Regarding the sabotage in Washington State, it doesn't make a lot of sense to attack four substations simultaneously just to steal from the cash register of a small business.
If I fancied myself to be an antigovernment militia leader who had read all the white supremacist literature from the last 40 years that repeatedly describes attacking critical infrastructure like pipelines, telecoms and electricity pylons and substations to create chaos and ignite the race war, I'd definitely teach my inexperienced acolytes to add a little petty theft to their sabotage to avoid a terrorism enhancement when they're caught probing the defenses and response times of utilities and law enforcement.
> I'd definitely teach my inexperienced acolytes to add a little petty theft to their sabotage to avoid a terrorism enhancement
The far right literature e.g. The Turner Diaries, describes terror cells funding themselves through theft so theft/sabotage should be expected together with such groups.
"The Order" - a real life group modelled on The Turner Diaries robbed banks and armoured cars.
Especially with the Washington attack happening so soon after the one in North Carolina, the most notable thing to me was that both attacks occurred close to a couple of our most important Army bases, in counties where many troops live with their families off-base. Fort Bragg and Fort Lewis (JBLM) are both home to a corps headquarters, special operations units, and other rapid-response forces. This was rarely mentioned in the news coverage that I saw. But as a career military officer, some of the most thought-provoking "red team" stuff that I've read involved attacking us in our communities at home where we are soft targets, mostly reliant on civilian law enforcement for protection.
While I don’t disagree I don’t see the point of taking out the power to the community around an army base.
If they took out the power on the base to disrupt operations then maybe but from my time at Ft Bragg all that would’ve caused is an inconvenience even if we were in the middle of an alert.
…now that I think about it I’m surprised they never cut the power on us when they did one of the alert readiness tests.
When power to the community is cut, it's massively disruptive to operations because our normal response to give troops time off (or employ them in a humanitarian response) to take care of families. Day-to-day garrison operations and small-scale training events are seen as less important than taking care of families.
Imagine writing this unhinged mental fanfiction for every news article you read.
Headline: Man Steals Car
"Well, if I fancied myself a racewar enthusiast of course I would _say_ it was for money but it would obviously be in support of creating chaos and undermining the government institutions to allow for our brothers to rise against".
The economic incentive for stealing a car is a lot more obvious and mundane than attacking the power grid. It's not unreasonable to second guess (or is it first guess?) the motive in that context.
It's pretty obvious when you compare the number of annual car thefts to the number of attacks on substations. This is an unusual event, it may have an unusual explanation.
The likelihood that a person would attack four substations to rob a business is extremely low, and it's therefore reasonable to assume that their stated motive was a lie.
The likelihood that a person would even attack one substation for the same aim is still low, in my opinion.
They also drove around with their cellphones, were caught on camera, had long rap sheets for previous criminal offenses, and a history of meth addiction... It seems entirely plausible that the idiots just kept driving around shooting substations until the lights went out.
Also, if they had any basis whatsoever for a terrorism charge, I would have expected the DA to charge it. The media exposure and increase in profile would be irresistible, and charges can always be dropped later.
> white supremacist literature from the last 40 years that repeatedly describes attacking critical infrastructure like pipelines, telecoms and electricity pylons and substations to create chaos
I've seen such advocacy posted many times on 4chan. That doesn't prove much, but I think it validates that line of speculation.
But so do some people who fantasize about getting rid of fossil fuels --and they typically are polar opposites to the ones you are referring to... which goes to show extreme right and extreme left are like the head and tails of ouroboroses.
You don't know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane? You might also not know about the little old lady, or that the wheels on the bus go round and round
They're going far out of their way to insult people who are concerned about some real and serious threats.
If you look at the sibling comments, I'm not the only one noticing this. When confronted with the existence of Timothy McVeigh, the commenter replies mockingly with a reference to a nursery time (now flagged). That's pretty insane.
I'm just very wary of the 'white supremacist terrorism' narrative that politicians and alphabet agencies have been trying to sell lately to justify increases in domestic surveillance/police state infrastructure.
And don't get me wrong, I spend plenty of time on 4chan watching this shit, I know there are some truly hateful and dangerous people out there. But It doesn't seem like they're as organized as the narrative would have us believe. Hell, Patriot Front seems like one of the meaner orgs and it didn't take long for them to be revealed as probably being an FBI honeypot.
On one hand I'm spooked by letter agencies. On the other, it seems like they're doing a pretty good job infiltrating and undermining domestic hate organizations, perhaps to the point that they're outright running them, albeit into the ground.
>to sell lately to justify increases in domestic surveillance/police state infrastructure.
what evidence or even personal narrative do you have to back this assertion?
>But It doesn't seem like they're as organized as the narrative would have us believe
phew-boy, I don't have any inside knowledge of this because I have other things that keep my attention, but I'm quite sure that there MIGHT be a bit of a infosec/skill gap between the chuds posting on /b/ and the folks actually rolling out with assault rifles, knowledge, and intent to knock (a) power substation(s) offline.
There's all this incredulity in this thread but really, some dudes are gonna go knock out an entire power substation to rob a cash register? If I were one for Occam's Razer...
Frankly I really, really don't get this incredulity. We have numerous, fairly recent historical (in multiple senses of the word!) incidents that clearly point to both organized and unorganized groups of people who seem to fit a certain psychological profile of being motivated by fear and disgust and a very on-going, observable ability to be whipped into a violent frenzy when told its justified.
> but I'm quite sure that there MIGHT be a bit of a infosec/skill gap between the chuds posting on /b/ and the folks actually rolling out with assault rifles, knowledge, and intent to knock (a) power substation(s) offline.
Why? Point a gun at big obvious target doesn't take intelligence and only minimum skill.
They don't need to have any knowledge, just shoot the big squarey boxes till the lights go down. Or hell [1] ask the internet what will happen
> There's all this incredulity in this thread but really, some dudes are gonna go knock out an entire power substation to rob a cash register? If I were one for Occam's Razer...
Actually, random terrorist act would probably be great way to keep local police busy for some time if you wanted a distraction for something else criminal to happen...
"Crazy rednecks doing stupid shit" is more simplistic explanation, but not that much more.
>There's all this incredulity in this thread but really, some dudes are gonna go knock out an entire power substation to rob a cash register? If I were one for Occam's Razer...
If they're not robbing a cash register, they're white supremacists? Surely that's a leap itself...
That's not what I said, and I think it's a bit disingenuous.
Across the country, attacks on critical infrastructure are increasing. Attacks that are described and taught in literature that we KNOW FOR A FACT is circulated among certain types of violent-leaning groups. That's what I said, and meant. I am not making a claim that it's white supremacists.
> I'm just very wary of the 'white supremacist terrorism' narrative that politicians and alphabet agencies have been trying to sell lately to justify increases in domestic surveillance/police state infrastructure.
"OMG Racists!" is the new "Think of the children!".
I mean sure, as long as you’re a white christian man, why would you ever need to fear violent acts committed by white christian nationalists?
Now if you’re Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, or any other religion, or your skin is dark, or you’re a woman, or you’re gay or trans —- and therefore have legitimate safety concerns… well then that’s just more identity politics, isn’t it?
The groups listed above have many more enemies than your premise presumes. Even in their traditional homelands; additionally, many of the above are targeted within their own larger ethnic communities.
Further, I don’t recall passing by a church and not seeing a rainbow flag; I cannot say the same for other religious houses of worship except for synagogues which also tend to fly the flag.
It does not logically follow that gaining a second enemy would necessarily reduce the threat from the first.
I also don't see the connection between your personal anecdotal experience of churches (presumably you live in a major metropolitan area) and white christian nationalists. Are you trying to imply that white christian nationalists are LGBT-friendly? Are you familiar with their beliefs?
Because you're choosing to ignore the growing threat of white supremacist violence to minorities all over the country, I couldn't see any other reason you'd have to do that. There have been many mass shootings targeted at them already.
But I'm not talking on behalf of you, I'm talking on behalf of myself, because I am a member of one of these many groups which are targeted.
> Because you're choosing to ignore the growing threat of white supremacist violence to minorities all over the country,
This may be hard for you to understand, but what you fear is a marginal threat, at best.
> There have been many mass shootings targeted at them already.
How many is "many"? If you're going to argue that even 1 is 1 too many, then we may as well give up on this argument - you're never going to get down to a zero level of any demographic or group.
OTOH, the main causes of violence against minorities still appears to be purely crime-driven. If you were honest with yourself, you'd make up a top-10 list of the causes of deaths/injury of minorities and realise that "Killedx by a white supremecist" isn't even in the list.
> But I'm not talking on behalf of you, I'm talking on behalf of myself, because I am a member of one of these many groups which are targeted.
But you didn't talk about yourself, did you? No, you referred to entire groups on the assumption that they agree with your assessment of the risk to themselves.
Now you know that the groups you mentioned are not unanimously in agreement with you.
I said white supremacist violence, but you took that to mean terrorist killings, which is a small subset of that violence.
They much more frequently intimidate, threaten, harass, and abuse those minoritized groups than outright murder them. Maybe that doesn't bother you, either. But making factual statements doesn't require anyone to agree with me. Those violent acts are occurring, nonetheless.
The reason it is important to associate these minoritized groups is that they are all being underserved by state and federal law enforcement agencies who permit such terroristic groups to organize with impunity. It is a steadily rising problem, and the longer it's ignored the worse it will get.
> I said white supremacist violence, but you took that to mean terrorist killings, which is a small subset of that violence.
No, I specified "causes of deaths/injury of minorities"
> But making factual statements doesn't require anyone to agree with me.
Neither does making non-factual statements. What's your point?
(Here's a factual statement for you - the threat from white supremacists against minorities is so low it's barely a rounding error. You should post numbers displaying that this fact is wrong.)
> It is a steadily rising problem, and the longer it's ignored the worse it will get.
Look, maybe it is steadily rising, but you are unable to provide percentages here.
To us minorities, us experiencing deaths/injury from white supremacists are not even a rounding error.
Everyone has a line in the sand where something goes from "that's not a problem" to "we need to work on that".
You can't call people ignorant because their personal line in the sand is (for example) "needs to be more than 0.01% of threats against me".
Okay, you can (and have) called people ignorant for dismissing threats that are this low-level, but you can't then expect people to not dismiss you as a crackpot.
Yes, obviously by statistical cause of death, terrorism will always be a rounding error. However, the goal of terror is always psychological -- to create a culture of fear in which people are afraid to participate in society.
That, in combination with law enforcement insufficiently targeting white supremacist organizing, is primarily an issue of social and racial justice. Simply, it's unfair to expect demographic groups which collectively comprise half of the country to put up with this mess.
Maybe english is not your first language, but this quote of your literally means "ignorant of ..."
>>>>> Because you're choosing to ignore the growing threat of white supremacist violence to minorities all over the country,
That's where the word ignorant comes from.
> Yes, obviously by statistical cause of death, terrorism will always be a rounding error. However, the goal of terror is always psychological -- to create a culture of fear in which people are afraid to participate in society.
This is all way too subjective, and therefore not actionable. We cannot (and should not) exact punitive measures based on what other people feel.
We take legal action against perpetrators based on the crimes commit, not what crimes we think they may commit in the future.
All those harassment, abuse, whatever you said above, that's legally actionable and I urge anyone, no matter their skin color, on the receiving end of crimes to report the matter and legally pursue it.
> That, in combination with law enforcement insufficiently targeting white supremacist organizing, is primarily an issue of social and racial justice.
What do you want them arrested for? Being in a white supremacist group is not, last I checked, illegal in and of itself.
> Simply, it's unfair to expect demographic groups which collectively comprise half of the country to put up with this mess.
The "mess" is in your mind. You are in a minority amongst minorities.
Do you not also think that it is unfair to urge measures be taken against people who have committed no crime?
>We take legal action against perpetrators based on the crimes commit, not what crimes we think they may commit in the future.
The US legal code includes many crimes of conspiracy, especially for terrorism. That is in fact how most terrorists are caught. Most white supremacist organizing falls under this category.
We don't allow ISIS recruiters to use social media, but white supremacists have their own dedicated social network servers (e.g., Gab). We don't allow terror training camps, but white supremacist militias gather openly to practice their technique. The FBI regularly sends undercover agents into the mosques of middle class middle eastern neighborhoods to make sure people there aren't being taught radical Islam, but it's virtually expected for rural christian churches to preach reactionary hate. You can see these ideas on mainstream television, even. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Hk-TLXKlubk
And no, especially after Jan 6th, I am most certainly not in the "minority of minorities" here.
There's absolutely a double standard applied and their continued recruitment and armament is a threat to democracy and a peaceful society.
How arrogant do you have to be to tell somene what they should be worried about. Especially when they literally alrady siad they dont buy your boogeyman.
> 'white supremacist terrorism' narrative that politicians and alphabet agencies have been trying to sell
If white supremacist terrorist attacks are actually happening (and they are), then it's not a fictional narrative that the public is being told. Furthermore, I'm curious how that is linked to the following point.
> increases in domestic surveillance/police state infrastructure
I'd like to point out that given that police [1] have been infiltrated by white supremacists and three-letter agencies are doing nothing about it [2] this would seem to disproportionately affect people of color, to say nothing about surveillance that already occurs with open-source and private data.
It seems that your fears are misplaced/misinformed at best.
From your first article:
"hundreds of police officers have been caught posting racist and bigoted social media content"
According to Statista[0] there were 660,288 officers in the US in 2021. Even one racist cop is too many, granted. But if we assume the maximum on 'hundreds', 999/660,288 = 0.0015.
0.15% is still a problem, but your article makes it sound like a pervasive problem, which it clearly isn't. That article also spends about half its length heavily implying that Kyle Rittenhouse was a far-right white nationalist militant hunting protestors. If you watched the trial, you would know that's certainly untrue despite the prosecutor & news' best efforts to paint him otherwise. This article is exactly an example of the false narrative I was talking about.
White nationalists are fucking scary. But outlets like The Guardian are making money fear mongering that they're lurking behind every corner, that your police and firemen and friends and neighbors are all cryptofascists.
You left the first point unaddressed- that there is a white supremacy problem in the United States, and the fact the people of color are _already_ under police state surveillance.
Secondly, your argument that _only_ 0.15% of cops are racist is disingenuous. If you RTFA [1]:
> Obviously, only a tiny percentage of law enforcement officials are likely to be active members of white supremacist groups. But one doesn’t need access to secretive intelligence gathered in FBI terrorism investigations to find evidence of overt and explicit racism within law enforcement. Since 2000, law enforcement officials with alleged connections to white supremacist groups or far-right militant activities have been exposed in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and elsewhere.
> Research organizations have uncovered hundreds of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials participating in racist, nativist, and sexist social media activity, which demonstrates that overt bias is far too common.
> These officers’ racist activities are often known within their departments, but only result in disciplinary action or termination if they trigger public scandals.
> Few law enforcement agencies have policies that specifically prohibit affiliating with white supremacist groups. Instead, these officers typically face discipline, if at all, for more generally defined prohibitions against conduct detrimental to the department or for violations of anti-discrimination regulations or social media policies. Firings often lead to prolonged litigation, with dismissed officers claiming violations of their First Amendment speech and association rights. Most courts have upheld dismissals of police officers who have affiliated with racist or militant groups, following Supreme ? Court decisions limiting free speech rights for public employees to matters of public concern.
> Courts have given law enforcement agencies even greater latitude to restrict speech and association, citing their “heightened need for order, loyalty, morale and harmony.”
It's fine if you want to bury your head in the sand and pretend the infiltration of law enforcement and military by white supremacists isn't happening, but that won't make it true. Furthermore, your argument that it's all a media conspiracy to enable the government to spy on white people is... sketchy.
Terrorism has a specific meaning. All these are what one would call sabotage. It would be terrorism if the saboteurs disabled the substations in support of an attack terrorizing civilians. Example, they shoot up a substation so that police are unable to respond to a siege on some government agency or a hostage situation at a bank.
The attack on infrastructure itself could constitute terrorism, if the infrastructure attack was intended to scare or intimidate the public to achieve some political objective.
Wiktionary's definition of terrorism includes attacks against property: "The use of unlawful violence against people or property to achieve political objectives."
I don't completely agree with that definition. A bank robber may briefly instill terror to the people in the bank, but it's not an act of terror. However, if it's committed by a group (like the Hearst heir) then because it's in support of further activities, I would classify it as terrorism.
Often, governments, (not just the US but in general) use the term in order to enlist more sympathy from disinterested civilians in order to add support for government response and also to curb sympathy for the group or individuals. So protesters in Belarus or China, etc, they get labeled terrorists.
> A bank robber may briefly instill terror to the people in the bank, but it's not an act of terror.
Political motive is a key part of that definition. Simple greed isn't a political motive, but if somebody started robbing banks because they had an axe to grind with the federal reserve, I think that would probably qualify as terrorism.
I don't think political motive is sufficient. Turning off the lights does not by itself instill fear and terror --there are things individuals or groups could tack on that would, of course.
For example OWS was political and caused some property damage [as well as euro climate activists throwing substances at artworks], but I would be loath to classify either terrorism. I guess the action in ATL regarding a police raining facility is domestic terrorism.
Unlawful violence is the other part of that definition. Two components: unlawful violence and a political motive. Not either/or, terrorism requires both.
> OWS was political and caused some property damage
Marginal example. I think most of the property damage was incidental to what they were doing; camping in city parks. Insofar as the property damage was deliberate vandalism, it seems like marginal terrorism. To pick an similar example that seems a lot more clear; if the KKK throws a brick through the window of a business owned by a black person, that's obviously terrorism right?
All in all I think wiktionary's definition is pretty good.
I think we mostly agree, but have some small differences in some aspects.
To elaborate, I don't like the weaseliness of "unlawful" as well as "violence". (to put it bluntly, in some contexts violence is anything form touching a shoulder to punching a nose and beyond --and who decides lawfulness and unlawfulness?) I'm _not_ saying they are undefinable but rather in some contexts their definitions are given great latitude.
It probably should cover riots. Unless of course the riot is in support of [good thing]. Implicit to any definition of terrorism is the qualification that it doesn't count if it's done to support [thing you support]. Naturally.
As they say, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
If you sink an oil tanker and a pollute large area for years or decades, that's terrorism because holy fuck that's scary. But what if you do it in a way that nobody knows it was intentional and don't tell anyone about it?
You're absolutely right: blowing up substations can be terrorism. But you need someone claiming the attack and making demands.
> International terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations (state-sponsored).
> Domestic terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.
They were found because they carried their cellphones to each substations and the robbery. They were then confirmed because they used their own car and it was matched to video surveillance.
But better than a person throwing a rock at a power line. If their goal was to cut power for the area that substation serves then they were successful. Getting caught later means they aren't perfect
Yep. I think it's safe to assume that the half-dozen earlier attacks in the area were by a different group, since the group behind the earlier attacks was presumably smart enough not to carry their cellphones with them.
If US government and it's institutions are rooted in white supremacy as so many claim, then why would white supremacists be anti-government? Seems like they'd be on the same team, no?
Most white supremacists are not in intrinsically anti-government. They are more than happy to support it by becoming police officers, soldiers, and prison guards.
I thought I already did. If white supremacists are so anti-government then it doesn't make sense to pretend the government is run by white supremacists.
It turns out that the people who make those sorts of claims are really just anti-white.
Who is pretending that "the government is run by white supremacists"?
If you're referring to my statement, I only said that many law enforcement agencies contain white supremacists, which includes anyone with a white supremacist viewpoint. They don't even need to identify as one openly or even in action. How many white supremacists are and are not anti-government is immaterial to the point.
The way you're using the definition "white supremacist" implicitly assumes that "white supremacy" as an ideology is inherently anti-government. We know that's never been the case, because all white supremacist states around the world have had strictly authoritarian governments. There's no way to enforce the supremacy of one group of people over another without coercive force.
Either violence or authoritarian government are required for a white supremacist state.
As for whether US itself is a white supremacist state, on one hand you could say that it has allocated a massive amount of resources in systematically rounding up black men (1 in 3 will be arrested in their lifetimes) without addressing the factors used to justify that, and many states systematically disenfranchise their vote. And historically it was economically reliant on chattel slavery. Many southern states are effectively authoritarian governments at the state level due to district gerrymandering and black disenfranchisement, now no longer stoppable by the Voting Rights Act after a conservative supreme court decision a few years ago.
OTOH, federally, is democratically accountable to the people, making it a coalition of whites and non-whites. So you could still see white supremacist reactionaries taking anti-government standpoints for as long as this governing coalition includes non-white people.
>It turns out that the people who make those sorts of claims are really just anti-white.
Do you think it is somehow "anti-white" to point out ways in which white supremacy harms and oppresses non-white people when it is used at the level of state and federal governments?
> Do you think it is somehow "anti-white" to point out ways in which white supremacy harms and oppresses non-white people when it is used at the level of state and federal governments?
It can be. Take your example for instance, where you said:
> "As for whether US itself is a white supremacist state, on one hand you could say that it has allocated a massive amount of resources in systematically rounding up black men (1 in 3 will be arrested in their lifetimes) without addressing the factors used to justify that, and many states systematically disenfranchise their vote."
You may not realize it, but this statement immediately dismisses the millions of non-black victims of the same thing. By making it all about one race, you have essentially set up a white (bad) vs black (good) dynamic where it doesn't actually exist. Instead of looking at fundamental issues affecting people regardless of race - namely, an authoritarian government that is primarily used by the privileged class against the unprivileged. For example: whereas Sasha & Malia Obama will never face the brunt of an authoritarian government, white Appalachian families know it all too well.
You saw the same thing with groups like BLM. If you never looked at the data you would assume this is an issue that only or primarily affects black people. And yet, the majority of people killed by cops are white males. And although per capita black males are more likely to suffer that fate, white males are also over-represented as victims of police violence based on their demographic cohort. (black, Hispanic and white males are over-represented; Asian males and females of all races including black, are under-represented.
Using the police violence issue, the largest over-represented demographic cohort is actually males which make up 95% of the victims. And yet it's not presented as a male problem. It's presented as a black problem despite the data that shows black females are far less likely to be hurt or killed in police interactions than white males are.
This happens a lot when trying to take a complex issue and assume it's based on race.
At the state level, the rate of incarceration for black americans is about 5 times higher than for white americans. This report fully breaks it down by state and by ethnicity, and offers policy solutions:
Given that black people are not a large percentage of the population, this disparity is shocking and significant. If we deliberately choose not to point out these problems then it won't be possible to correct them at a social policy level. If we chose to focus only on "males" as the targeted demographic then we would overlook a lot of the systemic injustices and socio-economic circumstances that black males face exclusively, and which would require disproportionate attention to solve. It is neither right nor just that black men should bear such an unequal burden.
Moreover, pointing out injustice done to black americans does not "dismiss the millions of non-black victims". I don't see how you can come to that conclusion. There is more than enough room in the sphere of public debate to discuss all aspects of mass incarceration.
The argument you're making sounds almost exactly like "all houses matter".
And whites are locked up at a shockingly higher rate than asians are. Men are locked up at shockingly higher rates than women are. So do we blame Asian supremacy or female supremacy for that? Or is it possible not all demographic groups commit crimes at the same rate?
What do you think is the reason that races commit crimes at different rates? Do you think that black people are inherently more criminal?
You can read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander if you truly have a good faith desire to understand the racist legacy behind mass incarceration in the US.
Ultimately you need to recognize that race is a social construct, and white supremacy is a phenomenon of in-group vs out-group power dynamics. Right now the group that holds political and economic power in the US is called “white”, which is otherwise a biologically meaningless designation and more of a cultural and class based category that was invented about 100 years ago. The more similar a particular demographic group appears along the axes of skin color, class, and culture, the less racially stigmatized they’ll be, the more economic opportunities they’ll have, and the less they’ll need to resort to grey or black market activity in order to survive. There is also the long legacy of slavery, indentured servitude, and jim crow era oppression that has selectively deprived black people in the US of economic opportunities for generations.
If you want to draw conclusions on aggregate statistics of the actions of human beings, then you need to be willing to educate yourself as to the social, economic, and historical factors which influence their actions.
There is an easy way to test this. Considering all of the systemic racial preferences in place, would you rather be white or black (same skills & qualifications) if you're interviewing for a job at a Fortune 500 employer? Applying to Harvard Law school? Seeking a government contract?
Racial differences in performance in something is not proof of discrimination. Unless you're ready to show me how the NBA systemically excludes non-black players.
It's also interesting that in this so-called system of white supremacy, that asians somehow lead in almost every metric related to income, education, crime etc.
Fascinating that despite the fact that DEI initiatives would give you a huge advantage you still wouldn't want to be black. I guess that says something.
And FYI that names study has been debunked a number of times. They didn't test stereotypically low class white names like Wilbur, Billy Bob, Roscoe, Harlan etc. for males or Crystal, Daisy, etc. for females.
I’ve literally had someone whose job it was to read resumes for their company straight up admit to me that they throw resumes with black-sounding names straight into the trash.
You still didn’t respond to my comment, which spelled out very clearly the role of racial discrimination in society that you seem to interested in denying. Instead, you change the topic from criminalization to college admissions. I wonder why.
Do you not know what DEI initiatives at large companies are and what they do? And did you know that there is a case in front of the Supreme Court where it was proven that Asians were disadvantaged in admissions due to their race because Harvard wanted to increase their percentage of black and Hispanic students?
So yes, there is an advantage when a company or a school specifically sets out to bring you in because you have the right skin color.
As far as racial discrimination in society (institutional racial preferences), my take on it is that race should never be used as a factor in hiring, sentencing, admissions etc. Individual racism is what it is. If I walk down the street and someone calls me a cracker or says they hate white people or whatever, that sucks and is unfortunate but ultimately you can't do anything about it because people will think how they think. It's the institutionalized racial preferences that do the most harm, and those need to change.
> I’ve literally had someone whose job it was to read resumes for their company straight up admit to me that they throw resumes with black-sounding names straight into the trash.
Oh yeah? Which company? That's highly illegal so I'm assuming you informed the boss and filed a complaint with the EEOC right?
Guess what millions of individual instances of racism amount to, when those instances involve people with power using it against those who lack it? It becomes systemic, institutionalized. American society has held this bias against blacks for literally hundreds of years. Deliberate institutional preference in the other direction is the very least we can try to do to make up for that historical legacy, and even those efforts amount to a vanishingly small difference.
Which company? They’re in central Indiana. Not telling an unknown internet stranger who apparently argues in bad faith.
> Guess what millions of individual instances of racism amount to, when those instances involve people with power using it against those who lack it? It becomes systemic, institutionalized.
And yet all of the actual institutionalized policies that consider race, favor non-whites or non-Asians.
> Which company? They’re in central Indiana.
Uh-huh. And what did the EEOC do when you gave them that information? What did the company leadership do when you informed them that one of their employees was violating multiple federal laws?
> And yet all of the actual institutionalized policies that consider race, favor non-whites or non-Asians.
In case you couldn't guess, the point is to support systemically marginalized groups. white and asian people have not been subject to slavery, jim crow laws, sundown laws, redlining, voter disenfranchisement, targeted mass incarceration, etc.
I'll answer your question after you respond to literally any of the things I've said so far in my comments. And I've got some questions for you: Why should I believe that someone who claims that white supremacy doesn't even exist cares about EEOC complaints? Do you think that such disingenuous questions convey your points more effectively, or less? Is there a reason that each new reply shifts the rhetorical goalposts?
> In case you couldn't guess, the point is to support systemically marginalized groups. white and asian people have not been subject to slavery, jim crow laws, sundown laws, redlining, voter disenfranchisement, targeted mass incarceration, etc.
Why are you pretending FDR and the Democrats didn't round up Asian Americans, strip them of their possessions and throw them into internment camps during World War II, simply because of their race? And what about all of the discrimination faced by Jews (who are white)?
See this is the problem with supporting policies that favor people based on their race. It always ends badly and causes racial animosity.
The real problem is that you’re implicitly taking the position that aiding specific groups of people is a zero-sum game. Should the US government give reparations for what they did to Japanese americans during WWII? Absolutely. Should germany and other european countries give reparations for Jewish families as a result of the holocaust? Absolutely.
Do poor white americans from appalachia deserve economic aid from the government after such prolonged disinvestment? Of course.
And while it makes sense to offer these
groups economic-based college admissions support, it doesn't make sense to do so purely on the basis of ethnicity/race, as those groups demonstrably don't face the same level of institutionalized discrimination as blacks. Though such measures would have been warranted for Jews and Asians for a good part of the 20th century.
But guess what—none of these remedies are in conflict with each other. At no point does actively correcting the massive generational wealth and education imbalance that black americans face, take away from correcting what any other group of minoritized people is owed.
How about OSS Sabotage Manual that was declassified. Then you think about all the infrastructure attacks and it looks similar to how the manual describes to do sabotage. KGB sleeper cells still doing their thing? Or American communists dreaming they are fighting facism when in fact they are inviting it in.
There are communists who believe in accelerationism as much as there are white supremacists who believe in it. Basically "destabilize the current status quo to provoke an outright war, and then we win that war and take over".
If I fancied myself to be an antigovernment militia leader who had read all the white supremacist literature from the last 40 years that repeatedly describes attacking critical infrastructure like pipelines, telecoms and electricity pylons and substations to create chaos and ignite the race war, I'd definitely teach my inexperienced acolytes to add a little petty theft to their sabotage to avoid a terrorism enhancement when they're caught probing the defenses and response times of utilities and law enforcement.