Either way, the most important thing to do, is to ignore, insult, argue with, and generally disrespect, Black men online! 🤡 Find a Black man, and yell "Trump is worse!" in his face as hard as you can! Swear at him, and threaten him with violence!
If a man asks a woman out, saying that he's "a nice guy," the woman might still politely decline. She might start to explain why she's not comfortable giving her phone number to men on the street. If the "nice guy," suddenly calls the woman a stupid ****, and tells her "Chad is worse!" and "Have fun getting hit! You deserve what happens to you!" we see that he was never a nice guy.
Pretend that you do understand this, but that you don't understand why "Trump is worse!" is so ineffective.🤡
If Biden doesn't win, it will be the fault of people who vote more than 50% for Trump. Stop expecting Black people to save you. That's not what we're here for. We exist outside of the world of being a voting block every 4 years.
Your "democracy" only works if Black people vote 90% plus for a candidate whose policies exposed them to genocide levels of harm. That's garbage.
@mekkaokereke That's the thing: if White liberal America wants to keep a liberal America it needs to talk to White non-liberal America (their friends, families, co-workers etc) and convince them not to vote for Trump. Focusing on (and blaming) Black people is just absurd.
I'm not lecturing anyone and frankly I don't care as I'm not living in the US. I find it just absurd that White liberal America is positioning itself to blame Black America for Trump, totally ignoring that White America will, with a strong majority, vote the fascist in big time.
@mekkaokereke
It really shows the problem, that when Trump got elected last time, some white people turned around and blamed black people for not voting enough.
@mekkaokereke My son (26) was telling me that a batch of his friends (white kids with college educations and jobs, even if not all great ones) are talking about voting for Trump because Biden is so old and the economy was better under Trump. They could be trolling and talking shit, and they may not bother voting at all. But if Trump is elected, ain't going to be anyone to blame but white folks who decided that a B list celebrity, dictator wannabe was their choice to entrust with the future.
@mekkaokereke
All good points. What I don’t hear explicitly said in the media or Fediverse is that the working class and poor White folks have so much more in common with working class and poor Black and Hispanic and Asian folks than with the White Elites. Sadly, voting is being done more along racial lines instead of by economic or income groups.
(Also I’m 99% wrong 100% of the time.)
Your willingness to ignore the suffering of Black people, and to expect us to continue to vote against our self-interest, has brought us to this point.
Even now, for the brink of disaster, more of you are angry at me for typing this, than angry at yourself for never listening to Black people.
I swear at least one person is typing a "Trump is worse!" reply.
Yes, Black folk have much more to lose under Trump than white people. No, Trump and Biden are not the same.
But a person closer to rock bottom is more willing to let the whole ship sink, than a person with everything to lose.
Think of it this way: Your "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" score might be 70% under Biden, but 49% under Trump. A Black man brutalized by racism his whole life, might be 30% under Biden, but 2% under Trump.
This whole silly conversation can be summed up as white people trying to explain to Black men, that 2% is less than 30%, and that a drop of 28% is more than a drop of 21%, while Black men try to explain to everyone that 30% is not enough.
I guess we''re all going to continue not listening to each other until Trump is elected. 🤷🏿♂️
@mekkaokereke The worst bit about this is that there is no way that this isnt already a calculation that they have made. The polls have been telling Dems how unpopular Biden (AND Kamala) are.
Biden has been trying to campaign in black churches and places they think black folk are going to be to shore up the votes but its not going to work.
@mekkaokereke I’ve heard from several ex Biden voters who are going to vote for Trump because they’re so disgusted by DEI, a thing they can’t actually define other than to say it’s the cause for everything bad in the USA and the economy. This election is going to be decided mostly by conservative voters who in 2020 thought Trump had gone slightly too far but now have wholly embraced a cartoon picture of a Biden that doesn’t exist
They're literally listening to white supremacist talking points without knowing it.
This entire white supremacist playbook, is designed to use the racism inherent in Democratic voters and liberals, to dismantle DEI, to make it easier to attack Black people and Jewish people. This isn't some made up conspiracy theory. The people who are doing this literally wrote down their plan! And shared it publicly before hand! And it still worked! 🤷🏿♂️
@mekkaokereke Speaking as a German, I still hope that Biden gets reelected, as I really don't want the USA to support our local fascists. They get far too much support from Russia already, and don't need that additional help.
But yeah, Democrats have a long history of throwing marginalized groups under the bus while taking their votes for granted.
And saying "The other guy is worse!", while true, is not exactly great for voter enthusiasm.
They really need to do better, rather than ignoring marginalized groups in favor of the elusive "White Centrist" vote.
@mekkaokereke every 4 years I watch the spectacle of 200 plus million people electing someone for position of most powerful commander in the world with the options being "utter shit" and "total garbage"
and yes rationally I know the reason is "because racism", but even with plenty of obvious racism right around here where I live I can't fathom how the US manages to pull this off again and again and again
@mekkaokereke man online conversations are so strange. It’s like jumping in to talk when youre only hearing one side of a phone call.
Cause of course my brain says “I AM trying to work on the structural things, but that’s invisible and slow. In the meantime, I really hope hypothetical lady in the bar doesn’t bring home the guy who’s gonna condemn me to death by sepsis.”
But I didn’t hear the scolding that likely prompted this post. So my response is likely out of context and driven by fear.
@mekkaokereke I will say, there is an aspect to this discussion that irks me. And again it may just be lack of context. But I feel like there is a temptation to say “if Trump wins it’s not MY fault. It’s [blank]’s fault!” And I think those with the most privilege bear the most responsibility, BUT I think if Trump is elected it is all of our faults, especially if we are not actively taking steps to avoid it.
We owe each other, all of us: immigrants, women, trans kids, on and on. No one should feel absolved from effort. That’s not to say anyone is responsible for saving the rest of us, particularly not Black or other excluded groups. But we all have agency and responsibility. No one can sit on their hands and then feel blameless when the consequences hit us.
I am under zero obligation to suffer under racism, then "fight" that racism by yelling at other Black people online, to drive them to vote at an unrealistically high 95%+ rate for the person that passed laws increasing the racism that we suffer, all just to stop the people that subject us to that racism and profit from it from hurting themselves a little too.
My only obligation is to hold a mirror up. Which is what I'm doing in this thread.
@mekkaokereke I don’t think we are under any obligation to yell at each other. But I do feel a strong sense of obligation to the people who will be brutalized under Trump to do my best to keep him from being elected. Maybe that obligation extends only to my own vote. Or certainly in my case to trying to convince other white people not to give him their vote. But I know that if I don’t do everything I can, the first time I read about a baby at the border torn from its mothers arms, that’s on me.
You know that the attacks on DEI are strictly racist. Have you honestly done "everything that you can" to combat that? Everything? As in, there's nothing else that you could possibly do?
You know that newspapers lie about Black people and crime, constantly. Have you honestly done "everything that you can" on that? Everything?
Stop thinking about fighting racism as what you do on voting day. Start thinking about it as specific actions that you take every other day.
@mekkaokereke no I haven’t done everything I can on either of those. Or everything I can on climate. Or Gaza. Or mass incarceration. Or trans rights. Or abortion. No one can do everything they can on everything they care about. We do what we are able to, yes all the time, not just voting. And we hold ourselves accountable when we fall short. It’s my task as much as anyone’s to address these things. I don’t think anyone can just say they don’t have to work on them.
@mekkaokereke but I do get the feeling of like “I’m sick of carrying this shit, to my great detriment and your great benefit. You pick it up for once!”
Certainly that’s true. It’s my task to pick it up and carry much more than people like me have done historically. And convince my compatriots to do the same.
@mekkaokereke sorry for mulling in your thread. I think what gets me in these discussions is the number of people (esp white people) who take this to mean that they get to put what little they were carrying down too and feel self satisfied about it.
@mekkaokereke@Jackiemauro Hey, I agree that it is silly to try to shame people into voting based on their race. I would say that Whites have more responsibility to vote conscientiously since they/we are the beneficiaries of racism. I am wondering, though, what laws Biden passed to increase racism. Thanks.
In the past:
Biden sponsored the infamous "Crime Bill," which exposed many Black people to cruel and absurdly long sentences. This was a federal law, but offered money to states... on the contingency that they make harsher sentences.
Now:
Biden diverted cities' Covid funds to form violent police units that brutalized Black neighborhoods, instead of providing, y'know, masks and air purifiers and financial assistance, like Covid funds were meant for.
Have you ever been physically assaulted by a person armed with a gun, that you knew could shoot you at any moment without facing any consequence? I have. 🙋🏿♂️
Have you ever had a loaded gun pointed at your face from close range? I have.🙋🏿♂️
1 in 5 Black men have an experience like this. 20%.
Given that 20% of Black men have had this experience with cops, we should be surprised and happy that only 15% of them won't vote for any pro-cop candidate🤷🏿♂️
In the 90s, Biden used the federal crime bill to put pressure on cities and states to increase the minimum sentences on minor offenses, which had predictable devastating effects on Black communities. Black men know this fact.
So the dynamic of using Federal pandemic aid, to increase funding for local city and state police departments, is very familiar.
Dems assume that police brutality is always much worse under GOP. Nope!
The folks that try to blacksplain to Black men about why they should vote for Biden, almost never have a clue about any of what I've just listed.
They don't know Biden's full role in the crime bill. They don't know that he gave cops more funds than they asked for. They don't know that he doubled down by hiring 100K more cops. They don't know that he undermined defund with pandemic funds.
@mekkaokereke@Jackiemauro I didn't say it was much worse under the GOP. My assumption is it is about the same. Most of the dynamic is mainly immune to any pronouncements by the president. I would guess that it was slightly lower under Biden than Trump, because at least Biden didn't encourage police to slam people's heads into car door frames. But I really don't know. Since you said Biden passed laws to make it worse, I thought maybe you had data in that direction.
1/2
@mekkaokereke@Jackiemauro I already knew about the CT case. I didn't check the statistics until after I posted the question.
In any case, claiming Biden was passing laws to make racism worse is a strong claim with possible negative impact that is not very strongly supported by evidence. He certainly hasn't done enough to address police racism, although that is a difficult needle to move. OTOH he has appointed many Black judges, and he has lowered Black unemployment to its lowest in 50 years.
Biden directed cities to shift federal pandemic funds to increase police budgets, undermining the defund movement.
Biden directed cities to set up units like the SCORPION units, that brutalized innocent Black people like me, and beat some of us to death. This is the SCORPION unit: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JeI8vdF_-tQ
For you to say that this is not evidence, indicates the difference between what it feels like to talk about it vs live it.
Biden puts "Black faces in high places," because he knows that it placates liberals and people like you. And that's great! I'm happy for those Black faces, and I'm happy for you! 👍🏿
That doesn't change the fact that the missing 10% of Black men voters, are not placated by "Black faces in high places." They're pissed about the police funding, and the SCORPION units, and being vilified and blamed for every pandemic problem. And they're not voting for Biden.
@mekkaokereke@Jackiemauro So, your claim is that any increase in funding for police "increases racism" even when the increase includes required changes in police behavior, including limiting choke holds and carotid holds to situations where deadly force is authorized.
I suspect we're approaching the part of the conversation where the person online with the default profile pic, is about to try to explain to the Black guy that:
a) Works on criminal justice reform, and has launched programs to reduce police violence
b) Has been targeted by police most of his life
c) Is an expert in positional asphyxiation and blood chokes
how these "police reforms" that do nothing, are actually effective?
It doesn't matter if choke holds are against police policy, if police can violate that policy without accountability. That's the whole point.
During BLM protests, police violated the rules defined and supposedly overseen by the civilian review board... on members of that civilian review board!
🙂🙃
And yes, every increase in police staffing, results in disproportionate over-policing of the closest Black community, no matter what that increase was designed to do.
"So, your claim is that any increase in funding for police..."
It's disrespectful to expect Black people to explain the basic facts over and over again.
Listen. I'm not a starter Black person. I'm not gentle or patient on basic, 101 topics. It's 2024. I'm not doing the thing where when I lay out some facts about systemic racism, I have to go back and educate you from ground zero. There was a whole BLM protest on this. I've made so many threads. There are books on this.
🤦🏿♂️I've already written threads about how the "Black people want to increase police funding" is an intentionally misleading lie told by cops and their enablers, and repeated unwittingly by lots of liberals that don't talk to enough Black people.
I'll try and explain it again one more time, this time with an analogy that more non-Black folk are likely to understand...
NYPD budget is $12 billion a year. Billion. The most stolen 2 items in NYC, are 1) cell phone and 2) bike.
NYPD is useless at preventing the theft, or recovering stolen bikes. They're so useless, that they don't even recognize one of the most common heavy duty bike locks. NYPD is good at beating students though.
Suppose your bike was stolen. You call 911. The cops show up, beat you senseless, charge you with resisting arrest, don't recover your bike, and leave.😮
"Do you wish for increased police presence, to reduce bike crime?"
A) Yes! Bike theft is out of control!
B) No! I love having my stuff stolen!
If you choose "A," NYPD budget increases to $13B a year, and you still don't get any reduction in bike crime, but you do get 9% more beatings! 🤡
And now anytime someone complains about cops brutalizing people, they will say "But we asked NSalwen, and they like what we do! They want more of it!" 🤡
Replace "bike theft," with "murder," and you'll start to understand why these BS surveys are done to try to get black neighborhoods to say that they want more of current policing.
No, they don't. They can't. As I've pointed out in other threads.
Because to solve murders, you need to citizens to call the cops. They won't call the cops if they don't trust you. They can't trust you if you employ a few dozen homicide cops, and a few thousand "harass Black people with racism every day," cops.
US policing increases the murder rate. This has been shown since the 70s.
The whole point about removing a fashie is get rid of the fash root and stem and then do good things for everyone to fix the problems that brought out the fash in the first place
For whatever reason, this part seems to never be worked on.
If you don't fix the problems more come and multiply, and eventually people will vote for the fash because "what is the difference".
That is to say, for the people in the comments who are shocked don't be 🤔
@Aviva_Gary@mekkaokereke the people who have great lives under Democratic mini-fascism are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure they never have to experience what marginalized people do, so they want to make sure we stay under Democrats. But once their needs are met, they don't really give a shit about the rest of us, so they're content with just repeating the same cycle every 4 years while never fighting for the rights of those who are already oppressed no matter who's in office
@thepoliticalcat@Aviva_Gary@mekkaokereke people with marginalized kids don't have "great lives" while their kids are at a high risk of medical malpractice or police brutality, unless they live in denial. Those who do live in denial about it are often no exception to what I said, and those who are constantly terrified for their kids' safety were never included in the first place.
As far as generalizations, I'm sure there are exceptions to my blanket statement, and yk what? They'll live.
@mekkaokereke
I'm equally tired of being told what not to do & that I'm not listening to black people. Except I do listen. I work to elect the most progressive people running in Democratic primaries; I help run phone banks calling Philly voters about mail voting to make sure their voices are heard; I post about systematic racism; I volunteer in a Philly school.
Is it impossible to earn an opportunity to offer a bit of feedback on the moral implications of runaway global warming?
"Except I do listen" and then you proceed to list a bunch of things that you think are helpful, but that don't address a single thing that I brought up in this thread. Nowhere do you mention calling out Biden for any of the things I mentioned. You didn't even listen in this thread. 🤷🏿♂️
"I am equally tired!" No. No you're not. Not by a long shot. You just feel like you are, because you don't know how deep the well of pain goes.
@mekkaokereke
Here's what I read:
"The problem isn't Black voters.
The problem isn't Trump.
The problem isn't even Biden.
The problem is you, the Dem voter. Yes, you.
Your willingness to ignore the suffering of Black people, and to expect us to continue to vote against our self-interest, has brought us to this point."
If the problem isn't Biden, the problem is me, I don't understand your reply.
How am I ignoring the suffering of Black people if I'm at the very least trying not to do that?
Have you ever even considered writing a letter to Biden, expressing your complete disappointment in his harmful, racist, policing strategy? At any point before, during, or after an election? Have you ever told him that you will not support him in future, if he doesn't change? OK, letters are more work. How about a phone call?
Easier: Same as above, but for your Senator or Representative?
Easiest: OK, how about your mayor? An ombudsperson? School board member?
I send emails and call my senators & congresswoman on a regular basis and periodically talk with my state rep and senator as well as emailing them on multiple topics, issues of import to POC among them, so that's a definite yes.
I've been an active member of my local Indivisible group from the start and currently run it.
I also regularly disseminate race-class narrative messaging to PA group leaders, my group and my social media accounts (general links in my pined toots).
I don't believe you. I do believe you've written your senator or representative, but I don't believe that you made the very specific point that I made above: If you don't change your support of these policies that are so harmful to Black people, that I will stop supporting you.
In short, your Senator or Representative can safely ignore these pesky Black issues.
Am I wrong? I'd be very happy to be wrong! But I've poked on this a lot over the past 6 years and haven't missed yet
I will readily admit that I am no revolutionary. When the choice is between Biden and Elizabeth Warren in the primary, I pick Warren. When the choice in the general is between sanity and insanity, I'm for sure going to pick sanity.
So no, I've not lied when I've called/written the White House, Senators & Congresswoman. They know and I know there's no single issue that would have me serve insanity.
Can you make the case that my lying would be more impactfull than telling them their position/proposal/vote is wrong, why it's wrong, and my values and their values require better?
What I see from Democrats (and the WFP) at the local, state and federal level, are multiple policies and programs being implemented that benefit marginalized people/communities. They're undoubtedly not everything that needs to be done, but infinitely more than what insanity would do.
I'm not going to tell anyone they should quietly accept not good enough as if it were. At the same time, are you going to tell me I'm wrong for honestly promoting better over dishonestly fostering immeasurably worse?
No one's asking you to get shot next to Fred Hampton. I asked if you'd written a letter. That's too much for you. Which is fine! I'm okay with that! 👍🏿
But then don't ever try to tell the extra 10% of Black men sick of Biden, what they should and shouldn't do. Worry about what you should and shouldn't do first.
80% is what you get from Black men for this election. 85% if we're feeling generous!
Your telling me I should write letters that would be a lie for me. I'm not OK with that.
You're also seem to be accusing me of telling Black men how to vote. I haven't and I won't.
Are you also telling me that I shouldn't offer why I think voting for Biden is a good thing for every voter to do no matter what they look like, who they love, or where they come from?
"If the "nice guy," suddenly calls the woman a stupid ****, and tells her "Chad is worse!" and "Have fun getting hit! You deserve what happens to you!" we see that he was never a nice guy.
Pretend that you do understand this, but that you don't understand why "Trump is worse!" is so ineffective.🤡"
@mekkaokereke if I remember correctly (I am Swedish, looking at this from abroad) no Democratic presidential candidate has won the majority of white votes since the 60s.
Even if you break it down between white women and white men both groups have in every election favored a Republican candidate.
In other words the DNC is literally kept above the surface by minority voters since the 1960s yet these voters are taken for granted.
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