Kos: They Show You Who They Really Are: When White Conservatives Celebrate the Killing of Tamir Rice

[Algernon Moncrieff]

As I did in an earlier piece about white supremacists and the new Star Wars film, what follows are some comments (selected out of a total of approximately 200) about the killing of Tamir Rice (most were written in response to ) from the Right-wing, de facto, white supremacist website known as the Free Republic.

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1. My child would never have been dumb enough to pull a toy gun - or any gun - on cops with real guns.

2. Racism won’t end until we stop looking at people by race. Such as when they lecture us about the evils of white America.

3. A boy who looks like a man, not that silly photo that has been posted, and who points a realistic looking gun at strangers and pretends to shoot, deserves exactly what he got.

4. My children would never think of roughing up storekeepers, brandishing weapons, charging cops, rioting, committing mayhem, or any of the other things these idiots do. So I for one will never look at a Trayvon and see, frankly, anyone I know.

5. “Until White America looks at Tamir Rice and sees their own children, there will be no racial justice in the U.S.” Much of “White America” raises their children so they in no way resemble Tamir Rice. We pay law enforcement to keep Tamir Rice at arm’s length.

LINK to complete article

[onecaliberal]

1. Fuck every one of the wasted oxygen.

[Hoyt]

2. Good way to put it.

[loyalsister]

3. The most revealing comment to me

5. “Until White America looks at Tamir Rice and sees their own children, there will be no racial justice in the U.S.” Much of “White America” raises their children so they in no way resemble Tamir Rice. We pay law enforcement to keep Tamir Rice at arm’s length.

"White America raises their children so they in no way "resemble" Tamir Rice."

That they are born that way (not resembling Tamir Rice) is the very crux of white privilege. And, the majority of "white America" either believes that they are paying for a system that segregates and marginalizes people of color or just accepts it as the natural order.

[Igel]

5. Not how I read it.

If you stick to a literalist parsing, it's pretty damned hard for me to raise my kid to look like the Af-Am students I'm familiar with.

Still, the paragraph has meaning and it's part of native-speaker competence to try to find it, given the usual rules for conversation in standard English.

It's possible for me to raise my kid to resemble the low-achieving Af-Am students in my class in terms of outlook, expectations, attitudes; in other words, it's entirely possible for me to raise my kid to resemble the high-achieving Af-Am students in my class.

Notice one of the first points. Point #5 assumes the ability to see past superficial resemblances. This was part of the original problem for many whites, failing to see past superficialities to see what's similar, to see what unites instead of what divides. At the time when a larger portion of white society started to do this, it turns out not doing this became the justifiable rage.

[loyalsister]

7. I was refering to visual resemblance

The person claimed "white America" knows how to raise their kids correctly while trying to ignore melanin as a determining factor that preceeds the character development of their children.

[erpowers]

4. The Real Problem

The real problem is that white children do what Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown do everyday. However, when white children do the same things that black children do it is either ignored, explained away, and/or treated differently. When white young men take pictures with guns they are called American patriots. When black young men take pictures with guns they are called thugs. Recently, on twitter someone posted a picture of a black boy, who they claimed was Tamir Rice, with a gun and said the picture proved Rice got what he deserved. The tweet was reposted by Goldie Taylor, who pointed out that the boy in the picture was not Tamir Rice. A person responding to Goldie Taylor's retweet asked the question, why is it that when white guys take pictures with guns they are patriots, but when black guys take pictures with guns they are called thugs.

Many of those post claim that those people raise their kids and their kids would never and do not commit crimes and cause mayhem. However, white youth are constantly committing crimes and causing mayhem. There was a time in the United States when during the championship runs of sports seasons people could count on riots in two places the city of the losing team and the city of the winning team. Those sports riots were usually perpetrated by white people.

Anyone can search youtube and find videos of white members of gun rights groups and open carry groups disrespecting police. Many of these individuals refuse to comply with police orders. When white open and gun rights individuals refuse to comply with police they are fighting for the rights as American citizens and fighting against a tyrannical government. When black people refuse to comply with police they are poorly raised individuals who have not respect for authority. So, when you are white disrespecting authority is patriotic. However, when you are black disrespecting authority is a sign of poor parental training.

[rhett o rick]

6. This is the America you will be accepting if you vote for the status quo.

Vote for Sen Sanders and give the 99% a chance.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

8. This is the America Republican voters want

I would not agree that a vote for Hillary Clinton or Martin O'Malley is a vote for this kind of nonsense.

[rhett o rick]

9. A vote for the status quo is a vote for a continuation of what is happening in America today.

IMO that doesn't include MOM.

[HughBeaumont]

10. I'd expect nothing less from Jim Robinson's $60,000 a year HTML 1.0 sewer of a site.

You could respond in kind, but then think:

1. These people voted for Bush The Dumber. Twice.

2. These people likely thought the concept of "President Sarah Palin" was a great idea.

3. These people think laissez-fail capitalism and The Laffer Curve are awesome.

4. These people are happy posting on a site that looks like a 1994 artifact and believes their administrator 100% when he spins a yarn of that site costing thousands a month to run.