A bizarre racist outburst at a Texas school board isn’t an isolated event — it’s part of a national pattern

  • LemmyLefty@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    When another trustee asked Dungan if she personally objected to an illustration of cross-racial friendship, she demurred, simply declaring that she was just trying to avoid “situations like that.” Situations like what, exactly? She didn’t say. Dungan’s behavior is a perfect illustration of the “anti-woke” tap dance. The person alleging nefarious wokeness never admits to their own bigotry, instead pretending that they’re reacting to “woke” people who are “pushing” an agenda, in this case through innocuous poster art. Of course, the entire premise of the argument is rooted in bigotry, as this example shows. It presumes that the feelings of real or imagined bigots who might take umbrage at such an image are of paramount importance, and that everyone else’s freedoms must be curtailed to appease them.

    Fucking thank you, Amanda Marcotte. Nail on the head.

    And thank you for using the word “innocuous” because my god it’s a picture of people holding hands in a school. It probably had something like “teamwork makes the dream work” on it because holy fuck these people probably boil their eyeballs in piss before they stick them in their sockets.

    • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Yeah, it’s good to see reporters actually pressing back on these blatant trolls with their well understood tactics. It’s a shame, however, that the more centrist media is rarely willing to do the same. It’s a common trap that people think you must give equal time to both sides in order to be fair. Reality is that some sides are so dumb and inconsequential that they don’t deserve any air time.

      It’s stupid that the school district even moved the kid to a different class. They never should have caved an inch. That just empowers these maniacs to keep doing this racist, time wasting drivel.

    • InputZero@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      It presumes that the feelings of real or imagined bigots who might take umbrage at such an image are of paramount importance, and that everyone else’s freedoms must be curtailed to appease them.

      I don’t know why this made it click in my head but yeah, they think their imagined hurt feelings are more important than everyone else.

  • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOP
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    11 months ago

    According to ABC 13 Eyewitness News in Houston, things started when school trustee Melissa Dungan declared that she had spoken to parents who were upset about “displays of personal ideologies in classrooms.” When pressed for an example, according to the news report, “Dungan referred to a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races, that they transferred classrooms.” … Some other members of the school board did, in fact, argue that there was nothing objectionable about such a poster. But Dungan was backed up by another trustee, Misty Odenweller, who insisted that the depiction of uh, race-mixing was in some way a “violation of the law.” The two women are part of “Mama Bears Rising,” a secretive far-right group fueling the book-banning mania in Conroe and the surrounding area. At least 59 books have been banned due to their efforts.

    WTF

    • YaaAsantewaa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 months ago

      So it wasn’t the student, it was the kids PARENT that was offended

      These people are mentally disturbed and they probably shouldn’t be allowed to have kids

      • Staccato@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s never the young kids that get offended by this stuff. That sort of bigotry is taught.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      The two women are part of “Mama Bears Rising,” a secretive far-right group fueling the book-banning mania in Conroe and the surrounding area.

      Do these idiots seriously not have something better to do than to worry about other people reading books. Good god, if I spent my whole life so worried about what other people would doing I don’t think I’d ever live.

      Been racist actually takes effort, the lazy thing to do is to accept everyone equally. Because who cares?

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Dungan’s behavior is a perfect illustration of the “anti-woke” tap dance. The person alleging nefarious wokeness never admits to their own bigotry, instead pretending that they’re reacting to “woke” people who are “pushing” an agenda, in this case through innocuous poster art.

    That is a very good take.

    Also: it’s always projection. Conservatives push an agenda, so they assume everyone else does too.

    • ultrasquid@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I really want people to start considering “woke” a slur. Its basically just a word the far right uses for people they don’t like, aka minorities.

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
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        11 months ago

        I really want people to learn the actual meaning of the word - it really says it all. And normally I argue for lingual drift and accepting the changed meaning of words, but in this case most people don’t know the definition, but aside from a racial/identity implication, they’re using it mostly correctly

        Woke means looking at the system critically, not believing the things politicians and public officials tell you at face value, seeing how it’s all designed to turn us against each other so we never attempt meaningful change.

        In a phrase, it means “wake up to the lies and think for yourself”

      • son_named_bort@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I mean, they couldn’t go with George Wallace’s “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” quite yet…

        • pingveno@kbin.social
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          Holy crap, I was just reading his Wikipedia page. He is such a piece of shit. His wife died of cancer in May 1968. Her doctor had told him, not her, of the diagnosis in 1961 and he kept it secret from her. I knew about the segregation stuff, but that is just the shit frosting on the shit cake.

          • son_named_bort@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            What made it even worse was that she was technically the governor when she died. Alabama had a law back then that prohibited governors from serving consecutive terms. However, there was no rule against a woman running for governor. So George got his wife Lurleen, who had cancer at the time, to run for governor in his place. She won, but everyone knew who the governor really was.

        • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          When you hear them use dogwhistles remember that Wallace actually joked afterward that he should have said “states rights now, states rights tomorrow, states rights forever”. These monsters know exactly what they’re doing.

    • YaaAsantewaa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 months ago

      Next step? They’re already doing it. You don’t need to be overtly racist to segregate communities fyi, income brackets and gerrymandering do a wonderful job at promoting racial segregation without the need to be outwardly bigoted

  • uxia@midwest.social
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    11 months ago

    this is how it is for some people when there are non-white characters in movies, they consider it “pushing an agenda” when there’s nothing like that happening. it’s like they think people of other races just… don’t exist? therefore they should not be in movies? i don’t really get it

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Because there is nothing to get besides racism. The very very few edge cases out there where race mattered and was miscast never get mentioned because usually the person who did it wrong says sorry and there is no story. You are giving the enemy too much credit.

      And yes I don’t think she was miscast in Annihilation. The second book came out after they started making the movie (which is when that one line about her facial features was put in) and the fact that she had partial Asian ancestry wasn’t plot important in any of the 3 books.

    • Auli@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      My problem is the race switching. It is so stupid and is done in stories already told. There are tons of stories that have not been told about the race you are race swapping with. Why can’t we tell their stories instead.

      • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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        11 months ago

        Or when they put random people of colour in historical dramas. I get that they need to somehow include actors of all origins, but I can’t help but feel like it’s also a kind of white washing? Like, sorry but a black person would not be a noble at the Louis XIV court, how about you actually talk about what history was like from that perspective rather than just shoehorning the actors and pretend like everything was fine and dandy for people of colour in those days.

  • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    It is now woke to be in the same room as another race.

    Add it to the list.

    Hey, can we start calling things they like woke? Like Jesus Trump and church and flags n stuff? I bet we can destroy this word by just stealing it back.

      • teft@startrek.website
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        11 months ago

        Radical compassionate homeless asexual socialist. He’s woke af. I’m not a 100% sure on what woke is yet but I’m certain Jesus is woke.

      • YaaAsantewaa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        Trump voters would’ve been the Romans crucifying Jesus because he was “disrespecting Roman authority” at the time and being a nuisance.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I think the MAGAs would’ve been the Jewish establishment in your analogy, while the Romans would’ve merely been “enlightened centrist” liberals who didn’t really give a shit but wanted to keep order.

      • glockenspiel@lemmy.world
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        They are definitely turning on Jesus and have been for quite some time now. There is an interesting statement from the former head of SBC wherein he states churchgoers are finding Jesus’ supposed teachings as being too woke and part of a liberal agenda. Can’t make this up. It was only a matter of time.

        But Jesus also didn’t like mixing. That is why he instructed the apostles and other adherents to never teach gentiles and Samaritans. That was retconned years later by the church because they said people had visions of a resurrected jesus commanding them to mix with gentiles. But for a while there it was very much a racial/ethno in-group only. That is why Jesus supposedly stated he taught in parables; so gentiles wouldnt understand what he was talking about and find salvation. That is what Matthew 13:11-17 is about.

        People need to stop characterizing Jesus as some socialists woke advocate like I see in this thread. His character wasn’t. He didn’t preach universal love and compassion, and he taught contradictory messages about pacifism probably because dozens of people created this character over centuries.

        I honestly think people want to think the religion can’t be that bad and that the adherents are just awful.

        • ryry1985@lemmy.world
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          Many scholars believe that the reason they were told to not preach to Samaritans and Gentiles was that his disciples were not ready to face cross cultural rejection. This is because of their earlier exposure to this rejection by Samaritans in which they wanted to respond by fire and brimstone. Jesus rebuked this response then. Later on, he instructs them to make disciples of all nations.

          The passages in Matthew are referring to those that do not listen to his teachings (by choice), not the Gentiles. He’s saying they will not receive his blessings if they do not listen and learn from his teachings.

      • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Let’s not forget that these same people kept telling us to and I quote: “WAKE UP SHEEPLE” And now they get all pissed off that people woke up.

        Also what is the opposite of woke? Sleep? Go to sleep? Sounds dystopian as fuck.

        • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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          11 months ago

          Not to mention the QAnon shit with “the great awakening” where “the deep state” finally gets exposed and locked up. These people are morons.

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s almost like conservatives are racist and want to indoctinate kids into their conservative ideology of hate.

  • AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz
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    11 months ago

    Even disregarding all bigotry and racism that this screams of, it’s dumb af because kids can be friends with FUCKING rocks. It’s pretty much their superpower.

    • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      it is just a lot more in the open now. And sadly most of people I know genuinely side with right most out of believe that it is the more neutral or agenda free stance.

  • Riyria@sopuli.xyz
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    11 months ago

    My wife tells me she thinks that I am being over dramatic when I say we need to start thinking about exit strategies for fleeing the US, and then stuff like this pops up.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      You’re not being overdramatic. I’ve been thinking about an exit since 2020. I plan to have it figured out in advance of the next election so that I can flip a switch and go. Don’t wait for disaster. Have an exit decided and hope you don’t need it.

    • butterflyattack@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I mean, some of them are. Many of them are nazi-lite. They get upset if you point it out, though. A lot of them probably believe they are fine upstanding patriots. A few can be talked to, and some can even change, but most just dig in deeper, so the problem doesn’t seem likely to go away; it seems to be getting worse.

  • Sabin10@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    We need to stop diminishing racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry by calling them anti-woke.

      • aedalla@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        This is my favorite part about racists worrying about white people becoming a minority. It’s only because they don’t consider mixed kids as their progeny. Your “white” genes aren’t being murdered by “black” genes inside your grandaughter. They’re both just kinda in there and that’s fine.

        • mechoman444@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          You can’t explain this to these people.

          Four indictments on Donald Trump and they still think it’s a conspiracy.