All Things American Xenophobia & White Supremacy

[LFC]

Another good move towards wiping out the gains of Jim Crow.

The congressional naming commission which was set up to remove Confederate names from military bases will review the names of "more than 750 Department of Defense items" that include everything from military bases to streets and bridges, to determine whether their names "commemorate the Confederacy," a release from the Commission announced Wednesday.

The Commission, established by the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act in the face of fierce opposition from former President Donald Trump in 2020, was originally tasked to rename nine military bases and sites associated with the Confederacy, as well as other Defense Department assets with names commemorating the Confederacy.

The list of more than 750 items includes not just the nine military bases but also roads, signs, bridges, and fields on bases and military installations across the US and two items at a US naval base in Japan.

The list is as detailed as naming stickers, flyers and posters on certain military installations that need to be reviewed, including "window decals at Ozark and Enterprise gate Welcome Centers" at Fort Rucker in Alabama and "mechanical room signage" at Fort Benning in Georgia.

[LFC]

Behind closed doors...

A New Jersey town allegedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to silence a whistleblower who came forward with secret recordings of local officials, including the mayor and police chief, using racial slurs.

But now, the whistleblower claims the city is holding back his retirement pension in retaliation.

According to NJ.com, Antonio Manata, a former police lieutenant, recorded several Clark Township officials using racial slurs and making derogatory statements, then threatened to file a lawsuit exposing them. But Clark officials ultimately decided to fork over $400,000 to Manata under an agreement that required the ex-cop to turn over his recordings.

In seven recordings obtained and published by NJ.com, Manata captured the mayor and two top police officials referring to Black people as “spooks,” “shines,” and “n—s.”

In one recording from 2019, Clark Township Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, a Republican serving his sixth term, was leaving a meeting at the Clark Recreation Center when an officer pointed out some ropes hanging from above and asked what they were.

“We [expletive] hang the spooks up there,” Bonaccorso responded as laughter filled the audio.

“So the [Arthur L. Johnson High School] incident all over again,” the cop replied, referring to a racist incident in 2017 in which a Black puppet was found hanging at a local high school.

“How about I go to a Plainfield [expletive] council meeting in front of a room full of them and get up and talk about it?” Bonaccorso said.

In another recorded conversation from 2019, Clark Police Chief Pedro Matos spoke about reopening a bias crimes investigation into the high school incident.

“I’m going to prove that them [expletive] n—-s did it,” Matos can be heard saying.

In another recording, Internal Affairs Sgt. Joseph Teston allegedly said a Black suspect’s mugshot reminded him of a National Geographic photo and said he had a “big [expletive] monkey head.”

Bonaccorso can be heard in another clip from 2019 asking about a Black man police officers were chasing.

“What spook are you guys chasing around in a red shirt?” he asked, repeatedly using the racial slur.

Officials were also captured on audio demeaning women.

“As far as female cops go, I hope there is never any, but I can only take care while I’m here,” Bonaccorso once said, according Manata’s draft lawsuit which was never filed but was obtained by NJ.com. “They are all [expletive] disasters that I’ve seen.”

[LFC]

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZzhole Racist), the new former Rep. Steve King (R-IAmARacist), is finally backing away from the most blatant white supremacists. I guess Kevin McCarthy finally convinced him it wasn't playing well. There's certainly no sign that he has rejected his love of white supremacists.

Gosar Promoted White Nationalist Event Where He Was To Be Guest Of Honor

Far-right Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) was touting his own appearance at a gathering of the white nationalist group American Populist Union, which was scheduled on Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Gosar announced it on Instagram. But after a local news report about the event, the backtracking began.

• Gosar’s campaign told the Arizona Mirror after the story published that the GOP congressman isn’t going, and that the campaign has no idea how he was listed as a special guest. American Populist Union never contacted Gosar, the campaign or his staff, the campaign claimed.

• Again:

• Weird how Gosar keeps getting accidentally and unknowingly involved in white nationalist parties, like the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), where congressman sent a pre-recorded welcome video that he now claims was sent by accident by a staffer.

[AnBr]

[LFC]

With the Republican Party no longer concerned when House members are speakers at actual white supremacy rallies, I'm surprised they even bothered to ask him to leave.

Virginia GOP Official Resigns After Calling Secretary of Defense The N-Word


David Dietrich, the Republican chair of the Electoral Board in Hampton, Virginia, heeded calls from his own party for his resignation on Saturday over his racist post about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and retired Gen. Russel Honoré, whom House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had appointed to investigate the security failures of the Jan 6. insurrection.



• Dietrich had directed the N-word at Austin and Honoré in a Facebook rant posted in February last year but which only recently came to light.


• Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) had publicly demanded earlier on Saturday that Dietrich resign. The official agreed to do so after that, the governor’s office told WAVY-TV, after reportedly ignoring calls from the Hampton GOP to quit.

[LFC]

The RNC on Twitter goes there. Jews controlling the weather is apparently now a mainstream Republican belief.

[pnwguy]

Apr 12, 2022 14:08:21 GMT LFC said:

The RNC on Twitter goes there. Jews controlling the weather is apparently now a mainstream Republican belief.

"He zapped the clouds out of the sky with his space laser, for our Rose Garden event today"

[andydp]

Good news !! Tucker has found a new minority to vilify !!


The ‘jealous minority’ is the latest myth stoking American racism


Over the past decade, there has been a populist uprising/backlash to immigration and globalization. One of the largest American communities caught in the crossfire is the Indian American community. It is one of the fastest-growing immigrant communities besides the Latin American community in America and, understandably, is often the whipping boy for anti-immigrant activists.

Recently, Amy Wax, Robert Mundheim professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, speaking to Tucker Carlson, referred to Indians as “brown faces” and went on to deride entire minority groups of color and the Global South as feeling anger, envy and shame toward the Western world.

However, her comments and comments by Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon that there are too many Asian CEOs in Silicon Valley indicate jealousy, envy and even a form of angst on their part more so than on the other end. It is demonstrative of the fragility of certain people, their inability to digest the fact that echelons of power are no longer occupied solely by people who look like them.


www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-jealous-minority-is-the-latest-myth-stoking-american-racism/ar-AAWgKHe?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7da9777557eb47c68a009c23d79bf929

[LFC]

The list of proper people to hate still creates rifts in the GOP.

Former Trump State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus is vying to be the Republican candidate in the elections for House representative in Tennessee's 5th Congressional District, and she even got an endorsement from Donald Trump himself. This week, she slammed Tennessee State Senator Frank Niceley, a fellow Republican, for saying that only the Jewish members of Trump's family care about her candidacy.

[LFC]

TPM reminds us that this resurgence of violent white supremacy didn't crop up organically. Right-wing media, especially Tucker "Respectable Face of White Supremacy" Carlson, have been winding up these already damaged people non-stop for years. (Remember Tuckums using the term "legacy Americans?") And more and more of the Republican Party is in on it.

This Isn’t Out Of The Blue

From Tucker Carlson to Elise Stefanik. From Steve King to assorted other GOP characters.

The white nationalist “Great Replacement Theory” has been putrifying in the right-wing fever swamp for several years now. Here’s TPM on it in 2019.

The carnage over the weekend in Buffalo, New York, where an 18-year-old white gunman under the influence of the “Great Replacement Theory” allegedly targeted a Black neighborhood grocery store, prompted a fresh round of denunciations and explainers.

• The Albany Times Union issued a scathing op-ed on Sunday slamming House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for her ads, which accused Democrats of plotting a “PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION” with their immigration policies.

• A Stefanik spokesperson denied that the GOP congresswoman had ever advanced the racist conspiracy theory, telling the Times Union that she has “never been in favor of ‘replacement theory.'”

• ABC: “EXPLAINER: Theory of white replacement fuels racist attacks”

• NPR: “What is the ‘Great Replacement’ and how is it tied to the Buffalo shooting suspect?”

• NBC: “‘Great replacement theory’ embraced by growing number of GOP lawmakers”

[LFC]

The Great Replacement Theory, i.e. relabeled white supremacy, is now core to the Republican Party and the right-wingnuts in general. This isn't even a fig leaf.

The white supremacist mass shooter who targeted Black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo Saturday, after writing in a manifesto that he was doing so because whites were being purposefully replaced by people of color, was acting on a rich vein of conservative thought.

Right-wing pundits and politicians have for years accumulated money and power with the message that a liberal elite was systematically “replacing” white Americans in order to wrest power from Americas’ historic racial majority. The notion is commonly referred to as “great replacement theory,” “white replacement theory” or “white genocide,” and it’s been inspiring shooters and bolstering Republicans for years.

After the shooting, some major proponents of that assertion doubled down. Others claimed the attack was a staged “false flag” or the work of shadowy government insiders, a typical dodge.

‘It Is A FACT’

One of the highest-profile Republicans to voice a version of the replacement theory is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives.

Last year, Stefanik said in a campaign ad that Democrats wishing to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants wanted to “overthrow our current electorate.” The policy amounted to a “PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” Stefanik said.

After the shooting, responding to people pointing out the similarities between that ad and the shooter’s manifesto, Stefanik tweeted a statement saying she had “never advocated for any racist position or made a racist statement.” Then, she went right back to talking about Democrats’ plans to replace America’s electorate.

“It is a FACT that DEMOCRATS have been explicitly pushing for amnesty for years – specifically for political and electoral purposes👇” Stefanik wrote in a tweet, quoting another post highlighting a supposedly revelatory Center for American Progress article titled “Immigration Is Changing the Political Landscape in Key States.”

But the nine-year-old article did not support Stefanik’s rhetoric: It did not advocate for immigration reform as a means to “overthrow our current electorate,” as the congresswoman’s ad last year claimed, but rather because existing voters of color “care deeply about how both parties talk about immigration.”

Stefanik wasn’t alone: Blake Masters, the Peter Thiel-funded U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona, has long argued that Democrats want to replace the current electorate with immigrants.

[LFC]

Lots of Republicans are openly pushing the Great Replacement Theory, including Mr. Hillbilly Shyster JD Vance.

[goldenvalley]

May 17, 2022 17:20:00 GMT LFC said:

Lots of Republicans are openly pushing the Great Replacement Theory, including Mr. Hillbilly Shyster JD Vance.

His wife is 1st generation American born of Indian ancestry. But that's not Mexico or Central America or Haiti so she's ok I guess. Plus she has a Yale law degree, clerked in the Supreme Court for Roberts (had other clerkships in lower levels of federal court too). 

[LFC]

Interesting history on the origins of the Great Replacement Theory.

[jackd]

At one time it was also used to resist Catholics, including Irish and Italians, as well as "racially" distinguishable people. Oh, yeah, Quakers too.

[Bact PhD]

May 18, 2022 22:51:45 GMT jackd said:

At one time it was also used to resist Catholics, including Irish and Italians, as well as "racially" distinguishable people. Oh, yeah, Quakers too.

And, sadly, significant numbers of the not-terribly-far-removed descendants of those very Irish and Italians (if my personal sampling limits are any indication), are some of the strongest adherents of the theory in the early 21st century. FYIGM, anyone?

[andydp]

May 19, 2022 16:14:46 GMT Bact PhD said:

May 18, 2022 22:51:45 GMT jackd said:

At one time it was also used to resist Catholics, including Irish and Italians, as well as "racially" distinguishable people. Oh, yeah, Quakers too.

And, sadly, significant numbers of the not-terribly-far-removed descendants of those very Irish and Italians (if my personal sampling limits are any indication), are some of the strongest adherents of the theory in the early 21st century. FYIGM, anyone?

Most of the anti immigrant rhetoric (regardless of ancestry) centers around " My______ came over "legally" and worked hard to make sure their family did well."  "Legally" meaning before quotas were established.

One other aspect is: "My _____ didn't sit around and get money from (the government).  They did it all by themselves."  Conveniently overlooking the large number of orphanages for those unwanted kids and "societies".  The societies have since evolved into charitable organizations, but their original intent was to help fellow ethnic immigrants with a handout, help get them settled and perhaps find work.  All things government organizations do now.

[LFC]

May 19, 2022 16:33:24 GMT andydp said:

One other aspect is: "My _____ didn't sit around and get money from (the government).  They did it all by themselves."  Conveniently overlooking the large number of orphanages for those unwanted kids and "societies".  The societies have since evolved into charitable organizations, but their original intent was to help fellow ethnic immigrants with a handout, help get them settled and perhaps find work.  All things government organizations do now.

No, no, no! Those "societies" are exactly what they want. That way they can choose who to help (*cough* white people *cough, cough*) and those who are clearly lazy. Then toss in the Christianist recruitment angle. I can't remember the details but we discussed here (or at the old TRS) the story about the politician or pastor who said the quiet part out loud; need and desperation drives people into the pews where they can be brainwashed.

[goldenvalley]

May 19, 2022 17:02:10 GMT LFC said:

May 19, 2022 16:33:24 GMT andydp said:

One other aspect is: "My _____ didn't sit around and get money from (the government).  They did it all by themselves."  Conveniently overlooking the large number of orphanages for those unwanted kids and "societies".  The societies have since evolved into charitable organizations, but their original intent was to help fellow ethnic immigrants with a handout, help get them settled and perhaps find work.  All things government organizations do now.

No, no, no! Those "societies" are exactly what they want. That way they can choose who to help (*cough* white people *cough, cough*) and those who are clearly lazy. Then toss in the Christianist recruitment angle. I can't remember the details but we discussed here (or at the old TRS) the story about the politician or pastor who said the quiet part out loud; need and desperation drives people into the pews where they can be brainwashed.

Government orgs do it because "charities" were hit or miss operations that didn't cover the enormity of the problem.  

[LFC]

May 20, 2022 1:36:47 GMT goldenvalley said:

Government orgs do it because "charities" were hit or miss operations that didn't cover the enormity of the problem.  

"F***ing SOCIALIST! Wait, we had an emergency in our state. GIVE US MONEY!" --Some Random MAGAt

[LFC]

Faux News, the Republican Party, and centuries old down-home racism have convinced 61% of the MAGAts of The Great Replacement Theory.

Majority Of Trump Voters And Fox Viewers Believe ‘Great Replacement Theory’
Some 61 percent of Americans who voted for Trump agree that “a group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views,” according to a new poll by Yahoo News/YouGov.

• 53 percent of Fox News viewers agree too, the poll shows, and it’s really not a mystery why.

• Meanwhile, only 34 percent of Americans overall agree with the racist conspiracy theory.

• The survey was conducted several days after the Buffalo shooting, which was allegedly carried out by a white supremacist who claimed he was motivated by that conspiracy theory.

[AnBr]

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/30/maga-threat-biden-must-sharpen-attacks/

[goldenvalley]

Jun 1, 2022 14:28:44 GMT AnBr said:

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/30/maga-threat-biden-must-sharpen-attacks/

We're in a tough spot here.  There is a group of people out there that might be persuadable but the miasma of right wing grievance makes it so that group could hear the talk suggested by Rubin and think yeah the libs are out to get the good people of the right wing.  Biden is in a better position than Obama was to do this kind of talk; he doesn't have to worry about the angry black man image. But Biden is painted with the doddering out of touch image.

[pnwguy]

Those Dems are sure "out to get" the good people whose religion is the deification of guns. They blaspheme the divine Rod of Iron.

[LFC]

Jun 1, 2022 23:34:12 GMT pnwguy said:

Those Dems are sure "out to get" the good people whose religion is the deification of guns. They blaspheme the divine Rod of Iron.

With all of the right-wing Christianist sex scandals worshiping the Rod of Iron may have another meaning.