone has someone they can look down on, and everyone is looked down on by someone else. Our duty as human beings is to recognize these relationships of privilege and power and work to overcome them to create a society of equals.
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Re: We should take Turnip's threats of violence seriously

24
Eris, I respectfully point out that this woman does not seem to score high on the sanity scale. Understandable given that she may be under economic pressures which she herself doesn't completely understand. However, it is also clear she does not hold a system of power behind her thoughts and words nor does she represent the beliefs of Black folks in America as a whole. Therefore I feel there is no systemic issue to address here (unless you mean to say more than half of all Blacks in America are xenophobic -then there might be something to address).

Again, I argue this is not racism but bigotry of an individual which does not reflect on our society at the moment. It may if the downward economic trend for income of working people continues to make more Americans hate foreigners. Yet if Leticia was a white woman and did/said exactly the same thing in this case, it would indeed be reflective of racism as our society currently stands (even if she were certifiably nuts).

Seems kinda racist, eh? It's not. In the same way that affirmative action is not racism. This is clarifying the problem of racism in this country in order to concentrate our efforts.

But I do get your point of saying we all may harbor differing degrees of prejudice and the Golden Rule requires us to pay attention to our blind spots. Yet I feel your system of hierarchy (while maybe true in the psychological sense) actually detracts from the problem of racism and dilutes racism down to the level of prejudice, which we are all susceptible to by virtue of being a human being.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

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