Worth Your 31 Minutes

He echoes some things I've said.

 Why am I not shocked that two of his cited examples originate with white women?  He doesn't say liberal, but I suspect.

What Do YOU Mean You People

Speaking of exonyms and ethnicity.

Did you know that Italians were once not considered to be White?

Italian immigrants in America faced discrimination at least as severe as anything Blacks endured or are enduring.

I hereby claim my eternal victim status!

Or not.

The Irish went through this discrimination thing too.

At least twice and sometimes from the previous wave of Irish-Americans.

But since my grand-parents were not considered "White" when they arrived in America, then I am a person of color now!

Ah, to be rid of that pesky White Privilege!

Gonna Examine It

Science is.  Science is often not what you want it to be, because the facts don't care.

I strive, desperately, to not be a bigot in my behavior and thinking.

I tend to reject the bigot's answers for things because their answers are trite and made to fit preconceived notions.

But there's a kernel of doubt.

The OG racists in America were southern slave owners.

The people most familiar with American blacks, over and over, described "childlike" behavior and attitudes.

I always chalked that down to a culture imposed upon them because:  How much culture does a slave need to be a good slave?

They were not inculcated with Western Civ's values because those didn't help them be good property. 

Because I think in science, I read stuff that has conclusions I dislike.

Like this.  It's published by a thoroughly white supremacist group.  Take it with a carton of salt.  Remember what I said about trite answers fitting preconceived conclusions.

Just because I don't want the problems with American Blacks to be inborn and uncorrectable, doesn't mean I shouldn't consider it.

Science will not care if I don't want it any more than it doesn't care if a bigot does.

We're not going to do the research for real because it asks hard questions and the best solution could ultimately be extremely racist because, if that paper is correct, we'd have to, structurally, treat black people differently from white people.

That doesn't align well with "All men are created equal" in a document we just celebrated. 

Offended For Them Because They Won't Be Offended For Themselves

Something I accidentally hit while looking for other stuff about The Sioux.

American Indians volunteer for the military in fairly high numbers compared to their population.

They've done so since the beginning of the nation, as a matter of fact.

Strange they're fine with joining forces with the people who genocided them into non-existence...  Except for that whole thing that there are actually more Indians now than when Columbus landed.

The thing I keep hitting, over and over, is most Native Americans are of the philosophy of, "we fought, we lost, we got over it and moved on," and it's a small minority who keep stirring shit back up.

Turns out race baiting isn't just for African American grifters!

Grifting comes in all colors!

Plus you never hear about the people who just shrugged and joined American society and live productive, happy, lives.  Happy productive people don't make the news or garner any graft.  You need angry, unhappy, people for that.

Every race can produce some of those. 

Turns out that most American Indians aren't sitting around feeling either offended or sorry for themselves.

While they might be as proud of being Cheyenne as I am of being Scots-Italian, it's not their primary allegiance.

PS: My Blackfoot wife is not pinin' for The Rez; she's an example of a happy, productive, citizen. 

I'll Help!

There seems to be some confusion out there.

Here's a handy way of looking at things that will help.

If you do something because of race, it is racism.

If you increase the voting power of Black people because they are Black, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of White people because they are White, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of Asian people because they are Asian, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of Hispanic people because they are Hispanic, you are doing a racist thing.

Update:* Swapping the races doesn't make it not racist.  If it's racist for White people to do it, it's racist for Black people to do it:  Regardless of how often or how long White people did it!  Two wrongs don't make a right. 

See how that works?

If the voting power of a given people is decreased because it increases the power of one political party over another it is not necessarily racist.

If the voting power of one political party is always increased when the voting power of a given race is increased it is racist.

If the voting power of a given race is disproportionate to their population, it is racist.

The majority will always have more voting power than the minority.  That there are more White people than Black people is incidental to argument. 

I hope this clear things up.  But it doesn't. 

Which brings us to Florida and how the new district map increases the power of Whitey™.

Florida was 51.5% White as of the 2020 census.  It was 14.5% Black and 26.5% Hispanic.

The distribution of race is not even in Florida.  There are no real concentrations of Black people where they're the majority unless you get really creative with drawing the lines and the map suddenly looks a lot like Illinois.  Essentially you'd have to pinpoint every Black person you can find, connect the dots and that's your district with a majority Black population.

This district will utterly disenfranchise anyone who is not Black and, historically, it was drawn across places that were, historically, majority Hispanic.  Oddly, never up along the Alabama border were it made more sense...

Yet, somehow, this increases White Power®?  Never mind there's a distinct population of "Black" people who'd say, "¡Soy cubano!"  Does moving the lines increase or decrease their voting power?

The final thought I leave you with: There is no way to draw the lines that is completely fair.  It is impossible.  The best you can do is to maximize fairness, but someone will always be left out. 

*Thanks SiGraybeard!

Boris Please

Funny New Guys is set in 1967.

"Boris the Spider," by The Who came out in 1966.

Will spider-chimera get the, affectionate, nickname of "Boris?"

Or does Boris become the n-word for them?

Or both... depending on how mixed the company. 

Wading Into It

In general, I don't particularly care for Mr. Kasarda.  I was once a patron of InRange WAAAAAAY back and they did a series of videos with another creator and I had the temerity to express that if they were going to keep doing that I didn't wanna spend my money on it.

Karl told me where the door was and I exited.

I'd always found it ironic that he extols the support of viewers but shrugs when a viewer gives feedback and ends their support.

This video is about someone who appears to be a racist and a homophobe doing their damnedest to get to a controlling position at a gun club so they can expel the undesirables from the place.

I agree, that's bullshit.

I'm pro-LGBT.  I deplore racists.

However, this little spat with the Pima Pistol Club has a different angle from other sources.

The bigot mentioned at length in the video might have gotten their foot in the door because of the Antifa angle that seems to have attached itself to Mr Kasarda.

"Thou shall not freak the mundanes!" is an old adage.  It's essentially the same thing as, "don't scare the White people."

Antifa freaks the mundanes.

If they turn a 2-gun match into a pride parade or political rally, the normies get upset.

What if they just wanted to shoot the match without the political content provided, not by the match director or range, but by fellow participants who'd been encouraged to come by the match director or their associates?

As I said about Black Star Brewing years ago, "Is the beer any good?"

Karl sounds like the people who were trying to apologize for Black Star back then to me.

I didn't take a position on race, sexuality or gender when I asked about the beer.  But I would have had to listen to a lecture about racism, sexism and homophobia to get a beer there.

What if I just wanted a beer?

What if I just wanted to go shooting?

Both the principles in this fight seem unaware of how the normies see them.

The bigot will get farther before getting replaced because bigots tend to be good at hiding what they are in the spaces that matter to them retaining power.  I've forgotten how many times I've seen that meme play out.

I'm willing to bet, though, that someone in a MAGA hat would be barred from a 2g-ACM match that Mr Kasarda or his associates were running.  I'm betting that way because I've heard tell of exactly that happening there.

Someone was definitely told to go away when they tried LARPing a Rhodesian soldier and compete with an FAL.  Something about not allowing racist symbols...  From a guy who LARPed as an SS soldier how many times?

He's talked about safe spaces and ignores that groups like Antifa and John Brown Gun Club people actively try to make normies feel unsafe.  Antifa is probably doing it from the other side of the "we committed terrorism!" legal line too.

It's a bit hypocritical. 

ACHKSHUUALLY

Actually, Don, we White people believe that violence is AN answer.

But when you say White people, you're really saying Western Civilization, and Western Civ is the one that introduced the idea that violence shouldn't be the FIRST answer.

It's that Christian basis thing.

Exhaust all other options before resorting to violence is its calling card.

But when violence is called for, leave no two stones standing.

What you might be seeing, Don, isn't that violence is THE answer, but the disproportionate level of violence means the other answers clearly aren't working, leaving just one tool left in the box.

Perhaps if enclaves of "all cultures are equivalent" had not been allowed to fester and create little centers where an honor society butted against a high-trust society this would not have happened.

I keep going back to reading about two things that were wrong when they happened and, I think, were the pebbles that started the avalanche.

Red-Line districts to segregate populations.

LBJ's Great Society.

The nuclear family was way stronger in Blacks than Whites at the time and white people were more likely to punch out a child out of wedlock.

I cannot think of what you'd do differently if you'd meant to destroy Blacks as Americans than what those two things did.

Every single time racism ebbs, some fucking Democrat revives it.  They, literally, told Blacks that not only did they hate them, but allowing them to be normal Americans would be legally forbidden if they had anything to say about it.

Most of America is receptive to the idea of Black people being just another kind of American, but they have to be Americans with a descriptor rather than a race with a location.  They're not even a race with a nationality as they currently sit in too many places.

Assimilation is not a fun process in a lot of ways, but it works.  We should be looking to things that work rather than nursing old grudges to vendetta levels.

Never go vendetta against Western Civ.  It punctuates the equilibrium like no other society ever created.

More than a couple peoples have had a, "it was all going great until they woke up!" moment.

Culture Not Genetics

Watching what happened in Cincinnati and looking at their government officials apologizing for the perpetrators and condemning the victims it's easy to blame race.

People of color beat two white people very severely.

But it's not their color that caused them to be violent.

It's a culture that's been built around them that allows for and encourages violence.

There was racism on display, and it wasn't the victims.

Update: Fox News reports that someone uttered the dread CENSORED at some point.  Not clear if it was the victims or not.

I would not be shocked to find that it was a person of color uttering CENSORED.  I mean, they're allowed to say CENSORED because double standards. 

There is racism in the concept that the people of color cannot be held to the same standard as white people and therefore should have a culture lowered to their ability.

The people encouraging that notion are rarely people of color.

They've been selling this idea since before the Civil War.

They've been proven wrong more than once, but keep managing to reclaim the debate and get their ideas about race put forward as policy.

Now, any attempt to hold these people of color accountable for their actions in the same manner as any other American is claimed to be racist.

But it's not.

To give them a pass based on race is.

If they really want to take this to its fullest, they're going to find themselves confined to their ghettos (ghetto being used in its original meaning here) and no longer allowed to interact with the surrounding culture at all.

It's interesting that every single case of someone who originated in such a ghetto, adopted western society's norms and moved out thrived.

American Indians, Blacks, Catholics, Chinese, Irish, Italians, Japanese, and even Jews have all had their moment in the box and everyone who abandoned their native norms for American norms became just another American.

Never forget; the melting pot is a crucible, not a stew pot. 

Non-Events

I have had racism, sexism and religious bigotry in my game worlds.

I use historical settings a lot.

I've had many LGBTQ players.  I've had many minority players.  I've had a few female players.

It's just never been a problem.

Old West campaign where the prevailing opinion is the Indians are prairie n-words and a player wants to treat them like people?  Totally OK.  It happened in history too.

Trans player wants to play trans?  Gets told that they cannot in the setting because medical technology and social norms have gotten to the point that a trans person just has the operation and is all better.  With both remaining birth sex and changing to identity sex as options.  Therapies for both are developed.

Same same for settings with supernatural and powerful deities.  The Gods don't make things that aren't what they are not.  "OK!" was the response.

A black player playing a black character wasn't a problem.  I came up with an explanation for them to be where they were and they put up with their skin color being a novelty.  "He's not a Drow, he's BROWN, not black!"

The black players playing black characters did come up playing Twilight: 2000 in the New America arc.  New America is racist, so they were racist towards the player's characters.

It made for a strong, motivational, adventure hook.

I've never had a disabled player insist on playing a disabled character.

I came closest by playing a character without legs once.  But he was a super hero who could fly...

The Bat never made a character who was blind.

FuzzyGeff, never took asthma.

We were perfectly free to make characters that "looked like us" and we often didn't.

The entire point was to make a character who wasn't us.

I am not a wizard.

I am not a knight.

I am not a dwarf.

I am not an elf.

I am not a pseudo dragon!

I am not a super hero.

I am not a space pirate.

I did not survive the nuclear holocaust.

I am not a prohibition era gangster mage.

Disconnect

I've been friends with several Vietnam veterans.

To a man they've said that they didn't hold anything against the Black soldiers they served with.

Combat does have an equalizing agency that many other endeavors lack.

One even stated that his racist shit he'd gotten from his dad evaporated when he was under fire and everyone was doing their job regardless of the racial or social starting points.

But it's a matter of historical fact that racism was part of the Vietnam experience for Black troops.

It makes me wonder if the problem was REMF motherfuckers rather than the people actually going to the field.

Funny New Guys has me looking at it and it seems like Black troops caught more and harder punishments than White troops and that the people being anal about making sure punishment was meted out weren't the same people walking the bush.

I'm reading and learning.

Racism

The TLDW on this is the perpetrator blames the victims and police because they were racists.

Never mind the lengthy criminal histories of the siblings and extensive history of speeding, reckless driving and street racing.

The lack of remorse is a direct result of the race card working too well for too long.

There are racists in this case, and it's not the dead white people.

How Long You Need?

Some of the descendants of slaves in the United States claim to still be suffering under the repercussions of their ancestors once being enslaved.

8 generations.

I find that odd.

There's historical examples of nations being conquered, the once free citizens being enslaved and their grandkids being citizens of the conquering nation.

Seems that those folks had a bigger grudge than African Americans, yet...

Two generations to members of society.

Perhaps it was the shorter time of enslavement?

Well, there's a caveat to that two generations deal.  Enslaved grandfather needed to behave, free, but second class subject father needed to behave and free and citizen son needed to behave or right back to slavery because enslavement was a punishment for some crimes.

Some families never did manage to get out of being slaves because grampa never got with the idea that if he toed the line, his descendants would be free.  Or worse, decided that if HE couldn't be free, then NOBODY would!

I wonder if we're seeing some of this psychology at play with race relations today.

I do want to point out that African-Americans had sorted themselves out after the Civil War and, for the most part, had been becoming Americans.

It's true!

There were many places where racist bullshit kept them from completing the task.  This is also true.

There were also many places where there wasn't such bullshit and they settled into the same nuclear American family model that everyone else used.  The experience of a black family was no different from an Irish or Italian one in these places.

But then we put racist bullshit back on the menu.

Redline districts and welfare did more to kill the solid nuclear family than anything Jim Crow conceived of.

Destroyed with "love" as it were.

And it's kept them from succeeding as the little enclaves get more and more isolated from mainstream American culture and norms.

The thing that stands out, from my observations, is every African American I know who's rejected the enclave and the subculture that thrives there to adopt "normal" American culture is successful.

They've jobs, mortgage, family, friends...  And them being black is no more noteworthy than me being Scots/Italian.

In many ways they emigrated from the enclave to America!

It's classic melting pot stuff.

The echoes of other cultures doing this are still there.  Little Italys and Chinatowns are where the Italian and Chinese ghettos used to be.  The places where, if you wanted to skip being an American, you stayed.  Want out?  Adopt our ways and welcome, citizen!

But there's some very rich, racist, bastards with a stake in the status quo of preventing Blacks from being full members of society.  Bastards of every color, but racist nonetheless.

It's A Good Question

Second City Cop asks, where's the outrage?  Here too.

If you're going to have any chance of convincing us that black lives matter, then you're going to have to start acting like they actually matter.

At present, it seems they only matter if they were career criminals who finally came to a predictable end by the hands of an officer attempting to arrest them.

Then we recount all the wonderful things they might have been if they had not been prevented from turning their lives around... by getting killed resisting arrest.

So, race baiters, why don't you get pissed off at a birthday party being sprayed with gunfire and innocent children being murdered?

I'll suggest a real reason, just in case they have a justification to ignore the violence unless it's cops.

Criminals committing violence doesn't lead to a payout to the families of the victims or the race baiters.  Likewise, stopping criminals from committing violence reduces the power the race baiter wields rather than enhancing it.

Much the same way equal rights and meritocracy is anathema to them.

Road Rage

I was involved in a road rage incident yesterday.

I went around someone who was not noticing the way was clear after giving them a toot of the horn to get them to notice.

They pulled up on me and asked if that was really necessary.

When I replied that, yes, it was; they went off on me.

I am a nasty bald cracker with a shitty car.

I confirmed with the, black, manager of the tobacco store that was my destination that "cracker" is, indeed, a racist phrase.

Two days into black history month I have been shit on by a bigot.

By the way, fucknut, nobody who drives a Hyundai gets to say that anyone else has a shitty car.

Also, I was assured that this sort of thing would result in someone getting shot if conceal carry was made legal, if conceal carry without a permit was allowed... etc.

There's No Such Thing

History is history.

You cannot tell black history in the USA without the white history that overlaps on the Venn diagram.

Likewise, you can't tell white history without the black history.

It is intertwined.

It is insuperable.

It does not matter if you're happy with it.

It is.

Happy MLK Day

Today is the day we celebrate the, successful, healing of the racial rift that existed in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Sixty years of peace, love and harmony!

Oh, wait...

Speaking Of Race

That graduation shooter sure dropped off the front page fast.

19 year old suspect whose name isn't mentioned by Yahoo! or FoxNews?

They don't even mention the name of the school that was graduating.

SPOILER

Perhaps because a certain demographic is over-represented?

I, for one, am sick of this tendency to cover for the "doesn't fit the narrative" shooters by the media.

Might Be Interesting

The Democrats are siccing the NAACP on DeSantis.

My governor really scares the shit out of them, don't he?

I think we might just be finding out the real meaning of minority if the nation decides to ignore Klan with a Tan here.

Not Even Culturally Egyptian

Cleopatra wasn't "culturally black".

The Ptolemys weren't even culturally Egyptian.

They were a ruling family left behind Alexander's conquest of Egypt.

A Macedonian (Greek) conquest that replaced the existing rulers with Greeks.  And those rulers weren't even Egyptian!  They were Persian.

These Greeks went on to inbreed with each other for about a thousand years.

That makes Cleopatra something other than black, kids.

Key to the puzzle is not a single description characterizes her as a Nubian.

That is how both the Greeks and the Romans would have described a black woman.

Yet...