Beware of anything that creates dissension between LGBT and African Americans

[yardwork]

Who benefits when Democrats fight one another?

We have been down this path before. Later, we learned that Republicans had deliberately stirred up distrust and anger between gay folks and people of color. This was done to weaken the power of the Democratic Party, turning us against one another.

Beware, beware, beware.

And Glenn Greenwald? Not such a progressive history when it comes to immigrants. See some old tweets being retweeted:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=10538952

[JI7]

1. There are many black lgbt

[yardwork]

3. Yes, there are. And LGBT people of color. My wife is Latina.

[hlthe2b]

2. Exactly!

Damn, it fellow DUers, please be discerning. We are subject to trolling as much, if not more, than any liberal/progressive website and surely need to be aware that we may be targeted for disinformation.

[yardwork]

4. Thank you!

[Blue_true]

10. I can see that some DU members are falling into the trap.

I really dread late 2019 and early 2020 because I think I see where we are headed. Unless we get a Barack Obama like figure in 2020, we are headed for a 2016 type meltdown, where some people will feel emboldened to either rip out nominee or withhold support.

[TheSmarterDog]

5. K&R. The only ones who benefit are the fascists.

The people who brought us The Donald Trump Show.

[yardwork]

6. Thanks!

[MaryMagdaline]

7. Thank you Yardwork!

[Blue_true]

8. Republicans and their donors are only involved to provide shadow money.

The riff is being led by those who claim to be the only progressives. Why shouldn't republicans and their dark money take advantage of that situation to weaken the opposition?

[Dream Girl]

9. Thanks for a calling this out.

[George II]

11. That is so correct in so many ways. Thanks!

[sheshe2]

12. Excellent point, yardwork.

[Demsrule86]

13. Divide and conquer.

[BigmanPigman]

14. Fellow DUer DFW wrote a post earlier today...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=1074038

He had a sage few word of wisdom for us.....

"Just a reminder for all y'all left Stateside--tip your heads up a bit, if you would. Now look around. See all those throats? They are NOT your targets. Republicans are. (just in case a few seem to have forgotten, or are here because they are paid to make it seem that way)."

[appalachiablue]

15. You got it, on the mark.

Divide by race, income, region, class, gender, age, generation, religion, et al.

Beware.

[Maven]

16. Exactly.

This is divide and conquer, pure and simple. We cannot fall for it anymore.

[uponit7771]

17. K&R

[Thekaspervote]

18. With long dissenting tense discussions going on dont think they arent using that as a play book

Please just stop!

[yardwork]

30. Exactly. The point of this is to make Democrats mad at each other.

[raven mad]

19. I've seen it happen over and over and over.

ANYTHING to drive that irreparable wedge in tighter. One "Christian" church here, a large one, either demonizes the LGBT community or loudly denigrates any non-white activism.

AND SO WE WIND UP WITH RWNJ OLD WHITE REPUKES RUINING THE BOROUGH.

Beware.

[dalton99a]

20. Kick

[certainot]

21. this is a great eg of the incredible stupid of left's ignoring of talk radio

like facebook spending millions to analyze and prioritize "fake news"

all they have to do is know what's being sold on talk radio to know it's RW kremlin trolling

does anyone know if joy is being attacked on rw radio? i haven't been sampling it much so i'm not sure and it is incredibly stupid for the dems and left not to have a way to search for talk radio references

[yardwork]

26. I agree that talk radio has caused irreparable harm to our country.

[yardwork]

23. It's all about them, I see. Unbelievable.

Their argument is that Joy says something non-complimentary about a politician so throw her off the air?

How fascist of them.

[Cha]

24. Exactly.

[Cha]

34. Hi yardwork.. I was informed

this petition was started 10 months ago.. no wonder it didn't have anything about what's going on now.

Sorry!

[yardwork]

38. The fascism is still obvious, though!

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. So are you claiming that Joy Reid represents all African Americans?

Greenwald is a scumbag, and Joy Reid is apparently a homophobic bigot (or someone with a history of homophobic bigotry). Just because someone I don't like says something doesn't mean it's automatically false.

[yardwork]

28. No, I'm not claiming that. I'm pointing out that a wedge is being driven - again.

What interesting timing to reveal very old blog posts supposedly written by a prominent African American female journalist. This seems designed to make gay people mad at black people. Where have we seen that before? The Republicans used that wedge to get in power.

[Spider Jerusalem]

32. Here's a hypothetical for you

imagine that instead of Joy Reid, it were Anderson Cooper, or someone similar, and that instead of homophobic stereotypes and things about how gay people made them uncomfortable, it was racist stereotypes and things like "as a white person, being around black people just makes me uncomfortable". Would you be defending the person who said those things, because they were on "our side"? I wouldn't, personally.

[yardwork]

36. I fully expect exactly that.

I fully expect to see a "revelation" of racism supposedly coming from a prominent gay Democrat. Rachel Maddow is a likely target.

The goal is so obvious a kindergartner could see it.

[Spider Jerusalem]

39. Reid has a history where homophobic commentary is concerned, though.

Maddow, as far as I'm aware, has no comparable history of casual racism.

[ProudLib72]

50. HEY! You stole my idea about Rachel being racist!

As if I was the only DUer who thought it. But, amazingly enough, here we are the next day, arguing the same old thing.

[treestar]

53. Isn't it better they change their mind than

stay the way they were before? It's almost like you prefer no one ever change their mind. Why would anyone if they knew it would not be accepted?

[Spider Jerusalem]

54. Probably, but lying about it by claiming to be "hacked" isn't evidence of anyone's mind changing

it's certainly not owning up to past behaviour and admitting error.

[oberliner]

27. She should've just apologized and moved on

Claiming that these posts were "hacked" is what has given this story oxygen.

[yardwork]

29. Maybe some of them were hacked. I don't know.

But I don't think it's Joy who is promoting this story.

[oberliner]

31. You are right to say that it's not Joy who is promoting this story

But I think her claim of the website being hacked has made the story into something bigger than it otherwise would've been.

[Spider Jerusalem]

33. The Anthony Weiner defence.

And they weren't hacked because they were archived over a decade ago (unless they were hacked when her blog was still active, or the blog was hacked and then multiple web archive servers were also hacked to reflect the changes).

[yardwork]

35. I really don't know what is possible, and I don't think many people do.

What was done in the 2016 election should be shocking to the world, and now we're two years further into even more sophisticated technology. We need to stop believing everything were shown when the obvious purpose is to get us at one another's throats.

I'm a lesbian, married to a woman of color. I know who my enemies are.

[Spider Jerusalem]

37. Except she has a history of being casually homophobic and transphobic.

She apologised for her homophobic comments re Charlie Crist, back in December. These blog posts she claims were "hacked" are consistent with those, and other things she's said. (Including being consistent with other things she's said that were linked to from DU way back in 2007.)

[yardwork]

40. Some are consistent, and some are more extreme.

In any case, it all happened long in the past, and she's apologized, and, frankly, from a pragmatic point of view, I don't have the luxury to demand purity from every political ally.

I believe that the purpose of these recent "revelations" is to create lingering anger between gays and blacks. It's not just about getting Joy off the air.

It's about making millions of loyal Democrats mad at one another so that we don't work well together on the 2018 campaigns.

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. I'd personally prefer to have non-shitty people as "allies".

And she hasn't apologised, she's claiming she was hacked, which is a transparent falsehood (because contemporaneous archives exist).

[TheSmarterDog]

51. People who promote crap from Breitbart, Fox News, Wikileaks & the Intercept are shitty people.

And I haven't seen one apology yet.

[progressoid]

42. Anything?

Did republicans tell 70+ percent of POC to vote against marriage equality in California? Are the 56% of AA that oppose marriage equality influenced by republicans or Glenn Greewald?

Nope. That would be those good old friendly churches turning us against one another. But we aren't supposed to talk about that because we don't want to offend anyone's "sacred" beliefs.

To be clear, this isn't limited to POC. 65% of white evangelicals oppose marriage equality. And 32% of white mainline Protestants oppose it.

Regardless of possible hacking, it's a cop out to simplify this to a GOP ratfucking thing.

[JCanete]

43. That is way over the top. Always be wary of the source. Always be wary of the agenda that source

may have based on history, ownership, etc. That is your job as a discerning citizen, but there's a real danger in simply putting anybody you find saying something disagreeable to you in the category of "disruptor." That's just too easy...that's just too pat and is exercised in lieue of critical thinking.

[yardwork]

44. Where did I say "disruptor"?

Seems like you just restated my OP.

[JCanete]

47. Sorry don't mean to put words in your mouth, there may be more distinction than I realize

between being a disruptor and sewing dissention...I meant disruptor as in someone "disrupting" the harmony..causing discord..etc.

[Wounded Bear]

45. The right has been playing this "divide" for decades...

the truth is that the various races and social outcasts of all stripes have many very similar goals. The right will play them off against each other for personal and politcal gain. It is the essence of the Trump campaign and administration, keep us at each others throats while they rake in the profits.

We must find common ground within our own selves first, and not allow the RWers to split us from each other.

[yardwork]

46. It's the only way the Repukes win.

I remember when Jesse Jackson ran for president. He ran a good campaign. Everybody agreed it was a good campaign, full of energy, talking about the economy AND equal rights. He called it a Rainbow Coalition.

But the Democrats nominated Dukakis, who ran a terrible campaign, and we got George H.W. Bush.

We as Democrats need to take a radical step. We need to be a rainbow coalition that sticks together, that can't be divided.

[brer cat]

58. Thanks for the reminder about the Rainbow Coalition.

That describes the Democratic Party big tent very well. As inclusive people, we can't take the road that divides us. It is not a contest to see which group is the most oppressed; LGBTQ, people of color, women are all in the boat and we are all pulling an oar. We need to remind ourselves that if the people on only one side are pulling their oar, we go in circles; it's only when we all pull in unison that we move forward.

[Scurrilous]

48. K&R

[yardwork]

49. Thanks!

[sandensea]

52. I first remember hearing of this during the '04 race

The tactic was, of course, apparently crafted by Dubya's very LGBT-heavy campaign team.

[dembotoz]

55. They do this every time and we fall for it every time

[m-lekktor]

56. I beware of people who weaponize identity politics and use it as a cudgel to shame and

silence dissent.

[yardwork]

57. I trust that you aren't participating in such behavior, then.