Larry Elder, Nationally Syndicated Radio Host and attorney - Denver Gazette
Stephan: As I follow the White Supremacy Trend I see it becoming more and more violent. It is clear that there is a sizeable part of the White population who are enthusiastically preparing for civil war. And, it should be noted, this group has infiltrated the military and the police.
I feel a bit like I am living in the early months of 1861.
White nationalist demonstrators use shields as they guard the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va. The latest Military Times Poll of active-duty troops found that more than 1 in 3 have seen signs of white supremacist or similarly extremist ideology in the ranks, an increase from last year’s survey. Credit: Steve Helber/AP
The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, released findings in March that showed a rise of 149% in reported anti-Asian American hate crimes from 2019 to 2020. PolitiFact wrote: “The report doesn’t mention former President Donald Trump. However, it does show that Google searches found spikes for racist terms such as ‘China virus’ and ‘Kung Flu’ spiked throughout 2020.” As to Trump calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” or the “Kung Flu,” Asian American Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said: “It did not help the situation. And frankly, it’s appalling that it’s been allowed … to become this bad. … But we have a long way to go in this country. Asian Americans are still viewed as an ‘other.’” […]
Robert Jensen, Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and collaborator with the Ecosphere Studies program at The Land Institute. - Yes! Magzine
Stephan: It isn't just White supremacy, it is also christofascism and, particularly, male dominance. We are in the middle of a paradigm change, shifting from male dominance to gender equality and normality, for all gender variations. You can see it in both the general public and the scholarly scientific world. This transition is going to get more painful and could become even more violent. Here is one take on the White Male dominance trend. This is a little too emotional and militant for my taste but this is an important point of view in this trend.
ILLUSTRATION BY MALTE MUELLER/GETTY
I’m a natural to review Ijeoma Oluo’s new book, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America (Seal Press, 2020).
I am White, male, American, and when I taught at the University of Texas at Austin, I routinely joked that “the secret to my success is that I’m mediocre, and I know it.”
That comment came in conversations with students about inflated faculty egos, partly as a caution to myself. In universities, the coin of the realm is being a big thinker with original ideas. But most of us aren’t big thinkers, and original ideas are rare. Rather than being satisfied with being competent—a hard enough standard to meet—professors too often puff themselves up, a weakness to which White guys are especially vulnerable. My quip wasn’t the result of a lack of self-confidence; I was simply suggesting that an honest self-assessment helps one do useful work.
If “mediocre” seems unkind, how about “ordinary”? I’m not special, but I live in a culture that designates people who look like me as the standard. A White supremacist and patriarchal […]
LES LEOPOLD, Director of the Labor Institute in New York - Common Dreams
Stephan: This is an amazing report. How any working-class person could vote MAGA is almost unbelievable, inasmuch as the MAGA policies of Trump and the Republican Party are specifically designed to screw the working class in terms of everything from education to taxes, to safe working conditions. Why is this happening? In my view, this is another alarm bell warning us about the growing White supremacy racism that infects the United States; a social cancer that threatens our democracy as it has not been threatened since the 1860s.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump holding signs at the Reading Regional Airport in Bern Township, Pennsylvania on October 31, 2020. Credit: Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty
How do we know anything at all about the 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020? Are they mostly racist? Sexist, homophobic, xenophobic? Are they white working-class males who suffer from status anxiety as the U.S. population grows more diverse? Are Trump supporters wealthier voters or poorer? Are they anti-elites, or elites themselves? Are working people becoming the core of the Republican Party, as Senator Josh Hawley proclaimed on election night? Or did Joe Biden bring them back into the Democratic fold?
Answers to these questions traditionally come from exit polls supplemented by what we hear from political commentators, labor union officials, and community leaders. An NBC poll (February 21, 2021) reported that the news is not good for labor progressives:
The GOP is rapidly becoming the blue-collar party.
In the last decade, the percentage of blue-collar voters who call themselves Republicans has grown by 12 points. At the same time, the number in that […]
Eliza Griswold , Contributing Writer - The New Yorker
Stephan: In the interest of full disclosure, I have never cared for the Southern Baptist Convention, even though it is the largest Protestant denomination with 14 million members. It has always been and indeed was founded on racism and White Supremacy. It split off from the larger body of American Baptist Protestants in 1845 specifically over its support for continuing slavery. Now, as this report very ably explains, racism once again is tearing this group apart, this time from the inside.
Dwight McKissic is one of a growing number of Southern Baptist pastors of color who may leave the denomination, owing to allegations that the group won’t acknowledge the realities of systemic racism.Photographs by Zerb Mellish for The New Yorker
On a recent Friday afternoon, Dwight McKissic sat at a folding table in his three-car garage, on a cul-de-sac in Arlington, Texas, discussing the role that race plays in a growing divide among American evangelicals. McKissic is sixty-four, with a trim white goatee and an imposing stature. For the past thirty-eight years, he has served as the lead pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, which he grew from a few dozen people to roughly four thousand congregants. In the process, he has become a prominent member of the Southern Baptist Convention, which, with more than fourteen million members, is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. But McKissic is also one of a growing number of pastors of color who may leave the S.B.C. next week, amid allegations that the organization won’t collectively acknowledge the realities of systemic racism. […]
Stephan: Here is some more good news from and about the Biden Administration. The peace of the world in large measure depends on the relationship of the U.S. and its traditional allies. And that in turn is affected by how the allies perceive the U.S. and the state of its democracy. We were more badly damaged by Trump and his utterly corrupt administration than, I think, most Americans realize.
President Biden has promised the world that “America is back.”
As he takes his first trip abroad as president, a Pew Research Center global survey released Thursday shows that many in advanced economies believe it.
Trust in the U.S. president fell to historic lows in most countries surveyed during Donald Trump’s presidency, according to Pew.
Under Biden, it has soared. In the 12 countries surveyed both this year and last, a median of 75 percent of respondents expressed confidence in Biden to “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” Pew found, compared with 17 percent for Trump last year. Sixty-two percent of respondents now have a favorable view of the United States vs. 34 percent at the end of Trump’s presidency.
“The election of Joe Biden as president has led to a dramatic shift in America’s international image,” the Pew report reads.
The findings come a day after Biden touched down in England on the first leg of a whirlwind trip through Europe. On his agenda: a meeting of the Group of Seven nations in Cornwall, a NATO summit […]
