Trayvon Martin

Wikipedia: Shooting of Trayvon Martin

Huffington Post: The Trayvon Martin Tragedy

THIS is why racism's not dead. From everything I read, Trayvon Martin, a black teenager, walked thru a neighborhood unarmed in Sanford, FL. He committed the crime of Walking While Black. George Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch captain, security guard, white Hispanic, and racist idiot, killed him for looking "suspicious". He broke all the Neighborhood Watch rules. The Sanford police department didn't arrest or charge Zimmerman because of a stupid Florida law about self-defense. So, Martin's family took this to court. I hope they arrest Zimmerman. I hope they kick his ass. I hope they throw him in jail.

I had two dentist's appointments a few weeks ago. There was an hour between them and they told me I could run some errands. There's a bank a half mile away, so I walked to the bank and back. I'm white so nobody thought I was gonna shoot up the neighborhood. If I was black I wouldn't have that luxury. People assume if you're black and walking on a sidewalk, you must be a criminal. They don't say that if you're white.

Also interesting when it's one minority against another.

Dunno if this petition will do anything, but I signed it. Which means I'll get way more email.

One and a Half Cheers for the Southern Poverty Law Center

Southern Poverty Law Center

Sometimes I look around the SPLC web site. Most of their work impresses me. Wikipedia has a long list of civil rights cases they've won. They fight for all kinds of groups. They've made the USA a better place by forcing some places to integrate. They're fighting against the horrible Arizona/Alabama laws that hurt our Hispanic citizens - that law didn't pass in Mississippi. Plus it's fun in a weird way reading their profiles of hate groups and seeing how pathetic they are. They recognize that anybody can be hateful - not all the profiles of racist groups are white racists. There's a few black racists in there too.

But, there's a dark side. They've written before how they think free speech should be restricted. (Link) I'm against hate speech, but outlawing it is a good way to get people interested. That's how human nature works. Plus, the SPLC is liberal to a fault - they think if you don't support Obama, you're a racist sexist homophobe. They think all conservatives, libertarians, etc. are extreme radicals and that liberals can't have any faults. On gay rights, I can understand that position, but they think all Republicans are racist. (Does that make Thomas Sowell, Herman Cain, etc. self-hating black people?)

So, one and a half cheers for the SPLC. I respect them a lot altho I disagree with them some.

EDIT: Sourcewatch has a mostly critical article on the SPLC.

ME ME ME ME ME

Most people only care about themselves and people who are like them. On Facebook you can tell a lot about someone by the political pages they like. If somebody likes Human Rights Campaign, they must be gay. 95% of outspoken feminists are women. If somebody has a more obscure issue they support, there's a good chance they're connected to it. If someone says "punish the deed, not the breed" (which I agree with) they probably own a pitbull (which I don't). Disability rights advocates are usually disabled. If someone wants to end discrimination against a group, it's a good chance they're part of that group. Most "bleeding heart" liberals don't care unless you're not white, female, LGBT, disabled, not Christian, or don't speak English as a first language. They only care about other discrimination if it involves them. And like anyone else they hate a lot of people, such as fundamentalists, fat people, "rednecks", etc.

It gets even dumber when you got someone like me who's in every majority group. We turn into your classic bigots and it's the same impulse. Almost everyone who complains about "political correctness" is white. I had people on a message board get mad at me for being a Christian once, but I don't experience discrimination or persecution in real life. There's some hate crimes against white people but not a lot. I take male privilege with a grain of salt because the gender roles are so strict for us - men have to be assholes but women can be whoever they want. But women still get paid less than us and still get treated like second-class citizens, and men don't, plus I've never faced any discrimination from being male. There is no prejudice against straight people, but homophobia is rampant here. Other religions and ideologies do face discrimination, especially Wicca and Islam. As for the language barrier, if you want to piss off a hardcore conservative, greet them en español. There's a reason people like us are rarely "bleeding heart" liberals: we don't get anything out of it. A ton of us are libertarian tho. Also, we're ignorant of prejudice because we never experience it. But experiencing prejudice doesn't make people more tolerant. It only means they care about issues they're connected to.

In short, people suck and I'm better than most of them. But people don't suck completely. There's no reason to hate somebody if you didn't get to know them first.

Racism is not dead

There's a rumor going around about a gas station refusing service to a soldier. Someone from the Middle East owns the gas station. It's probably false, like it was when it hit Corbin, KY and other places around the US. A friend of mine posted this on Facebook, and people jumped on it and started making jokes about Middle Easterners, talking about how they hate us. I replied that we have Arab-American and Persian-American soldiers, and the gas station guy was a jerk regardless of race. I said "don't blame it on his race or ethnic origin, blame it on him being a jerk".

If it did happen, the gas station attendant will probably get fired. That's what happened in Fort Worth, TX, where a Marine really got refused service.

I figure if somebody comes from Iran or Pakistan to open a business here in the USA, they probably like our country. If they didn't, they wouldn't come here and open businesses. And refusing service to a soldier is plain stupid. No place that refuses business to soldiers can stay open for long.

The "all Arabs hate us Americans" crap reminds me of "all Japanese hate us" or "all Germans hate us" from World War II. Remember the Japanese internment camps. Arabs have gotten off a little easier from 9/11, but lots of people still hate them. This is a bad time to be an Arab-American. Or Persian, or Indian, or Punjabi, or Egyptian. Prejudice is stupid.