Hillary Clinton is literally the second shittiest human being in the
galaxy and is running for President of the United States. Fortunately
for her, the only other person running for President is by far the worst
piece of toxic puss to have ever oozed out of a DayGlo factory disguised as a living woman's uterus, which should make your voting calculus fairly
straight forward: Vote for Hillary. I suppose it would be more accurate
to point out there are other people running for President that you might
consider, but they're running for President in the same way I rose an
eyebrow when Mariah Carey became newly single. And just like
I'm never getting invited into Mariah's champagne room, they're not even
getting invited to the debate stage, so don't even bother learning
their names.
Except, except, except, in the course
of kicking Bernie Sander's ass in the Democratic primaries, Hillary
somehow went from being your run-of-the-mill politician held in public
contempt for no other reason than people remember seeing her on TV 20
years ago to the reincarnation of Kim Jong-un's bad mood whenever the
lights go out in Pyongyang, and now an entire subculture of buffoons is
threatening to vote third party as a way of protesting a primary so
obviously rigged that it didn't even fall within the margin of
subterfuge. Never mind that homegirl won nearly 4 million more votes and
11 more primaries than Bernie, the fact that their candidate had
larger, more enthusiastic rallies and his face littered all over
your Facebook echo chamber means the election was stolen even though a similarly
idealistic outsider had no problem taking down the exact same
establishment candidate just eight years earlier, because votes.
So
now we're to the point in the election season that's the political equivalent
of a New England Patriots vs. New York Yankees World Bowl, where yes,
Tom Brady wears Uggs and most likely dropped hints to the ball boy about
letting some air out of the game balls, and their coach regularly spies
on other teams, and Boston kind of sucks; but your only other choice
here is to root for Evil Empire because no matter how hard you close your eyes and wish the Lion King were true, the lovable Chicago Cubs just aren't going to show up in the bottom of the 4th quarter and hit a walk off touchdown. Bernie Sanders isn't either since he
lost in the conference semifinals, nor is Jill Stein because she's an
assistant coach for some Little League team in a town that doesn't even
have a baseball field. (Gary Johnson is working the concession stand at that Little League field and smoking a spliff.) There are literally only two options in this election - Hillary Clinton or a mango anal fissure - and voting for not one of these is a vote for the other depending on what side of the third party spectrum you throw away your vote.
But that hasn't stopped all the butt hurt disguised as faux-political advocacy and make-believe principles about building a more just society by voting your conscience, mostly from pretend-activists on the progressive side of things. In Donald Trump Town, the people who are not happy with his nomination have acknowledged the scope of their options by either migrating to Hillary (5%) or tying their body parts into literal knots trying to justify the poo he gets all over his Twitter feed because he doesn't wipe after talking (96%). On the Democratic side, however, people angry at the Hillary nomination have acknowledged that same limited scope by pretending they can jump start the revolution by facilitating the election of a nuclear grease stain completely anathema to their worldview rather than voting for a woman who shares 90% of their policy positions. They don't characterize it that way, obviously, since for them a vote for not-Hillary is everything but a vote for Trump, which is why I will condescendingly explain why all your reasons for voting Sith are whack no matter what sort of institutional rot has set in with the Jedi.
Voting for one of the two major corporatist parties reinforces the corrupt two-party system - Of all the reasons in this election to vote third party - more specifically Jill Stein of the Green Party - this is probably the most common considering the Democratic Party has appropriated the progressive worldview less as a philosophical basis for policy and more as a means to differentiate themselves from the Republicans. It's also an argument that acknowledges that our two-party system stifles actionable progress by artificially limiting the spectrum of political debate, which has legitimate resonance with people on both ends of the political spectrum who feel their interests aren't represented in government. Which sure, I get. I actually agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. But this election is just not the place to suddenly give a shit, and since there are a thousand different permutations of Won't get a third party unless we vote for a third party, I will address the three or four easiest to mock before moving on to all the other dumb reasons you have for voting third party.
I'm trying to build a third party here - I'm down with a viable third party, especially if it's structured around my liberal sensibilities rather than public broadcasts of Ron Paul reading Ayn Rand bedtime stories to Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. But a nuclear winter isn't the time to decide you're a doomsday prepper, Boo Boo. You've either built your bunker by then or you haven't. And considering that the major parties can't even win a presidential election without a system of national infrastructure and locally elected surrogates already in place, the only thing you're building with a third party vote this time around is Trump's fake wall. And besides, if you were legitimately trying to build support for a third party then you'd care just as much about the political system during non-election years as you do now. Perhaps you do but like 90% of your comrades don't so maybe it's about that time you start some of the community organizing the entire right makes fun of Obama for.
Voting third party will help build momentum toward subsequent elections - If a third-party candidate receives 5% of votes in the general election then they will receive dolla dolla bills from the FEC, which they will presumably bank in support of future electoral challenges. Yeah, great, $10 million is nothing to sneeze at, but how about the hard work of building a movement from the ground up and then you'll have multiples of that $10 mil, not to mention actual political allies for whomever benefits from all that third-party cash. Oh yeah, 2017, 2018, and 2019 aren't election years so no one gives a fuhhhhh.
Voting third party signals my dissatisfaction to the major parties
- Voting third party just shrinks the pool of serious voters, which
makes the 30% of Americans who identify as Republican closer to 50% of
people who vote for candidates with an actual mathematical chance
of winning an election. That, in turn, emboldens the Republicans to flat
out dispense with any pretense they aren't racist by nominating
the walking id who dreamed he could become a real life boy one day
rather than the robot programmed to mimic social graces that they usually do. Looking at you,
Mitt Romney.
The major parties will never acknowledge your concerns if you capitulate in the end
- Voting for the viable candidate who sort of represents you rather
than the incarnation of Satan's fart is not capitulating; doing fuck all
after the election to effect change is. Hold your nose, vote, then go
do something constructive rather than put all your complaints about the system in winter storage just
so you can reuse them in the spring of
2020.
If we'd have been voting third party the last 20 years we'd have better candidates now - Voting is overrated: it's the bare minimum of civic responsibility. Saying
you're politically active because you voted Green once is like listing
Russian literature as one of your Tinder interests after reading half
a Doestoevsky novel. If you voted third party 20 years ago we'd still be in the same conundrum because an I Voted sticker is probably the entirety of the political work you've done since then.
My vote reflects my progressive identity - The last person I want running the free world is a fool who perfectly aligns with my beliefs, ideals, and sensibilities. I'll have some of that tasty check and balance, please.
Your conscience should inform your vote, not fear - I mean, yes, if I rode a unicorn to work instead of Steve the Hetero Crusher. But right now my conscience is ruled by the fear of all the real life shittery a Trump presidency would entail for the people who've benefited drastically from the social progress that's occurred since Obama started his capitol chill.
The Democrats rigged the election against Bernie and have to pay for their malfeasance - Putin's cousin-in-law hacked the DNC email server and now we know that the people responsible for running a neutral primary were trying to undermine Bernie's candidacy. Dick move, sure, but if you want to see how effective the establishment is at rigging a primary then the Republicans are right over there carrying water for the nominee they tried screwing over themselves.
I seriously just want to vote for Jill Stein - Jill Stein is a career nominee for offices no constituency has seen fit to give her and whose political arsenal is limited to wishful thinking and a can of Sprite. If either you or I or the insufferable doobag who sings folk songs at the Portland Saturday Market had created a free blog on Wordpress and published "Rainbows, Fairy Dust, and No Student Debt Yayyy" as our platform then we'd have been just as reasonable of a candidate as Jill Stein, who's basically your crazy aunt who cans way too much of her food. She's never going to eat all that rhubarb.
I seriously just want to vote for Gary Johnson - Then you're a white guy who thought he saw himself in the pages of Walden and "Self-Reliance." That wasn't you, by the way; that was a man who knew how to hunt and fish, not to mention butcher a cow, build a house, build a boat, build a fire, build a plow, build an axe, and build a beard. Otherwise, Gary Johnson: Yeah, okay. I just sprained my eyeballs rolling them into the back of my head.
A Donald Trump presidency would actually encourage more civic engagement from the left - Similarly to how participation in active white nationalism increased in response to Obama's presidency, the thinking goes that liberals will finally get off their asses if confronted with the reign of Donald Trump. But if y'all already know what assery a Trump presidency would be then why not prevent it in the first place? I mean, I could go to the hospital after drinking a cup of bleach and have my stomach pumped. Or, you know, I could set the bleach down and drink water instead.
Donald Trump is a Democratic sleeper agent meant to facilitate Clinton's ascendancy - Damn that's a long con. Well, consider me conned since I already sent my absentee ballot in. Also, Donald Trump shouldering all this dickbaggery for the good of the team is so much lolololol that I'm going to go outside and lolololol out loud.
Donald Trump is to the left of Hillary on a number of issues - The only time Trump is to the left of Hillary is when he's hovering over her left shoulder at the debates.
________________________
Since one of the prevailing motivations of the third-party voter is that you should for something rather than against something else, I will now give you the exhaustive abridged list of reasons you should actually support Hillary.
Hillary is your fault - For real, all this complaining about a two-party system and what have you actually done to make it better? What would you be willing to sacrifice to make the world truly just? The Völker on the right who want to overhaul the system have retired into the deep woods and learned how to shoot a gun; their counterparts on the left occasionally remember to bring their reusable grocery bags to Whole Foods and and always remember to lecture the bagger on Chomsky. So now we're left with a choice between a candidate who will implement the Red Dawn wet dream and one who will continue the status quo. Acting like you have a third option here is the equivalent of assuming your average white daughter can enroll at the University of Texas just because she had a 3.6 GPA and volunteered at a soup kitchen that one time. Since that's about all you've done to dismantle the two-party system then the least you can do is help ensure someone who wears shag carpeting for hair doesn't dismantle human existence.
The lesser of two evils is still the lesser of two evils - The lesser of two evils means there's a whole big pile of more evil on the other side of that equation, so take that doodoo elsewhere. If you don't believe me then let's make some hard calculations:
- LeBron James in a Cavs uniform or Lebron in a Miami uniform?
- Sunday at the Renaissance faire or a weekend insurance seminar?
- Eating a jar of mayonnaise or a bowl of casu marzu?
- Lunch with Jared Fogle at a gas station Subway or football two-a-days with Jerry Sandusky?
- Play soccer or watch soccer?
- Sean William Scott movie marathon or Oprah's Book Club?
- 1000 sit-ups or 500 burpees?
- Sex advice from your father or sex advice from your father-in-law?
- No tacos today or no tacos forever?
- Genital herpes or the Hiv?
- Ohio or the American South?
- Being in a room with Hillary Clinton or rubbing Donald Trump's feet?
I bet $2.50 that you had a clear preference for each of those.
The Supreme Court - One of these two is going to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, and since the Court is the last viable political mechanism for old white doobags to codify their 1950s dumbfunkery - which will take like eight consecutive Green presidents to unwind - perhaps you should vote for the lady who will nominate the kind of person who thinks women are sentient human beings and homosex bum touching is not grounds for capital punishment. Your choice.
She isn't Mike Pence either - If Donald Trump wins and the Republicans maintain control of Congress, they're just going to impeach fatty and call it a day. Then we're stuck with President Pence. Mike Pence is an empty dickbag.
Divorce court - There's an 80% chance that Hillary's first act as President will be to leave Bill for an intern.
The issues - Hillary really likes Ellen DeGeneres. So do I.
________________________
Why I just wasted your time - This rant was probably pointless. I began writing it just after the Democratic National Convention when Bernie or Bust was an actual thing and people were pretending they were guided by their idealism, but now it's mid-October and everyone's falling in line because (1) they always do and (2) no one wants to see the world explode.
Why Voting Your Progressive Conscience When a Donald Trump Is Looming Is Expressive of Your Butt Hurt and Not Your Principles
Police Shootings Are a Divining Rod You Can Use to Locate Racist Pokemons
If you know anyone at all then you've probably never met a racist because there just aren't any of them around anymore. It's true: ask any random white guy who just finished ripping on a black athlete for not being able to "talk right" and he'll tell you he can't be racist because he doesn't have one black friend, he has two, though he's pretty sure that 15-year-old Sikh kid over there has a bomb tied around his waist even though what's really around his waist is what us non-racists generally refer to as a belt.
But since we all eat Thanksgiving dinner every year, frequent social media, or have at least one co-worker, we also know that racists have not gone extinct. The problem then is locating all those white power Pokemons. How though? No one's going to admit it, and all the old telltale signs like racial epithets have evolved into disingenuous stances on policy that can be defended with faux-intellectual reasoning. Like, I don't have a problem with Mexicans, but if you're going to come into this country with 15 kilos of the coco lodged in your bum then you should learn to grow blond hair like real Americans, otherwise your true loyalty is to the drug cartels even though they killed all nine of your cousins. Or, he's not a negroid or anything but he does have braids and two eyebrows, which according to FBI data means there's a 78% chance he just armed robberied like three banks even though he's walking his daughter home from school.
So if you're looking for racists they'll be hiding in the space between n-word and thug, because racial epithets aren't powerful on their own, they're powerful because of the ideas they convey. And since the idea is more important than the actual word then there are ways to hint at those ideas without actually saying the word. Which brings me to my number one foolproof way of determining whether you or anyone you know is a subconsciously avowed racist dick stopper: reactions to the most recent high-profile police shooting of a black man, especially if there is video. But first an explanation for why you can use police shootings as a weathercock for racial animus.
An explanation for why you can use police shootings as a weathercock for racial animus - Aggressive policing is at the intersection of two issues: (1) whether the popo are serving and protecting the state a little too much at the expense of its citizens; and (2) whether or not you give a shit about the citizen who just got served. Ideally, who gets shot by the police shouldn't affect how you feel about what constitutes reasonable policing, but then again, Internet comments. I know they tend to be discounted as pure sewer, but in truth the flame wars that take place in comment sections are basically what you'll find verbatim on Facebook, Twitter, or in real life. Let's explore, shall we?
LaVoy Finicum was a white dude who participated in the armed takeover of federal property and who subsequently taunted law enforcement with threats of a shootout if they moved to end his occupation. Eventually he was shot dead after trying to run over officers from two separate agencies with his pickup truck and then reaching for his gun as they attempted to bring him into custody. This is the general tenor of the response on NRO, a subreddit for white guys too old to know what actual Reddit is:
Alton Sterling was a black dude selling bootleg CDs in a convenience store parking lot when the police approached him about a complaint they'd received of someone fitting his description threatening passersby with a weapon. For whatever reason the encounter escalated to the point where the police forcefully subdued him and were literally sitting on his chest when he was fatally shot. Here is the response to a Fox News article saying the Justice Department was going to investigate:
Basically, a hostile actor who's publicly boasted about going down in a blaze a glory grabs for his gun during a standoff and the police should have exercised restraint, but a man the police rolled up on under the singular context of "you may be the guy we're looking for" was both tased and subdued before finally being shot and everything but the police should have exercised restraint. I'd try to put my finger on what could inspire a person to get their emotional responses completely backwards here but I don't appreciate when people touch my white face. Instead I'll make a new header to introduce a list of things not to say in the aftermath of a shooting if you want to maintain your non-racist anonymity.
What not to say in the aftermath of a shooting if you want to maintain your non-racist anonymity - Lethal force should only be deployed in situations where police have no choice but to shoot. There's a whole lot of durrrrrrrr wrapped up in that phrase since people ostensibly believe in things like due process and the rule of law, but then again all that durrrrrrrr suspiciously goes missing whenever a black guy gets shot and all the not-racists very reasonably explain why that black dude was not only responsible for his own death but also the price of milk, global warming, undocumented immigration, holes in the municipal budget, Ted Cruz's personal failings, and everything else white people usually blame on Obama. If levying blame on the victim sounds unreasonable to you, and if you'd like to be a genuine not-racist rather than a "I don't have a racist bone in my body" not-racist, then here is a list of those very reasonable Trumpian arguments you should most definitely skip the next time this happens, because they're garbage.
He was no angel - The debate that should follow a police shooting is whether or not that shooting was justified and would only take into consideration things relevant to a policeman's decision to fire his weapon. Now, I don't know exactly what constitutes reasonable cause to shoot bullets at a person but I most definitely know "he's an asshole" isn't one one of them. That character evaluation may have been relevant when deciding to approach a person of interest, and it becomes relevant again when deciding whether to pursue charges afterward, but it is not relevant during the physical process of taking a person with constitutional rights into custody. The only information pertinent to that moment is whether or not the person being apprehended is compliant and what kind of threat they pose if they aren't.
This should be obvious but it isn't, since a black dude gets shot and everyone who's ever had sexy time with the U.S. Constitution will immediately forward his criminal record all over AOL, as if two jaywalking tickets and a bag of weed disqualify someone from their 5th and 14th Amendment protections. "But he held up a lemonade stand 10 years ago, and he shot my mother!" So? As long as he doesn't pose a mortal threat then it's just handcuffs and the paddy wagon. He could drive a windowless white van past three elementary schools and a cop still doesn't have the legal authority to execute him just because the guy is gross as hell. That's a decision that courts make. As far as real excuses and not just ones I made up here to lampoon racist stupidity: Tamir Rice looked older than a normal 12 year old and was suspended from school once or twice; Trayvon Martin took a bunch selfies wearing a grill so make sure to publish those photos, liberal media, and not the ones of him looking like every other 15-year-old babyfaced kid; John Crawford III was once busted for carrying a concealed weapon so of course it's reasonable the police shot him for holding a BB gun that was out on display in a Walmart; Philando Castille had a suspended license so blame him for getting pulled over in the first place actually no blame his mom for conceiving him since if we take this back far enough we can blame his death on everyone but the cop; and so on. For real, if you're I'm not racist but enough to have constructed a timeline full of post-hoc excuses to justify an unjustified shooting, you're an actual racist.
All that doesn't even take into account how completely arbitrary the justice system is when tagging people with a criminal record in the first place. For one thing, you have to get caught. How many times have y'all driven your ass home after a few too many drinks and gotten away with it? And what's the difference between you and a dude with a DUI conviction other than you're one of the good guys...who just happened to elude any trees or police cruisers on the way home? Or if drunk driving isn't your thing but driving is: How many times have you hit 90 on the freeway or 40 in a school zone? You know the chances of causing serious harm rise exponentially when you ignore posted speed limits, right? But you probably have quicker reflexes than the average bear, or something. Then there's the weed. When I was in college fully 85% of students smoked it and 82% of those people sold it, and that's just a pretend survey from BYU. Imagine how much more is smoked at state schools with liberal arts curricula. And of those people who've gotten high at BYU, like zero have ever been busted, and were the cops to shoot one of them tomorrow then all you'd hear about them is their doctoring, lawyering, middle-managing, and then the two adorable toddlers they left behind; what you won't hear is that the cops killed a drug user even though they probably smoked more pot than Michael Brown ever got a chance too.
He should have cooperated - Resisting arrest is so broadly understood in the police community that it means different things to different officers, and basically nothing to the non-policing public. There's obvious resistance a la running away from an arresting officer or actually throwing punches, but there's also WTF, that's resistance? resistance, like maybe your leg twitched while being handcuffed and suddenly the deputized steroid who's arresting you turns green, tears off his shirt, grunts something along the lines of "stop resisting," and then beats the shit out of you with his boots. "Cooperation" is even more vague than that, especially in instances that aren't actual arrests. Yeah, I'm sure most cops are generally very tolerant of verbal abuse, but there are definitely more than a few who will lose their shit if you don't break out the yes, massa, you wan' me to tap dance, massa? routine even though all they were doing when the police rolled up was walking down the street looking like a human. This kid, for example:
Meanwhile, every time the police so much as Good afternoon! some old cowboy in White Town it's all, Don't you guys have some real criminals to be arresting instead of pulling us law abiding Causcasians over for driving too fast?
Saying someone should have cooperated also ignores that people get shot for actually cooperating. Like this dude:
And then the whole Philando Castile fuggery, where not more than 27 minutes after everyone scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention said Alton Sterling would still be alive if only he'd cooperated, a black man fully fully cooperated with police and ended up dead just the same.
Anyhow, racist, I hope when Obama's girlfriend Hillary shows up to take your guns you respect her authority and just hand them over, else the slew of policemen at her back will have all the justification in the world to shoot your ass dead for not cooperating.
Cops have a tough job you don't know what it's like! - No durrrrrrrr. Then again, that's why they undergo police training: to prepare themselves for the unique challenges of being a cop. Part of that training presumably includes detaining uncooperative assholes without shooting them dead for no other reason than "he scared me a little bit." And anyhow, the actual dead guy is like 10% of the problem. Most of the pissed offery stems from all the aggressive policing beforehand and the lack of accountability afterward. Yeah, I get that it's hard for the prosecution to build a legal case against an officer with nothing but eyewitness accounts from non-credible - AKA black - witnesses when all the defense has to do is throw the officer's official police report on an overhead projector and then light a victory cigar, but Walter Scott. That guy was dead for days and all the racists were boasting, "Shut up you reverse black racist, he grabbed the cop's taser, I know 'cause the cop said so!" And that would have been the official story had this video never surfaced:
Worst of all are the cops who reflexively defend assholes like this because of some blood oath they swore to Officer Friendly that they'd never think bad thoughts about their brothers. Yes, protocol is sometimes unnecessarily burdensome, sometimes lines are crossed to do the right thing, and more than sometimes the very people who summon the police via 911 are the first to lodge a complaint; but I have never seen one profession so unquestionably circle the wagons in defense of shit that shouldn't be defended. I mean, when's the last time you heard a teacher defend another teacher raping a student by saying "you don't know what it's like"? Uh, never. So stop it. You're already the police, so start policing your own.
Oh yeah, this was about the racists and their knee jerk defense of the police whenever they kill a guy, not the actual police. So let's see...policing is a difficult job, yes, but that's not an excuse for unjustified shootings. And yet in cases like Walter Scott's, where evidence emerged contradicting the officer's official accounting, there are still doobags blaming him for his own death. Because they're racists.
But, statistics! - Hiding your racism behind statistics is the same as hiding your face underneath a white robe. You can't say shit like "the police shoot way more honkeys than black folk" and think that actually means something without also acknowledging there's a difference between absolute and relative numbers. But the whole blacks are 2-3 times more likely to get shot than their white bredren point gets brought up in every article ever about police violence so nothing new to add here other than I really wanted to get that blast in about hiding underneath your robe.
Black-on-black crime is responsible for more black deaths than the police are so complain about that instead - Leaving aside a serially debunked myth - that black-on-black crime is an actual thing - how is that even relevant?
The obvious insinuation when bringing up black-on-black crime is that the black community is indifferent to violence in their own community and is only moved to outrage when a white cop from outside it does the killing since that fits their victimization narratives, which leads to Skeletor Guiliani going on Fox News to ask where the BLM protestors are whenever a not-cop kills someone. Uhhhhhh, they're in the streets, protesting. So basically, just because the one black guy you saw at the store three weeks ago was at that store and not at a protest doesn't mean that people aren't concerned about the violence in their neighborhoods, it just means you're a racist.
There's a picture of him on social media holding a gun - The more open an open carry of a state the more relevant a black dude's gun ownership is used to justify his deadness, curiously.
As far as dudes who had a gun they were pointing at the police, you'll notice none of the public outrage is ever about them. If a guy is going to get in a shootout with police, well goodbye then since that's not the issue. The issue is that even fake police like George Zimmerman can conjure circumstances out of thin air that they can later use to justify what most of us would regard as murder were it to happen to our own son or daughter. I mean, imagine if we went to junior high together and I walked up to you in the lunch line, slapped your tray out of your hands, punched you in the dong, and then you ended up in detention for calling me an asshole. Exactly.
Thanks, Obama! - Obama is seventh on my list here but at least third on every other racist pop-sociologist's list of reasons the police most definitely should have shot that rando black dude. The sole reason for laying this at Obama's feet is that no president in the history of the solar system has done more to divide the country along racial lines...
...by simply being elected, since being half-black is the real act of racism while joining an armed white militia in response to his election apparently isn't.
No one ever complains when the police kill a white boy - That's because he wasn't cooperating with police instructions. Also, Obama ordered the hit.
Blue lives matter! - All lives matter!
Then why are white people so trifling? - The reason so many white people will have completely different reactions to the exact same scenario - government security agents killing a citizen - is because there are zero ways to convince them that racism is still an actual thing. To them, racism is stuff like slavery, lynchings, and Jim Crow, and since that was like 900 years ago then the only reason people should be mad the 5-0 shot a black 12-year-old is if the cop was yelling "I hate black people" while shooting him 104 times in the back, then reloading and shooting him again. But racism very obviously still exists, and even though I don't know how to define exactly what it looks like, double standards are a dead giveaway, especially those related to victimization. Here comes the elaboration.
Sorry I'm still talking but here's the elaboration - One list is usually half a list too many for the average blog reader, but I wrote up a second just in case you're still along for the ride, this one detailing the double standards and hypocrisies you should avoid if you don't want to be mistaken for a Donald Trump voter. Not all of them are exclusively about race, but if you're a Republican Senator who's endorsed Trump then chances are you're also a misogynistic homophobe, so being less of a dickbag in your secondary areas of hate will help you hide your primary hatage as well.
It's not about race - Whenever a black or Latino or Asian or other non-white human mentions some humiliation they've endured 8000 times prior to the singular instance they just brought up, everyone's white dad always pipes up with a dismissive "it's not about race" and "they're just playing the victim card." Ask this same white dad why he didn't get into medical school and it's because of Affirmative Action. "I was totally in the top 87th percentile at Phoenix University, and I majored in Physical Education, but they let some qualified black guy in instead. I was left with no other options but the string of sad days I've endured since."
I was reversed racism-ed - There are polls out there of real life white people who believe anti-white racism is more prevalent than anti-black racism, which should come as no surprise to anyone since we've all heard at least one Billy Bob hold forth on the straight white Christian male being the only demographic you can legally shit on. The thing about those polls is there is quite a bit off crossover between white folk who simultaneously believe that actual racism is a thing of the past and reverse racism is the biggest problem ever. The thing about reverse racism, though, is it can only exist in contradistinction to something else, so in the same way up doesn't exist without down, east doesn't exist without west, a shadow doesn't exist without a sunny day, a selfie doesn't exist without a self-involved narcissist, and Taken 2 doesn't exist without Taken 1, reverse racism doesn't exist without your Klan outfit.
I've been racisted against and didn't bother me except for when I complained about it all the time - Take someone who's spent his entire political consciousness ridiculing things like biases and microaggressions and drop him in the middle of Seoul, Korea - where I happen to live - and suddenly our hypothetical good ol' boy suddenly has a healthy interest in equality and basic human decency. For real, the same white bros who insist privilege is a farce are the same white bros who will bore you to death with tales of all the Korean racism they had to endure at the job that curiously affords them a middle-class lifestyle in a country they can't even hack the language. (Just try to imagine a moderately educated Mexican achieving the same in the US.) Sample conversation:
The worst thing about all this is when Chad or Steve or whoever goes back to Amurka having mistaken an old cantankerous doobag for systematic racism and begins insisting that it's just something you can ignore if you feel like it.
Let's dismiss your experiences so we can validate mine - A black man from Detroit will tell a white man from the suburbs that he's been pulled over at least 40 times for DWB and the white man will say no way it was DWB, you probably had a bazooka in the back seat. Five minutes later that same white man will tell that same black man he knows exactly what's wrong with Detroit. "Trust me, I've been to the city at least six times; I know."
Hey baby! - Cat calling a lady is NBD since she can just ignore it if she really wanted - plus, why did she dress in clothes and human skin if she didn't want me to look at her? - but oh hey, I won't share a locker room with a gay man because he might see my wee wee, and that makes me uncomfortable. For real, someone should make a video where a gay dude approaches a man who just cat called a lady and assaults him with language similar to what he just used himself. I'm sure he'd take it in stride.
Ima touch her puss - Bragging about sexual assault is just locker room jokes, Anderson Cooper! Also, trans folk can't use the public potty because they're perverts.
Cronies! - Everyone hates nepotism, at least until it's time to call your uncle's friend's mistress's brother and ask him to hook you up with a job you're not exactly suited for.
Islamers are evil - I've read at least six Koranic verses on alexjones.com that says all Muslimers are required to kill the infidel, so Muslim ban sounds good to me. And no, I haven't actually read the Bible so don't expect me to comment on all the times God ordered genocide there.
Et cetera - For days and days.
Summary - The number one way in White Town to prove you're not a racist is to say: "I'm not a racist." Since that doesn't fly anywhere else then the next best way to prove you're not a racist is to stop saying stupid hypcritical shit after the police shoot a black person. Have a blessed day.
But since we all eat Thanksgiving dinner every year, frequent social media, or have at least one co-worker, we also know that racists have not gone extinct. The problem then is locating all those white power Pokemons. How though? No one's going to admit it, and all the old telltale signs like racial epithets have evolved into disingenuous stances on policy that can be defended with faux-intellectual reasoning. Like, I don't have a problem with Mexicans, but if you're going to come into this country with 15 kilos of the coco lodged in your bum then you should learn to grow blond hair like real Americans, otherwise your true loyalty is to the drug cartels even though they killed all nine of your cousins. Or, he's not a negroid or anything but he does have braids and two eyebrows, which according to FBI data means there's a 78% chance he just armed robberied like three banks even though he's walking his daughter home from school.
So if you're looking for racists they'll be hiding in the space between n-word and thug, because racial epithets aren't powerful on their own, they're powerful because of the ideas they convey. And since the idea is more important than the actual word then there are ways to hint at those ideas without actually saying the word. Which brings me to my number one foolproof way of determining whether you or anyone you know is a subconsciously avowed racist dick stopper: reactions to the most recent high-profile police shooting of a black man, especially if there is video. But first an explanation for why you can use police shootings as a weathercock for racial animus.
An explanation for why you can use police shootings as a weathercock for racial animus - Aggressive policing is at the intersection of two issues: (1) whether the popo are serving and protecting the state a little too much at the expense of its citizens; and (2) whether or not you give a shit about the citizen who just got served. Ideally, who gets shot by the police shouldn't affect how you feel about what constitutes reasonable policing, but then again, Internet comments. I know they tend to be discounted as pure sewer, but in truth the flame wars that take place in comment sections are basically what you'll find verbatim on Facebook, Twitter, or in real life. Let's explore, shall we?
LaVoy Finicum was a white dude who participated in the armed takeover of federal property and who subsequently taunted law enforcement with threats of a shootout if they moved to end his occupation. Eventually he was shot dead after trying to run over officers from two separate agencies with his pickup truck and then reaching for his gun as they attempted to bring him into custody. This is the general tenor of the response on NRO, a subreddit for white guys too old to know what actual Reddit is:
Alton Sterling was a black dude selling bootleg CDs in a convenience store parking lot when the police approached him about a complaint they'd received of someone fitting his description threatening passersby with a weapon. For whatever reason the encounter escalated to the point where the police forcefully subdued him and were literally sitting on his chest when he was fatally shot. Here is the response to a Fox News article saying the Justice Department was going to investigate:
Basically, a hostile actor who's publicly boasted about going down in a blaze a glory grabs for his gun during a standoff and the police should have exercised restraint, but a man the police rolled up on under the singular context of "you may be the guy we're looking for" was both tased and subdued before finally being shot and everything but the police should have exercised restraint. I'd try to put my finger on what could inspire a person to get their emotional responses completely backwards here but I don't appreciate when people touch my white face. Instead I'll make a new header to introduce a list of things not to say in the aftermath of a shooting if you want to maintain your non-racist anonymity.
What not to say in the aftermath of a shooting if you want to maintain your non-racist anonymity - Lethal force should only be deployed in situations where police have no choice but to shoot. There's a whole lot of durrrrrrrr wrapped up in that phrase since people ostensibly believe in things like due process and the rule of law, but then again all that durrrrrrrr suspiciously goes missing whenever a black guy gets shot and all the not-racists very reasonably explain why that black dude was not only responsible for his own death but also the price of milk, global warming, undocumented immigration, holes in the municipal budget, Ted Cruz's personal failings, and everything else white people usually blame on Obama. If levying blame on the victim sounds unreasonable to you, and if you'd like to be a genuine not-racist rather than a "I don't have a racist bone in my body" not-racist, then here is a list of those very reasonable Trumpian arguments you should most definitely skip the next time this happens, because they're garbage.
He was no angel - The debate that should follow a police shooting is whether or not that shooting was justified and would only take into consideration things relevant to a policeman's decision to fire his weapon. Now, I don't know exactly what constitutes reasonable cause to shoot bullets at a person but I most definitely know "he's an asshole" isn't one one of them. That character evaluation may have been relevant when deciding to approach a person of interest, and it becomes relevant again when deciding whether to pursue charges afterward, but it is not relevant during the physical process of taking a person with constitutional rights into custody. The only information pertinent to that moment is whether or not the person being apprehended is compliant and what kind of threat they pose if they aren't.
This should be obvious but it isn't, since a black dude gets shot and everyone who's ever had sexy time with the U.S. Constitution will immediately forward his criminal record all over AOL, as if two jaywalking tickets and a bag of weed disqualify someone from their 5th and 14th Amendment protections. "But he held up a lemonade stand 10 years ago, and he shot my mother!" So? As long as he doesn't pose a mortal threat then it's just handcuffs and the paddy wagon. He could drive a windowless white van past three elementary schools and a cop still doesn't have the legal authority to execute him just because the guy is gross as hell. That's a decision that courts make. As far as real excuses and not just ones I made up here to lampoon racist stupidity: Tamir Rice looked older than a normal 12 year old and was suspended from school once or twice; Trayvon Martin took a bunch selfies wearing a grill so make sure to publish those photos, liberal media, and not the ones of him looking like every other 15-year-old babyfaced kid; John Crawford III was once busted for carrying a concealed weapon so of course it's reasonable the police shot him for holding a BB gun that was out on display in a Walmart; Philando Castille had a suspended license so blame him for getting pulled over in the first place actually no blame his mom for conceiving him since if we take this back far enough we can blame his death on everyone but the cop; and so on. For real, if you're I'm not racist but enough to have constructed a timeline full of post-hoc excuses to justify an unjustified shooting, you're an actual racist.
All that doesn't even take into account how completely arbitrary the justice system is when tagging people with a criminal record in the first place. For one thing, you have to get caught. How many times have y'all driven your ass home after a few too many drinks and gotten away with it? And what's the difference between you and a dude with a DUI conviction other than you're one of the good guys...who just happened to elude any trees or police cruisers on the way home? Or if drunk driving isn't your thing but driving is: How many times have you hit 90 on the freeway or 40 in a school zone? You know the chances of causing serious harm rise exponentially when you ignore posted speed limits, right? But you probably have quicker reflexes than the average bear, or something. Then there's the weed. When I was in college fully 85% of students smoked it and 82% of those people sold it, and that's just a pretend survey from BYU. Imagine how much more is smoked at state schools with liberal arts curricula. And of those people who've gotten high at BYU, like zero have ever been busted, and were the cops to shoot one of them tomorrow then all you'd hear about them is their doctoring, lawyering, middle-managing, and then the two adorable toddlers they left behind; what you won't hear is that the cops killed a drug user even though they probably smoked more pot than Michael Brown ever got a chance too.
He should have cooperated - Resisting arrest is so broadly understood in the police community that it means different things to different officers, and basically nothing to the non-policing public. There's obvious resistance a la running away from an arresting officer or actually throwing punches, but there's also WTF, that's resistance? resistance, like maybe your leg twitched while being handcuffed and suddenly the deputized steroid who's arresting you turns green, tears off his shirt, grunts something along the lines of "stop resisting," and then beats the shit out of you with his boots. "Cooperation" is even more vague than that, especially in instances that aren't actual arrests. Yeah, I'm sure most cops are generally very tolerant of verbal abuse, but there are definitely more than a few who will lose their shit if you don't break out the yes, massa, you wan' me to tap dance, massa? routine even though all they were doing when the police rolled up was walking down the street looking like a human. This kid, for example:
Meanwhile, every time the police so much as Good afternoon! some old cowboy in White Town it's all, Don't you guys have some real criminals to be arresting instead of pulling us law abiding Causcasians over for driving too fast?
Saying someone should have cooperated also ignores that people get shot for actually cooperating. Like this dude:
- Can I see your license, please?
- Okey dokey, officer, I'm going to fully cooperate, let me get my license just like you asked, it's right here in my car...
- Pew pew pew pew pew pew stop threatening my life pew pew pew get on the ground even though you're already on the ground bleeding to death pew pew pew pew STOP RESISTING!
And then the whole Philando Castile fuggery, where not more than 27 minutes after everyone scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention said Alton Sterling would still be alive if only he'd cooperated, a black man fully fully cooperated with police and ended up dead just the same.
- Hello officer, I have a permit to carry and it is my duty to inform you I have my gun on me now...
- OMG he has a gun pew pew pew pew pew pew pew get your wallet out please OMG he's getting his wallet pew pew pew pew pew.
Anyhow, racist, I hope when Obama's girlfriend Hillary shows up to take your guns you respect her authority and just hand them over, else the slew of policemen at her back will have all the justification in the world to shoot your ass dead for not cooperating.
Cops have a tough job you don't know what it's like! - No durrrrrrrr. Then again, that's why they undergo police training: to prepare themselves for the unique challenges of being a cop. Part of that training presumably includes detaining uncooperative assholes without shooting them dead for no other reason than "he scared me a little bit." And anyhow, the actual dead guy is like 10% of the problem. Most of the pissed offery stems from all the aggressive policing beforehand and the lack of accountability afterward. Yeah, I get that it's hard for the prosecution to build a legal case against an officer with nothing but eyewitness accounts from non-credible - AKA black - witnesses when all the defense has to do is throw the officer's official police report on an overhead projector and then light a victory cigar, but Walter Scott. That guy was dead for days and all the racists were boasting, "Shut up you reverse black racist, he grabbed the cop's taser, I know 'cause the cop said so!" And that would have been the official story had this video never surfaced:
Worst of all are the cops who reflexively defend assholes like this because of some blood oath they swore to Officer Friendly that they'd never think bad thoughts about their brothers. Yes, protocol is sometimes unnecessarily burdensome, sometimes lines are crossed to do the right thing, and more than sometimes the very people who summon the police via 911 are the first to lodge a complaint; but I have never seen one profession so unquestionably circle the wagons in defense of shit that shouldn't be defended. I mean, when's the last time you heard a teacher defend another teacher raping a student by saying "you don't know what it's like"? Uh, never. So stop it. You're already the police, so start policing your own.
Oh yeah, this was about the racists and their knee jerk defense of the police whenever they kill a guy, not the actual police. So let's see...policing is a difficult job, yes, but that's not an excuse for unjustified shootings. And yet in cases like Walter Scott's, where evidence emerged contradicting the officer's official accounting, there are still doobags blaming him for his own death. Because they're racists.
But, statistics! - Hiding your racism behind statistics is the same as hiding your face underneath a white robe. You can't say shit like "the police shoot way more honkeys than black folk" and think that actually means something without also acknowledging there's a difference between absolute and relative numbers. But the whole blacks are 2-3 times more likely to get shot than their white bredren point gets brought up in every article ever about police violence so nothing new to add here other than I really wanted to get that blast in about hiding underneath your robe.
Black-on-black crime is responsible for more black deaths than the police are so complain about that instead - Leaving aside a serially debunked myth - that black-on-black crime is an actual thing - how is that even relevant?
- Hey, guy, I noticed you stole my social security number and have opened up three credit cards in my name.
- There are children in Africa starving why don't you talk about that instead?!?
The obvious insinuation when bringing up black-on-black crime is that the black community is indifferent to violence in their own community and is only moved to outrage when a white cop from outside it does the killing since that fits their victimization narratives, which leads to Skeletor Guiliani going on Fox News to ask where the BLM protestors are whenever a not-cop kills someone. Uhhhhhh, they're in the streets, protesting. So basically, just because the one black guy you saw at the store three weeks ago was at that store and not at a protest doesn't mean that people aren't concerned about the violence in their neighborhoods, it just means you're a racist.
There's a picture of him on social media holding a gun - The more open an open carry of a state the more relevant a black dude's gun ownership is used to justify his deadness, curiously.
As far as dudes who had a gun they were pointing at the police, you'll notice none of the public outrage is ever about them. If a guy is going to get in a shootout with police, well goodbye then since that's not the issue. The issue is that even fake police like George Zimmerman can conjure circumstances out of thin air that they can later use to justify what most of us would regard as murder were it to happen to our own son or daughter. I mean, imagine if we went to junior high together and I walked up to you in the lunch line, slapped your tray out of your hands, punched you in the dong, and then you ended up in detention for calling me an asshole. Exactly.
Thanks, Obama! - Obama is seventh on my list here but at least third on every other racist pop-sociologist's list of reasons the police most definitely should have shot that rando black dude. The sole reason for laying this at Obama's feet is that no president in the history of the solar system has done more to divide the country along racial lines...
...by simply being elected, since being half-black is the real act of racism while joining an armed white militia in response to his election apparently isn't.
No one ever complains when the police kill a white boy - That's because he wasn't cooperating with police instructions. Also, Obama ordered the hit.
Blue lives matter! - All lives matter!
Then why are white people so trifling? - The reason so many white people will have completely different reactions to the exact same scenario - government security agents killing a citizen - is because there are zero ways to convince them that racism is still an actual thing. To them, racism is stuff like slavery, lynchings, and Jim Crow, and since that was like 900 years ago then the only reason people should be mad the 5-0 shot a black 12-year-old is if the cop was yelling "I hate black people" while shooting him 104 times in the back, then reloading and shooting him again. But racism very obviously still exists, and even though I don't know how to define exactly what it looks like, double standards are a dead giveaway, especially those related to victimization. Here comes the elaboration.
Sorry I'm still talking but here's the elaboration - One list is usually half a list too many for the average blog reader, but I wrote up a second just in case you're still along for the ride, this one detailing the double standards and hypocrisies you should avoid if you don't want to be mistaken for a Donald Trump voter. Not all of them are exclusively about race, but if you're a Republican Senator who's endorsed Trump then chances are you're also a misogynistic homophobe, so being less of a dickbag in your secondary areas of hate will help you hide your primary hatage as well.
It's not about race - Whenever a black or Latino or Asian or other non-white human mentions some humiliation they've endured 8000 times prior to the singular instance they just brought up, everyone's white dad always pipes up with a dismissive "it's not about race" and "they're just playing the victim card." Ask this same white dad why he didn't get into medical school and it's because of Affirmative Action. "I was totally in the top 87th percentile at Phoenix University, and I majored in Physical Education, but they let some qualified black guy in instead. I was left with no other options but the string of sad days I've endured since."
I was reversed racism-ed - There are polls out there of real life white people who believe anti-white racism is more prevalent than anti-black racism, which should come as no surprise to anyone since we've all heard at least one Billy Bob hold forth on the straight white Christian male being the only demographic you can legally shit on. The thing about those polls is there is quite a bit off crossover between white folk who simultaneously believe that actual racism is a thing of the past and reverse racism is the biggest problem ever. The thing about reverse racism, though, is it can only exist in contradistinction to something else, so in the same way up doesn't exist without down, east doesn't exist without west, a shadow doesn't exist without a sunny day, a selfie doesn't exist without a self-involved narcissist, and Taken 2 doesn't exist without Taken 1, reverse racism doesn't exist without your Klan outfit.
I've been racisted against and didn't bother me except for when I complained about it all the time - Take someone who's spent his entire political consciousness ridiculing things like biases and microaggressions and drop him in the middle of Seoul, Korea - where I happen to live - and suddenly our hypothetical good ol' boy suddenly has a healthy interest in equality and basic human decency. For real, the same white bros who insist privilege is a farce are the same white bros who will bore you to death with tales of all the Korean racism they had to endure at the job that curiously affords them a middle-class lifestyle in a country they can't even hack the language. (Just try to imagine a moderately educated Mexican achieving the same in the US.) Sample conversation:
White Bro: Korea is so racist. No one at work will talk to me.
You: It's because they don't speak English. And you don't speak Korean.
WB: Korea's so racist. I've been here 11 years and they won't promote me to super head of every department in my cram school.
You: You don't speak Korean. And you're not qualified.
WB: Korea's so racist. A taxi driver didn't stop for me the other day.
You: They drove past a herd of Koreans too.
WB: Korea's so racist. An old Korean man said mean things to me.
You: Old Korean men hate everyone.
[Black Dude joins the conversation]
Black Dude: That man over there just made monkey noises at me.
WB: Why does everything always have to be about racism? You probably just imagined it.
The worst thing about all this is when Chad or Steve or whoever goes back to Amurka having mistaken an old cantankerous doobag for systematic racism and begins insisting that it's just something you can ignore if you feel like it.
Let's dismiss your experiences so we can validate mine - A black man from Detroit will tell a white man from the suburbs that he's been pulled over at least 40 times for DWB and the white man will say no way it was DWB, you probably had a bazooka in the back seat. Five minutes later that same white man will tell that same black man he knows exactly what's wrong with Detroit. "Trust me, I've been to the city at least six times; I know."
Hey baby! - Cat calling a lady is NBD since she can just ignore it if she really wanted - plus, why did she dress in clothes and human skin if she didn't want me to look at her? - but oh hey, I won't share a locker room with a gay man because he might see my wee wee, and that makes me uncomfortable. For real, someone should make a video where a gay dude approaches a man who just cat called a lady and assaults him with language similar to what he just used himself. I'm sure he'd take it in stride.
Ima touch her puss - Bragging about sexual assault is just locker room jokes, Anderson Cooper! Also, trans folk can't use the public potty because they're perverts.
Cronies! - Everyone hates nepotism, at least until it's time to call your uncle's friend's mistress's brother and ask him to hook you up with a job you're not exactly suited for.
Islamers are evil - I've read at least six Koranic verses on alexjones.com that says all Muslimers are required to kill the infidel, so Muslim ban sounds good to me. And no, I haven't actually read the Bible so don't expect me to comment on all the times God ordered genocide there.
Et cetera - For days and days.
Summary - The number one way in White Town to prove you're not a racist is to say: "I'm not a racist." Since that doesn't fly anywhere else then the next best way to prove you're not a racist is to stop saying stupid hypcritical shit after the police shoot a black person. Have a blessed day.
