The years of Obama-bashing have helped bring racism, sexism, and all the other “-isms” of hate out of the shadows, Ken, Down with Tyranny!, December 6, 2014
Last night I indicated that I meant to come back to Ian Welsh’s post yesterday, “In Light of Eric Garner,” in which he urged us: “Understand this, if you understand nothing else: the system is working as intended.” He argued that the Staten Island prosecutor case who succeeded in getting the grand jury to bring no indictment in Garner’s death —
made the decision that the system wants: police are almost never prosecuted for assault or murder and on those rare occasions that they are, they almost always get off.
Donovan did what the legal system wanted him to do.
As for the police in question, well, they did what the legal system wants them to do, as well.”
Where are several points here I wanted to come back to.
(1) THE PROPOSITION THAT “THE POLICE IN QUESTION
DID WHAT THE LEGAL SYSTEM WANTS THEM TO DO”***
(2) THE FACT THAT PEOPLE “OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM”
REALLY NEED TO LEARN THE FUTILTY OF RESISTANCE***
(3) THAT RACE ISN’T AN ACCIDENTAL COMPONENT OF THIS
[Emphasis, links in original.]
How to Talk to a Skeptic About Rape Culture, Rants and Rambles, March 29, 2013
I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently about how to talk to someone about rape culture. They fear rejection or attack or any other number of outcomes, but mostly the questioners fear not being understood. I get that. More than most, probably.
But the conversations are important ones to have, so I wanted to come up with a better answer than, “Try.” For a while, I just sent people over to the comment thread on the initial rape culture post. After all, there were some pretty awesome conversations taking place there. Now, however, that the comment thread is over 1,000 posts long, that can be a daunting challenge. I still encourage it, but thought it might be helpful for something a little shorter… even if not by much.
So I sifted through all the comments again, and tried to imagine what it would look like if they wound up smashed into one conversation. This is what I came up with. Hope it’s helpful…
