throughout this primary.

must be telling the truth.

Such wrongheaded, careless behavior.

Especially for this place.

but to me it had everything to do with race.

anyway, in many ways i won this thing. i'm still here. i'm a better poster now, because i avoid the lounge. i dont have friends per se on DU anymore, but the value of my actual posts are higher IMO.

I rarely participated in lounge threads and I haven't gone to the lounge since keph, 180, and gbnc passed away.

other though.

but I sure hate that you were exposed to that crap on a democratic board. The racism during this primary season hasn't been subtle or hidden in the least. Some seem downright proud of it. smh

to be liberals but really only are when it comes to their pocketbooks.

My biggest gripe is these types are referred to, often, as "the left".

Not in my book, there is nothing liberal about them other than their support for Bernie's economic policies (which I fully support as well)...

Not all white people, of course, and not all white Bernie supporters, but there does seem to be quite a few.

But the fact that almost everyone feels compelled to ammend their posts with the obligatory "not all white... Not all Bernie..." is telling.

If you are comfortable with yourself and your ability to relate to others, you shouldn't need a comforting assurance that the angry person does not mean you.

It is amazing.

Thicken your damn skin and listen without looking for reasons to be offended.

I get so tired of pampered white dipshits shopping for victemhood on this site.

Rant off. Peace

Believe me, none of my aggravation is headed your way over this.

The fact that the alert on anything crowed is dictating -almost mandating - the terms used on a political message board gravels my ass.

It's just an indication of how weak minded "some white people" are that they expect everyone to cater to their feelings.

Drumpf are being called names here, alleging they are the fascists etc

My point about weak minded people shopping for victemhood.

Strange that the white liberals on DU are developing carpal tunnel posting about POC just not understanding Bernie.
While being so silent on the 10s of millions of white men backing Trump.

I feel like a one key piano on this board, I know I should get another subject to talk about, but if POC cannot point out this crap without risking hides, its up to the pale people to put it on the record.

I find I do that a lot on social media, especially FB. A lot of people COMPLETELY miss the message because they immediately take offense, which is telling that they identify with whatever is being said.

I'm accused of being "divisive" (well, aren't we all) when I make any observation and don't include the "not everyone" disclaimer.

This is often done by the same people who bemoan the PC culture and say people need to quit being "delicate little flowers" and being overly sensitive.

THEY. DON'T. GET. IT. (I just had an idea to post an image of a mirror in response to those types of comments and see if they'll get it...lol)

And another thing...

As a white person I feel responsible to wake other white people up, so I feel I'm failing PoC when I do anything that prevents dialogue with other white people. Same for feeling I'm failing the LGBTQ community when engaging homophobes, etc. and fail in cultivating meaningful dialogue.

(A ton of people are latent racists and bigots; many of these people are on the left [those who want a colorblind world and don't understand why that stance is a problem], whereas the overt racists and bigots often identify as being on the right. It's the latent ones who want a "colorblind" world that I engage the most.)

I know people in many marginalized groups feel it's wisest to tread lightly in order to get a seat at the table, rather than turning the dominant groups off altogether.

Yes, I'm a female -- and sexism, just like racism and other forms of bigotry, is getting worse -- but I'm white, and I don't accept that I should tread lightly. That's not me.

But damn...shit is fucked up and bullshit. Sorry for the uber profanity but it's so frustrating.

See, now even here I feel the need to include a disclaimer of another sort: That my frustration pales in comparison to the struggle PoC experience every day.

Unless I'm interacting with people who know me fairly well, half of what I write is disclaimers for people who don't know me.

ughhhhhhhhh...................

people will hit the alert button and accuse the poster of being racist or something (Waaah, so-and-so is saying that ALL WHITE PEOPLE are ... blah/blah/blah....). The tears and ultra-sensitivity and victimhood is on full display.

You think it doesn't happen? It does, all the time.


And there are people who will TROLL this protected group, looking for posters that they can gig with an alert/accusation, hoping they get a sympathetic jury. See, those agitators don't care what you think--they're interested in shutting you up.

Oh, and in case I'm not being clear, this has everything to do with which candidate the poster making the comments doesn't support.

primaries and how President Obama has been (mis)treated confirmed it for me. In many ways it's worse than the conservatives because they don't realize their own racial biases. DU is awful!

I was a Lounge moderator then and was it ever ugly -- not you, of course. You handled it with class. Their behavior was both unbelievable for supposed liberals and unforgivable.

I've never been one who really visited the lounge, I've been here since 2007, I don't remember this issue but -

I believe you.

I believe you because I saw the way they ran off redqueen and seabeyond - they all but silenced heaven05 (he pops up from time to time) and they harangued Frenchie Cat and Nance Greggs .. . not to mention 1strong and bravenak and many others.

Last edited Thu Apr 28, 2016, 04:34 PM - Edit history (1)

That if I didn't like America, I should go back to where I came from. HEY! I am American born, and have part Hawaiian Native blood. This person assumed because I am Asian or Japanese that I must be fresh off the boat. Well, guess what? AFTER Japan, my family has three generations in Hawaii before I was born in San Francisco.

Don't assume because I am Asian American, that I must be fresh off the damn boat.

I don't know if they are male or female, black, white, Asian or any mixture. I take what they say at face value. There have been many times that I have been surprised when someone comes out and says they are whatever. There are too many combinations to keep everything straight and who I'm supposed to hate, especially on the Internet. So, I said fuck it, let them be known by their words and deeds.

This is how I chose my politicians too. I could give a damn about a label. Prove to me who you are by what you say and what you do, and only then will I know who you are.

Hell, on the Internet will all the 'handles', any 'name' could be a true label or an ironic one. You never know.

Z

I have been on this site for 11 years. I've seen your posts, I have no idea who you are, even by your name. You could be a black gay man for all I know.

I am a woman, btw. I have seen sexism and racism in my 60 some years of living, and some of it in my own family. What I have seen is that sometimes an offense is taken, where none was given. It is all in the eye of the beholder. I've seen some sexist shit said about Hillary, but then I've seen other comments that weren't sexist, but were called sexist.

Again, people come in all different varieties, if they were all the same it would be dull. Liberals, Progressives, Conservatives, Libertarian, they all come from different backgrounds, so they are not going to quite think the same. No group is better or worse, truly. It depends on the groups 'glue' is. For example: I belong to 2 knitting groups, one group knits by hand, the other group knits by machine. No one group is better than the other, they are just different.

And right now people are fighting over labels. There will be shots at those they think they can wound. Like I said, fuck them. I will judge the by the way they talk and what they do. They can be called Liberals or Nuns, if they talk smack about you, kick them out of your life, it's not worth it. Not every person in a group is magic.

It's one of the reasons I'm mulling over leaving this place after the convention. I'm tired of the name calling and the same old politics that changes nothing.

And, I tell you this as and old fat lady. If you keep listening and believing what crap you read on the Internet, you are going to have a very unhappy life. Let it go, it's only there way to make themselves feel better, so they must have much shittier lives than you do. Know yourself, and think up some reply that will shut them up, and leave. Never let them see you cry then they win.


Z

because it was all in my head?

i find it so strange that your entire post says that race doesn't matter, when everything else in life shows that race matters a lot (in jobs, in housing, in education, in getting shot by cops). what a strange strange post.

You pick your fights. Calling out sexism or racism where none exists is just plain dumb, as it only masks real sexism or racism. It has been the same with both Obama supporters and Hillary supporters, when something is said that they don't like, it's called sexism or racism, when it is neither. It is fair criticism, no matter what sex or color they are.

By all means, go on campaigns to fight all the isms you can, but make sure they are real. There are many people who have had to deal with a accusation of ism, and it wasn't true. It doesn't help your cause.

I've learned a lot over the last 8 years on what people call people call an ism, and really isn't. But on the Internet you are faceless and nameless, so what does it matter. It matters because in real life, isms matter. In real life, I've learned to ask why. Why didn't I get that apartment, why didn't I get that job or why do you think I'm only a hunk of meat to be debased. On the Internet, I also call out people, otherwise I wouldn't be on a website like this.

Z

how do you know better than me what happened to me?

what gives you that authority?

I have faced sexism for over 50 years and for the last 15 years both sexism and ageism.

In the late 60's I worked in a fruit juice plant. I was one of three white people who worked in that building. The cafeteria was in another building where the office workers worked. You had to buy meal tickets from the receptionist. The reason? The cafeteria workers were black. I don't remember any other black employee in that cafeteria, although I pretty much kept my head down. The people in the fruit juice plant? The men ate their lunch outside, even in the below zero weather. The women ate in the coat room which was joined to the ladies restroom by a larger than average door. After my first encounter with the cafeteria, I ate in the coat room with the other women.

I don't think I ever had a conversation with my boss after he hired me. I just saw him through a glass wall. The plant supervisor was a racist, although I'm sure he didn't think of himself as one. He would stop by and talk to me all the time. The guy who really ran the plant was this older black guy. If he didn't show up, I think that the plant would have shut down. He ran the machinery. He knew exactly how much sugar to add to the fruit and when it was just ready to can. We talked all the time. He had worked there for 25 years, and yet I was making a dollar more an hour as a new hire than he had been making after 25 years. It was depressing as hell working there and I didn't last long, as the women in the coat room told me. They said I was too kind hearted, that I wouldn't last long, they were right.

That was blatant racism, and it was okay with most of them, even those who were oppressed, because at least they had a job.

I could tell you about the jobs I didn't get because I was a woman, or the unequal pay or even the weird rule that men could smoke at their desks, but women couldn't. And yes, women had to wear skirts, even up to 15 years ago at some companies. How I couldn't get a credit card, because I was a woman. And, I'm fat. Do you know how cruel people can be to fat people? They may hide other isms, but not fatism. They will go right up to you and tell you that you are fat and to go on a diet.

How, even now, I'm targeted as an easy mark for auto service, actually for any service. After all, don't you know, all old people have tons of money to spare.

When I see if I can help a situation, I help. I helped a young man who had learning problems, figure out how to put the money in for a new style of paid shopping carts. His mother thanked me and I thought who could be nasty to a sweet kid like this. When we talk about isms, there are all kinds of isms around. I observe people and what they do and say. I try to make the day better for others when I can.

All I'm saying is pick your fights. If you don't, you will exhaust yourself. It's taken me a long time to come to terms with myself. I did not get the genetic lottery, but I'm still worthy of respect.

Z

I'm trying to tamp down the complaints. Good, bad, indifferent - it's been disruptive.

Thanks in Advance.

I'd been raised to believe "we aren't racist" because I grew up in a liberal family in Minnesota, that deplored all that nasty Southern lynching and dog-attacking and cross-burning stuff. You know, "real" racism. And as the only white girl on an all-black dorm floor in my first year in college, I'd gotten to know a lot of black women, too. And I certainly didn't regard them as inferior in any way-- hell, most of them were better than me at some thing, and some were better than me at most things!

So, liberal, northern, well-intentioned, I was by default "not racist," right?

My first real job in St. Paul, I worked alongside a black colleague who'd grown up in the South, been active in SNCC, moved to the Twin Cities just a few years ago.

I am still grateful to him for the uncomfortable mirror he held up to me, my upbringing, my community, etc. It's damn' difficult to "see" your own racism, and impossible to start the life-long process of overcoming that conditioning, if you don't see it.

One thing Eddie told me that really stuck with me: "I was more comfortable in the South because the racists there knew they were racist and never pretended otherwise. They had a fundamental honesty about being racist. Northern liberals lie to themselves, me, and everyone in their own ignorance of the nature of racism."

And anyone on DU who thinks that because this is a "liberal" message board site, there's little or no racism here (#NotAllDUers, "bad apples!" blahblahblah) is in that same boat of denial.

It ain't a river in Egypt.

wearily,
Bright

word ) you will be censored here at this place.

You know how sensitive Drumpf is when criticized? Like his hands or anything, he responds like a 9 yr old child.

Many you know whats react the same way when the R (acism) word is mentioned.

I've tried and failed to understand why some people are racist. Even some minority people are racist about another ethnic group. Just can't get what's wired wrong in humans that so many of us are compelled to want to believe we're "better" than certain others. In a sane moral world, people should feel so ashamed of their wanting to believe they're superior to anyone and hide it under their mattresses instead of announcing it over the internet or publicly like during the State of the Union Address! When it's directed at you, I cannot imagine the hurt you must feel. I admire your moxie to keep putting your ideas out there and "here" and I'll support you however I can.

I have been here for 11 years and read far more than I post. I have seen too much of this here.

I honestly believe most people here aren't like that .... BUT, there is a significant minority of posters that are and it diminishes us all.

Speaking as a white person, I can tell you it took me a while to adjust to the way black people say things, project attitude, etc. I think this has a lot to do with the fact (and it is a fact) that white people usually place more credibility on statements from fellow white people.

I consider myself to be liberal and progressive that and subsequent incidents cleared my eyes. Sometimes it takes a brutal jolt to gain clarity especially when it happens in your back door.

Not in a good way.

So many responses just assume she got in because her dad is the president. And then a bunch of comments about how it's just so unfair.

Even if Obama never became president both of her parents went to ivy league with great background. It's it that had to imagine them raising kids to do the same ?

It's easy for the rest of us to imagine how she got in.

I think that's why it makes this place so hard to have rational and intelligent conversations about race, weight, gender and sexuality.

Biases know no political affiliation at times.

thread and then come tell me what you think:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141441649#top

I mean, come on. I can't believe this shit.