The open bigotry of Trumpland is beginning to backfire on the racists

Welcome to Trump’s America, where being White is being Right.

Almost.

Many of us have said that it was always this way for a long time, yet we weren’t believed. We were said to be exaggerating things, “playing the race card”, just blowing isolated incidents all out of proportion.  I think we’re well past that now and it’s become quite obvious that this isn’t just a passing fad.

There has been a recent rash of videos where black people going about their business in public places have the cops called on them—for waiting for a friend at Starbucks, for resting in a library, for barbecuing, for trying to eat at Waffle House.

On Friday night, CNN’s Don Lemon asked a panel of black commentators if this is a new problem that’s getting worse.

They said it’s not getting worse—it’s always been this bad.

Yes, it’s had been this bad — it just wasn’t quite so obvious before, now even the reasonable but previously clueless white people are starting to notice.  We have at least progressed past the argument that black people are “imagining their persecution” anymore. At least somewhat. The only real question now has become: is this sudden rash of racial incidents, from micro-aggressions to full on tirades and violent attacks begun to spread because of the openly bigoted views of Donald Trump or are they merely coincidental?

Opinions vary.

It’s become so bad that Dr. Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. called for a boycott of Waffle House after a series of racist attacks.

Writing on Twitter, Dr. King stated: “Family, let’s stay out of @WaffleHouse until the corporate office legitimately and seriously commits to 1) discussion on racism, 2) employee training, and 3) other plans to change; and until they start to implement changes.”

She later added, “A @WaffleHouse employee called the police on #ChikesiaClemons after she asked for the number for the corporate office. Ms. Clemons was violated by police. Her breasts were exposed. It barely garnered national attention. Do #BlackLivesMatter? Do #BlackWomenMatter?”

Dr. King’s second tweet was in reference to an incident in Saraland, Alabama, where police yanked a black woman to the ground, partially unclothing her, after the Waffle House manger called them because the victim was arguing over having to pay for plastic utensils.

This Waffle House incident with a teenager who had went there with his prom date is just one among many that have occurred in recent weeks.

Police were called to the Warsaw restaurant Saturday after 22-year-old Anthony Wall got into an argument with some of the servers, reported WTVD-TV.

Wall was at the restaurant after taking his 16-year-old sister to her school’s prom.

Video of the incident shows an officer put Wall into a chokehold against the restaurant’s exterior glass panels, and then slammed the young man onto the sidewalk outside Waffle House.

Wall was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, but he said he only fought back out of instinct to preserve his life.

Then of course you’ve had the recent incident with the Yale Graduate student who had the police called on her because she was taking a nap in the common room.

Yale Daily News reported that graduate student Lolade Siyonbola’s videos of the incident, which include her interactions with the woman that called campus police on her as well as officers themselves, went viral on campus as the campus community debated whether she was the target of discrimination and harassment.

The first of the two videos shows the white woman shortly after she called the police. According to Siyonbola, the woman called campus police months prior after one of the black student’s friends got lost in her building.

“I have every right to call the police,” the defensive white grad student said as she filmed Siyonbola filming her.

We’ve since learned that this wasn’t this woman’s first time calling police on black students for no damn good reason.

Reneson Jean-Louis this week shared on Facebook his recollection of the February encounter, which unfolded after he arrived at the dorm to meet with Lolade Siyonbola, the graduate student who was reported early Tuesday for sleeping in a common room.

He and Siyonbola said the same white student, Sarah Braasch, was involved in both incidents.

Jean-Louis said he and Siyonbola submitted a complaint in March about the earlier episode to the associate dean of development and diversity. Jean-Louis provided CNN with a copy of the email communication he received from Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Lynn Cooley confirming that the same white student had called police on both occasions.

Again Braasch isn’t exactly a neophyte in racist ideas as reported by the New York Daily News.

In a since-deleted 2010 blog post for Humanist, Braasch offered her readers a look at her middle school years, when her class debated the pros and cons of slavery. She said students approached it as if they were "abolitionists or southern plantation owners during Abraham Lincoln's presidency."

"I was placed on the pro-slavery side of the argument. I remember spending many an hour in the local public library poring over Time Life books," she wrote.

"And then I had a eureka moment. Some — not many, but some — of the slaves didn't want to stop being slaves. A small number wanted to remain with their owners or even return after being freed. I knew I had just won the debate. And indeed, I did. I led our team to victory."

Yeah, that was called becoming a sharecropper, which really wasn’t that great a deal for them.

After the Civil War, former slaves sought jobs, and planters sought laborers. The absence of cash or an independent credit system led to the creation of sharecropping.

Sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. This encouraged tenants to work to produce the biggest harvest that they could, and ensured they would remain tied to the land and unlikely to leave for other opportunities. In the South, after the Civil War, many black families rented land from white owners and raised cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, and rice. In many cases, the landlords or nearby merchants would lease equipment to the renters, and offer seed, fertilizer, food, and other items on credit until the harvest season. At that time, the tenant and landlord or merchant would settle up, figuring out who owed whom and how much

High interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often kept tenant farm families severely indebted, requiring the debt to be carried over until the next year or the next. Laws favoring landowners made it difficult or even illegal for sharecroppers to sell their crops to others besides their landlord, or prevented sharecroppers from moving if they were indebted to their landlord.

It was basically a financial trap, just as slavery had been.

With Yale and Waffle House we’’ve seen that far from being an isolated events there have been an increasing amount of incidents, and they have also become increasingly blatant.  It's not a question of whether they have been racist, or racial, they are quite literally screamingly racist events. 

This is certainly not a comprehensive list:

• Bi-racial Ohio couple woke up to a lynched toy monkey, racist ‘get out’ comments spray painted on their house.

• Racist vandals drive black family from home — but mayor ‘more concerned’ with getting paint off that ‘pretty building’ A black family has moved out of their Tennessee home after enduring months of racist abuse — but the town’s mayor doesn’t think it’s a big deal.

• Racist Houston police told a black woman to ‘pretend like we’re going to shoot you’ during traffic stop.

• Virginia high school student refuses to change his Confederate-themed art project after teacher calls it racist.

• Florida high school says their hands are tied after a student’s racist gun video goes viral: ‘These things happen’.
• St. Louis store clerk used racist excuse to refuse to sell money order to a black couple.
• White supremacist murder suspect wants his racist internet history blocked from his hate crime trial An alleged white supremacist who killed a black student is seeking to have his racist internet history removed from evidence because his attorneys consider it “irrelevant” to the case.
• Racist hotel clerk calls black man a ‘f*cking monkey’ after he asks for a refund. A hotel clerk at Country Inn & Suites in Newport News, Virginia yelled racial slurs at a customer, according to 13 News Now.

• An 80-year-old LA man arrested for screaming racist attack on black student in school parking lot dispute. An 80-year-old man has been arrested after he went on a racist tirade aimed at a black college student and then physically assaulted her on Tuesday, reports KTLA.
• North Carolina sheriff in damage control mode after racist Facebook remark goes viral on Election Day.

• Washington mother refuses to send her black autistic son back to school after a ‘heartbreaking’ racist attack. A Washington mom is refusing to send her son back to Sedro-Woolley’s Cascade Middle School after a student stabbed him in the arm and called him the N-word, according to KGW 8 News.
• Black NHL prospect given police escort after racist threats from opposing fans. A 20-year-old black hockey player in the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings’ system had to be provided with a police escort and a security guard after receiving racist threats from opposing fans.
• Sacramento veteran promises to seek mental health treatment after racist outburst goes viral. A Marine Corps veteran was caught on camera this week going off on a crazed rant against an elderly immigrant man who happened to be wearing a camouflage shirt.
• White commuter calls a black passenger a ‘f*cking monkey’ in racist NYC train rant. During a verbal altercation on New York’s Long Island Railroad, a white passenger told a black woman she’s a “f*cking monkey” — all while someone caught his racist rant on video.
• Oklahoma teen demands answers after her brother is called a ‘n**ger for auction’ in racist Snapchat post. Ashley Dawn Warner’s brother was in a school skit dressed in a black and white striped prison uniform. The skit was all in good fun, until someone took a photo and turned it into a racist meme.
• White Florida teen finds an incredibly racist way to ask his girlfriend to prom. A Riverview High school student in Florida is under investigation after posting a racist prom proposal, according to the Herald Tribune. The photo was created by 18-year-old Noah Crowley, who posted the photo to Snapchat.
• Confederate flag fight leads to racist fliers targeting Mississippi NAACP official.
• California frat bro wears blackface for ‘gangster’ event — but chapter denies costume was racist.
• Racist callers flood C-SPAN for MLK 50th anniversary: ‘James Earl Ray had a dream and it came true’.
• Axe-wielding man used racist slurs before killing Hispanic man in San Francisco attack.
• Michigan State refuses to expel shockingly racist student who keeps taunting black classmates.
• ‘Motherf*cking curry muncher’: Watch two white women unleash vile racist rant at Filipina during train ride.
• You’re a racist!’ Pro-gun teen freaks out on CNN after being reminded most school shooters are white.
• ‘Confederate’ school board candidate with history of racist statements says she’s not racist.
• ‘F*cking n****r!’ — Racist Seattle Lyft driver throws interracial couple out onto the side of the road.
• Racist harasses Hispanic family outside Arkansas Walmart.
• Ohio firefighter quickly fired because he was unable to resist sharing racist McDonalds meme on Facebook.
• Maine IHOP manager swears they’re not racist after server demands black teens pay for their meal up front.
• Oklahoma woman shaken after being called the ‘N-word with such venom’ by a racist road rage driver.
• ‘N****r leave:’ racist defaces centuries old African meeting house in Massachusetts.
• University of Missouri cancels student elections after multiple candidates drop out over racist tweets
• Hollywood woman throws racist tantrum after Hispanic man asks her to clean up after her dog.
• Racist Oregon woman harassed 4-year-old black boy before bashing his mom in the head with a bottle.
• ‘I’m white. I can kill you — nothing will happen’: Woman attacks black actor with beer bottle after racist tirade.
• Students viciously bully black teen as a ‘monkey’ in racist video — and school looks the other way.
• Kansas racist insults and spits on black preschooler at Hooters — and then tells cops ‘It’s OK, I’m a fireman’.

It used to be that we could only imagine incidents like this happening in the 1950's or 1960's.  Some of this is right on the edge of Bull Connor stuff.  Open, naked, vicious bigotry.  It's been bubbling below the surface for decades - in the shadows and cowed by whispers and dog-whistles.  It was too ugly to bring out into the light for decades, too ugly to openly admit.

But now you have some guys who are blasting their racism with a Vuvuzela.

One of the biggest recent incidents has been the racist rant by New York lawyer Aaron Schlossberg who threatened to “call ICE" on some people who had the temerity to speak Spanish in front of him.

Because of all the denial we haven't been able to move forward on racism for decades since every time the subject comes up, every time someone suggests that it’s a possible issue what you get from the right-wing are vehement denials and excuses.  Just like you can see here in this ridiculous food fight between various CNN guests including Tim Wise and Trump-spainer Steve Cortes as they discuss whether Schlossberg’s rant above may have been inspired by Trump.

Political commentator Tara Setmayer, said that recent events such as Aaron Schlossberg’s racist rant is a direct result of President Donald Trump’s actions,  in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon.

Former Donald Trump campaign official, Steve Cortes, said that the Aaron Schlossberg news was no big deal.

“Look, this guy’s an ass. I don’t know how else to say it. He’s an ass. He’s making fun of people for speaking Spanish. It’s offensive to everyone, certainly offensive to me as a Latino. To try to fix the behavior of one man, to ascribe the behavior of one man to Donald Trump to me is an absurd leap of logic. This guy’s a jerk. I don’t see the political banter,” Cortes said.

Cortes went on to explain that since he is a minority that supports Trump he understands the full scope of the race.

Lemon wasn’t buying that argument. “You can still be a minority and still be a bigot,”  Lemon said.

Yeah, it’s not like Donald Trump coming out with “Mexicans are Rapists and they bring crime” didn’t have any impact at all on Schlossberg. I don't think it gave him that particular opinion, he’s apparently had this attitude for some time — but what is possibly quite valid is that Trump may have acted as a enabler for people to voice these types of attitudes and views. He’s made it “Ok” for them to spout their venom, he’s done just about everything he could to make them afraid of immigrants “MS-13 are Animals”, gave them the idea that the days where they have been muzzled by "political correctness” are now over. This is their twisted idea of "Freedom of speech” of to become a pack of abusive dickheads to people of color who they mistakenly believe have been “getting all the perks” which frankly they haven't been.

Cortes above starts whining — as they always do — about being tarred with the race card and unfairly associated with Schlossberg, whom Tim Wise points out contributed $500 to Trump.  Tim also says that “if someone wearing a Barack Obama hat had attacked someone [Cortez] would certainly criticize Obama for it.”  Which of course Cortes denies, but we don’t have to depend on a hypothetical here, we have real actual factual history to prove Tim’s point.

We have Ashley Todd.

Ashely Todd

A McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter “B” scratched on her face in what she had said was a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department’s investigations division. Todd was charged with making a false report to police, and Bryant said police doubted her story from the start.

Dressed in an orange hooded sweat shirt, Todd left police headquarters in handcuffs late Friday and did not respond to questions from reporters. The mark on her face was faded and her left eye was slightly blackened when she arrived in district court.

So the right has Schlossberg. And I mean geez if they can demonize members of the Meuller probe over their political donations, then I think they better pucker up butter cup because they also have Ashley Todd on their side too.

However as these incidents have piled up there has been an upside.  Specifically people have responded with outrage and consequences for these various racist outbursts. 

Since Schlossberg’s video has gone viral he has had a Latino party threaten to show up at his home, been chased down the street by reporters, been kicked out of his law office by his landlord and much much worse.

• Racist lawyer bro Aaron Schlossberg claims to be member of New York Bar Association — he’s not.

• New Yorkers taunt racist lawyer Schlossberg with awesome Latino party out front of his home,
• NYC racist lawyer bro will be met with tacos and a mariachi band if he dares return to his office.

• Racist lawyer bro was arrested after making death threat to cop at 2009 baseball game

• The View gangs up with Alyssa Milano to ridicule racist NYC lawyer: ‘What an idiot’

• ‘I like attorneys who aren’t racist’: Reporter buried in scorn for defending racist NYC lawyer bro

• Racist lawyer bro’s tirade against Spanish speakers prompts online petition.

• ‘I would never do that!’ Fox News ranter Tomi Lahren claims racist lawyer Schlossberg went too far in coffee shop meltdown

• NY lawmakers call for disbarment of lawyer Aaron Schlossberg over racist attack on workers

• Evicted: Racist lawyer bro Aaron Schlossberg booted from office by landlord.

It should be noted that Schlossberg has not been the only person to screaming that they’re gonna call ICE on someone only to have it blow up in their face.

Texas charter school employee has been fired after school authorities saw video of her threatening to call immigration authorities on another employee of the school, reports WFAA.

According to the report, the unidentified woman — identified as a school lunch coordinator at Founders Classical Academy grammar school in Lewisville — was filmed telling the female custodial employee, “You should not be here, you should not work here, you should not work at a school. I’ll be calling ICE if you continue working here.”

The video went viral on Twitter on Tuesday after the daughter of the custodian shared it, writing, “So my mom has been working at a school for months now and she finally found a job she loved. My mom came home crying today because she has to quit her job out of fear that this lady is going to call immigration service on her.”

Alerted to the video, the school announced that the woman who confronted the Hispanic employee is no longer working for the school, and her bio has already been scrubbed from the school website.

So this woman got herself fired, just like Schlossberg got himself evicted. Neither of these are isolated incidents when it comes to facing the consequences of their racism.

For example:

White coffee shop customer abuses Muslim woman standing in line — so the barista boots his racist butt out.

"I'm a Muslim [woman]."

"I know your religion and I don't want to be killed by you."

This took place at a cafe in California yesterday. pic.twitter.com/4WAWKcQDh8

— CJ Werleman (@cjwerleman) May 12, 2018

Oakland locals swarm park where racist woman called 911 on black BBQ — and it was awesome

Last month, a white woman in Oakland called the police on a black family that was having a cookout—then broke down sobbing when another white woman confronted her about her racism on video.

The story came out this week as Michelle Snider posted the video from Oakland’s Lake Merritt, where the woman called police because she believed the family was breaking park rules by cooking.

According to the men targeting, the racist woman told the black men having a BBQ that they were “trespassing” and would be “going to jail.”

The video showed the woman going from aggressive to breaking down sobbing to the police, claiming she was being “harassed.”

The map does show that either stationary charcoal grills can be used in the park or portable non-charcoal grills.  Whether that is a life and death issue that requires such a response is fairly debatable but the reason the other woman kept following and filming her for over 20 mins is because she stole her card and the flimer wanted it back and I frankly can’t understand why she didn’t diffuse the issues during the 17 mins it took the police to show up by just returning the other woman’s property.

In response most of the city came out the following day and did the Electric Slide in the park.

The other day in Oakland, a white supremacist female called the police on a group of Black ppl BBQing in the park. So in response, the whole town of Oakland came to the park and said “F you” in the form of the Electric Slide ✊🏾 #townbusiness #lol pic.twitter.com/c4azBJwDrp

— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) May 12, 2018

Colorado State president tells racists to pick another school in an epic apology for racist incident on admissions tour.

The president of Colorado State University has just released an epic apology for the racist incident that happened during an admissions tour at the school this week.

Two Native American teens, 19-year-old Thomas Kanewakeron Gray and 17-year-old Lloyd Skanahwati Gray, had scraped up money and traveled to tour their “dream school.” The mother of another student touring the school called the police on them because she was “nervous” that they were being quiet. The two teens were stopped and had their pockets searched by cops. They lost the tour and felt dejected, so they left.

Black reverend rallies churchgoers after racist death threats: ‘We won’t allow hate to strike fear in our hearts’

After his predominantly African American church was vandalized with white supremacist messages and imagery, the reverend at Clinton, Iowa’s Bethel AME Church is relying on his faith to get his congregation through the fear the vandalism instilled.

Bethel’s Rev. Jerry Drake told ABC affiliate WQAD that the hateful messages — which included swastikas, racial slurs and references to Adolf Hitler and the phrase “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” — were clearly targeting his race and that of the church’s congregation.

Georgia Republican Michael Williams racist ‘deportation bus’ backfires as he gets barred from Cracker Barrel.

Michael Williams, a Georgia state senator running for governor, has tried to boost his 3 percent approval rating by being as demonstrably racist as possible.

To that end, he’s been parking his so-called ‘deportation bus’ outside of Cracker Barrel restaurants in sanctuary cities around the state. The bus is adorned with mis-spelled sentiments like “FILL THIS BUS WITH ILLEGALS” and “DANGER! MURDERERS, RAPISTS, KIDNAPPERS, CHILD MOLESTORS [sic], AND OTHER CRIMINALS ON BOARD.”

The racist political ploy has drawn protesters bearing signs like “Bus yo ass out of here” and “No human being is illegal.” On his website, Williams bills himself as a “Fearless conservative Pro-Trump conservative Republican for Governor. MORE RESULTS. LESS TALK. NO EXCUSES!”

In a statement, Cracker Barrel made it clear the company rejects the Republican’s message of hate, the Daily Beast reports. “We are not sponsoring this event or supporting Mr. Williams’ campaign stops in any way, and per our company policy, we will not allow him—or any political candidate—to host an event on Cracker Barrel’s property,” they said. “We take pride in showing our communities and our country that the hospitality we practice is indeed welcoming and inclusive to all.”

After two black men were arrested and spent hours in jail after a Starbucks barista called the police on them because they were waiting there to meet a friend, there’s been a backlash by some bigots — however Starbucks has blasted them back defending their decision to shutdown for one day for racial sensitivity training.

In wake of two men being arrested for sitting in Starbucks while black, the coffee chain has been under attack by civil rights activists and advocates. However, now that Starbucks is appearing to take some public strides to ensure, white supremacists are flocking to the company’s social media accounts to troll. Starbucks is now answering back.

“All this is a ploy to get media coverage and get them off their back. Why the HELL [sic] should Starbucks shut down for an entire day over the stupidity and ignorance of a couple people in one of their stores?” posted Kevin Malone on the Facebook page.

“Because systemic racism and bias is bigger than one partner, one store or one company. We are shutting our stories for this training because we recognize that we have the responsibility to be part of the solution,” Starbucks posted in their response, referencing the close of 8,000 stores for a racial sensitivity training.

And there’s more:

• West Virginia man arrested after launching racist attack on black cop for no apparent reason

• Georgia GOP ‘deportation bus’ candidate cowers as protesters swarm his racist vehicle After a Georgia GOP candidate made waves with a now-banned ad featuring his “deportation bus,” he decided to take it on the road — only to cower inside an adjacent RV as protesters swarmed the anti-immigration vehicle.
• ‘Don’t give me your ugly black girl face’: Kansas substitute teacher removed from class after racist comment. A Leavenworth, Kansas girl came home from school in tears after a substitute teacher mocked her with a racist comment in front of the class. According to Fox4KC.
• New Jersey firefighter suspended over racist Facebook posts about Michelle Obama. N.J. firefighter placed on leave after racist Facebook posts surface A Bayonne firefighter has been suspended with pay after racially charged pictures were found on his personal Facebook page.

And the capper is that the Supremacists who arranged last years “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville— can’t get any of his racist friends want to go again this year because they ‘suffered’ too much.

White Supremacist Jason Kessler, helped organize the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer 2017, and is in the process of planning a second riot.

However, Kessler has one huge problem — nobody wants to come, according to the Independent.

“We don’t have anything to gain by going back to Charlottesville,” Michael Hill, President of League of the South said.

According to Newsweek, Richard Spencer and Brad Griffin announced that they would not attend.

The bottom line seems to be the like a pack of roaches, the racists have been made to feel that it’s safe to come out and let their bigot flag fly in Trump’s America.

However when the lights come on, they still scramble for cover just like the craven insects that they are — because even they realize, they’re about to get stomped.

Trump really isn’t doing anything about that.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018 · 8:41:59 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton

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