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Re: White People Are Having The Worst Black History Month Ever
Notice how the racist flock to the topic as if it were a lantern. LOL. I love it when you reveal yourselves so easily.
Definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
You think that because you're not smart enough to understand what systematic oppression is vs a minority pointing out racism.
Wrong. I KNOW it because you have said some of the most racist things in this thread. Then when someone posts something to counter your baseless claims you call them a racist. You're so caught up in your own bigotry that you can't see your own hypocrisy. You are hopeless.
Once again boys. Say it with me *REALLY* slow so you get it. Racism is dependent on a larger systematic oppression. A minority can not be racist, because it doesn't hold the same violence as the larger culture structurally harming those minorities. A minority can be prejudiced but not racist. And most of the time what a minority is saying regarding *THEIR OWN LIVED EXPERIENCE* is considered to be racist because of the inability of the ignorant to understand because.. dun dun duuuuhh racism. Ie: Me telling men who post violent racist threads to not engage with me being considered racist by small minds who have a lack of social awareness and analysis. This is pathetic guys
Children get this better than you.Re: White People Are Having The Worst Black History Month Ever
Notice how the racist flock to the topic as if it were a lantern. LOL. I love it when you reveal yourselves so easily.
Definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
You think that because you're not smart enough to understand what systematic oppression is vs a minority pointing out racism.
Re: White People Are Having The Worst Black History Month Ever
Music and sports. I think this guys have more oppurtunities than the whites.
you are right.. they are more gifted than whites in musis and sports which are the most profitable stuff on earth..Don't be fucking ridiculous.
this board is full of filth. You guys are trash.Re: White People Are Having The Worst Black History Month Ever
don't be a racist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Just a liiiiiiittle bit of introspection will do you wonders.
Yeah cause as a mixed race black woman who does butt loads of fucking community work dismantling racism I have no idea what I'm talking about. How about you do a liiiiiiittle bit of education and come back when you're not wearing training pants.Re: LECHAT - Counterparty Asset - Available until Feb 4th!
Hey,
The business has been on hold since about Feb 7th as we (the main investors) discuss what to do about this notice we received from the US Government: http://www.filedropper.com/01-22-16lettertocottontailgroup
At the time, it's unclear who (if anyone) had a hand in pointing their attention to us so all discussions around this issues have been private and off public boards.
The business has been on hold since about Feb 7th as we (the main investors) discuss what to do about this notice we received from the US Government: http://www.filedropper.com/01-22-16lettertocottontailgroup
At the time, it's unclear who (if anyone) had a hand in pointing their attention to us so all discussions around this issues have been private and off public boards.
Re: #BlackLivesMatter Activist Interrupts Private Clinton Fundraiser
Oh please. You're believing this chart over the hundreds of black people with real life experiences. Cause the police never lie right? *shakes her head* Nah, dudes. I believe real people over your bullshit FBI stat any day.
Re: White People Are Having The Worst Black History Month Ever
Black artists are using high profile events as a platform to discuss race, making some whites uncomfortable. It shouldnt, because the discussion is overdue.
Race is never a comfortable topic. So often we talk about living in a post-racial society, a society where the color of ones skin is not mutually exclusive to the content of their character.
But this is not the reality. Instead of transcending issues of race, weve shoved it in a closet with the hope that it would stay buried underneath the rest of our dirty laundry. And in the process of doing that, new generations grew, many of them never knowing what it meant to hate someone just because of their skin color.
When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, we were told racism is over, and yet bigotry only grew. First in subtle ways, and then, when pushed, bigotry exploded. Maybe not with the force of the burning hatred of the 60s and before, but one could argue that subtle, seething hatred, mixed with outright denial is even more insidious.
So now, in 2016, America finds itself faced with a blown-open closet where racism and bigotry once again paint the room of our collective discussions and people are extra unhappy about it on both sides.
Much of this unhappiness is rooted in frustration and fear. For so long, black Americans have felt voiceless, and with the election of Obama, theyre told that all those past aggressions are now dead and buried. If a black man can be president, then our transgressions are forevermore anchored to the past.
And yet, it endures.
We live in an America that hasnt been more divided wait, thats not true. Thats being dishonest.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of reverse racism.
What is true, however, is the fact that our divisions have never been more magnified. Its one thing to call each other niggers and honkeys in the privacy of our own homes, amongst like-minded people, but now now through the magic of Social Media, we can see the effects of racism and bigotry played out in living color, and thats no pun.
We see the murders of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown and so many other black men and women, and theyre sent around the country, around the world with just a keystroke, and instead of a collective THIS IS WRONG, we started to hear how they were wrong.
We blamed the victims in an era where victim shaming is supposed to be anathema. Except, somehow, when it comes to black people.
When this resistance to this disproportionate treatment becomes too much for one community to endure, it turns into #BlackLivesMatter, and instead of collective reflection and sympathy, we start to hear that all lives matter, even though the very idea of having to say that black lives matter means that clearly there is a perception that they dont matter enough.
Yet some, a growing number of people, see #BlackLivesMatter as black lives matter more.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of reverse racism.
And now were half way through Black History Month 2016, a month where certain fair and balanced news outlets peddle certain black women to decry its very existence, and America is being taken to task during their favorite events, and its not going over well at all.
The match was lit in of January, with Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith publicly boycotting the Academy Awards over lack of diversity, not only in nominations, but in Hollywood as a whole. The reaction was not loud, and largely brushed off as we moved onto more pressing things in the 24-hour news cycle.
As February moved on the discussion focused on the value of Cam Newton as a black quarterback in the Super Bowl, even though there had been other black quarterbacks, yet there hadnt been a black quarterback quite like Cam, and people were becoming vocal about their distaste of a man who simply wouldnt bow or bend or capitulate to the demands of a white society that required its black entertainers to be safe and palatable.
And then, the Super Bowl 50 halftime show.
Beyonce, one of those black performers who often seems to get the she transcends race pass, did a tribute commemorating the formation of the Black Panther Party during her routine, and everything that mainstream America loved and appreciated about their black performer with the flowing blonde hair turned into resentment and in some cases, hatred.
Beyonce making a public statement against police brutality, something that we all should be opposed to, largely because police brutality is actually something that also transcends race, and yet her performance was not only perceived as anti-police, but also anti-white.
This is where a huge disconnect lies, and it speaks to the idea that we are not in the post-racial society wed like to think were in.
By the time the Grammys aired Monday night, some were already tired of having their noses rubbed in race. For some, the discussion alone was too much, and the hope was that whatever it was Beyonce did at the Super Bowl would calm down enough to let us settle back into our cocoons of avoidance.
And then, Kendrick Lamar took the stage.
Coming on stage in chains, Lamar delivered a forceful message of rage and desperation in verse, and mixed with the imagery, it dropped with all the force of a megaton bomb.
Lamar held up a mirror to all of America during a live telecast which reached millions of people and he called himself a Proud Monkey as he lamented the state of black America in his lyrics.
On February twenty sixth I lost my life too
Its like Im here in a dark dream
Nightmare, hear screams recorded
Say that it sounds distorted but they know who it was
That was me yelling for help when he drowned in his blood
Why didnt he defend himself? Why couldnt he throw a punch?
And for our community do you know what this does?
February 26, 2012 was the date George Zimmerman gunned down an unarmed Trayvon Martin, and as Lamar delivered his performance, he wasnt indicting white America. He wasnt demanding white Americas blood. He was simply asking white America to understand and absorb his pain, because his pain is our pain, even if some of us would rather ignore it.
By the time his performance ended, we were singed, we were frozen in the glow of a man who not only used the platform given to him to not beg for mercy, but rather demand for it.
Of course, the cries of reverse racism and hate came out right on schedule. (See original for screenshots)
There are white people out there who are so bothered by the very notion of blackness, the very idea that race must be addressed after being ignored for so long that the only way to avoid even having a substantive discussion on race relations in America is to accuse anyone who brings it up as being racist.
Its this reality that is exactly why we need these performances from Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. We need the defiance of Cam Newton and sadly we need articles like this to remind everyone that race is not something to be ignored on one hand and used as a weapon on the other.
We are not in a post-racial society because more black men are receiving harsher sentences for first-time offenses.
We are not in a post-racial society because black Americans make less money than white Americans for doing the same work.
We are not in a post-racial society because black Americans dont have access to the same loans than white Americans.
Most importantly, we are not in a post-racial society because black Americans cannot express their pain without white Americans bristling and calling them racist.
Are white people having the worst Black History Month ever? Probably not. Most of these issues can continue to be ignored, and people can continue to shove these issues back in the closet, but for the sake of all of us, those practices have to come to an end.
The only way for us to truly reach the post-racial society we want to have is to recognize that race matters and that if one of us suffers, society suffers. We are capable of such great feats, such monumental moments, and yet black people feel limited and white people fear retribution.
Coming together, once and for all, means embracing all of our shortcomings and looking ourselves in the mirror to confront our own bigotries and those of our family, friends and co-workers.
If you want performances like weve seen in the last month to end, you have to accept why they exist in the first place.
Black lives do matter. So do white lives. But we cannot say that all lives matter until we act like it. The time for avoidance is over.
http://neverdaunted.net/white-people-are-having-the-worst-black-history-month-ever/
Race is never a comfortable topic. So often we talk about living in a post-racial society, a society where the color of ones skin is not mutually exclusive to the content of their character.
But this is not the reality. Instead of transcending issues of race, weve shoved it in a closet with the hope that it would stay buried underneath the rest of our dirty laundry. And in the process of doing that, new generations grew, many of them never knowing what it meant to hate someone just because of their skin color.
When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, we were told racism is over, and yet bigotry only grew. First in subtle ways, and then, when pushed, bigotry exploded. Maybe not with the force of the burning hatred of the 60s and before, but one could argue that subtle, seething hatred, mixed with outright denial is even more insidious.
So now, in 2016, America finds itself faced with a blown-open closet where racism and bigotry once again paint the room of our collective discussions and people are extra unhappy about it on both sides.
Much of this unhappiness is rooted in frustration and fear. For so long, black Americans have felt voiceless, and with the election of Obama, theyre told that all those past aggressions are now dead and buried. If a black man can be president, then our transgressions are forevermore anchored to the past.
And yet, it endures.
We live in an America that hasnt been more divided wait, thats not true. Thats being dishonest.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of reverse racism.
What is true, however, is the fact that our divisions have never been more magnified. Its one thing to call each other niggers and honkeys in the privacy of our own homes, amongst like-minded people, but now now through the magic of Social Media, we can see the effects of racism and bigotry played out in living color, and thats no pun.
We see the murders of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown and so many other black men and women, and theyre sent around the country, around the world with just a keystroke, and instead of a collective THIS IS WRONG, we started to hear how they were wrong.
We blamed the victims in an era where victim shaming is supposed to be anathema. Except, somehow, when it comes to black people.
When this resistance to this disproportionate treatment becomes too much for one community to endure, it turns into #BlackLivesMatter, and instead of collective reflection and sympathy, we start to hear that all lives matter, even though the very idea of having to say that black lives matter means that clearly there is a perception that they dont matter enough.
Yet some, a growing number of people, see #BlackLivesMatter as black lives matter more.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of reverse racism.
And now were half way through Black History Month 2016, a month where certain fair and balanced news outlets peddle certain black women to decry its very existence, and America is being taken to task during their favorite events, and its not going over well at all.
The match was lit in of January, with Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith publicly boycotting the Academy Awards over lack of diversity, not only in nominations, but in Hollywood as a whole. The reaction was not loud, and largely brushed off as we moved onto more pressing things in the 24-hour news cycle.
As February moved on the discussion focused on the value of Cam Newton as a black quarterback in the Super Bowl, even though there had been other black quarterbacks, yet there hadnt been a black quarterback quite like Cam, and people were becoming vocal about their distaste of a man who simply wouldnt bow or bend or capitulate to the demands of a white society that required its black entertainers to be safe and palatable.
And then, the Super Bowl 50 halftime show.
Beyonce, one of those black performers who often seems to get the she transcends race pass, did a tribute commemorating the formation of the Black Panther Party during her routine, and everything that mainstream America loved and appreciated about their black performer with the flowing blonde hair turned into resentment and in some cases, hatred.
Beyonce making a public statement against police brutality, something that we all should be opposed to, largely because police brutality is actually something that also transcends race, and yet her performance was not only perceived as anti-police, but also anti-white.
This is where a huge disconnect lies, and it speaks to the idea that we are not in the post-racial society wed like to think were in.
By the time the Grammys aired Monday night, some were already tired of having their noses rubbed in race. For some, the discussion alone was too much, and the hope was that whatever it was Beyonce did at the Super Bowl would calm down enough to let us settle back into our cocoons of avoidance.
And then, Kendrick Lamar took the stage.
Coming on stage in chains, Lamar delivered a forceful message of rage and desperation in verse, and mixed with the imagery, it dropped with all the force of a megaton bomb.
Lamar held up a mirror to all of America during a live telecast which reached millions of people and he called himself a Proud Monkey as he lamented the state of black America in his lyrics.
On February twenty sixth I lost my life too
Its like Im here in a dark dream
Nightmare, hear screams recorded
Say that it sounds distorted but they know who it was
That was me yelling for help when he drowned in his blood
Why didnt he defend himself? Why couldnt he throw a punch?
And for our community do you know what this does?
February 26, 2012 was the date George Zimmerman gunned down an unarmed Trayvon Martin, and as Lamar delivered his performance, he wasnt indicting white America. He wasnt demanding white Americas blood. He was simply asking white America to understand and absorb his pain, because his pain is our pain, even if some of us would rather ignore it.
By the time his performance ended, we were singed, we were frozen in the glow of a man who not only used the platform given to him to not beg for mercy, but rather demand for it.
Of course, the cries of reverse racism and hate came out right on schedule. (See original for screenshots)
There are white people out there who are so bothered by the very notion of blackness, the very idea that race must be addressed after being ignored for so long that the only way to avoid even having a substantive discussion on race relations in America is to accuse anyone who brings it up as being racist.
Its this reality that is exactly why we need these performances from Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. We need the defiance of Cam Newton and sadly we need articles like this to remind everyone that race is not something to be ignored on one hand and used as a weapon on the other.
We are not in a post-racial society because more black men are receiving harsher sentences for first-time offenses.
We are not in a post-racial society because black Americans make less money than white Americans for doing the same work.
We are not in a post-racial society because black Americans dont have access to the same loans than white Americans.
Most importantly, we are not in a post-racial society because black Americans cannot express their pain without white Americans bristling and calling them racist.
Are white people having the worst Black History Month ever? Probably not. Most of these issues can continue to be ignored, and people can continue to shove these issues back in the closet, but for the sake of all of us, those practices have to come to an end.
The only way for us to truly reach the post-racial society we want to have is to recognize that race matters and that if one of us suffers, society suffers. We are capable of such great feats, such monumental moments, and yet black people feel limited and white people fear retribution.
Coming together, once and for all, means embracing all of our shortcomings and looking ourselves in the mirror to confront our own bigotries and those of our family, friends and co-workers.
If you want performances like weve seen in the last month to end, you have to accept why they exist in the first place.
Black lives do matter. So do white lives. But we cannot say that all lives matter until we act like it. The time for avoidance is over.
http://neverdaunted.net/white-people-are-having-the-worst-black-history-month-ever/
i am really done with this stuff... all the racist saying must be banned all over the world .. we shoul admit that we are just a simple human being .. it doesnt matter whether we are black or white...
It's important to recognize the history of how we got to this point because we're not all equal. Even if you think you aren't doing racist things, being raised in a racist culture means you do them without understanding - not that they don't happen. So it does actually matter what our race is because that's how we can respectfully rebalance and find healing.
In my opinion it seems to me that you are full of hatred in the heart
starting from the moment that you say shot black man and white woman shot these being racist what we are trying to do is to call people
by their names believe the US die more color citizens "white" than the color "black"
We have many films which have good actors like samuel jackson lee (my favorite actor) Denzel Washington, Will Smith are people of great
name and begin to remember the past and collect every discrimination that blacks suffer you will get more hate
Arabs suffer discrimicao US
Mexicans suffer discrimination in the US
are not black people who have this kind of problem
The problem is in the minds of people who still use the word "black" "white" "that black man" "that white home"
Stop it, people have a name
The not press should say black citizen was shot when the name of this citizen is Paul
must say, Paul was shot!
That's because you're stunted emotionally. Asking for compassion and consideration for hundreds of years of genocide and the present daily violence is like... the opposite of hatred.
And I can talk about blackness without needing to speak to every marginalization. Saying black lives matter doesn't mean others don't and if you think that, you're the one full of hatred at the very idea of a black person being respected.Re: #BlackLivesMatter Activist Interrupts Private Clinton Fundraiser
As Moloch and bryant.coleman's posts showed, you'd think if this group was actually trying to enact real change then they'd be in the 'hood and predominately black American neighborhoods and businesses, etc. protesting, where the message really needs to be pushed. For years it has been no secret that black-on-black crime and murder is a HUGE problem. So where's the culpability? There is no way this issue will ever be resolved like this, it is like treating cancer by prescribing cold medicine, it makes no sense. But just like everything else, there are unseen forces behind this organization and "movement", they surely do not want any true change to take place yet the herd will not take the time from posting their latest meal or location on social media to actually seek the truth or question anything.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/exposed-whos-really-behind-black-lives-matter-and-what-they-are-trying-to-do-next/
Quote
Black Lives Matter has made a name for itself by, some might say, fanning the flames of racial tension in the United States.
Questions remain about how the radical organizations that make up the Black Lives Matter movement are supported.
Now, though, key sources of support for the movement have been revealed.
The Washington Times exposed last January that leftist billionaire George Soros gave more than $30 million in seed money to Black Lives Matter affiliated groups.
According to Essence magazine, Google is also helping to fund the Black Lives Matter movement, giving $2.35 million in grants to activist organizations addressing the racial injustices that have swept the nation.
Now, Politico reports that some of the biggest donors on the left plan to meet behind closed doors next week in Washington with leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement and their allies to discuss funding for the burgeoning protest movement.
The major liberal donor group Democracy Alliance (DA) will be holding its annual meeting from Tuesday evening through Saturday morning in Washington, and meetings will be held to discuss funding the movement.
Wealthy donors including Tom Steyer and Paul Egerman are expected to attend the DA annual meeting.
The Los Angeles Times has reported that Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire, gave the most to political campaigns of any single person in the 2014 midterm elections, contributing a whopping $74 millionalmost three times as much as the second biggest donor, Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg gave $27.7 million.
The DA was started in 2005 by major liberal donors, including George Soros and Taco Bell heir Rob McKay, who hoped to build a permanent infrastructure to support leftist causes.
Questions remain about how the radical organizations that make up the Black Lives Matter movement are supported.
Now, though, key sources of support for the movement have been revealed.
The Washington Times exposed last January that leftist billionaire George Soros gave more than $30 million in seed money to Black Lives Matter affiliated groups.
According to Essence magazine, Google is also helping to fund the Black Lives Matter movement, giving $2.35 million in grants to activist organizations addressing the racial injustices that have swept the nation.
Now, Politico reports that some of the biggest donors on the left plan to meet behind closed doors next week in Washington with leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement and their allies to discuss funding for the burgeoning protest movement.
The major liberal donor group Democracy Alliance (DA) will be holding its annual meeting from Tuesday evening through Saturday morning in Washington, and meetings will be held to discuss funding the movement.
Wealthy donors including Tom Steyer and Paul Egerman are expected to attend the DA annual meeting.
The Los Angeles Times has reported that Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire, gave the most to political campaigns of any single person in the 2014 midterm elections, contributing a whopping $74 millionalmost three times as much as the second biggest donor, Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg gave $27.7 million.
The DA was started in 2005 by major liberal donors, including George Soros and Taco Bell heir Rob McKay, who hoped to build a permanent infrastructure to support leftist causes.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/exposed-whos-really-behind-black-lives-matter-and-what-they-are-trying-to-do-next/
Amazing how loud and cranky the racists on this forum are.
As agreeing with Moloch and bryant.coleman's (obvious racists) posts show, you yourself are an ignorant racist spouting shit you don't understand.
Re: #BlackLivesMatter Activist Interrupts Private Clinton Fundraiser
I don't really know how I feel about this one. On one hand it's great to see people calling Hillary out on her crap but I think Ashley's rashness cost her a viable rebuttle if Clinton would have never answered her while she stayed their calmly. 500$ just to lose your temper in person is ridiculous.
You're failing to take into account the mass violence against Black people in the States, a death every 28 hours and mass terrorizing by law enforcement. Nobody cares wtf Clinton thinks other than being really sorry about her part in that violence. Lol.
Former CIA Agent Says Edward Snowden Revelations Emboldened Apple to Push Back
We speak with former CIA agent Barry Eisler about the role of Edward Snowden in raising public awareness about encryption and privacy ahead of the FBIs push for Apple to break the encryption of the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. "So much of Snowdens revelations were about this very thing. And the fact that the public knows about corporate cooperation with the government now is in part, I think, what has emboldened Apple to push back," Eisler says. "If we didnt know about these things, I would expect that Apple would be quietly cooperating. There would be no cost to their doing so." Eisner also discusses his new novel, "The Gods Eye View," which he says is "grounded in things that are actually happening in the world.
I realized I was not going nearly far enough in what I had imagined."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, lets turn to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In a 2013 interview with The Guardian just after his identity was revealed, Snowden explained why he risked his career to leak the documents.
EDWARD SNOWDEN: I think that the public is owed an explanation of the motivations behind the people who make these disclosures that are outside of the democratic model. When you are subverting the power of government, that thats a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy. And if you do that in secret consistently, you know, as the government does when it wants to benefit from a secret action that it took, it will kind of get its officials a mandate to go, "Hey, you know, tell the press about this thing and that thing, so the public is on our side." But they rarely, if ever, do that when an abuse occurs. That falls to individual citizens. But theyre typically maligned. You know, it becomes a thing of these people are against the country, theyre against the government. But Im not. Im no different from anybody else. I dont have special skills. Im just another guy who sits there, day to day, in the office, watches what happeningwhats happening, and goes, "This is something thats not our place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong." And Im willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them and say, "I didnt change these. I didnt modify the story. This is the truth. This is whats happening. You should decide whether we need to be doing this."
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in 2013. So, Barry Eisler, you begin your book with Edward Snowden. Could you talk about that decision to talk about Edward Snowden?
BARRY EISLER: Sure.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And also, the title of your book is The Gods Eye View.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah. So, like all my fiction, but especially so in this case, its grounded in things that are actually happening in the world. And when I first had the idea for this book, by the way, I had a notion for a pretty far-reaching surveillance program, and I thought it would make the good basisa good basis for a novel. My concern was that what I had in mind was going to be too far-reaching. And because my brand has a lot to do with realism, I thought people might say, "Come on, Barry, the governments not really doing all that." And while I was working on my previous book but just kind of thinking about this next one, I was actually in Tokyo doing research. June 2013 is when Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras first brokefirst started breaking stories with The Guardian based on Snowdens revelations. And I was immediately electrified, and I realized, "Oh, my god! I was not going nearly far enough in what I had imagined."
AMY GOODMAN: Now, I mean, whats interesting is youre a fiction writer here.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: But your background is CIA
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: in covert operations.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you begin this book with Poitras and Greenwald meeting with Snowden in Hong Kong, complete catastrophe for the intelligence agency here.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Theyre woken up in the middle of the night: "What do we do?" And the discussion of just taking them all out
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: including Ewen MacAskill, who is from The Guardian, who was with them.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Taking them out.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: But you do have a background in reality, which is in covert operations.
BARRY EISLER: Right, yeah. So, if youre asking me, have I ever heard the government give an order to kill a journalist, the answer is no. But I do know that, increasingly, the government equates journalism with terrorismI mean, explicitly. And if were using certain tools and tactics against terrorists, then it makes sense those things are going to migrate to other enemies of the state, right? In fact, I think that when you think about terrorist groups like ISIS and then power centers in countries like America, a group like ISIS is nothing but ISISis nothing but upside to any political establishment figure who wants to increase his or her budget, or up fear among the public so that the politician can gain more power, and means more profits for corporations involved in the war machinereally, nothing but upside.
But dissident groupsstudent groups, antiwar groups, civil rights activistsrepresent a lot of downside. And this isand journalists, most of all, who are relyingreal journalists, who are relying on whistleblowers and real leaks to carry out their journalism. So, when I imagine how is the government going to respond to this kind of thing, Im thinking, well, how does the government respond towhat sort of tools has it developed and has it deployed against the ostensible enemies of the government, and how is it going to deploy them against real enemies, like journalists?
AMY GOODMAN: How were you deployed in the CIA?
BARRY EISLER: I didnt do very much with the CIA. And whenever I say that, people are like, "Yeah, right." Its like when a presidential candidate says, you know, "I have no intention of running for president," and people are like, "Oh, come on, man! You know, when are you really going to"it reallyI was there for barely three years. It was mostly training. It was a super-interesting experience. Im glad I had it. And it definitely informs everything I write about, and hopefully makes the sort of spycraft, countersurveillance, surveillance, all sorts of tradecraft and the mentality of spies, that sort of thing that I depict in my novelshopefully, the experience I had with the CIA makes all that as realistic as possible. But I wish I could say on Democracy Now! that I was involved in numerous coups and assassinations. It would be a really cool segment were doing. But alas, it was mostly training.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: But one of the things that youve said that you learned at the CIA was that sometimes it pays to cover up the commission of a serious crime
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: by confessing to a lesser one.
BARRY EISLER: Yes. And its funny how often I see that sort of thing played out in national headlines. There are things they say at the CIA that are said partly in jest, but only partly. So, another one is it is better to seek forgiveness than ask permission. And I see the government doing this sort of thing constantly. And yeah, so, some of these things you really doanother one is deny everything, you admit nothing, make counter-accusations. Keep that one in mind. You will see the government doing it, youll see politicians doing it all the time.
AMY GOODMAN: So, The Gods Eye View, what is it?
BARRY EISLER: Well, I dont want to give away any spoilers, but Gods Eye is a program of far-reaching surveillance in the book. And
AMY GOODMAN: And this is a fiction book?
BARRY EISLER: Well, I have an 18-page bibliography at the end of the book, because I want people to know that if you dont follow these things closely, you might haveyou might have that reaction I was talking about earlier, which is, youll read the book and say, "Well, that wasthat was a fun, entertaining thriller, but come on. Can the government really do these things? Is it really doing these things?" And reviews thus far have been really gratifying for me, because people do respond to the book the way I would hope they would respond to fiction: They enjoy it, its gripping, theyre on the edge of their seats, and then they say, "And then I came to the bibliography, and I realized, oh, my god, all these things are real." They are real. I speculated a little bit about how a program like Gods Eye would be deployed, but all the technologies I describe in the bookand there are some that will make your hair stand uptheyre real, and theyre actually deployed.
AMY GOODMAN: Like?
BARRY EISLER: Can you hack into a car? Can you turn a microphone on, not just on a phone, but on all these personal assistant devices that are getting deployed in peoples homesbaby cameras, closed-circuit television, all over the
AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible]
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, heart devices, pacemakers, these sorts of things. In my very first book, which I started writing in 1993it was published in 2002A Clean Kill in Tokyo, my half-American, half-Japanese assassin, John Rain, shorted out a guys pacemaker wirelessly. And at the time, there was no Bluetooth, it was allI was using infrared, but it was wireless. And I checked with a Harvard cardiac pacemaker specialist, a guy I lived with in college, actually. I said, "Could you really do this?" And hes like, "Well, I guess so. Why would you want to?" as people always asked me at the time. Now they know Im a novelist. Anyway, yeah, it turns out you can absolutely do this, so much so that Dick Cheney, in his memoirs, acknowledged that he had his heart doctor turn off the wireless feature on his pacemaker because of concerns that somebody might try to turn it off. I was going to say "terrorist," but actually probably there a lot of people who probably, at one time or another, considered pressing the button on that.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, very quickly, before we conclude, I want to ask you about something you said earlier, that the government increasingly equates journalism with terrorism.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: How did you learn that?
BARRY EISLER: Just by observing. I remember when David Miranda was detained at Heathrow. I guess this was about two years ago.
AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwalds partner.
BARRY EISLER: Right. And I wondered, why is the government doing this? I mean, they must know. Its not like hes got the only copy of whatever it is theyre looking for, so why do something like that? And I realized, look, this is basically a deny-and-disrupt operation. I mean, why does the government want terrorists to know that its into their cellphones, that it can track you by your cellphone use and probably put in a drone strike based on that information? In fact, we know that sort of thing goes on, whether its a so-called signature struck, where they dont know your identity, or where they do. Why do they do that? Is it to make terrorists unable to communicate? No, it wont have that effect. Its to make it more difficult for them to communicate, to make plotting whatever the terrorists are trying to plot slower and harder. And thats why the government does these things. So I thought, why detain this guy? Well, its
AMY GOODMAN: Under the Terrorism Act.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, I know. So, this is anotherthank you. That is the quintessential example of like, "Oh, wow, so journalists really are literally terrorists," in this case to the U.K. government, but in cooperation with the American government. So, theyre not going to stop journalists from communicating by this, but its a kind of signal. They know that for the most sensitive things that journalists are working on, journalists dont trust their cellphones, and theyre using human couriers. So what do you do? You let them know even human couriers are not going to be safe for you. Deny and disrupt.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end by asking you a question that our colleague, Jeremy Scahill, asked you last night
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: in a Q&A that you had here in New York. And its about something that the Clinton campaign is trying to make a big deal of, something Bernie Sanders said decades ago
BARRY EISLER: Oh, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: calling the CIA a dangerous institution that has got to go. He said this in 1974.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, he is not saying that today. These days, he talks about more oversight for the agency.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: But as a former person in covert operations at the CIA
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: do you share his view more, the one he expresses today, more oversight, or the one he expressed 40 years ago, do away with the CIA?
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, I would say, first, that people need to understand Sanders is not an outlier in calling for the abolishment of the CIA. President Truman said hed get rid of the agency. John F. Kennedy famously said he would shatter the organization into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. This is following the Bay of Pigs. A lotDaniel Moynihan said, "Oh, my god! Were not getting our moneys worth. This thing is doing more harm than good."
AMY GOODMAN: The senator.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, Senatorformer Senator Moynihan. So there have been a lot of prominent people who have hadwho have been in a position to weigh the costs and benefits of the CIAs existence, and have come out thinking that, on balance, national security would be improved if we actually just didnt have a CIA. So that is a perfectly defensible and respectable position. Thats one thing.
The other thing is, look, at a minimum, if I were advising Sanders today, I would say, at a minimum, youve got to detach the covert action arm from the intelligence gathering and analysis arm. Its justthese are two things that inherently dont function well together. Just as the NSA is tasked with, on the one hand, destroying encryption, and on the other hand, theres another part of the organization that is tasked ostensibly with improving encryption, you cant putthats like putting a humidifier and a dehumidifier in the room and telling them to battle it out. Its just likeit doesnt work. Youre not going to get good results. And so, with the agency, the covert military arm of the agency really should be put in the military. It shouldnt be in a position to interfere with the objectivity of intelligence analysis that our policymakers rely on.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/25/former_cia_agent_says_edward_snowden
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, lets turn to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In a 2013 interview with The Guardian just after his identity was revealed, Snowden explained why he risked his career to leak the documents.
EDWARD SNOWDEN: I think that the public is owed an explanation of the motivations behind the people who make these disclosures that are outside of the democratic model. When you are subverting the power of government, that thats a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy. And if you do that in secret consistently, you know, as the government does when it wants to benefit from a secret action that it took, it will kind of get its officials a mandate to go, "Hey, you know, tell the press about this thing and that thing, so the public is on our side." But they rarely, if ever, do that when an abuse occurs. That falls to individual citizens. But theyre typically maligned. You know, it becomes a thing of these people are against the country, theyre against the government. But Im not. Im no different from anybody else. I dont have special skills. Im just another guy who sits there, day to day, in the office, watches what happeningwhats happening, and goes, "This is something thats not our place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong." And Im willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them and say, "I didnt change these. I didnt modify the story. This is the truth. This is whats happening. You should decide whether we need to be doing this."
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in 2013. So, Barry Eisler, you begin your book with Edward Snowden. Could you talk about that decision to talk about Edward Snowden?
BARRY EISLER: Sure.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And also, the title of your book is The Gods Eye View.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah. So, like all my fiction, but especially so in this case, its grounded in things that are actually happening in the world. And when I first had the idea for this book, by the way, I had a notion for a pretty far-reaching surveillance program, and I thought it would make the good basisa good basis for a novel. My concern was that what I had in mind was going to be too far-reaching. And because my brand has a lot to do with realism, I thought people might say, "Come on, Barry, the governments not really doing all that." And while I was working on my previous book but just kind of thinking about this next one, I was actually in Tokyo doing research. June 2013 is when Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras first brokefirst started breaking stories with The Guardian based on Snowdens revelations. And I was immediately electrified, and I realized, "Oh, my god! I was not going nearly far enough in what I had imagined."
AMY GOODMAN: Now, I mean, whats interesting is youre a fiction writer here.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: But your background is CIA
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: in covert operations.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you begin this book with Poitras and Greenwald meeting with Snowden in Hong Kong, complete catastrophe for the intelligence agency here.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Theyre woken up in the middle of the night: "What do we do?" And the discussion of just taking them all out
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: including Ewen MacAskill, who is from The Guardian, who was with them.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Taking them out.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: But you do have a background in reality, which is in covert operations.
BARRY EISLER: Right, yeah. So, if youre asking me, have I ever heard the government give an order to kill a journalist, the answer is no. But I do know that, increasingly, the government equates journalism with terrorismI mean, explicitly. And if were using certain tools and tactics against terrorists, then it makes sense those things are going to migrate to other enemies of the state, right? In fact, I think that when you think about terrorist groups like ISIS and then power centers in countries like America, a group like ISIS is nothing but ISISis nothing but upside to any political establishment figure who wants to increase his or her budget, or up fear among the public so that the politician can gain more power, and means more profits for corporations involved in the war machinereally, nothing but upside.
But dissident groupsstudent groups, antiwar groups, civil rights activistsrepresent a lot of downside. And this isand journalists, most of all, who are relyingreal journalists, who are relying on whistleblowers and real leaks to carry out their journalism. So, when I imagine how is the government going to respond to this kind of thing, Im thinking, well, how does the government respond towhat sort of tools has it developed and has it deployed against the ostensible enemies of the government, and how is it going to deploy them against real enemies, like journalists?
AMY GOODMAN: How were you deployed in the CIA?
BARRY EISLER: I didnt do very much with the CIA. And whenever I say that, people are like, "Yeah, right." Its like when a presidential candidate says, you know, "I have no intention of running for president," and people are like, "Oh, come on, man! You know, when are you really going to"it reallyI was there for barely three years. It was mostly training. It was a super-interesting experience. Im glad I had it. And it definitely informs everything I write about, and hopefully makes the sort of spycraft, countersurveillance, surveillance, all sorts of tradecraft and the mentality of spies, that sort of thing that I depict in my novelshopefully, the experience I had with the CIA makes all that as realistic as possible. But I wish I could say on Democracy Now! that I was involved in numerous coups and assassinations. It would be a really cool segment were doing. But alas, it was mostly training.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: But one of the things that youve said that you learned at the CIA was that sometimes it pays to cover up the commission of a serious crime
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: by confessing to a lesser one.
BARRY EISLER: Yes. And its funny how often I see that sort of thing played out in national headlines. There are things they say at the CIA that are said partly in jest, but only partly. So, another one is it is better to seek forgiveness than ask permission. And I see the government doing this sort of thing constantly. And yeah, so, some of these things you really doanother one is deny everything, you admit nothing, make counter-accusations. Keep that one in mind. You will see the government doing it, youll see politicians doing it all the time.
AMY GOODMAN: So, The Gods Eye View, what is it?
BARRY EISLER: Well, I dont want to give away any spoilers, but Gods Eye is a program of far-reaching surveillance in the book. And
AMY GOODMAN: And this is a fiction book?
BARRY EISLER: Well, I have an 18-page bibliography at the end of the book, because I want people to know that if you dont follow these things closely, you might haveyou might have that reaction I was talking about earlier, which is, youll read the book and say, "Well, that wasthat was a fun, entertaining thriller, but come on. Can the government really do these things? Is it really doing these things?" And reviews thus far have been really gratifying for me, because people do respond to the book the way I would hope they would respond to fiction: They enjoy it, its gripping, theyre on the edge of their seats, and then they say, "And then I came to the bibliography, and I realized, oh, my god, all these things are real." They are real. I speculated a little bit about how a program like Gods Eye would be deployed, but all the technologies I describe in the bookand there are some that will make your hair stand uptheyre real, and theyre actually deployed.
AMY GOODMAN: Like?
BARRY EISLER: Can you hack into a car? Can you turn a microphone on, not just on a phone, but on all these personal assistant devices that are getting deployed in peoples homesbaby cameras, closed-circuit television, all over the
AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible]
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, heart devices, pacemakers, these sorts of things. In my very first book, which I started writing in 1993it was published in 2002A Clean Kill in Tokyo, my half-American, half-Japanese assassin, John Rain, shorted out a guys pacemaker wirelessly. And at the time, there was no Bluetooth, it was allI was using infrared, but it was wireless. And I checked with a Harvard cardiac pacemaker specialist, a guy I lived with in college, actually. I said, "Could you really do this?" And hes like, "Well, I guess so. Why would you want to?" as people always asked me at the time. Now they know Im a novelist. Anyway, yeah, it turns out you can absolutely do this, so much so that Dick Cheney, in his memoirs, acknowledged that he had his heart doctor turn off the wireless feature on his pacemaker because of concerns that somebody might try to turn it off. I was going to say "terrorist," but actually probably there a lot of people who probably, at one time or another, considered pressing the button on that.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, very quickly, before we conclude, I want to ask you about something you said earlier, that the government increasingly equates journalism with terrorism.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: How did you learn that?
BARRY EISLER: Just by observing. I remember when David Miranda was detained at Heathrow. I guess this was about two years ago.
AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwalds partner.
BARRY EISLER: Right. And I wondered, why is the government doing this? I mean, they must know. Its not like hes got the only copy of whatever it is theyre looking for, so why do something like that? And I realized, look, this is basically a deny-and-disrupt operation. I mean, why does the government want terrorists to know that its into their cellphones, that it can track you by your cellphone use and probably put in a drone strike based on that information? In fact, we know that sort of thing goes on, whether its a so-called signature struck, where they dont know your identity, or where they do. Why do they do that? Is it to make terrorists unable to communicate? No, it wont have that effect. Its to make it more difficult for them to communicate, to make plotting whatever the terrorists are trying to plot slower and harder. And thats why the government does these things. So I thought, why detain this guy? Well, its
AMY GOODMAN: Under the Terrorism Act.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, I know. So, this is anotherthank you. That is the quintessential example of like, "Oh, wow, so journalists really are literally terrorists," in this case to the U.K. government, but in cooperation with the American government. So, theyre not going to stop journalists from communicating by this, but its a kind of signal. They know that for the most sensitive things that journalists are working on, journalists dont trust their cellphones, and theyre using human couriers. So what do you do? You let them know even human couriers are not going to be safe for you. Deny and disrupt.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end by asking you a question that our colleague, Jeremy Scahill, asked you last night
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: in a Q&A that you had here in New York. And its about something that the Clinton campaign is trying to make a big deal of, something Bernie Sanders said decades ago
BARRY EISLER: Oh, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: calling the CIA a dangerous institution that has got to go. He said this in 1974.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, he is not saying that today. These days, he talks about more oversight for the agency.
BARRY EISLER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: But as a former person in covert operations at the CIA
BARRY EISLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: do you share his view more, the one he expresses today, more oversight, or the one he expressed 40 years ago, do away with the CIA?
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, I would say, first, that people need to understand Sanders is not an outlier in calling for the abolishment of the CIA. President Truman said hed get rid of the agency. John F. Kennedy famously said he would shatter the organization into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. This is following the Bay of Pigs. A lotDaniel Moynihan said, "Oh, my god! Were not getting our moneys worth. This thing is doing more harm than good."
AMY GOODMAN: The senator.
BARRY EISLER: Yeah, Senatorformer Senator Moynihan. So there have been a lot of prominent people who have hadwho have been in a position to weigh the costs and benefits of the CIAs existence, and have come out thinking that, on balance, national security would be improved if we actually just didnt have a CIA. So that is a perfectly defensible and respectable position. Thats one thing.
The other thing is, look, at a minimum, if I were advising Sanders today, I would say, at a minimum, youve got to detach the covert action arm from the intelligence gathering and analysis arm. Its justthese are two things that inherently dont function well together. Just as the NSA is tasked with, on the one hand, destroying encryption, and on the other hand, theres another part of the organization that is tasked ostensibly with improving encryption, you cant putthats like putting a humidifier and a dehumidifier in the room and telling them to battle it out. Its just likeit doesnt work. Youre not going to get good results. And so, with the agency, the covert military arm of the agency really should be put in the military. It shouldnt be in a position to interfere with the objectivity of intelligence analysis that our policymakers rely on.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/25/former_cia_agent_says_edward_snowden
#BlackLivesMatter Activist Interrupts Private Clinton Fundraiser
Meanwhile, a Black Lives Matter activist interrupted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a private fundraiser Wednesday night in Charleston, South Carolina. During the event, Ashley Williams held a banner reading "We have to bring them to heel"a reference to controversial statements Clinton made in 1996 about some youth, whom she called "superpredators." Williams then confronted Clinton, saying, "I am not a superpredator."
Ashley Williams: "Im not a superpredator, Hillary Clinton."
Hillary Clinton: "OK, fine. Well talk about it."
Ashley Williams: "Can you apologize to black people for mass incarceration?"
Hillary Clinton: "Well, can I talk? OK, and then maybe you can listen to what I say."
Ashley Williams: "Yes, yes, absolutely."
Hillary Clinton: "OK, fine. Thank you very much. Theres a lot of issues, a lot of issues in this campaign." [...]
Ashley Williams: "I know that you called black youth superpredators in 1994.
Please explain your record. Explain it to us. You owe black people an apology."
Hillary Clinton: "Well, Ill tell you what, if you will give me a chance to talk, IllIll [inaudible] something. You know what? Nobodys ever asked me before. Youre the first person to ask me, and Im happy to address it, but you are the first person to ask me, dear. Um, OK, back to the issues."
That was Black Lives Matter activist Ashley Williams confronting Hillary Clinton at a private fundraiser on Wednesday night. She was then escorted away. Williams says a friend contributed $500 so she could attend the private event.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/25/headlines/blacklivesmatter_activist_interrupts_private_clinton_fundraiser
Ashley Williams: "Im not a superpredator, Hillary Clinton."
Hillary Clinton: "OK, fine. Well talk about it."
Ashley Williams: "Can you apologize to black people for mass incarceration?"
Hillary Clinton: "Well, can I talk? OK, and then maybe you can listen to what I say."
Ashley Williams: "Yes, yes, absolutely."
Hillary Clinton: "OK, fine. Thank you very much. Theres a lot of issues, a lot of issues in this campaign." [...]
Ashley Williams: "I know that you called black youth superpredators in 1994.
Please explain your record. Explain it to us. You owe black people an apology."
Hillary Clinton: "Well, Ill tell you what, if you will give me a chance to talk, IllIll [inaudible] something. You know what? Nobodys ever asked me before. Youre the first person to ask me, and Im happy to address it, but you are the first person to ask me, dear. Um, OK, back to the issues."
That was Black Lives Matter activist Ashley Williams confronting Hillary Clinton at a private fundraiser on Wednesday night. She was then escorted away. Williams says a friend contributed $500 so she could attend the private event.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/25/headlines/blacklivesmatter_activist_interrupts_private_clinton_fundraiser
Re: White People Are Having The Worst Black History Month Ever
Black artists are using high profile events as a platform to discuss race, making some whites uncomfortable. It shouldnt, because the discussion is overdue.
Race is never a comfortable topic. So often we talk about living in a post-racial society, a society where the color of ones skin is not mutually exclusive to the content of their character.
But this is not the reality. Instead of transcending issues of race, weve shoved it in a closet with the hope that it would stay buried underneath the rest of our dirty laundry. And in the process of doing that, new generations grew, many of them never knowing what it meant to hate someone just because of their skin color.
When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, we were told racism is over, and yet bigotry only grew. First in subtle ways, and then, when pushed, bigotry exploded. Maybe not with the force of the burning hatred of the 60s and before, but one could argue that subtle, seething hatred, mixed with outright denial is even more insidious.
So now, in 2016, America finds itself faced with a blown-open closet where racism and bigotry once again paint the room of our collective discussions and people are extra unhappy about it on both sides.
Much of this unhappiness is rooted in frustration and fear. For so long, black Americans have felt voiceless, and with the election of Obama, theyre told that all those past aggressions are now dead and buried. If a black man can be president, then our transgressions are forevermore anchored to the past.
And yet, it endures.
We live in an America that hasnt been more divided wait, thats not true. Thats being dishonest.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of reverse racism.
What is true, however, is the fact that our divisions have never been more magnified. Its one thing to call each other niggers and honkeys in the privacy of our own homes, amongst like-minded people, but now now through the magic of Social Media, we can see the effects of racism and bigotry played out in living color, and thats no pun.
We see the murders of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown and so many other black men and women, and theyre sent around the country, around the world with just a keystroke, and instead of a collective THIS IS WRONG, we started to hear how they were wrong.
We blamed the victims in an era where victim shaming is supposed to be anathema. Except, somehow, when it comes to black people.
When this resistance to this disproportionate treatment becomes too much for one community to endure, it turns into #BlackLivesMatter, and instead of collective reflection and sympathy, we start to hear that all lives matter, even though the very idea of having to say that black lives matter means that clearly there is a perception that they dont matter enough.
Yet some, a growing number of people, see #BlackLivesMatter as black lives matter more.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of reverse racism.
And now were half way through Black History Month 2016, a month where certain fair and balanced news outlets peddle certain black women to decry its very existence, and America is being taken to task during their favorite events, and its not going over well at all.
The match was lit in of January, with Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith publicly boycotting the Academy Awards over lack of diversity, not only in nominations, but in Hollywood as a whole. The reaction was not loud, and largely brushed off as we moved onto more pressing things in the 24-hour news cycle.
As February moved on the discussion focused on the value of Cam Newton as a black quarterback in the Super Bowl, even though there had been other black quarterbacks, yet there hadnt been a black quarterback quite like Cam, and people were becoming vocal about their distaste of a man who simply wouldnt bow or bend or capitulate to the demands of a white society that required its black entertainers to be safe and palatable.
And then, the Super Bowl 50 halftime show.
Beyonce, one of those black performers who often seems to get the she transcends race pass, did a tribute commemorating the formation of the Black Panther Party during her routine, and everything that mainstream America loved and appreciated about their black performer with the flowing blonde hair turned into resentment and in some cases, hatred.
Beyonce making a public statement against police brutality, something that we all should be opposed to, largely because police brutality is actually something that also transcends race, and yet her performance was not only perceived as anti-police, but also anti-white.
This is where a huge disconnect lies, and it speaks to the idea that we are not in the post-racial society wed like to think were in.
By the time the Grammys aired Monday night, some were already tired of having their noses rubbed in race. For some, the discussion alone was too much, and the hope was that whatever it was Beyonce did at the Super Bowl would calm down enough to let us settle back into our cocoons of avoidance.
And then, Kendrick Lamar took the stage.
Coming on stage in chains, Lamar delivered a forceful message of rage and desperation in verse, and mixed with the imagery, it dropped with all the force of a megaton bomb.
Lamar held up a mirror to all of America during a live telecast which reached millions of people and he called himself a Proud Monkey as he lamented the state of black America in his lyrics.
On February twenty sixth I lost my life too
Its like Im here in a dark dream
Nightmare, hear screams recorded
Say that it sounds distorted but they know who it was
That was me yelling for help when he drowned in his blood
Why didnt he defend himself? Why couldnt he throw a punch?
And for our community do you know what this does?
February 26, 2012 was the date George Zimmerman gunned down an unarmed Trayvon Martin, and as Lamar delivered his performance, he wasnt indicting white America. He wasnt demanding white Americas blood. He was simply asking white America to understand and absorb his pain, because his pain is our pain, even if some of us would rather ignore it.
By the time his performance ended, we were singed, we were frozen in the glow of a man who not only used the platform given to him to not beg for mercy, but rather demand for it.
Of course, the cries of reverse racism and hate came out right on schedule. (See original for screenshots)
There are white people out there who are so bothered by the very notion of blackness, the very idea that race must be addressed after being ignored for so long that the only way to avoid even having a substantive discussion on race relations in America is to accuse anyone who brings it up as being racist.
Its this reality that is exactly why we need these performances from Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. We need the defiance of Cam Newton and sadly we need articles like this to remind everyone that race is not something to be ignored on one hand and used as a weapon on the other.
We are not in a post-racial society because more black men are receiving harsher sentences for first-time offenses.
We are not in a post-racial society because black Americans make less money than white Americans for doing the same work.
We are not in a post-racial society because black Americans dont have access to the same loans than white Americans.
Most importantly, we are not in a post-racial society because black Americans cannot express their pain without white Americans bristling and calling them racist.
Are white people having the worst Black History Month ever? Probably not. Most of these issues can continue to be ignored, and people can continue to shove these issues back in the closet, but for the sake of all of us, those practices have to come to an end.
The only way for us to truly reach the post-racial society we want to have is to recognize that race matters and that if one of us suffers, society suffers. We are capable of such great feats, such monumental moments, and yet black people feel limited and white people fear retribution.
Coming together, once and for all, means embracing all of our shortcomings and looking ourselves in the mirror to confront our own bigotries and those of our family, friends and co-workers.
If you want performances like weve seen in the last month to end, you have to accept why they exist in the first place.
Black lives do matter. So do white lives. But we cannot say that all lives matter until we act like it. The time for avoidance is over.
http://neverdaunted.net/white-people-are-having-the-worst-black-history-month-ever/
Race is never a comfortable topic. So often we talk about living in a post-racial society, a society where the color of ones skin is not mutually exclusive to the content of their character.
But this is not the reality. Instead of transcending issues of race, weve shoved it in a closet with the hope that it would stay buried underneath the rest of our dirty laundry. And in the process of doing that, new generations grew, many of them never knowing what it meant to hate someone just because of their skin color.
When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, we were told racism is over, and yet bigotry only grew. First in subtle ways, and then, when pushed, bigotry exploded. Maybe not with the force of the burning hatred of the 60s and before, but one could argue that subtle, seething hatred, mixed with outright denial is even more insidious.
So now, in 2016, America finds itself faced with a blown-open closet where racism and bigotry once again paint the room of our collective discussions and people are extra unhappy about it on both sides.
Much of this unhappiness is rooted in frustration and fear. For so long, black Americans have felt voiceless, and with the election of Obama, theyre told that all those past aggressions are now dead and buried. If a black man can be president, then our transgressions are forevermore anchored to the past.
And yet, it endures.
We live in an America that hasnt been more divided wait, thats not true. Thats being dishonest.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of reverse racism.
What is true, however, is the fact that our divisions have never been more magnified. Its one thing to call each other niggers and honkeys in the privacy of our own homes, amongst like-minded people, but now now through the magic of Social Media, we can see the effects of racism and bigotry played out in living color, and thats no pun.
We see the murders of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown and so many other black men and women, and theyre sent around the country, around the world with just a keystroke, and instead of a collective THIS IS WRONG, we started to hear how they were wrong.
We blamed the victims in an era where victim shaming is supposed to be anathema. Except, somehow, when it comes to black people.
When this resistance to this disproportionate treatment becomes too much for one community to endure, it turns into #BlackLivesMatter, and instead of collective reflection and sympathy, we start to hear that all lives matter, even though the very idea of having to say that black lives matter means that clearly there is a perception that they dont matter enough.
Yet some, a growing number of people, see #BlackLivesMatter as black lives matter more.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of reverse racism.
And now were half way through Black History Month 2016, a month where certain fair and balanced news outlets peddle certain black women to decry its very existence, and America is being taken to task during their favorite events, and its not going over well at all.
The match was lit in of January, with Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith publicly boycotting the Academy Awards over lack of diversity, not only in nominations, but in Hollywood as a whole. The reaction was not loud, and largely brushed off as we moved onto more pressing things in the 24-hour news cycle.
As February moved on the discussion focused on the value of Cam Newton as a black quarterback in the Super Bowl, even though there had been other black quarterbacks, yet there hadnt been a black quarterback quite like Cam, and people were becoming vocal about their distaste of a man who simply wouldnt bow or bend or capitulate to the demands of a white society that required its black entertainers to be safe and palatable.
And then, the Super Bowl 50 halftime show.
Beyonce, one of those black performers who often seems to get the she transcends race pass, did a tribute commemorating the formation of the Black Panther Party during her routine, and everything that mainstream America loved and appreciated about their black performer with the flowing blonde hair turned into resentment and in some cases, hatred.
Beyonce making a public statement against police brutality, something that we all should be opposed to, largely because police brutality is actually something that also transcends race, and yet her performance was not only perceived as anti-police, but also anti-white.
This is where a huge disconnect lies, and it speaks to the idea that we are not in the post-racial society wed like to think were in.
By the time the Grammys aired Monday night, some were already tired of having their noses rubbed in race. For some, the discussion alone was too much, and the hope was that whatever it was Beyonce did at the Super Bowl would calm down enough to let us settle back into our cocoons of avoidance.
And then, Kendrick Lamar took the stage.
Coming on stage in chains, Lamar delivered a forceful message of rage and desperation in verse, and mixed with the imagery, it dropped with all the force of a megaton bomb.
Lamar held up a mirror to all of America during a live telecast which reached millions of people and he called himself a Proud Monkey as he lamented the state of black America in his lyrics.
On February twenty sixth I lost my life too
Its like Im here in a dark dream
Nightmare, hear screams recorded
Say that it sounds distorted but they know who it was
That was me yelling for help when he drowned in his blood
Why didnt he defend himself? Why couldnt he throw a punch?
And for our community do you know what this does?
February 26, 2012 was the date George Zimmerman gunned down an unarmed Trayvon Martin, and as Lamar delivered his performance, he wasnt indicting white America. He wasnt demanding white Americas blood. He was simply asking white America to understand and absorb his pain, because his pain is our pain, even if some of us would rather ignore it.
By the time his performance ended, we were singed, we were frozen in the glow of a man who not only used the platform given to him to not beg for mercy, but rather demand for it.
Of course, the cries of reverse racism and hate came out right on schedule. (See original for screenshots)
There are white people out there who are so bothered by the very notion of blackness, the very idea that race must be addressed after being ignored for so long that the only way to avoid even having a substantive discussion on race relations in America is to accuse anyone who brings it up as being racist.
Its this reality that is exactly why we need these performances from Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. We need the defiance of Cam Newton and sadly we need articles like this to remind everyone that race is not something to be ignored on one hand and used as a weapon on the other.
We are not in a post-racial society because more black men are receiving harsher sentences for first-time offenses.
We are not in a post-racial society because black Americans make less money than white Americans for doing the same work.
We are not in a post-racial society because black Americans dont have access to the same loans than white Americans.
Most importantly, we are not in a post-racial society because black Americans cannot express their pain without white Americans bristling and calling them racist.
Are white people having the worst Black History Month ever? Probably not. Most of these issues can continue to be ignored, and people can continue to shove these issues back in the closet, but for the sake of all of us, those practices have to come to an end.
The only way for us to truly reach the post-racial society we want to have is to recognize that race matters and that if one of us suffers, society suffers. We are capable of such great feats, such monumental moments, and yet black people feel limited and white people fear retribution.
Coming together, once and for all, means embracing all of our shortcomings and looking ourselves in the mirror to confront our own bigotries and those of our family, friends and co-workers.
If you want performances like weve seen in the last month to end, you have to accept why they exist in the first place.
Black lives do matter. So do white lives. But we cannot say that all lives matter until we act like it. The time for avoidance is over.
http://neverdaunted.net/white-people-are-having-the-worst-black-history-month-ever/
i am really done with this stuff... all the racist saying must be banned all over the world .. we shoul admit that we are just a simple human being .. it doesnt matter whether we are black or white...
It's important to recognize the history of how we got to this point because we're not all equal. Even if you think you aren't doing racist things, being raised in a racist culture means you do them without understanding - not that they don't happen. So it does actually matter what our race is because that's how we can respectfully rebalance and find healing.
Re: White People Are Having The Worst Black History Month Ever
True, I thought it was a bit rude for the whole thing at the Superbowl halftime to occur. Was a huge slap in the face to white people...
Good.
They fucking needed it. Who the fuck are you, white boy? Get out of this thread. So you post an article someone else wrote (without even giving credit to the author) which goes on and on about how whitey is a racist and that only by having whitey accept the fact that we are responsible for all of the problems black Americans are facing... And then you respond with a very racist and hate-filled response to someone's comment.
Here's a thought: instead of blaming whites for all of your so-called problems, why not take responsibility for your own actions instead? Why not get over your own hypocritical hatred of whites? Why not take a good look in the mirror yourself?
She can't do that. Marxism and SJWs are like magnets for narcissists. The one thing narcissists can not handle more than anything is self examination. This is why they rely so heavily on censorship. It is like cryptonite to them. If you ever expose a narcissist in public expect them to attack you as if you threatened their life. Marxism and SJWs just give these mentally ill people an avenue to enable their destructive mental imbalance, and plenty of people just like them so they can hide even further from themselves in an attempt to normalize their abhorrent behavior.
Very true. She is a mirror image of her Narcissist-in-Chief POTUS, Barry Obama. I'm sure she voted for him based solely on the color of his skin without any regards to his accomplishments (or lack thereof, in his case) while in the Senate. Oh no! I dared speak out against the Chosen One! I must be a racist.
I'm Canadian.
The world would indeed be boring if we were all white? Our hearts beat like one another we are all the same, whether we are a shade lighter or darker than anyone else is irrelevant and not important, the question is can we live in peace on this planet that we all share together?
It is relevant because great harm has already happened. To say that it's not important also erases the need to address the ways in which our world is still very racist and doesn't ease suffering.
The blissful sound of silence....
Also, I just bought this book by Simon Dixon. http://www.amazon.com/Bank-Future-Protect-before-Governments/dp/1907720375
It's not exactly on being "unbanked" but I heard him on an interview a while ago and he was pretty good at breaking down some things about banking and seems investing teaching folks other ways to go about it.
Also, I just bought this book by Simon Dixon. http://www.amazon.com/Bank-Future-Protect-before-Governments/dp/1907720375
It's not exactly on being "unbanked" but I heard him on an interview a while ago and he was pretty good at breaking down some things about banking and seems investing teaching folks other ways to go about it.
Re: White People Are Having The Worst Black History Month Ever
True, I thought it was a bit rude for the whole thing at the Superbowl halftime to occur. Was a huge slap in the face to white people...
Good.
They fucking needed it. Who the fuck are you, white boy? Get out of this thread. If you understand what I mean?
She is just giving you an example of the difference between, black lives matter, and all lives matter...
The former is exclusionary hypocrisy, while the latter encourages anyone who dislikes discrimination to join them
Black Lives Matter is in response to the massacre of black people by white cops.
Anything other than supporting it is racist bullshit. There's no reason someone would have to justify saying Black Lives Matter, unless you're a racist who doesn't think black lives matter and need to interrupt people when they're talking about it, further derailing any discussion of racism.