US Regressivism And No Leadership From The Top

As we watch the US growing acceptance of overt racism and Anti-Semitism, we will do our part in publicizing that which warrants special reporting. That said, we note the many cases of reported abuse base din race, culture and religion are not reported on The Progressive Influence. 

The image to the right-hand above is yet another example of young racist making life uncomfortable for a fellow black student at Drake University in Iowa. The details are embedded below.

Iowa Students Fearful After Racist Note Left Under Dorm Room Door: ‘Porch Monkey…Leave or Else’

And then there is this. Les leave Iowa and travel to Mississippi.

As we move away from the midterm election and various state elections. take look at two candidates for office in Mississippi. It is important to note Mississippi has its election on November 27th.

Cindy Hyde-Smith, a white Republican VS African-American candidate and former federal official, Mike Espy, Democrat. One of the two candidates recently publicly joked about being on the front row of a public lynching. Would you care to guess which candidate went there?

Look close before you make pr pick.  OK, if you picked Epsy as the joking candidate, you should avoid appearing on a TV game show which includes picking: door number two, or dooooooooor number three.  

Actually, we seriously hope the door game wasn't a challenge.  Of course, the GOP state senator went there. She joined a Mississippi state cattle rancher she ha only met that day.  

Huffington Post

Excerpt

Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a white Republican, joked about going to a “public hanging” during a campaign event this weekend, a comment her Democratic challenger, who is black, called “reprehensible” and divisive ahead of a runoff election later this month.

“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” Hyde-Smith said on Sunday morning in Tupelo, Miss. during an event with a cattle rancher. It’s unclear what context the comments were made under, although she appeared to be praising the rancher, Colin Hutchinson.

"If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row"- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her.

Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy. pic.twitter.com/0a9jOEjokr

— Lamar White, Jr. (@LamarWhiteJr) November 11, 2018

From Mississippi to the Great State of Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin High School Students prom photo was taken in early 2018.

Seems one of the students offered the nascent white power sign. https://scontent.fmia1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/.../46028779...

If you are wondering about the veracity of the photoshoot, Snopes has a fact-check. For the full story via Snopes hit this link.

It seems one didn't join the Nazi Salute.

I spoke with the only student who is visibly not comfortable with the “salute”, he provided this statement. pic.twitter.com/HbNBc8xLOK

— Jules Suzdaltsev (@jules_su) November 12, 2018

Alas, history has repeated itself yet again.  August Landmeseer in Nazi Germany also stood outside of the herd. 

Where does it all lead? Where does it lead when national leaders not only refuse to speak out against such acts, it ends at a bad pace when leadership seems to embrace growing US racism.

And the FBI says........linked, here. 

An Unpopular Reality: US Racism

We will start this post with a reminder of how some people deal in race and promulgate utter racism. The recent professional tennis Open loss for Serena Williams is for another post. What follows is yet another example of manifest racism with obvious origins in nefarious, deviate example conservative minds.

As you know Serena Williams loss her Finals match to Haitian/Japanese Naomi Osaka. Well, have a look at what is not very different than many pics of Brack Obam and his family as he served as the nation's 44th President.

Ugly depiction eh?

Well, allow for a bit more ugly straight out of conservative America.

Before you seek to find a remedy in Photoshop or think in terms of Democrat Party subterfuge, here is a link to Yelp in the local market.

Glenda Rollman ("Welfare Queen")

14450 Rollman Road

Shawneetown, IL 62984 

Phone: Show Number 

Glenda Rollman is a privately held company in Shawneetown, IL and is a Single Location business.

Categorized under Cash Grains (Unclassified). Our records show it was established in 2002 and incorporated in Illinois. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of 108034 and employs a staff of approximately 1.

Yelp

To think, we have people who actually will stand on camera or write a sentence denying the racist inner of the GOP and vast numbers of its supporters and members.

Starbucks Exposed? There's More?

A couple of days ago. African-American men handcuffed and removed from a Starbucks store after a 911 call from store employees. The two men were waiting for an associated who happened to be white. The racism is obvious and one should wonder how the employees would have handled the matter had the white associate been seated with the two black men.

I have read reports the manager of the Starbucks store left the company. If the employee actually did leave the company, I wonder if the employee wasn't terminated with an agreement related to promulgation of a voluntary resignation?

Kevin Johnson, CEO Starbucks, has appeared publicly with what amounts to a standard and increasingly common "apology: regarding the overt racism at the Philadelphia store.  The company also published a written apology. 

We apologize to the two individuals and our customers for what took place at our Philadelphia store on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/suUsytXHks

— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 14, 2018

Don't these corporate statements all read similarly?

As muck goes we should know other Starbucks stores would be exposed.

Activist Shaun King and others are commenting on a video published earlier today. The store manager in the Starbucks video doesn't seem to have answers. She seems most ready and willing to avoid the 'preferred restroom bust, via typical behavior blacks and Latino's face on a daily basis. 

Here we go again.

Meet Brandon Ward. He was @Starbucks - about to make a purchase - and needed to use the restroom.

They denied him the code.

He then finds a white man, Weston, who came out of the restroom.

He had not made a purchase but they gave HIM the code.

RACISM. pic.twitter.com/2UGZ20aOtF

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 16, 2018

Starbucks, Starbucks, where forth art thou?

Quick Hit: Social Cancers Grow As We Move Through Trumpism (Offensive VIdeo)

Haley Barber New Jersey resident who has been expelled from an Alabama university.  

There are times when we need not add verbiage to help illustrate growing racism and hatred in the United States. What follows is one such case.

If the following AL.com piece, including two videos, doesn't offend you as an existential reality, you really should check your social barometer.  If you find the video to your liking, you are, in fact, an appreciative racist.

You will notice she exhorted and celebrity being in the South.

Proud New Jersey resident at home with Alabama racism.

Quick Hit: "An Email For The Times"

For those who see site headlines and immediately avoid the headlines which indicate issues of race.  



If the racist is going to use the word "Nigger" (even if cloaked with special characters, the racist should learn to spell the word.  

Need to say more?

Dove Soap Brand Joins In Perpetuating Growing Racism

Dove Soap, a Unilever brand, joins a growing list of entities which have taken actions (via an advertisement) to return the United United States to a state of racism like that of the 1800s through the mid-1960s. 

Dove's Unilever USA web page excerpts 

... Dove is committed to helping all women realize their personal beauty potential by creating products that deliver real care. Dove believes that beauty should be for everyone, because when you look and feel your best, you feel better about yourself.

Our mission

Dove® is rooted in listening to women. The Campaign for Real Beauty was launched in 2004 after a major global study – The Real Truth About Beauty - revealed that only 2% of women around the world would describe themselves as beautiful. This sparked a global conversation about the need for a wider definition of beauty. 

New Dove global research reveals that beauty anxiety persists among women and girls. Most women are unable to recognize their own beauty, which can greatly impact their self-esteem and confidence. Only 4% of women around the world currently consider themselves beautiful. Further, when girls feel bad about their looks more than 60% (age 15 to 17) avoid normal daily activities such as attending school, going to the doctor, or even giving their opinion. 

In response, Dove evolved the campaign and launched the Dove Self-Esteem Project in 2006 to help ensure the next generation of women grow up to be free from misconstrued beauty stereotypes and the burden of self-doubt. Together with experts and key partners (in the U.S., Dove supports the work of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., Girls, Inc., and Boys & Girls Clubs of America) Dove has created self-esteem building educational programs and activities that encourage, inspire and motivate girls around the world to reach their full potential. 

We have reached more than 19 million girls so far with this programming. Together, our efforts have moved the needle in a positive direction. But there is more to be done.

Peruse the following Dove Facebook image very closely.

If you continue to feel that the US is a post-racial nation which socially moved from the 1950s, you are either naive or you simply refuse to accept reality.

Racism isn't only manifest via preferential hiring which is a conduit to such an ad. It isn't solely the domain of growing numbers of white supremacist, Nazis, and so-called white nationalists and it certainly isn't restricted to people working to deny access for people of color. It spans the social gamut from inert bias through over examples of utter racism as depicted in the Dove ad.  Diverse staffing and promotion could serve as first-line barriers to such ads.

The ad exemplifies how racism works (in organizations which refuse to hire people of color or when people of color are hired many (too many) rarely earn promotions which place them in positions to view ads as the one pictured above.

How is the Dove advertisement any different than ads from an era when racism was commonplace and probably considered humorous?

   

 

There is no difference. Actually, there is a difference.  The Dove advertisement was developed and posted to Facebook in 2017.

The advertisement also exemplifies the level of white nationalism and utter racism which accompanies other examples of overt racism which seems to proliferate over the past nine years.

Let's revisit the Dove web page verbiage for a bit:

...helping all women realize their persoal beauty potential by creating products that deliver real care. 

... Most women are unable to recognize their own beauty, which can greatly impact their self-esteem and confidence. Only 4% of women around the world currently consider themselves beautiful. Further, when girls feel bad about their looks more than 60% (age 15 to 17) avoid normal daily activities such as attending school, going to the doctor, or even giving their 

opinion.

... Dove has created self-esteem building educational programs and activities that encourage, inspire and motivate girls around the world to reach their full potential.

Really Dove?

It should be noted, Dove has issued an apology for the advertisement. 

An apology is OK, but when Dove has reached into the racist bucket before, the nascent apology seems perfunctory.

Really Dove?

Actually the Dove advertisement is a modern day manifestation of national institutional racism practiced since the advent of radio and TV.  The following three minute video adroitly captures and addresses the roots of the Dove mindset.

Beauty companies are finally waking up to the fact that black and brown skin is beautiful.

But there's still a long way to go: pic.twitter.com/grVAnoRbnh

— Splinter (@splinter_news) October 8, 2017

Well, the video actually is a great response to Dove, while created for a purpose well outside the scope of the company's advertisement campaign.

The Audacity Of The Racist Charlottesville Organizer And His Terrorist Car Murderer

James Alex Fields Jr. in a mugshot released by the Charlottesville, Va., police department.
CreditCharlottesville Police Department, via Reuters






He told his mother he was going to the rally. (Aug. 12)
 (..a Trump rally)






Within hours  the organizer of the racist protest, local blogger Jason Kessler, spoke about the terrorist (car) killing via killing his brethren:

Jason Kessler said in an interview Saturday evening that whoever drove a car into a group of counter-protesters "did the wrong thing." 

He also claimed he was saddened people were hurt: "SADDEN?"

Today he decided to address the racist gathering via a personal appearance. These people really do not understand the scope and full measure of abhorrence of their ideology by some Americans. They are truly people who suffer from chronic "White Privilege."

 Video

Massive boos and cries of "Shame!" For Jason Kessler in Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/tDhhPvY9fy

— Blake Montgomery (@blakersdozen) August 13, 2017

Protesters chased Jason Kessler away from his own press conference in Charlottesville. Here's my view: pic.twitter.com/fTXctHgzsi

— Blake Montgomery (@blakersdozen) August 13, 2017

Jason Kessler rushed away from press conference and eventually brought to police station when his car wasn't reachable pic.twitter.com/JDG1OQ9Hxk

— Brook Silva-Braga (@Brook) August 13, 2017

What privilege manifest in a person that drives them out for a public gathering after sponsoring a protest at which one was killed and dozens were injured?  An event which garnered hundreds of seething racists armed for a confrontation like a pack of home made armed militia?  

A person privileged in his state of racism buoyed by a president who still has come forth with outright and total condemnation. He felt comfortable taking his racism to a platform with cameras to say "he was saddened?"

The death victim and a report from the nation's top white supremacist website and publication. 

The Victim

The Murder before his neo-nazi haircut

Media Matters

After praising Trump's statement on Charlottesville, a neo-Nazi website celebrates murder of counterprotester Heather Heyer 

Hate website The Daily Stormer says victim was "the definition of uselessness" and that "most people are glad she is dead"

And A US President Who Won't Speak out

The Daily GOP Ignominious: Your GOP President And His Absence Of Condemnation

Is this your white supremacist's army?  

You may not share their zeal for supremacy over others (minorities, women, and Jews), but when you cast that GOP vote, rest assured you are wallowing in their pig pen.

Now, recall that old adage about the Pig Pen. 

When you wallow with a Pig in his pen, he loves you,
You hane lowered yourself to his pen, AND NOW YOU STINK.

Also, note your president hasn't spoken out in direct opposition to the white supremacists/anti-Semites. The informed American should wonder maybe even out loud, Trump won't speak out based on reflections of his family. Link.

In case you are inclined to work to separate your vote from these people, know that the GOP is about racists acts of voter suppression and district gerrymandering to mitigate minority vote impact on elections. Those are racists acts. 

they're literally chanting "Black Lives Don't Matter Here" pic.twitter.com/Ko84pbE7tM

— karlie flo$$. (@FUCCl) August 12, 2017

Here's a photo of @Millennial_Matt with Trump and carrying a burning torch in Charlottesville. This isn't complicated. pic.twitter.com/NXh4Rvyf0v

— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) August 12, 2017

The absence of condemnation is outright approval.

A Paradigm (Even If Conferred) Worthy Of Discarding: White Privilege

I only post special posts regarding race and America's evolving reach back to times of old. Yes, anti-Black racism experienced, a short respite in the late 1960s and very early 1970s.

As we moved through the 1970s, I assert, a resurgence of racism, white supremacy, bigotry and all forms of their social deficiencies. A resurgence directly attributable to political strategy, political policy and political operatives who leveraged America's 75% white citizenry as a field of "wins": for Americans who bought and incorporated Kevin Phillips's (Nixon), and Lee Atwater's (Reagan) Southern Strategy. The net-net of the strategy was solid GOP voting blocs (southern states, rural denizens, most western states, and millions who would resent human equality even within their own families..as a metaphor).  

The Kevin Phillips strategy is as real and productive a political strategy as tax cuts are integral to any and all GOP political platforms.  While tax cuts served the party via appearing to all (especially the nation's wealthy), the psychological effects of a fully incorporated southern strategy (ideology) involves deep rooted assimilation of racial bias, bigotry, and racism. Assimilation which is reinforced via family units, friend associations and, yes, school environments. Ideology requires one major conduit: human senses as paths to a mental repository which guides behavior.   While no a psychologist, I suggest we suffer from the successful paradigm developed  by, and nurtured via,  the GOP. 

The GOP taps into that repository (paradigm). But human beings are not robots, the usefulness of the paradigm doesn't just sit on a shelf for application as elections approach.  For some the paradigm feeds another consideration which reaches across all aspects of Americana:  White Privilege.

White privilege isn't a topic which is easy to explore. A major reason for the reticence in approaching the topic is the broad scope and depths of its fissures. From obvious disparate treatment of black police stops (New York City Stop & Frisk).....

2011 DATA

87 percent of those stopped by the NYPD in 2011 were black or latino.

...through the equally serious reality of the GOP Southern Strategy. Another example of the conferred nature of white privilege manifest in the less visible, but economically deleterious home mortgage lending discrimination of a few years back.

Lending

Justice Department Reaches $21 Million Settlement to Resolve ..

Justice Department Reaches Settlement with Wells Fargo Resulting in ...

Employment

Merrill Lynch agrees to $160 million racial bias settlement - Aug. 28 ...

When industry giants practice race based discrimination as a matter of policy (albeit unwritten policy) it is impossible to overlook the privilege you may derive simply based on your birth. You may not seek privilege, you may even abhor privilege, but rest assured your skin color offers a privilege which millions upon millions across the globe do not share.

There are some, very few, who are witnessing a changing society and taking a stand uncommon to most.  It should be noted if you are male, you also have certain conferred privileges regardless of your race.

Bev Collier

USING MY WHITE PRIVILEGE

One important way that I can use my privilege as a white person to help eliminate racism is not to walk away or ignore a conversation or experience regarding race that places me out of my comfort zone. A few that things I have learned:

1) It is important to listen to what people of color are trying to say and to believe them when they share their experiences with racism. Their stories are their reality and only they know what it is like being a person of color in this country.

2) Avoid responses that diminish their struggles. Leave off the "but ifs" and assuming that if they had acted in a certain way they could have avoided the experience. Take off the privileged white lens and try to understand what it must be like to be victims of racism every day!

3) Hold that knee-jerk defensive reaction when I feel offended. Be quiet and listen!

4) Reflect on my own words and actions, learn from the experience, and change the err of my ways.

5) Be willing to make mistakes. Risk putting your thoughts and feelings out there to be challenged by those who are most effected by racism.

6) Don't expect people of color to teach me about racism! I should already know!

7) Don't expect people of color to soothe my wounds when my tender white feelings are hurt.

8) Understand that people of color get tired of dealing with racism and don't always want to talk about it. They desire to live their lives and find peace and joy in their daily lives. I need to talk more to white folks about racism!

~ Bev Collier

If you need more....

Growing US White Supremacy

We recognize US racism is a topic many of our readers avoid reading or read reluctantly but life in America is changing and many are practicing an avoidance demeanor which will bring us back to our past (internationally).

We persevere! 

It is a fact there were many many across the span of humankind who may have taken the position of: "Sssshhh, if we draw attention, they will turn on us."

 David Himbara former Rwandan head of state 

"When they came for Umuhoza Ingabire, I did not speak out; I was not a Hutu." 

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. 

Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist. 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—  

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—  

Because I was not a Jew. 

—and there was no one left to speak for me.

And, life has a tendency to repeat itself, if we allow such.

The Independent UK

Well known white supremacist and Charles Barkley's choice to interact with one of the nation's most overt white supremacists.

Short version.



More: the full interaction.



Since the video was the central impetus for this blog post, we will move to end with a few newsworthy items.

Google Chrome extension replaces 'alt-right' with 'white supremacy' HUFFPO Google Chrome via @blackvoices

Donald Trump has unleashed a white crime wave — via @slate http://read.bi/2rn9REY via @bi_contributors

It also seeps into the national psyche and, yes it is growing like a field of weeds. 




In closing, we published this piece on yesterday. link.