Last night I finally got fed up with David in Cal's racism and asked him, in no uncertain terms, to leave.
The topic was Trump's labeling of the COVID-19 virus the "China virus" and the "Kung flu," already racist which has resulted in thousands of attacks on Asian Americans in the US, to which David in Cal wrote
"Most of the attacks on Asian Americans were perpetrated by black Americans."
This statement is pure racism. No proof whatsoever, but far more than that, it injects race into a topic for which race is utterly irrelevant. The race of those attacking Asian Americans over COVID-19 is irrelevant. Trying to imply that the race of the attackers is meaningful, that it matters to this problem, that it needs to be entered into the discussion, is exactly what racists do.
David in Cal was once a decent contributor to this blog. Then he turned to Trumpism and in recent months many of his comments have bordered on racism. This one was, as far as I'm concerned, beyond the pale, and I have asked him to leave. I will delete his future comments as soon as I see them. He tried to sneak another one in a few minutes ago and I deleted it. He has become a troll who has infected this blog, repeatedly making claims without evidence, such as about election fraud and now this, and is now persona non grata. I've never done this before but have never before encountered someone of such ill intent. That this a Trumpist shouldn't really be surprising, I'm sorry to say. They have infected the Republican party and are out to devour America. But not here.
9 comments:
It should be unsurprising that the claim was not only unsubstantiated, but entirely wrong.
Here's a study by researchers at the University of Michigan that found "the majority of the offenders were identified as male, white, and, in the case of politicians, affiliated with the Republican Party." - https://virulenthate.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Virulent-Hate-Anti-Asian-Racism-In-2020-5.17.21.pdf
Wow, a study. An actual study. Not hearsay, not some conservative columnist. How surprising, isn't it? Thanks.
There is no possible justification for racism.
It's not even true as a percent of population.
Whites make up about 60% of the population while blacks make up about 12%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States
But the study found that perpetrators of crimes against Asian where 80% white and only 5% black.
I admit I lost it the other night when I saw DiC's comment and I was very rude to him. If I was out of line feel free to tell me.
I saw his comment as such raw, blatant racism that I just couldn't stand it. He's been dipping into racism for months, and this was just too deep.
If he's reading this, I'm willing to let him back if he admits his comment was wrong and apologizes. So far all he's tried to do is justify it by pointing to a Michele Malkin column (oh the irony). He seems unable to understand that the racist part is injecting race into the problem in the first place, out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever. It's exactly like something Archie Bunker would have said.
Yeah. It's racist. He's racist. And I looked up that article. It has inflamatory language, it throws the word "fact" around alot, but it doesn't in any way support his statement. It doesn't say anything about the demographics of attacks against Asians following the introduction of covid-19.
Thanks L
David (A), you made the right decision. It's been a long time (if ever) since "David in Cal"s contributions to the discussion here outweighed the negative impact of the misinformation that he so often posts (or links to).
His case seems very typical of those (especially in his generation) who get hooked by right-wing media, then gradually get led down the primrose path by the algorithmic content recommendations that push increasingly extreme ideological material, from sources like the Federalist, Breitbart, etc. Eventually one becomes so cocooned in the online right-wing ecosystem that it basically hijacks one's brain.
Unfortunately there are millions of people who've gone down that path in the USA -- not a majority, but enough to badly damage the nation's social fabric. I don't know what the answer is. It's unlikely that these people can re-establish a productive relationship with reality, but at the same time they're not going away and we have to live with them. That doesn't mean you need to give them a platform on your personal blog, though!
Thanks Ned, I appreciate that.
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