General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnyone who does not believe POC are THE most patriotic people in the country, if not the world
should consider that, despite the crap we put up with constantly - and have had to deal with for centuries and still endure to this very minute every ... single ... day - we have not turned on our country or our fellow Americans and we continue to love, support, defend, fight for and protect this nation and its inhabitants and institutions that still, all-too-often, treat us like we just dont belong.
Thats love, baby.
So, I dont want to hear another word about our patriotism - unless its to thank us for being so awesome about it.
James Shaw Jr. disarmed a mass shooter single-handed. Everything about that is a problem for Donald Trump
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
APRIL 24, 2018
During the early morning hours last Sunday, a 29-year-old white man named Travis Reinking allegedly used an AR-15 rifle to kill four people and injure two others at a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville. Reinking is reportedly a member of the Sovereign Citizens, a right-wing extremist movement that is heavily influenced by white supremacist political ideology. It is likely not a coincidence that all of Reinking's victims were nonwhite.
A 29-year-old black man named James Shaw Jr. disarmed Reinking by grabbing the barrel of his AR-15. Shaw is the true definition of a hero. He acted selflessly, without training or compensation, and at great personal risk.
...
During those few minutes last Sunday morning in a Waffle House, a mini-drama of American life in the age of Trump took place. A young black man protected the public from a white man hell-bent on committing mass murder. In America, black men are all too often subjected to harassment, state-sponsored violence and racial profiling. By comparison, white men -- even when they are mass murderers or domestic terrorists -- are described by default as "nice" and "normal" people who are "lone wolves" or suffer from mental illness. Their crimes come as a surprise and not indicative of a broader "cultural problem" among the "white community."
The patrons at the Nashville Waffle House were lucky that James Shaw Jr. was not arrested and kicked out for trespassing like the two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks store last week. If the manager in Nashville had a case of "negrophobia" like his peer in Philadelphia, more people might have died. On the same day that Shaw saved lives in a Nashville, a black woman was arrested, stripped almost naked, and brutalized by police at a different Waffle House, a few hundred miles away in Alabama. Her crime? She complained to the manager about why her party had been charged for plastic utensils, when on a previous visit they had not been.
America's police routinely claim that they were in fear for their lives and "had no choice" after they kill unarmed or otherwise vulnerable black and brown people. James Shaw Jr., who had neither weapons nor police training, disarmed a killer with his bare hands.
And once again a white man who commits mass murder is captured alive, while black and brown people who are unarmed, talking on telephones, sitting in their cars, sleeping or generally minding their own business are killed by America's police nearly as a matter of routine. Reinking, who is accused of four murders, was even offered bond by a judge -- although in the face of public outrage this has since been revoked. Do you believe that a black or brown person credibly accused of mass murder would be given the opportunity to go free while awaiting trial?
https://www.salon.com/2018/04/24/our-president-ignores-an-american-hero-trumps-silence-on-the-waffle-house-murders-is-deafening/
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)HipChick
(25,485 posts)sheshe2
(83,754 posts)He is always spot on and this piece is no exception.
Thank you EffieBlack.
EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)This might actually put more fear into some white folk - I mean, if this scary, big unarmed black man can overpower a killer and snatch away his weapon, what cop is safe from people like him?
tblue37
(65,340 posts)Cha
(297,196 posts)to put it.. "the most patriotic".. the largest voting bloc the Democratic Party has And, I'm so grateful!
Not my president but I get his meaning loud and clear.. I think the despicable, spiteful asshole in the wh is jealous of James Shaw Jr.
betsuni
(25,505 posts)KPN
(15,644 posts)And position. Even if we've disagreed on some things.
Lonestarblue
(9,986 posts)I have hope that one day people will finally fulfill MLKs desire and realizeand believethat skin color is just totally irrelevant. Character and honesty and intellect (all missing from our current racist-in-chief) are what matters. James Shaw Jr. demonstrated all of those in his actions and his subsequent media appearances.
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)geardaddy
(24,926 posts)You are so right!