is that they want to take back their country,
which is only a code phrase for wanting to put blacks back in their places"
Guilford County Commissioner's chairman Melvin "Skip" Alston
while introducing Gov. Bev Perdue at the state NAACP convention
Shouldn't "take back their country" really apply to American Indians?
I asked Alston if he would apply his condemnation of the Tea Party
to Conservatives for Guilford County,
a local group that has pressured the county commissioners to cut spending
and describes itself as an affiliate of the Tea Party
and has hosted Tea Party events in Guilford County.
"The Tea Party's philosophy is from the ground up.
Their philosophy is that they want to take back their country, so they say.
And that means they don't want a black person in the White House,
they don't want any blacks in any elective office.
I stand by that."
Guilford County Commissioner's chairman Melvin "Skip" Alston
Joe who I may have thought was Mark, or vice versa
I, George Hartzman, voted for Barack Obama,
and then he kept doing the things I voted for him to stop doing
which he said while running that he would not do,
as in clean up the financial system, which he didn't do.
So now it's whoever "us" is against whoever "they" are.
Is Skip one of "them"?
Along with Robbie, Linda, Zack, Mike, Yvonne, etc...?
What our local press has done here is an abomination.
...the debate goes on as to whether the Occupy Wall Street folks
are similar or different from the Tea Party folks.
You've probably heard the opposing storylines:
the Tea Party is made up of old white racists who don't like to pay taxes,
and Occupy Wall Street is comprised of young spoiled people
who don't really want to find a job.
But given the strength of GOP and Tea Party support for Herman Cain lately,
I was thinking that idea
that the Tea Party didn't care for African Americans as president
was going away.
Nope.
Not to Skip Alston, chairman of the Guilford County commissioners, at least.
We'll have to see who shows up at the Occupy Greensboro rally.
I wonder how he'll characterize them.
11 comments:
"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye
the more light you pour upon it the more it will contract"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr
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Is Skip just as for the Gay Amendment
as Joe Guarino?
Does insult echo insecurity?
Why are some strongly partial to some groups
religions, races or political philosophies
while intolerant of differing dogmas beliefs or opinions?
Why do some Tibetans and Uighurs
dislike most Han Chinese?
Why were women denied the right to vote until 1920?
If ignorance breeds fear and fear breeds bigotry
does bigotry breed hate?
Why do some Muslim Kosovars
hate most Christian Serbs?
"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right
but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine
how we might possibly have gone wrong"
G K Chesterton
Should we hate, slur, scapegoat, resent, envy, stigmatize
or stereotypically generalize when threatened?
"Even doubtful accusations
leave a stain behind them"
Thomas Fuller
1. Stereotyping often results from, and leads to, prejudice and bigotry.
2. Unchecked prejudice and bigotry leads to discrimination.
3. Prejudice can be spread by the use of propaganda and inflamed by demagogues.
A "stereotype" is a generalization about a person or group of persons. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations.
When we judge people and groups based on our prejudices and stereotypes and treat them differently, we are engaging in discrimination.
In 19th century Europe, Jews were classified as an "inferior" race with specific physical and personality characteristics. Some thinkers believed these traits would disappear if Jews received political and social emancipation and could assimilate into the broader society. Others felt that these traits were genetically passed on and could not be changed. Racial theory, distorted into a pseudo-science, sanctioned negative stereotypes existing from classical and Christian anti-Semitism (see Chapter 4). An increasing emphasis on nationalism also highlighted the Jews as a "foreign element," which could contaminate the native stock and culture and potentially dominate the native population economically and politically (see Chapter 5). This long-standing history provided a seed-bed for the Nazi ideology and program of genocide.
http://remember.org/guide/History.root.stereotypes.html
http://remember.org/guide/History.root.stereotypes.html
Scapegoating is the practice of blaming an individual or group for a real or perceived failure of others. The origin of the term comes from the Bible. The high priest in Biblical times would place his hand upon a goat's head and transfer the sins of the community to the goat, which was then released into the desert.
It is not uncommon to blame others for our own mistakes, and especially to affix blame on those who are unable or unwilling to defend themselves against the charges.
In his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial, civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Dr. King devoted his life to fighting bigotry and prejudice.
In taking a courageous stand against racial hatred, Dr. King was subjected to personal injustices which culminated in his murder at the hands of a racist assassin. Yet his message of brotherhood, of understanding, of intergroup dialogue, of coalition-building, of non-violent resistance to injustice, has endured.
It is important to stand up against injustice, and fight the discrimination, stereotypes, and scapegoating which have served as the precursors to persecution, violence, and genocide.
When you are done writing comments to yourself that nobody will read, will you correct your post? What you reference was not written by Joe Killian.
This begs a question: at what age does an adult male stop using the nickname “Skippy”?
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