Chamblee54

The first thing I did when starting this post was to look for another post. I typed post rac into google advanced search. The suggested search was POST RACIAL, in all caps. Somehow, shouting that phrase seems appropriate.
It is a facebook mainstay. Someone will put up a link, and tell you to show this to anyone who says America is post racial. I was going to find an example of this. I fell into an internet rabbit hole.
There is this former facebook friend. This post tells part of the story. FFBF might be a SJW, or social justice warrior. In the words of the Urban Dictionary: “SJW Social Justice Warrior. A pejorative term for an individual who repeatedly and vehemently engages in arguments on social justice on the Internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought-out way….”
It looks like the chamblee54 plan for amerika becoming post-racial is going to have to wait. When you look for something on the intertubes, you might spend all morning not finding it. The line about amerika not being post-racial was not there. There was a link to a helpful feature, 23 Quotes That Perfectly Explain Racism (To People Who Don’t “See Color”)
Hyperbole in article titles is alive and well. I read the article. I also see color all the time, except in the black and white photographs that illustrate this feature. (“The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ) I read “23 Quotes,” and am more confused than ever.
There was a quote from the king of Twitter, Teju Cole. “People of color, women, and gays — who now have greater access to the centers of influence that ever before — are under pressure to be well-behaved when talking about their struggles. There is an expectation that we can talk about sins but no one must be identified as a sinner: newspapers love to describe words or deeds as “racially charged” even in those cases when it would be more honest to say “racist”; we agree that there is rampant misogyny, but misogynists are nowhere to be found; homophobia is a problem but no one is homophobic. One cumulative effect of this policed language is that when someone dares to point out something as obvious as white privilege, it is seen as unduly provocative. Marginalized voices in America have fewer and fewer avenues to speak plainly about what they suffer; the effect of this enforced civility is that those voices are falsified or blocked entirely from the discourse.”
This is not completely true. There is a social media revolution. Anyone with internet access, and too much free time, can preach to the world. This contradicts one line… “Marginalized voices in America have fewer and fewer avenues to speak plainly about what they suffer” The truth is, the marginalized not only have voices, but a PA system that reaches a billion people.
Newspapers are dying. They are being replaced by facebook, twitter, and the latest dot com opinion monger. Unfortunately, many of these people do not think before they tweet.
Mr. Cole says “newspapers love to describe words or deeds as “racially charged” even in those cases when it would be more honest to say “racist”” The trouble is, people read twitter much more than the fishwrapper. And in many cases, what should be described as racially charged is described as racist. And people in social media just love to say racist.
Racist has become the all purpose insult. It is used to describe all sorts of things, few of which have anything to do with institutional systems creating oppression. When you label something as racist, there is no more thinking. The judgement has been rendered. If nothing else, amerika would be better off if we used the words racism/racist less often, and with a bit more, um, discrimination.