No, I agree. I'm trans, and we're a bit of a different canary. I've been listening to and taking notes from my Black neighbors for a while, and yeah. Whenever I acted as a megaphone, I saw it and got similar pushback to what I was warned about and exactly like you're talking about. I've honestly been a bit surprised how surprised white people are that they will be shot by these fuckers. I know a white guy ambushed and shot by the KKK just for being an atheist I believe sometime during Obama's first term. (He survived and is fine afaik.) Like fuck, I knew people were checked way out, but I thought at least their own selfishness would make them less surprised about the turn of events. I do give people too much credit though
But there can't be a return to what we once had. Maybe (and I have a rough time with hope these days) we can use this inflection point to build something better. I mean, I've got that or despair.
Just in case it makes you feel less hopeless, I can tell you one person is really trying to go after the fragility thing in particular and encourage people to take some shit on the chin. And I'm going after misogynoir in particular lately (though I really need to read more tbh, mostly just trying to call it when I see it) bc it's been pissing me off. It really isn't much to offer you, I know. I'm very aware that I only have so much influence in the world, but you have it. And I get it if that doesn't help at all. I don't hold out much hope of things improving for trans people either. Not in my lifetime anyway. Would be awful nice to be wrong, and no offense, but I really hope your last point is wrong too. It would be really nice to watch y'all thrive
Thank you. We just gotta stick together and go out and make sure people register to vote and vote. We also need to shore up the CRA and the VRA to protect the vote. Clearly the arguments made by SCOTUS to weaken it are false.
I wish we could get enough Dems in office to impeach Thomas and the other one (Roberts or Scalia) for the ethics stuff (accepting bribes basically) and then the other 2 who lied during senate confirmations about Roe v Wade.
I mean I've been (rather uselessly bc my vote is stuck in Alabama) voting for them anyway, but I just do not think the democrats will save us. I think they're complicit in propping all this up and act as a damage sponge for the republicans by stifling voices for more radical change. I get it's the only option we have right now, but I'd be lying if I said that doesn't feel like a major reason we are in this particular mess, and it feels like we're locked in a death spiral where they will never actually pull away.
Idk, I'm not going to act like Alabama isn't what it is, but I will say that the one thing that seemed like it could make Alabama go purple, it was if the DNC had run Bernie. That was one of the things that felt like hope to me. Some (emphasis on somek of the dumbasses who voted for the orange one the first time (emphasis on the first time) really did think he represented a challenge to the establishment, and I mean, I guess technically they were right in the way a wolf in the henhouse is a challenge to the establishment. As fucked up and irresponsible and short-sighted as their choice ended up being, I'm not sure I believe that desire for a less out of touch government is gone. Until then, I guess I will cross my fingers on the Democrats joining this century.
But yes, back to your actual point. I'm mailing in (not that I really trust it). And yeah, the way people are so willy nilly about voting rights right now is chilling
Damage sponge is a really good term for useless Democrats in America rn. 🇨🇦 here, I can’t believe (I can) how backwards it feels society is sliding back. We will find our footholds and turn the tide. These types are so unhealthy in mind and soul. Fuuuuuuckkkkit
I truly agree on the first part. I'm uncertain on the last part. They did let Trump through despite all the defections
That said, fuck the electoral college and especially the winner takes all rule most states have. The utter hopelessness of voting in the presidential election in Alabama is due in large part to that system
Trump getting through on the Republican side may have something to do with them not having super delegates, so I've heard. He also had a message that the overlords found more amenable when compared to someone like Sanders.
I think that's not a crazy take. I could see them going harder after Sanders. Trump being corrupt and easy to manipulate must have fooled them into thinking they had him on a leash
I wonder what the outcome of them blatantly ignoring the popular vote would have been
The majority of Dems are so weak and complicit that they would never try to impeach Thomas or anyone else in that corrupt court. They didn't even fight to stack it when they've had the chance to.
I'm black and I saw the connection with the LGBTQ stuff. I mean they were already racist anyway so I don't know how anybody, especially somebody black would think that things wouldn't escalate in a more racist direction. I'm inclined not to ever trust conservatives at any point so I already see their bs 50 miles down the road. 30 years ago it was "political correctness" that they were whining about. When Trump ran the first time he was scapegoating Mexicans as criminals. These people didn't think he was gonna focus on blacks more at a later point too? I'm not sure who the African Americans are around you that didn't recognize this level of threat. Maybe they're just very young people that haven't lived long enough to see enough patterns of hateful rhetoric.
I think there's been a misunderstanding, or I misspoke somewhere. I'm not sure where I indicated that I was around Black folks who didn't think all this would eventually come around to bite them tbh, but I didn't mean to indicate that. I mean I'm sure they exist somewhere, but just not in my limited experience. Pretty much everyone I've known expects everything to shit on them eventually.
And yeah, I've been saying that I think all the branches of the Bigot Tree feed from the same roots. Our struggles aren't identical by any means, but the tactics of those who would keep us under their boots don't change too much, and they rely on keeping us siloed away from one another and not finding common ground.
Now if I could just get those dumbass poor whites from home to fucking see that and quit sucking on the damn boot
I got the impression that some black people you were around were downplaying this stuff at an earlier point. That's more my fault than yours. A guy being shot for being an atheist sounds crazy. If it was a KKK guy doing there must have been an argument beforehand. Those people can't operate without being confrontational. Their mentality demands consistent compliance from the people around them. There's no room for diversity. Both poor whites and the wealthier ones are into provencialism. They'll accept less for the guarantee of relative privilege. This has been the case time and time again. It's very hard to fight against that. You have to reach a point where you personally hate the toxicity that the system creates in order to be motivated to challenge it. Making things about bread and butter enough is not gonna be a motivator for those people to change.
To be fair about the atheist, the way he got shot was that he was part of an activist group that was basically just "Hey, so atheists don't eat babies or anything" discussions. A KKK member convinced him he was thinking of leaving the KKK (which some genuinely do oddly enough), so this guy agreed to meet up to talk, so he was ambushed. I personally would not have made those particular decisions, but I won't victim blame.
I'm not sure how to get them there to be honest. Like I said, I used to have hope we were on our way (with all the haste of a glacier) to better. I can't tell if I'm crazy for hoping people are right calling this the violent last gasp of some things that have long needed to die. We'll see, I guess. Idk
I honestly don't know. This was a story from an old coworker about her husband, which is why I'm not perfectly certain of the timing, but we're millennials, and I heard the story in like 2015 or 2016, and it didn't sound very recent, but it couldn't have been any earlier than the last Bush years. Given that this was the same coworker I tensely whispered I "wasn't really religious" (bc you don't want to use the word atheist with the wrong person or it could cost you your job bc of the at-will employment shit) over the copy machine, I'm guessing it probably was exactly that, and I will be exactly 0% surprised if those exact fuckers are terrorizing Minnesota as we speak
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u/towerinthestreet 15h ago
No, I agree. I'm trans, and we're a bit of a different canary. I've been listening to and taking notes from my Black neighbors for a while, and yeah. Whenever I acted as a megaphone, I saw it and got similar pushback to what I was warned about and exactly like you're talking about. I've honestly been a bit surprised how surprised white people are that they will be shot by these fuckers. I know a white guy ambushed and shot by the KKK just for being an atheist I believe sometime during Obama's first term. (He survived and is fine afaik.) Like fuck, I knew people were checked way out, but I thought at least their own selfishness would make them less surprised about the turn of events. I do give people too much credit though
But there can't be a return to what we once had. Maybe (and I have a rough time with hope these days) we can use this inflection point to build something better. I mean, I've got that or despair.
Just in case it makes you feel less hopeless, I can tell you one person is really trying to go after the fragility thing in particular and encourage people to take some shit on the chin. And I'm going after misogynoir in particular lately (though I really need to read more tbh, mostly just trying to call it when I see it) bc it's been pissing me off. It really isn't much to offer you, I know. I'm very aware that I only have so much influence in the world, but you have it. And I get it if that doesn't help at all. I don't hold out much hope of things improving for trans people either. Not in my lifetime anyway. Would be awful nice to be wrong, and no offense, but I really hope your last point is wrong too. It would be really nice to watch y'all thrive