the kid Derek Black
Talk about a headline writer's dream.
Yeah, I would have wondered if it was a very slow escape plan, but how he used the first part of his college life suggests otherwise.
I saw this linked everywhere, read it, and found it totally uninteresting. Kid goes to college, college works as advertised.
And another pebble for the 'ban home-schooling' mountain.
I also wasn't in love with it to the extent others are, but partly because it made me think about the amount of emotional labor that went into it from the side of the people who changed his mind. And that LGBT stuff doesn't figure in anywhere, which makes me suspect for no actual reason that things are not good on that front. But mostly it seems like a call for everyone else to take on the white man's burden of opening his eyes because he's too dumb and selfish to do it himself. Yay?
the amount of emotional labor that went into it from the side of the people who changed his mind
My thought as well. Props to the bunch of kids who decided to take it on, but better that it weren't necessary. They did an impressive thing.
Well, still yay, I think. I mean, whatever Black's merits as a human being, he used to be an important force for evil, and now he isn't. You can think of it as "tak[ing] on the white man's burden of opening his eyes because he's too dumb and selfish to do it himself", and that's not wrong, but it's also doing work to neutralize someone who was a leader and organizer of a racist movement -- no one else should have to do that, because no one should be racist to begin with, but given that there are bad people out there, the people who talk them out of it are doing useful and important work.
7 to 5, crossing with and mostly agreeing with 6.
Oh, totally, LB. It's an inspiring story from their point of view, but it's still told from his. I'm a big proponent of doing that sort of stupid slow drudgery work if you're able and don't do enough of it myself, but the article itself seemed a little weirdly glib about it.
Yeah, the headline should properly have been something like "Tikkun Olam FTW!"
Is there some ideological thing about long, unstyled hair on white supremacist men? There seems to be more of it than I'd expect.
On the face of it it was mostly other white people doing the lifting,* but yeah. OTOH, I go by the best definition of liberalism I've heard: 'liberal' means 'generous', so a liberal is generous with his money (taxes) and with his trust (that taxes will be well spent). Maybe generous with emotional labor too? The implication though is that liberalism requires sufficient privilege to be able to afford to be generous, which is awkward. But I think not implausible.
*Assuming Jews are white these days.
Read it a couple days ago. I liked it well enough. If anything jumped out at me, it's how much overlap there is between David Duke and Stormfront on the one hand - which seems like it should be the most paranoid, hateful fringe, and in a meaningful sense actually was the fringe 10+ years ago - and mainstream Republicans. Get to the end of the article and you'll see not self-evidently risible stuff about fluoridation or re-fighting the Civil War but exactly the same memes as in an article about Trump or Trump supporters. Not news to most people around here but striking to see in this format, I guess.
*Assuming Jews are white these days.
Whenever—as has happened a couple times recently—I receive a compliment on my hair from a white person, the whiteness of Jews is reconfirmed.
11: I'd assume it's some combination of the privilege to be lazy, messiah complex, and straight hair with some body not looking entirely awful when left to grow. (I say as a white man with long, unstyled wavy/frizzy hair.)
I've never had long hair or white supremacism.
"We shouldn't have to do that" is just wishful thinking. I'm sorry we don't live in utopia yet.
We're all fine with you having to do that.
Enough people saying "we shouldn't have to do that" is a necessary prerequisite for change. And they're right. But yes, for the time being, sadly, us moronic white guys need help.
11: Shaved heads aren't the preferred hairstyle? I guess I'm totally out of touch with fashion for white supremacist men.
20: Presumably they were getting annoyed with people assuming they were into 2 Tone ska. But white supremacists can come in all shapes, colors and sizes.
There are two directions to enter neo-Nazism. One is from the skinhead/punk route, and the other is from the nerd/Asutru/Viking historical reenactment route. The first have shaved heads and the second have long hair.
Vladimir Vladimirovich has neither. And the originals were all about the side-parts.
What's most remarkable about that article is that it's from the Washington Post and that it more or less directly identifies the Republican party and Trump specifically as deeply tied to white nationalists. That's true, of course, but it's heartening that the Post is able to more or less off-handedly treat it as true.
Presumably they were getting annoyed with people assuming they were into 2 Tone ska.
Back when I was into 2 Tone ska, it was totally frustrating getting mistaken for a white supremacist.
Alla them policeman are cawmuniss.
Hey did Trump really tear up his notes at the end of the last debate?