Tag: Black Lives Matter

bookmark_borderBiased article about statue genocide in Richmond

Posted on by Marissa

This article is old but still biased and inaccurate enough to merit blogging about. The article in the Richmond Free Press, from last June, describes the brutal and heartless destruction of a statue of Christopher Columbus and a statue of Williams Carter Wickham as follows:

Decrying police brutality and white supremacy, Richmond protesters have taken an active approach to removing symbols of oppression by pulling statues of Christopher Columbus and Confederate Gen. Williams Carter Wickham from their pedestals in public parks.

The Columbus statue in Byrd Park was brought down with ropes, briefly set on fire and dragged into Fountain Lake on Tuesday evening following a protest and march down Arthur Ashe Boulevard led by members of Richmond’s indigenous community.

During a a peaceful protest in Byrd Park, demonstrators reaffirmed a commitment to inclusivity and solidarity with all marginalized and oppressed peoples.

“We no longer leave behind people in this movement,” said Joseph Rogers, a member of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality.

Taking an active approach? That’s an interesting way of describing the brutal and vicious destruction of beautiful works of art that are not yours to destroy.

Additionally, the statues destroyed were not symbols of oppression; they were symbols of freedom, liberty, diversity, independent thinking, and fighting back against authority, all of which are the opposite of oppression.

Furthermore, the author describes the actions in question as a “peaceful protest,” despite the fact that in the previous sentence, the author wrote that the statue of Columbus was brought down with ropes, set on fire, and thrown into a lake. (Just typing those words makes me feel like my heart is being ripped out of my chest.) These actions are anything but peaceful.

Plus, the claim that demonstrators “reaffirmed a commitment to inclusivity and solidarity with all marginalized and oppressed peoples” is blatantly false. Destroying statues is inherently non-inclusive, particularly when those statues represent unpopular minorities, which the Columbus and Wickham ones did. And destroying statues that represent marginalized and oppressed people, as these statues did, is an attack on marginalized and oppressed people, which is the opposite of expressing solidarity with them. So the demonstrators actually did precisely the opposite of what the article characterizes them as doing. The quote by one of the protesters that “we no longer leave behind people in this movement,” is preposterous. This movement, by destroying statues that represent cultures and viewpoints other than their own, is actively attacking and trampling on people who do not think the way they do. That is inherently leaving people out and leaving people behind. The name of the organization is also preposterous: by destroying statues of unpopular minorities, the organization’s members are actively advocating against freedom, justice, and equality.

Later in the article, the author inaccurately describes the events in Charlottesville in 2017 as a “deadly white supremacist rally.” The rally was actually to express opposition to the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, which has nothing to do with white supremacy. Additionally, the rally was not deadly; it was the counter-protest by intolerant bullies that caused violence.

The article also describes Edward Colston, whose statue was viciously destroyed in a similar incident to Columbus, as a “17th century slave trader.” This is an inaccurate characterization. Colston was a merchant. He bought and sold a variety of goods participated in many different industries, of which the slave trade was only one.

Finally, even the article’s headline – “Columbus and Wickham statues come down” is biased. The brutal, vicious, disgusting, and intolerant destruction of statues should never be treated as something even that is remotely acceptable. This headline completely fails to capture the moral wrongness of the actions described within it. Any article needs to characterize the deliberate destruction of statues as the atrocity that it is.

bookmark_borderThe statue genocide in New Hampshire

Posted on by Marissa

The statue genocide that has been perpetrated by the Black Lives Matter movement is such a painful topic for me that it is often too difficult for me to read about it. But on occasions when I feel able to do so, I try to research this topic, both for a website that I am working on that memorializes its victims, as well as for the purpose of determining if there are any states in the U.S. that have been untouched by the genocide and therefore are possible places where I could live. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any. When researching the possibility of moving to New Hampshire, I came across an article from the New Hampshire Union Leader outlining the efforts of the politically correct bullies to ruin everything in the state. There are numerous problems with the article and with the people quoted in it, which I will outline below:

First of all, the entire premise of the article is wrong. The author, Shawne Wickham, characterizes the destruction of everything good in the world as a “soul-searching” motivated by learning more about monuments and the historical figures they represent. It is assumed that everything from getting rid of Aunt Jemima from the pancake mix, to taking down a weathervane depicting a Native American at Dartmouth College, to renaming Franklin Pierce University, to renaming the city of Keene, to altering the Hannah Duston Memorial, is a good thing. But these are bad things which eliminate the richness, beauty, and diversity of our world and move us closer to a society in which every person thinks the same and every place looks the same. We should be aiming to add more beautiful, amazing, wonderful, distinctive, glorious, unique, and diverse things to our world, not to eliminate the few existing ones. New Hampshire has never had any statues of Christopher Columbus or of any Confederate generals, and the article presumes that this is a good thing, but it is not. What would actually make the world a better place is to add more Confederate statues and more Columbus statues to our public spaces, but, as is the case with almost all of the media coverage over the past year about the topic of statues, this is not even presented as an option.

A major topic of the article is the statue of Hannah Duston in Boscawen, NH. Duston is a woman who was captured by Native Americans in 1697. The Native Americans killed her baby, and she eventually escaped and killed 10 of them in revenge. University of New Hampshire Professor Meghan Howey and Abenaki leader Denise Pouliot joined forces to “address” the statue (there again is the false assumption that the existence of statues that are at all different, distinctive, or controversial is a problem that needs to be solved, as opposed to a good thing that the world needs more of). Their plan is to create a park called “Unity Park N’dakinna” around the statue, including interpretive signage as well as a statue of an Abenaki family. The project will involve various experts such as artists, historians, and landscape designers, and a statewide fundraising campaign is planned. My question is… what is the point of all this? Without Columbus statues and Confederate statues, the world is not a place worth living in. There is no point in expending resources on any statues, parks, or public spaces until all of the Columbus statues and Confederate statues have been put back up. It is not fair that one group of people gets to design a park that represents their history and values, while other people are forced to live in a world where everything that represents their history and values has been destroyed. It is a slap in the face to read about all the thought, effort, expertise, and money being used to create this park, while I am no longer able to enjoy any parks in my hometown of Boston because they remind me of the fact that the statue of my hero, Christopher Columbus, was brutally beheaded and the city has made no effort to hold the perpetrators accountable. To focus resources on this park, while everything that makes my life worth living has been destroyed, is to tell me that my pain does not matter, that my feelings do not matter, and that my happiness does not matter. It is to tell the Italian-American community and the Confederate community that our lives, and the lives of our ancestors, do not matter.

Another topic of the article is Confederate statues. Ellen Townes-Anderson, a professor at Rutgers, argues in the article that obliterating statues of Confederate leaders does not amount to erasing history, because battlefields, museums, and books still exist and are still available to those who wish to learn. This is true, but what makes Confederate statues so important is not just their educational value but also the fact that Confederate leaders deserve to be honored and glorified. They fought bravely for the cause of individual liberty and self-determination. The existence of beautiful statues honoring deserving people and causes is an essential part of what gives cities, towns, statues, and countries their identities. It is a crucial part of having a world that is worth living in. Elizabeth Dubrulle at the New Hampshire Historical Society argues that Confederate statues are particularly bad because “they did commit treason… Where in the world would you put up statues to people who committed treason?” Anyone who uses the “treason” argument to criticize the Confederacy reveals him/herself to be an authoritarian and a bully. Every person and/or group of people has a fundamental right to leave his/her country and form a new one, and that is exactly what the Confederates fought to be able to do. Anyone who thinks that the Confederates committed “treason” by forming their own country is an authoritarian who tramples on individual rights. Dubrulle also mentions that Confederate statues were allegedly created to promote a racist agenda and that the Confederacy has come to symbolize white supremacy in modern times. But the motivations behind a statue’s creation, as well as people’s perceptions of the statue today, are not the deciding factors in evaluating the statue. What truly matters is who the statue depicts and what that person stood for, which may or may not match up with popular perception.

It’s horrific enough that magnificent statues of Columbus and of Confederate generals have been viciously destroyed across the country, but the ideas suggested by the people quoted in the article – such as renaming the city of Keene because its namesake participated in the slave trade and stripping President Franklin Pierce’s name from a university and law school because he had the audacity to compromise with the South on the issue of slavery – are downright ridiculous. Howey, the professor at UNH, suggests that this new way of looking at history is “much more interesting and nuanced,” but I see it as the opposite. The so-called experts quoted in the article, and many people in general, are essentially attempting to get rid of everything that honors anyone who is not considered 100% perfect according to the social norms of 2021. This makes history, and by extension the world, bland, boring, conformist, and soulless. History has been my passion since I was 10, and there is nothing interesting or appealing about this way of commemorating and studying history. 

Rutgers professor Townes-Anderson says in the article that it feels for the first time “like real change is possible… we have the best chance we’ve had in a long time.” But the change of which she speaks – the eradication of Confederate statues from public spaces – is a negative change, not a positive one. The BLM movement is turning the world from a place that is mostly bad, with a few beautiful and good things still left, to a world that is 100% bad, in which the few remaining beautiful and good things have been destroyed. Media coverage of this topic needs to recognize this. Instead of being presented as something neutral or even positive, the statue genocide must be treated as the horrific injustice that it is.

bookmark_borderThe real double standard between Capitol and BLM protests

Posted on by Marissa

One of the most disturbing and infuriating things I’ve ever witnessed is the media’s and society’s promulgation of the myth that the pro-Trump protesters at the U.S. Capitol were somehow treated more leniently than Black Lives Matter protesters have been. This is one of the most blatantly false ideas I have ever heard, and it has been expressed over and over again, ad nauseam, by people across all forms of media and social media.

Coverage of the recent happenings at the Capitol is so offensive to me that I haven’t been able to read and analyze a huge amount of articles on this topic. But this article by USA Today provides an overview of the BLM/Capitol protest comparisons made by various public figures. I am going to attempt to explain why these comments and statements are wrong and unjust.

The article itself describes how during the BLM protests last spring and summer, “law enforcement often clashed with demonstrators, deploying tear gas and rubber bullets, bruising faces and bodies, and, in one incident that went viral, pushing an elderly man to the ground.” Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, gave a similar characterization of events: “When Black folks are protesting and progressives are protesting peacefully they were tear-gassed, they were arrested, they were shot with rubber bullets. They were shot with real bullets. We should not be witnessing what we are witnessing today in this nation. It’s a global embarrassment. None of this took place.”

This, to use a very technical philosophy term, is complete and utter baloney. First of all, no Black Lives Matter protesters have been shot by police. Johnson’s reference to being “shot with real bullets” seems to refer to the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, a counter-protestor who killed two BLM protesters in defense of himself and local business owners whose property the protesters were destroying. Because Rittenhouse was a private citizen and not a police officer, this shooting has no relevance to the topic of the respective police responses to the BLM and Capitol protests. Additionally, how can Johnson claim with a straight face, with regard to tear gas and arrests, that “none of this took place”? Over 100 of the pro-Trump protesters were, indeed, arrested and charged with crimes, and over 200 are being investigated by the FBI for federal felonies such as sedition and conspiracy. Suspects have been hunted down all over the country, and law enforcement is widely publicizing surveillance footage in an attempt to identify even more suspects. Not to mention the fact that one of the protesters, Ashli Babbitt, was killed by a police officer, and two more protesters lost their lives due to mysterious causes during the conflict with police. And all of this despite the fact that the actions of the BLM protesters – destroying countless innocent people’s businesses and countless beautiful, irreplaceable historical statues – were vastly more deserving of punishment than the actions of the pro-Trump protesters at the Capitol. Johnson is (kind of) right about one thing: how leniently BLM protesters have been treated compared to pro-Trump protesters is indeed a global embarrassment.

On a similar note, Bernice King, the daughter of MLK, tweeted: “If this were Black Lives Matter storming the Capitol, tanks would have been in the city by now. The response tells the story of our nation’s racist history and present.” There is absolutely no evidence that tanks would have responded to a hypothetical protest in which BLM protesters entered the Capitol, and the leniency with which such protesters have been treated as they smashed, decapitated, and burned priceless works of art all across the country for months is strong evidence against King’s claim.

Adding to the ridiculousness, CNN commentator Van Jones tweeted: “Imagine if #BlackLivesMatter were the ones who were storming the Capitol building. Thousands of black people laying siege to the seat of government – in the middle of a joint session of Congress? Just imagine the reaction.” I can indeed imagine the reaction. It would not have involved a protester being shot to death by police. It would not have involved hundreds of protesters (or any protesters, for that matter) being hunted down, arrested, and charged with federal crimes. Instead, it would have involved those protesters being unanimously praised as brave, selfless, and heroic by the media, politicians, and society.

Joe Biden voiced similar sentiments, saying, “No one can tell me that if that had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol.” And Rep. Marcia Fudge claimed, “There is a double standard.” These statements are indeed true, but in the opposite way from what the speakers intended. As a side note, there is also a double standard in terms of how presidents are treated by the media and by society. Why is it that Biden has received zero criticism for referring to protesters who disagree with him as a “mob of thugs,” while Trump was ruthlessly attacked as unprofessional and un-presidential for far less insulting rhetoric?

“We have witnessed two systems of justice: one that let extremists storm the U.S. Capitol yesterday, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protestors last summer,” tweeted Kamala Harris. “It’s simply unacceptable.” Actually, the two systems of justice that we have witnessed are one that let people smash beautiful statues to pieces and another that hunted down and arrested hundreds of people, and killed one person, for entering the Capitol building. These disparate systems of justice are indeed unacceptable, but in the opposite way from what Harris meant.

“It’s not any shock that we see this huge contradiction that we can storm a capitol, break into elected officials’ offices, the chamber, and create other chaos trying to perform a fascist coup, and we see little to no consequences,” said activist Kofi Ademola. “But Black protesters here in D.C. and Chicago, we’re heavily policed, brutalized, for literally saying, ‘Don’t kill us.’ There was no planned insurrections. We were literally just advocating for our lives. It speaks volumes about the values of this country. It doesn’t care about our lives.”

This statement is preposterous. As I have already explained, one protestor who entered the Capitol was shot to death and hundreds were hunted down, arrested, and charged with federal crimes. Even the thousands of pro-Trump protesters who made no attempt to enter the Capitol have been shunned as pariahs, fired from their jobs, and received death threats. How can Ademola claim that this constitutes “little to no consequences”? Nothing could be further from the truth. His claim that the pro-Trump protesters were “trying to perform a fascist coup” is equally ridiculous. Countless photos and videos show the protesters carrying Gadsden flags and Confederate flags, emblems of rebellion, liberty, and resistance to authority. This alone is sufficient to prove that the protesters were attempting the exact opposite of a fascist coup. The protesters at the Capitol are the true anti-fascists, ironically a distinction that the left-wing group Antifa claims to hold. Also ridiculous is Ademola’s claim that BLM protesters were “literally just advocating for our lives.” BLM protesters have destroyed countless businesses, buildings, and statues. In what universe is advocating for the destruction of other people’s property and precious works of art considered the same thing as advocating for one’s life? This country certainly seems to care about the lives of these protesters, given the fact that it allows them to brutalize works of art all across the country without making any attempt to stop them or punish them in any way.

And the Black Lives Matter Global Network said in a statement: “When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets. When white people attempt a coup, they are met by an underwhelming number of law enforcement personnel who act powerless to intervene, going so far as to pose for selfies with terrorists, and prevent an escalation of anarchy and violence like we witnessed today. Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear-gassed, battered, and perhaps shot.”

The last statement is false for reasons that I have explained above and also completely ignores that fact that one of the pro-Trump protesters, Ashli Babbitt, actually was shot. The characterization of BLM protesters as protesting “for our lives” is inaccurate for reasons that I have also explained above. Additionally, the reference to “white people attempt[ing] a coup” is not only false but also racist. The pro-Trump protest comprised people of all races. (For example, a picture in this gallery from the aftermath of the protest shows a baseball cap that reads “Black Voices for Trump.”)

So in conclusion, there is indeed an inconsistency between the reactions of law enforcement, as well as the media, tech companies, and society in general, to the BLM protests versus the pro-Trump protest in Washington, D.C. The double standard is precisely the opposite of what most people think it is. Seeing mobs brutally destroy beautiful works of art representing historical heroes with almost complete impunity, and then seeing pro-liberty protesters being hunted down, arrested, personally insulted, ostracized, fired, and slandered as fascists and terrorists for standing up to government overreach, is so unjust that it makes my soul cry out in agony.

bookmark_border“When we say something is racist, believe us”

Posted on by Marissa

In an opinion piece for the Boston Globe Magazine, Linda Chavers, a lecturer and dean at Harvard, complains about her “first angry white student.” Near the beginning of her teaching career, a student in Chavers’ class was upset about his low class participation grade and told her that he “felt he was a minority in a classroom ‘led by a Black woman.'” In my opinion, this sounds like a pretty good point. Every student has a right to ask teachers why they got the grade that they did and if there’s anything they can do to increase their grade. But Chavers considers this student’s comment to be an example of racism.

Chavers also sees racism in her interactions with co-workers, including those who ask her “What do you do?” She describes this as a “loaded question” and a “sinister covert act.” Describing the co-workers who ask such questions, she writes, “it’s as if my resume has personally insulted them” and “as if I have committed an assault.” Silly me, but I thought that asking a person what they do for work was a friendly way of making conversation. Are people supposed to automatically know that Chavers is a professor by looking at her? “I am the only one truly affronted by these interactions,” Chavers claims. How someone could be affronted by kind, polite, and completely non-race-related interactions is incomprehensible. 

Chavers complains that “the stripping of our power started long before we were in the workplace” and that she has “endured so many battles that what some might call ‘attitude’ is actually just exhaustion.” But she doesn’t give any examples of actions that people have taken to strip her power away, of battles that she has fought, or of elements of her life that are particularly exhausting. 

“Prioritize the Black women in your workplace,” Chavers urges. “Listen to what we say and listen when we say it the first time, not the hundredth. Don’t be defensive. When we say something is racist, believe us.”

There are a couple of problems with this, however. Prioritizing black women might sound like a positive thing, but prioritizing any race or gender over others is discriminatory. Treating everyone equally is the fair thing to do. Similarly, it might sound like a good thing to believe black women when they say something is racist, but this fails to take into account the rights and the point of view of the accused. Accusing someone of doing something racist is a serious allegation. To take such an allegation as automatically true is unjust to the person being accused. If someone does something racist, that is wrong, and the person absolutely deserves to be punished. But falsely accusing someone of being racist is equally wrong. It’s important to determine whether or not an allegation of racism is actually true.

As for telling readers not to be defensive… it’s difficult not to be defensive when one is constantly being criticized and attacked. Chavers dedicated an entire essay to accusing the people around her of being racist, sinister, and engaged in a conspiracy to take away her power and cast doubt on her qualifications, without providing a single piece of evidence. If she were reading this blog post, she would likely accuse me of being racist for demanding evidence as opposed to accepting without question her claim that complaining about a grade, or asking someone what they do for work, is inherently racist. Chavers complains about how upsetting it was when one colleague whispered, “everyone’s tired of what she has to say, and she should just be grateful to be here.” Maybe she should start saying things that actually make sense, instead of making baseless accusations and seeing racism where it doesn’t exist. 

bookmark_borderA riot is the language of the unheard

Posted on by Marissa

“A riot is the language of the unheard.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Watching and reading news coverage and social media posts about the pro-Trump protests at the Capitol has been enormously stressful, infuriating, heartbreaking, upsetting, and exhausting. It is not the actions of the protesters that make me feel these emotions; it is the attitudes and opinions expressed by journalists, commentators, authors, politicians, and society as a whole. The protesters did nothing wrong, and their actions are understandable and justified. Their treatment by the media and society is utterly appalling in its harshness, cruelty, hypocrisy, and inconsistency. 

People who believe in freedom, liberty, and individual rights are angry. And we have a right to be angry. We have been trampled on for a long time. Our income has been stolen by excessive and unjust taxation, our right to make our own medical decisions is under constant assault, privacy rights are essentially non-existent, we are not allowed to board an airplane without passing through a full-body scanner, and even our freedom to leave our houses and move about in the world has been taken away with the advent of a novel virus. And then the Black Lives Matter movement decided to start burning down our businesses, banning our flags, destroying irreplaceable, beautiful statues of the historical figures we love, and, adding insult to injury, claiming that they truly are the ones being trampled on and that we are the oppressors.

When someone is trampled on, he or she becomes angry, and justifiably so. We have protested peacefully again and again. We have explained our views civilly. But no one listened. Our concerns were dismissed as the whining of entitled, privileged crybabies, and the fact that we had the audacity to complain at all was used as evidence that we were selfish jerks. We have been called white supremacists, misogynists, xenophobes, and “deplorables” and been accused of “bitterly clinging” to the things that we value. When we have objected to these characterizations, our objections have been taken as evidence of our “white fragility,” and when we point out that this is racist, this is taken as further evidence of how fragile we are. When one is ridiculed, mocked, and dismissed again and again, one becomes increasingly angry, frustrated, and exhausted. The more angry and exhausted one becomes, the less able one becomes to express one’s views in a measured and articulate manner. And as we become less and less articulate in expressing our views, society takes our lack of articulateness as further evidence that we are are boorish, irrational jerks and ridicules and mocks us even more harshly. The cycle continues, with supporters of individual liberty becoming more and more angry and the rest of society insulting us with increasing nastiness and brutality. The injustice of this situation is overwhelming. It becomes nearly impossible to express oneself eloquently or constructively. When people are treated this way, what happened at the Capitol is the logical result. 

And now, the actions of the Trump supporters at the Capitol have been swiftly, completely, universally, and brutally condemned, used as yet further evidence to impugn the character of all conservatives and libertarians. Anchors and reporters on national news networks call us disgraceful, deplorable, disgusting, sickening, buffoons, idiots, thugs, traitors, domestic terrorists. The terms “riot,” “Trump mob,” “insurrection,” and “coup attempt” are used as if they are non-controversial, neutral descriptors. All over social media, people complain about the devastation, sadness, and even nausea and tears that they experienced while watching the protest. The condemnation infiltrates even areas of life that should have nothing to do with politics: commentators during basketball and football games have called the protesters “terrorists” and decried the “violent riot;” teams have put forth statements alleging that the protesters were treated too leniently by law enforcement; articles on psychology websites speculate about what type of mental disorder could explain the protesters’ behavior; and a speaker during a history lecture that I attended pontificated about how everyone is “saddened and shaken” by the “assault on our democracy.” No attempt whatsoever is made to understand where the protesters are coming from, why they felt so angry and unheard, or why they decided that such drastic action was their best option. 

Making this societal reaction even more inappropriate is the complete lack of proportionality when compared with society’s reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests. The widespread looting, destruction, arson, vandalism, and violence committed by members of the BLM movement had almost no impact on society’s perception of the movement as a whole. The media described those protests not only as mostly peaceful, but also as brave, noble, heroic, and necessary. Countless brands, celebrities, athletes, and all four major sports leagues issued statements in support of the movement. The cruel and barbaric destruction of historical statues and the damage done to business owners were dismissed as unimportant. Almost no one was punished for these despicable acts, and in many cases local governments actually rewarded the perpetrators by removing the victimized statues. Essentially, the way that it seems to work is that when someone on our side does something illegal or violent, everyone on our side is punished. And when someone on the other side does something illegal or violent, everyone on our side is punished. Those who support individual liberty are characterized by the insulting (and sexist and racist) stereotype of the entitled, irrationally aggrieved white male, while the grievances of members of the BLM movement are portrayed as justified and understandable. Never were any leaders of the BLM movement asked to disavow the violent or destructive actions committed by members of their movement, but that is exactly what was immediately demanded of Republican political leaders and conservative organizations with regards to the Capitol protest. Also in the wake of the protest, social media companies, online stores, and other websites banned large swaths of conservative users, and when these users moved to a conservative-leaning alternative, that app was banned from the major operating systems’ app stores. Nothing even remotely similar to this occurred in response to any BLM protest, no matter how violent or destructive. 

And then, taking things to a new level of preposterousness, society and the media complain that the protesters at the Capitol were treated unfairly leniently compared to BLM protesters, when the exact opposite is the case. Imagine what would happen if black people or Muslims stormed the capital, the media asks, implying that it’s obvious they would be treated more harshly. I’ll tell you what would happen: none of them would be arrested, and they would be lauded as heroes by the media instead of being universally ridiculed and condemned. 

So-called journalists and the general public alike have gone on and on about their horror at the attack on their beloved Capitol, which in their eyes symbolizes the democratic process. But neither the Capitol building nor democracy is a defining feature of America. The defining feature of America, the principle upon which it was founded, is individual liberty. And when our political leaders, institutions, and society as a whole trample on individual liberty, then our political leaders, institutions, and society as a whole have forfeited any right to be obeyed and respected. Those who protested at the Capitol were brave freedom fighters who risked their personal safety to stand up for their beliefs. Their actions were justified, and they deserve none of the arrests, charges, or criticism that have been leveled against them. 

In summary, we have been bullied and beaten down, and it is the bullies who are complaining that they are shaken, nauseous, and in tears because some of us actually had the audacity to stand up for ourselves. This reaction is as ridiculous as if a hockey team defeated its rival 8 to 1 and its fans were nauseous and in tears after the game because they were so upset that the other team scored one goal. It also demonstrates a complete lack of empathy; how do they think we have felt all these years as we have been relentlessly insulted and our rights violated? The bullies who have been oppressing and trampling on us receive no scrutiny whatsoever and are portrayed by the media as innocent victims while we, the true victims, are vilified, mocked, and condemned. As a result of this pervasive unjust treatment, we are angry, we are frustrated, we are overwhelmed, and we are exhausted. We are tired of being trampled on, tired of our rights being violated, tired of being insulted and ridiculed, tired of our complaints and grievances being dismissed, tired of being told that we are privileged and that we are the problem. When a society treats people this way, it has no right to criticize them for fighting back.

“When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.” – Thomas Jefferson

bookmark_border2020 thoughts

Posted on by Marissa

It would be a cliche to say that 2020 was a horrible year. Almost everyone has been affected negatively by the Covid-19 pandemic in one way or another. For me, the most demoralizing, dispiriting, and discouraging events during 2020 were governments’ authoritarian policies imposed in response to the pandemic, Biden’s victory, and the widespread destruction of historical statues and monuments by supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. In this blog post I will discuss how these events affected me personally and how I hope to move forward in 2021. 

I’ve written at length about authoritarian coronavirus restrictions. The fact that they have been implemented almost universally by governments around the world and embraced without question by the vast majority of people is beyond dismaying. Because I’ve already written about this topic dozens of times, I won’t go into it in any more detail in this post. 

The election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States was another demoralizing event. Actually, it might be more accurate to say that the reaction of Biden’s supporters was more demoralizing and upsetting than the election result itself. In every election, one side ends up happy, and the other heartbroken. But the meanness, nastiness, viciousness, and brutality that Biden’s supporters demonstrated was surprisingly irrational and inappropriate.

Social media was flooded with post after post after post expressing joy, relief, gratitude, the feeling of a weight being, lifted et cetera et cetera. Even when posting pictures of sunsets, cityscapes, pets, and babies, far too many people were unable to resist alluding to Biden’s victory as the reason for their happiness. One (now former) Facebook friend shared a meme urging people to start working on “dismantling white supremacy” now that Biden has won the presidency. Another shared a tweet ridiculing Trump supporters and calling them “weirdos” for wearing hats and flying flags with his name on them. Another opined that a vote for Trump was the same as a vote for racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny. Preposterously, people described Biden’s election as a “new birth of freedom” and posted videos of and lyrics to the song “Battle Cry of Freedom” (how, pray tell, does it constitute a new birth of freedom to elect a president who believes in giving people less freedom in their day-to-day lives than his predecessor?). Worst of all, numerous people have expressed the idea that one should not “go easy on” Trump supporters but should, in the words of one (former) friend, “focus on the harm caused.” This is based on a false premise, namely that Trump supporters have somehow done something wrong for which we deserve to be punished. Refraining from personally attacking and insulting people who have done nothing wrong is not “going easy.” It is a basic requirement of being a morally decent person. Trump supporters did not cause any harm; the only harm is that caused by the intolerant bullies who have been contaminating the internet with their vile personal attacks on anyone whose views differ from theirs.

Continue reading “2020 thoughts”

bookmark_borderAnother day, another defamatory blog post

Posted on by Marissa

I came across another defamatory blog post by Michelle Davis at Living Blue in Texas, in which she insults the Confederate statue at Parker County Courthouse in Weatherford, Texas, as well as those who support it.

“There is no question about it, Progressives in Parker County are modern day civil rights activists standing up to hate in their own town,” she pompously gloats.

As usual, Davis repeatedly defames people who support the Confederate statue by calling them “racists” (and also defames the statue itself by calling it a “racist statue”). Also as usual, she personally attacks those who disagree with her, calling the Confederate flag a “loser flag,” categorizing opinions that are different from hers as “garbage,” describing statue supporters as “doing some type of circle-jerk around the statue,” and referring insultingly (and falsely) to the statue as “their precious ode to white supremacy.” And also as usual, she refers to them as “counter-protesters” with the derisive quotes, which makes no sense because the people she is describing actually are counter-protesters. 

First, Davis criticizes the statue supporters for arriving early and surrounding the monument to defend it before a recent protest, writing, “they still think that their Black neighbors are going to burn it down, despite they’ve never burned it down in all of the dozens of protests they’ve had this year.” First of all, I’m willing to bet the statue supporters aren’t just concerned about the possibility of black people vandalizing the statue; the statue-destroying, politically correct mob contains people of all races. Second, I’m not really sure why Davis expects the statue supporters to stop defending their statue just because it hasn’t been vandalized yet. There’s always a chance that protesters could vandalize the statue, so it’s wise to physically protect it just in case. (Also, a flyer advertising the protest contained the words “smash racism,” which could reasonably be interpreted encouraging vandalism. If you use the word “smash” in your own flyer, you have no right to ridicule people for being concerned that a statue might possibly end up being vandalized.)

Davis describes comments on the Sons of Confederate Veterans Facebook page as “hateful and racist” and displays screenshots of numerous comments, none of which are hateful or racist. Ironically, Davis’s blog post contains a photo showing a protester with a sign reading, “Black & brown built this town, time to take the statue down,” which is more racist than any of the pro-statue Facebook comments Davis is criticizing. (Is it really true that no white people had any part in building the town of Weatherford? I’m willing to bet not.)

“Likely, these people don’t even realize how hateful and ugly they look,” Davis writes of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other statue supporters. Except that they do not look hateful or ugly at all. They are standing up for a Confederate statue, which is neither hateful nor ugly. It is actually Davis who looks (and is) hateful and ugly for ridiculing and defaming those with different views than her.

“They’ve been lied to their entire lives and were likely indoctrinated into white supremacy when they were kids and it is now intertwined with their identities,” Davis writes. “It is Living Blue in Texas’ opinion that old racists likely will never learn or understand inclusion.” First of all, speculating about why people hold the views that they do is inappropriate. Davis is not in a position to know what her ideological opponents’ upbringings or backgrounds were like. Presuming that anyone who holds pro-Confederate views must have been “indoctrinated” as a child presumes that pro-Confederate views are false, because it denies the possibility that someone could have arrived at such views through careful and deliberate thought. Second, it’s absolutely hilarious that Davis writes about inclusion when she is arguing that a monument must be removed because the cause that it commemorates is not popular in the year 2020. It is the exact opposite of inclusion to defame, ridicule, and obliterate the history of an already marginalized group. But that is exactly what Davis and the Progressives of Parker County are doing. Clearly, they are the ones who do not understand inclusion.

Then, Davis describes an incident at the recent protest in which an anti-statue protester, Tony Crawford, asks the counter-protesters to “prove that the Confederacy wasn’t racist.” Does she not realize that this isn’t how the burden of proof works? It’s the burden of those who think the Confederacy was racist to prove that it was racist, not the other way around. 

And then she glowingly and admiringly describes an incident in which another anti-statue protester, Jessica Luther-Rummel, “pressed some of these racists for their names” and “told all of the white supremacists standing around that they could all go get f***ed up the a**.” How classy. Why exactly would someone consider it a good thing to treat people this way?

Davis complains about “the racism, hate, and violence” allegedly perpetrated by her opponents and criticizes them for being “full of hate and rage.” She complains that statue supporters allegedly threatened members of the anti-statue group but completely ignores the repugnant behavior of those on her own side, as well as the inherent intolerance and injustice of their cause. It is the anti-statue protesters who are truly practicing racism and hate. And it is completely understandable that people would be full of rage when they have been treated the way that Davis, Crawford, Luther-Rummel, and the rest of the anti-statue bullies have been treating those with different views.

And finally, in case there was any doubt that Davis and the Progressives of Parker County are the true bullies, she closes by gloating about how “the Confederate traitors were defeated by America.” Anyone who considers it “treasonous” to rebel against an oppressive government is an authoritarian and a bully. Yes, the Confederacy was defeated by the United States due to the latter being more populous and industrialized, but I am not sure why someone would consider this something to brag about. Which side won a war and which side lost has nothing to do with which side was morally right. Anyone who has the belief that military strength determines moral right and wrong is, you guessed it, an authoritarian and a bully. 

“It’s baffling how any non-racist can see what’s been happening in Weatherford and not have the urge to stand with or support the Black community and their allies in their efforts to remove this symbol of white supremacy from the lawn of the halls of justice,” writes Davis. Actually, Davis makes it very easy to resist standing with her side. Her mean-spirited, contemptuous treatment of other people reminds me of the bullies that I dealt with in elementary and middle school. There is no place for ridicule and personal attacks in our discourse, and the sheer volume of these that Davis has put forth on her blog makes my brain hurt. The Progressives of Parker County are the furthest thing possible from “modern day civil rights activists standing up to hate.” They are mean, nasty, intolerant bullies who are trampling on the underdog, ridiculing anyone who disagrees with them, and attempting to obliterate from the world everything that does not conform to their narrow definition of political correctness. 

“Enough is enough,” Davis writes. Yes, it is. 

bookmark_border“Stop honoring racist losers”

Posted on by Marissa

“Stop honoring racist losers.” These are the words on a sign held by a protester in Weatherford, Texas earlier this year. Like so many intolerant bullies have been doing throughout these horrible last seven or so months, this person was demanding that a Confederate statue be removed from its place in front of the county courthouse. The protest in question happened back in July, but the topic is still (sadly) relevant and I still have strong opinions about it, so it is still worth blogging about. 

At the protest on July 25, a group of hundreds of counter-protesters who support the monument arrived to stand up to 75 or so protesters who were demanding the statue’s removal. Unjustly, the media coverage largely portrayed the counter-protesters as the ones who acted wrongly. For example, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram emphasized the fact that one counter-protester allegedly punched a protester, another counter-protester allegedly slapped a protester, and some counter-protesters allegedly yelled racial slurs and threw water bottles. (This despite the fact that the video accompanying the article shows Black Lives Matter protesters initiating the pushing and shoving.) Reporter Bud Kennedy tweeted repeatedly about a “white male attacking the leader of a justice protest” and claimed that “there is no question justice protesters were the ones attacked” despite the fact that the latter claim is false, that repeatedly mentioning an individual’s race and gender is racist and sexist, and that the protest was in favor of removing a Confederate statue, which makes it the exact opposite of a justice protest. 

“We started to march, and you could hear the roar of the crowd downtown,” said one BLM protester named Karen Smith, according to the Star-Telegram. “I live here, and I have never seen a display of hate.” The lead bully who organized the protest, Tony Crawford, said, “The level of hatred I saw yesterday was something I hadn’t experienced before.” Another BLM protester claimed that their group did not “try to fight or incite any riots.” And various protesters complained that police failed to protect them.

News flash: anyone who expresses support for removing a Confederate statue is a mean, nasty, authoritarian bully who does not deserve any type of protection. It is irrelevant which side initiated physical contact. Advocating that a Confederate statue be removed is necessarily an act of aggression, and the side that takes this position is necessarily to blame for any conflict that may occur. Anyone who doubts this need only take a look at some of the signs held by the protesters: “Your heritage is racist,” “It’s not ‘Southern pride,’ it’s racist,” and the aforementioned “Stop honoring racist losers,” to give a few examples. Plus, a Facebook post by the group organizing the protest called the statue “treasonous.” How can people who insult another group’s heritage and falsely call the other group racist claim not to be initiating a fight? How can someone who crows about having won a war 150 years ago and considers it treasonous to memorialize those who fought for independence claim that the other side is the aggressor? The political correctness movement’s own signs and Facebook posts disprove their claims of having been victimized. If you go out of your way to stomp on the underdog, insult an unpopular minority, and rub salt into the wounds of the losing side of a war, you have no right to complain when the people that you are harming get angry at you and fight back. 

The blog Living Blue in Texas provided an even more egregiously biased version of events. The blogger repeatedly defamed the defenders of the statue by calling them “violent racists,” “terrorists,” and “aggressors,” and personally insulted them by calling them “toothless hillbillies.”

“The Confederate States of America no longer exists,” she pompously writes. “And until these backwoods hillbillies realize that, they will continue to harass, threaten, and assault every anti-racist working to make the world a better place. Slavery is over. The sooner that the violent racists realize it, the sooner we can start to heal.”

Except that those who advocate for the removal of Confederate statues are working to make the world a worse place, not a better one. And that those defending the statues are not violent racists, or racists of any sort, for that matter. The fact that the C.S.A. no longer exists is exactly why statues honoring it are so important. The Southern states were denied the right to form an independent nation, so to attempt to deny them the right to even memorialize their dead is beyond ridiculous. To take away a Confederate monument is to further hurt a group who are already hurting, and who have already been treated unjustly. This is the exact opposite of healing. It’s easy for someone to talk about healing when they are not part of the group whose history and identity are under constant attack. 

Jim Webster, a member of the counter-protest, hit the nail on the head with these comments to the Star-Telegram: “Weatherford citizens stood up to people who came to take down our statue, to tell us how to run our lives and, overall, be bullies… But the thing is, they came to us. We didn’t go to them. We didn’t start anything. They came over here starting stuff. And the citizens of Weatherford won’t put up with being bullied. They consider everybody who tried to protect the statue racist. You know if everybody is a racist, then nobody is a racist.”

Exactly. Enough with these people who go out of their way to trample on an unpopular minority and then claim that said unpopular minority is the aggressor. Enough with this practice of calling everything that you disagree with “racist.” If you don’t want a fight, don’t start one by trying to bully another group into removing their statue.

bookmark_borderChristmas ornaments are now racist, apparently

Posted on by Marissa

As the cult of political correctness reaches new levels of ridiculousness, Confederate-related Christmas ornaments are now a target. Yes, you read that right. Christmas ornaments.

According to a Yahoo News article by Nicole Maurantonio, a professor at the University of Richmond, “Confederate Christmas ornaments are smaller than statues – but they send the same racist message.”

Maurantonio criticizes Confederate-themed cookbooks, stuffed animals of Stonewall Jackson’s trusty steed, Little Sorrel, and ornaments depicting such sites as Stone Mountain and the Confederate White House. 

“While these keepsakes may seem apolitical, their very circulation enables Confederate myths and symbols to become ‘normal’ features of people’s daily lives,” she writes. “My research suggests they can thus desensitize Americans to the destructive nature of such stories and icons… In that way, seemingly apolitical objects like cookbooks, toys and Christmas ornaments commemorating Confederate history serve to normalize – rather than problematize – the objects, rituals and stories surrounding the Confederacy.”

Maurantonio also complains that “many unexamined Confederate symbols have made their way into people’s kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms” and that “like Confederate statues and flags, Confederate Christmas ornaments strengthen this myth that the Confederacy – an entity built on white supremacy – was about southern ‘heritage.'”

But the Confederacy was about southern heritage. This is not a myth; but the truth. If one truly stopped to examine Confederate symbols, one would realize that they stand for the values of liberty, freedom, individual rights, resistance to authority, and thinking for oneself as opposed to mindlessly conforming to social norms and complying with existing power structures. These things are, in my opinion, awesome, not destructive. Therefore, the Confederacy should be normalized, not problematized. America needs more, not fewer, Confederate symbols in people’s lives. It is the Black Lives Matter movement and the associated attitudes of political correctness that are truly intolerant, racist, and destructive. 

“Christmas ornaments communicate something about the person or family that displays them,” Maurantonio writes. “They reveal their history, passions and aesthetic taste. So pause to consider whether your Christmas tree represents your values. Does a keepsake from Stone Mountain really belong between an ornament crafted in a kindergarten classroom and a glass nutcracker gifted by your grandmother?”

Of course it does. The fact that ornaments communicate something about the person who displays them is exactly why Confederate images belong on Christmas trees everywhere. In addition to numerous Confederate toy soldiers, figures, and dolls in a variety of shapes and sizes, I am the proud owner of a Stone Mountain magnet and Breyer horses of both Little Sorrel and Robert E. Lee’s equine companion, Traveller. Additionally, there is a Confederate warrior of sorts on my Christmas tree among the Santas, bows, and bulbs. I wonder what the politically correct mob would say about this ornament…

bookmark_borderSan Francisco to rename 44 schools… but at least they’re consistent

Posted on by Marissa

The government body in charge of the San Francisco public schools recently came up with a list of 44 schools that they have deemed to be in need of renaming. The offending namesakes include Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John Muir, Junipero Serra, and Dianne Feinstein.

“Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties or wealth building,” said Jeremiah Jefferies, the chairman of the San Francisco Unified School District School Names Advisory Committee.

As for Feinstein, she was blacklisted for ordering a Confederate flag that had been vandalized to be replaced back in 1986 when she was mayor of San Francisco. According to Jefferies, she “chose to fly a flag that is the iconography of domestic terrorism, racism, white avarice, and inhumanity towards black and indigenous people at the city hall. She is one of the few living examples on our list, so she still has time to dedicate the rest of her life to the upliftment of black, First Nations, and other people of color. She hasn’t thus far, so her apology simply wasn’t convincing.” In addition to the fact that the Confederate flag is the iconography of none of these things, and the fact that the term “white avarice” is racist, this is a pretty ridiculous reason to condemn someone.

The committee used the below criteria for determining which historical figures are unworthy of having schools named after them:

  • Anyone directly involved in the colonization of people
  • Slave owners or participants in enslavement
  • Perpetuators of genocide or slavery
  • Those who exploit workers/people
  • Those who directly oppressed or abused women, children, queer, or transgender people (apparently oppressing and abusing men is perfectly fine…)
  • Those connected to any human rights or environmental abuses
  • Those who are known racists and/or white supremacists and/or espoused racist beliefs

In terms of eliminating wide swaths of historical figures, these ridiculously stringent criteria go further than perhaps anything I’ve seen yet. It’s difficult, in fact, to think of anyone who would meet them. But in a strange way, this is actually kind of a good thing. With historical figures who fought for the Confederacy having been brutally and relentlessly attacked, condemned, slandered, and smashed to pieces over the past months, it’s only fair that Lincoln be “canceled” as well. If you’re going to depose historical figures from their places of honor, you should at least be consistent about it.

As Jarrett Stepman of the Daily Signal wrote, “If the criteria were really taken to its logical conclusions, then it would lead to erasing pretty much every leader and people in all human history… It’s interesting that Jefferies says the agenda is about uplifting ‘black, First Nations, and people of color,’ but are not all these groups, through the lens of history, also guilty of virtually every transgression on the committee’s list of criteria?”

Stepman also pointed out the authoritarian nature of the political correctness movement. “Do what we say, or you will be smashed and erased,” he accurately characterizes this movement’s thought process. “Symbols of opposition will be torn down. You must accept our truth, or else… If anything, it teaches students to be ruthlessly intolerant, to be utterly incapable of understanding different perspectives and the limitations of human nature.”