scarletwoman

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Gender: Female
Hometown: Minnesota
Current location: up north
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 31,893

About Me

I'm an old white woman, born in November, 1949. My parents lived through the Depression and WWII (my dad's a veteran). I've witnessed a lot of history firsthand, plus I carry the stories handed down to me by my parents, aunts and uncles from their generation, and my grandparents from their generation. Basically, my memory is a depository for most of the 20th century of U.S. history, plus the 2 decades (so far) of the 21st century. //////Important quote: Milos Forman (film director, b. 1932, d. 2018) - "I hear the word "socialist" being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Barack Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, "Obamacare is socialism!" They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism." (He lived in Czechoslovakia under Communism before emigrating to the U.S.A.)

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Let me break it down to you in the simplest terms I can think of.

Stop trying to defend yourself, and defend the Black Lives Matter protestors instead. Period.

No caveats, no offering advice, no telling them they should do their thing differently. JUST DEFEND THEM and be on their side.

Anything less than that is just a message that you know better, that you don't respect their own decisions about how they want to fight for their own cause, that you think your world view is superior to theirs.

Posted by scarletwoman | Wed Jul 22, 2015, 10:12 PM (0 replies)

The only reason - the ONLY FUCKING REASON - it "does not bring unity" is because

self-important butthurt white liberals are absolutely REFUSING to give up their perceived position of ultimate authority to determine what is proper and to dictate to black folks how they should behave.

White liberals persist in seeing the black struggle in the abstract, they simply cannot deal with true radicalism, with raw searing emotional pain. It's just so... messy and icky.

So you just go ahead and tsk tsk about "unity" - why the hell would the BLM even begin to think that those white liberals are on their side? Those white liberals whining all over the internet about a fucking stump speech being disrupted by a REAL movement by REAL revolutionaries are making damn sure there'll be no friggin' "unity" anytime soon.

Posted by scarletwoman | Wed Jul 22, 2015, 09:13 PM (1 replies)

They don't seem to be able to help themselves.

It's been an astonishing few days here, and I sure as heck don't mean in a good way.

Deaf and blind, blind and deaf. Will not listen, will not open their eyes to see. Must self-justify at all costs.

See, these white liberals already know all they need to know. They know they're on the side of the angels on all issues. All you black folks need to do is recognize and acknowledge their enlightenment and their superior grasp of the issues. Then we'll all be able to work together.

Oh, and don't forget to vote for our candidate. Trust us when we tell that he has your best interests at heart.

Posted by scarletwoman | Wed Jul 22, 2015, 08:44 PM (3 replies)

My friend invites me over because she knows I'm working on my own start-up business,

so being a friend, she figures she'll give me a chance to try out my sales pitch and invites some of her other friends to show up, too.

As it happens, among those other friends of my friend, are several who've just lost a sister, a brother, a child, a cousin. They are carrying a lot of heavy grief and pain, they aren't much interested in my sales pitch for my start-up.

The friend who invited me, who is also friends with these other guests, figures that the truly deeply horrible shit they've gone through really takes precedence over my little presentation. So those grieving, wailing friends get the attention instead of me.

So, how does a genuine human being behave in such a circumstance? Get upset about not being able to deliver your sales pitch as originally expected? Or sit back, let those who are mourning grieve in whatever fashion they choose, and offer them the only thing you really can offer at that point, a listening and sympathetic ear.

They don't want your 12-point economic plan, they want to know that you actually CARE. They want you to get what they feel.

Bernie should have felt honored that those protestors thought highly enough of him that they hoped by showing him their grief, he would take it to heart and work harder to do something about it.

He was given a challenge to up his game beyond "I marched with MLK in the 60s". As the saying goes, "What have you done for me lately?"

Posted by scarletwoman | Tue Jul 21, 2015, 01:22 AM (2 replies)

I think it's highly commendable - and a credit to our race, I might add - that white people are so

willing to offer their constructive critiscism to those black people so they can learn how choose good leaders.

We are so selfless and giving and wise, it just brings tears to my eyes.

Posted by scarletwoman | Mon Jul 20, 2015, 07:22 PM (5 replies)

The protestors were not turning us into "enemies". They were challenging us to prove

we are really their allies by demanding that we listen to them.

Posted by scarletwoman | Sun Jul 19, 2015, 08:54 PM (3 replies)

Thank you! I think what BLM did yesterday was perfect, and I'm not at all concerned about Bernie.

I have faith in him to know what do and do it right.

Posted by scarletwoman | Sun Jul 19, 2015, 05:41 PM (0 replies)

Dear Black People,

If you want to protest, please check with us first for advice on how to do it properly. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Your White Liberal Allies

P.S. Please vote for our candidate.

Posted by scarletwoman | Sun Jul 19, 2015, 04:19 PM (236 replies)

He's supposed to respond by taking on their message as his campaign goes forward.

He "answers" by showing them what he's really made of, by showing them that he heard him and took their message to heart in his future actions, by proving that he gets it.

And it's not just Bernie, it's also us white progressive supporters of Bernie who also need to prove that we're listening and hearing them. And right now we're not looking very good - all the whining and gnashing of teeth about Bernie being "hurt", instead of taking to heart the message that the protestors were bringing.

They're in our faces telling us to prove that we're really allies, and not just a bunch of politally correct white liberals who sadly shake our heads about endemic racism, but don't actually feel it in our guts because we don't have to - it doesn't happen to us.

I wrote this last night:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6987658

You know, I've been doing my best to process what went down at the Netroots forum ever since it

happened. It's pretty much the only topic I've been reading about over all these hours - I don't know how many different threads, plus a few non-DU news articles and such.

Anyway, it's taken me awhile, but after all that reading it finally hit me that those protestors did exactly the right thing. Yup, they transgressed bigtime - they pushed us nice white progressives totally out of our comfort zone, pissed us off, outraged us, inconvenienced us, messed up our nice candidate speeches, and sent bunches of us typing furiously on our keyboards about it.

Indeed, typing furiously on our keyboards... And therein lies the power of that protest. Instead of having the pleasant experience of cheering for our guy after a well-delivered speech, we were confronted with the stark reality that these sisters and brothers don't just get inconvenienced when their day doesn't turn out so good - they get murdered.

I don't want to be that nice white progressive who feels inconvenienced about a speech being interrupted. I don't want to sit in judgement over what's a "proper" way to protest. My life is generally not at risk just from driving down the road in my car and forgetting to use my turn signal when I change lanes. There a so many things I never have to think about because I was born white. So I bless those protestors for getting all up in our faces like they did - for making me really THINK about the why of their anger.

Yes, it was well done, it was necessary, and they were right to do it. Transgression is powerful. I thank them.

Posted by scarletwoman | Sun Jul 19, 2015, 03:06 PM (1 replies)

It was Bernie's turn to listen. Why is that so hard to grasp?

It's not like that's was the last speech he'll ever have a chance to make. But for the protestors, this was a totally unique opportunity to make themselves heard.

As I've said elsewhere, the only way this event hurts him is if he fumbles his response. If he rises to the occassion he'll have their support and votes.

Posted by scarletwoman | Sun Jul 19, 2015, 02:35 PM (4 replies)

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