• rumba@lemmy.zip
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    15 hours ago

    A friend of mine was raised Republican; he’d say, fiscal Republican. He was certain that people without healthcare could just get treated for free for whatever they needed and that POC brought it all on themselves. Generally, he thought that people were nice and good and would take care of each other as long as the people in need weren’t miscreants.

    Then he met a nice black girl, got married, and had some kids.

    Now he’s seeing how they’re treated differently when they’re not together, and how he’s treated differently when he’s with her.

    How family is now all at odds as the grandparents are still in the old camp and aren’t sympathetic to his findings and struggles.

    The propaganda is hard to work around. They want to believe that there’s good and evil in the world and good prevails. It’s what their churches tell them. It’s not until each one of them individually experiences hardship that they realize that something is off, and they still remain confused as to what’s real and what’s now.

  • dalekcaan@lemm.ee
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    19 hours ago

    Liberals Warned Me About MAGA’s Racism. I Didn’t Believe Them—Until Now it affected me, personally

    A tale as old as time

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    1 day ago

    Well then you’re an idiot and deserve whatever MAGA does to you. You literally asked them to do it.

  • Rooty@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I wish there was a poem about what happens when they start rounding up undesirables while you stand by and do nothing, and then they come for you in the end.

    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      First they came for the socialists, and I said get those fuckers—because socialist hate America. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I said good riddance —because I am a class traitor. Then they came for the Jews, and I said about time —because I am a piece of shit. Then they came for me—and I was as confused as an lamb to the slaughter.

    • FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Funny enough, there actually is. A poem by Martin Niemöller. Full thing is:

      "Y’all are dumb

      Thought you were part of the in crowd, without a doubt

      You fucked around

      Now you’ll find out"

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I wish that Democrats had listened to that poem when they were supplying an active genocide, adopting Republican policy on the border, or running anti-trans hate in their own ads. They decided to give Republicans a running start.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    I’ve often thought about that moment—the unnecessary injection of racial anxiety into my otherwise normal school day—when I think about the irony of progressive identity politics. My parents, both born in India but educated in America, would laugh about their well-intentioned but misguided friends who, in their eagerness to ward off the idea of “otherness,” ended up contributing to it.

    So the people who knew the country well enough to see what was coming told you what was coming. You ignored them, your parents laughed at them.

    But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.

    Huh.

    But now, we must all reckon with an ugly part of the MAGA agenda they did not realize existed.

    Everyone who’s head wasn’t buried in the sand or laughing about “the irony of progressive politics” realized they existed.

    And so, if Trump’s win is a revolutionary moment for MAGA, the people who voted for the revolution need to define which MAGA they believe in. Does “making America great again” revive the ideals of this country—or the grievances of a group of “native-born” Americans? If MAGA chooses the latter, those on the left who were dismissed as hysterical for crying racism will be vindicated in the worst way.

    Whew, still not getting it I see. MAGA has made that choice already, and it hasn’t moved one bit during the time MAGA has existed.

    I didn’t want to fracture that pride with the news of an ugly turn in our country’s politics. How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

    I think you can only tell them to pay attention next time and not laugh at those trying to give you a clue.

    My grandfather voted for Trump three times. Now, part of that movement is calling immigrants like him ‘filthy.’

    Your grandfather empowered them and is part of the problem.

    Damn, it’s only January and my schadenfreude gland is already getting fatigued.

  • watson387@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    Apparently the writer has barely paid any attention to what’s been going on over the last 10 years…

    • optissima@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      They were, this is classic “It’s not racism until they’re racist against me” development. It wasn’t racist when it was against only Mexicans/blacks tho.

      • GorGor@startrek.website
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        16 hours ago

        This was my take as well. They only realized the MAGA folks were racist when they called Indians filthy.

        When they were calling mexicans rapists and murders 😴

        When they said africa was full of shithole countries 😴

        I could go on, but it is kinda exhausting. Coming up next is the working class people when they start getting called white trash. Its coming once they consolidate enough power and dont need them anymore.

    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      The right being poorly educated isn’t a quip; it’s a designation. One they can neither accept nor escape.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Her turning point:

    But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.

    Same old story:

    My life is filled with immigrants from India and Nigeria and Lebanon and the Dominican Republic—many of whom are definitionally the “working class”—who voted for Trump. They are family members and neighbors, cafe owners who greet me by name, doctors, cleaning ladies, the mailman, my Cape Verdean babysitter-turned-friend of many years. All of them opposed illegal immigration while defending Trump from critics: “He’s not anti-legal immigration, he’s anti-illegal immigration,” they’d said. “I’m pro-legal immigration—make it easier to do it the lawful way,” they’d say.

    I will never understand how people can’t see it’s thinly veiled racism when it comes from the GOP.

  • EndOfLine@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Whaaaaaat? You mean the bigotry and vitriol of the GOP isn’t limited to Mexicans, Hatians, Chinese, Guatemalans, Columbians, Cubans, Women, Gays, Transgender, Liberals, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Athiests, Americans wanting affordable healthcare, Americans wanting a living wage, Americans wanting affordable housing, Americans wanting renewable clean energy, Americans wanting a clean environment, immigrants, healthcare workers fighting a global pandemic, journalists, hecklers, and generally anybody who does not vote Republican?

    Please add any groups that I forgot.

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Communists, socialists, the educated, the poor, the homeless, vegetarians, people with hair coloring (except blond)

      • bustAsh@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I’m grey haired, and definitely feel very threatened by Trump’s incoming presidency.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      Hrm what did you miss…

      At this point, basically all academics and scientists of pretty much any field who are not connected to a conservative think tank or corporate astroturf advocacy group…

      Teachers…

      Black Americans…

      The Homeless…

      Anyone that wants to watch porn…

    • edgemaster72@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Don’t forget military veterans, especially the ones that got captured and tortured, or sick or disabled as a result of their service. There’s also treating Puerto Ricans like they’re not part of the US.

      • Miaou@jlai.lu
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        19 hours ago

        I mean, they’re a colony, so unfortunately until they get the opportunity to free themselves/be part of the USA proper, Puerto Ricans are by definitions sub-citizens. Have the dems ever expressed the desire to change that even?

    • ALQ@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It’s more than that, though. It’s broadcasting that the writer is also a racist xenophobe because they didn’t care until it affected their specific racial demographic.

  • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

    I think these three words in this sentence says a lot about the author. My guess is they felt that America didn’t really have a racist population or felt it was small? When in reality it’s always been quite large but mostly quite. Where now this population doesn’t need to whisper anymore and they are seeing it for the first time.